McCree, a game character's journey to root

Mina 2021-10-19 10:18:26

I have been very busy recently, which is an excuse that people have become lazy. People who watch movies do not necessarily like to play games. Those who like to play games must love to watch movies. When Spielberg's "Number One Player" was released, the more attractive thing was the more than 200 game eggs buried in it, which were games. A paradise for audiophiles. And this film also allows me to see a game that pays tribute to it.

"The Good, the Good and the Ugly" is actually the concluding chapter of director Sergio Leon's Fistful of Dollars trilogy. When a film can be called a classic, it is that someone has started to imitate the classic sections or characters in the film. I think the film is called a classic for a very good reason.

"The mastery of shooting and editing techniques": Modern people look back at this movie 60 years ago, but feel that this old movie is a bit atypical. Without special effects bonuses, the film is even more back to basics. To be honest, I don't have much expectations for a 1966 film. However, the color animation at the beginning and the subtitles with strong color contrast surprised me. This technique is more common in the beginning of animated films or movies adapted from comics, and applied to a western film. At least in that era, it was a pioneer. From the beginning to the beginning of the feature film, I also found a small easter egg: a running horse appeared on the green background of the animation. It lasted for a long time. In fact, this is a continuous shooting method used by Edward Murbridge in 1877. A set of pictures of horses running, the famous "Running Horses"-a tribute to the origin of the movie. It can be seen that the masters have a respect for the movie.

The beginning of the film is a vast desert. The three cowboys are silent, looking at each other and approaching each other. The lens is pulled very close, and it is basically close-up of the face. This distance makes people uncomfortable and creates a sense of depression. There are no lines here, only the background sound, which exaggerates a strong atmosphere of tension and a precursor to the war. A large number of close-up close-ups is one of the features of this film. The director intends to highlight the character's character through close-ups of body language and facial expressions. From the beginning to 10:37 seconds, there was no line at all, and I thought it was a silent color film. This method of shooting using only music, body language and facial expressions is full of ritual and a bit of a stage play (here I am also picking up people's teeth). When the three characters "the ugly", "the bad" and "the good" appear, they are all subtitled. This is also very classic in film history. Early films did not have lines. When the characters and plot were not rich enough , The director needs to add subtitles in the post-editing to illustrate the identity of the character and enrich the image of the character; I often saw it in the martial arts films of Shaw Brothers movies when I was young. In this sound film, we actually already know the characters (the director used a large brush to depict the images of these three people at the beginning). Why do we need to add subtitles to show their identities? This way of emphasizing precisely expresses the sense of ritual. It can be said that the literary and artistic atmosphere has been injected into this crude western film.

Cross-editing is another major feature of this film. When "the ugly" takes three little brothers to find "the good" for revenge: the army marching outside the house, the cowboy sneaking upstairs, the "the good" "good", in fact, these three things happen at the same time. The film advances the plot through the transition of three scenes. Another example is the climax of the film. In the final part of the three-person duel, the camera is constantly switching on the faces of the three people, and then the switching speed is getting faster and faster. This single and pure expression technique is rarely seen in movies nowadays. From the simplification, it makes people happy to see this kind of pure thing now.

"Small stories in the context of the great era": In the deserts of the American Civil War, the people of the Civil War are in deep waters. There are many descriptions of soldiers wounded by the war, as well as shots of towns being bombarded by artillery. Our three protagonists are also Interacting with the army many times, the ultimate goal is to make a huge sum of money. The context of the story is not complicated, and there is not much novelty (at least for modern people), but we found that when the classic film metropolis puts the characters in the background of a big era, through the contrast and test of the big era, the image of the characters is It will become multi-layered and three-dimensional. When "the bad" was looking for someone to inquire about the news in the ruined camp, the wine he drank for the failed southern army soldier was not returned, but was given to the soldier; after the disabled soldier provided information, he did not kick it away. It seems that this bad person is not bad to the bones, just doing some evil for his own benefit, doing something to survive in the world. And "the good" is not so good, for the sake of money and "the ugly" to defraud the bounty, at the same time killed many other bounty people, and exiled "the ugly" for profit. Similarly, "the ugly" has done a lot of evil things, but the tenderness shown in the grief of his brother and hearing that his parents have passed away makes people feel that he is not so "ugly" anymore. It can be seen that during the war, everyone is struggling to survive in the cracks. We can see the pity of "the bad" towards the wounded soldiers, and we can also see the greed of "the ugly" towards the dead soldiers with wealth. This is not completely consistent with the label that the director put on them before. This is the "social mask" given to the protagonist by the outside world. They play such a role in this society, but the real state of the protagonist behind the mask is another look. When the character's label becomes blurred, this sense of contradiction will give people thinking. When the contradictions and conflicts of the big background appear, the personal choices of the characters are easier to condense a higher level of spiritual realm. I think this is also the reason why the third one is better than the first two.

"The Creation of Atypical Heroes": For most of the film, I don't think "the good" is a hero. Like the other two protagonists, he is a "loser dog" under the curtain of war, but he looks more handsome. The image is better. What he does is neither cowboy nor chivalrous, but some just exploit each other and seek personal gain. Until the final climax: three people stand in a circle surrounded by stones, facing each other and observing each other. Some people compare this scene to an ancient Roman amphitheater. This analogy is very interesting, and many books have also quoted this meaning many times. However, in my opinion, this circle is not simply a superficial meaning.

Three duels

The camera slowly moved backwards and turned into a distant view. The tombstones on the outer layer of the circle envelop the circle to the end of the horizon, forming an invisible pressure on the central area. I have seen a similar scene in "San Mao Congjun Ji". At the end of the film, San Mao stands in the center of the cemetery. In the distance, there are endless and neat tombstones, which are also wrapped in San Mao. "Three" wants to show the cruelty of the war, the insignificance and helplessness of the characters in the war, and the film is a kind of irony. The cemetery is a sacred place, solemn and solemn, but the three protagonists want to have a gun showdown here. Isn’t it funny? The sense of inconsistency in this scene brings about visual conflict and a sense of contradiction. "The ugly" once said a classic saying, " I have never seen so many people die meaninglessly ". He thinks that war is unintentional, so it makes sense for them to pay their lives for 200,000 gold coins? Outside the circle is the tomb of soldiers who died because of meaningless things, and inside the circle are three people who are about to die for meaningless things. This circle isolates them from the surroundings, which looks different, but in fact it is a meaningless large circle wrapped in a meaningless small circle. Such ironic connotations are more profound. With a gunshot, "the bad" turned over and fell to the ground, rolling into the grave outside the circle, and he also entered the meaningless outer circle. At this point, the inner circle and the outer circle were completely isolated. Stripping off the meaningless outer circle is the essential core of meaning. The following scenario is that the two people divide the spoils according to the previous agreement, and then "the good" forces "the ugly" to hang himself, reshaping the scene of the trial. When "the ugly" was about to be hanged, the gun went off. "The good" kept the promise, "the ugly" was redeemed, and at this moment "the good" is a hero. He didn't fall into trouble, kept his promise, insisted on being a bottom line, he also killed the bad guys in name. It seems that he is the incarnation of justice and also qualified to be a hero, but he is not that typical as a hero, and there are many taints.

The early heroic movies were all kinds of heroism. The bad guys appeared, and the hero appeared to beat the bad guys and save everyone. Over time, everyone starts to get bored, because such a person does not exist in our lives, although we yearn for it. When the characters break away from the prototype and reality, they become dull and the movie loses its original meaning. The shaping of a character must be multi-level and comprehensive, especially for individual heroes. So later hero movies began to add emotional lines, and heroes began to have emotional distress. Later, heroes have bad habits or personality defects, and even life is embarrassing. The heroic behavior of daily big bad guys becomes occasional. Heroes become popular. They are heroes only at critical moments. Usually they are ordinary people and need face. The worries about different lives show the cowardice of ordinary talents. Such an image is closer to life and makes us more acceptable. "The good" is that one.

After the film ended, I suddenly remembered a sentence: Justice may be late, but it will not be absent. So when I looked back at the wonderful matchup scene, I suddenly found that "the good" was dressed like McCray, with a golden beard, a cigar dangling from his mouth, a cowboy hat, and The woolen cloak, with his right hand on the revolver holster around his waist, even his expression was similar. I was really afraid that the moment he shot, "it's noon", he was the image of a cowboy in my mind at this moment. This is also the reason why I think the McRae image in Blizzard's "Overwatch" is a tribute to "The Good, the Good, and the Bad."

View more about The Good, the Bad and the Ugly reviews

Extended Reading
  • Addie 2021-10-20 18:58:58

    The best westerns. In the end Beckham won.

  • Camylle 2022-03-25 09:01:05

    1. This time I watched the 179-minute American extended version! Good people are responsible for being cool, bad people are responsible for being cold, and ugly people are responsible for making funny clowns. 2. Rough, refreshing and uncontrollable, wild and poetic, from blowing up the bridge to drinking to the Northern Army captain and smoking to the Southern Army captain to the ugly running to a three-person duel in the sad cemetery. It is simply poetic. 3. I watched a 1966 movie in 2014 telling the story of the American West in 1862.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly quotes

  • Blondie: If your friends stay out in the damp, they're liable to catch a cold aren't they... or a bullet.

  • Union Captain at the Bridge: [to his surgeon] Can you help me live a little more? I expect good news.