Saturdays With Sergio

It sometimes seems that the older one gets the more life begins to lose its flavor. Nothing is ever as good as it used to be any more. You can watch the movies you once loved, but they just don't have the magic any more. But the true masterpieces - like fine wine - only get better with age.

The first time I saw The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly I was probably 13 or 14 years old. I saw it on the tv on a Saturday afternoon when I had nothing better to do, and it kind of looked like a piece of crap, but somehow it was awesome in spite of itself.

I definitely didn't have the right kind of eyes to see it properly at the time. My first impression was that it was real ugly. It is a strange American Western filmed in bleak, nondescript locations in Italy. The photography looked like it was peed on and left out in the sun to dry. Many of the actors in the film seem to be inexperienced locals. The dubbing sometimes doesn't line up with the picture. I'm pretty sure a lot of the extras aren't even saying the same lines, or even in the same language as the crude sounds coming from the speakers. Even the instruments on the soundtrack seem to be out of tune, or maybe broken.

The film begins for a good 15 minutes without any dialogue, and there doesn't seem to be any significant plot until a good hour has gone by. It's just one brilliant scene after another. But where is it going? I had no idea until it was all over.

All in all, the film seemed like some kind of hot mess. It was refreshing to a 13 year old who was tired of all the glossy hollywood westerns. It seemed like something that was thrown together without the refinements of movie executives, and test screenings, and focus groups, etc. I liked it.

But the older I get, and the more films I have seen, the more I can appreciate the savage genius of this film. I don't think anything about it is accidental. I look at the same dusty landscapes, in that same nasty, brown light and see something that is far more beautiful than anything that ever happened in Monument Valley. I now see that all of the things that look like flaws are just what makes it special. The ugliness, and the decay, and the out of tune guitars all lend it a sort of rare credibility in the world of westerns. The more I know about photography, the more I know that it must have been a bitch to make this movie look the way it does.

The actors are all perfectly cast. Clint Eastwood (who no one knew before) plays a particularly complex anti-hero who you want to root for even though you aren't quite sure what he stands for. Eli Wallach plays an even stranger anti-anti-hero that can always make me laugh and cry at the same time, even when I don't know why. And most of all, Lee Van Cleef plays one of the most infuriating villains I can recall. It is truly beautiful, and quite disturbing how much Van Cleef seems to get off on this character.

The story is sort of a Western Oddysey. Fate puts these three characters on a mythical quest for gold, but they are constantly beset upon by strange circumstances along the way. They confront the most unusual obstacles. For instance, there is a large scale civil war battle, commanded by a drunken captain, that prevents them from crossing a river until they figure out how to deal with it. It's probably the largest and most expensive scene in the film. I can't picture any other western that goes to the lengths of creating such an epic scene that doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the rest of the plot. The filmmakers also, apparently, built a cemetery that seems to stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction just for one scene in the film. (I googled it. The cemetery is not real.)

The film is shot and cut in a way that would seem to challenge regular audiences, and yet it is somehow the 4th most popular movie of all time according to IMDB.com with an average user rating of 8.9 stars out of ten with 206,317 votes.

So today, I decided to watch it whilst cleaning the house, and although I have seen it at least 25 times, I certainly did not regret it. A true masterpiece the likes of which was never seen before, has not been seen since, and will not be seen again.

I just had to share that. And now I leave you with my list of top 7 one-of-a-kind movies that could never be duplicated in spite of all efforts to the contrary. These are the movies that reach a sort of intangible perfection when everything just seemed to come together in a way that can't be explained by simple luck.

1. Apocalypse Now - This film is so completely brazen in its artistic vision that no one in modern hollywood would even be allowed to attempt something so completely ridiculous. Not to mention that it would probably be the most expensive movie ever made if it was subjected to modern economic realities. I look at this film and am convinced that Francis Ford Coppola created, and fought his very own war just so that he could film it.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark - The very people who made this film have attempted to recreate it 3 times since. All three of those sequels are a dismal failure compared to the original.

3. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - 'nuff said.

4. Jaws - I can't explain it. Either you know what I mean, or you never will. It is what it is.

5. Alien - If you ever have the chance to see this in the theater, you will be terrified. Thousands of horror thrillers have been made in its image since, and they all suck, including it's own sequels. It's the real deal.

6. Solaris (1972) - Few have the patience to deal with this movie, but if you can take it you will be rewarded. A science fiction masterpiece that goes all the way.

7. Amelie - A chick flick that even the most hardened dude can get behind. If it doesn't make you cry joyful tears than you have no soul.