Spaghetti Westerns

May 8, 2013 - 8:42 pm

 
Within the film library of Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas Cultural Center, will be presented a film series called "Spaghetti Western", 5 films with Spanish and Italian-American matinee on Saturday
 
Spaghetti Western was the derogatory term that a film critic defined the genre of European westerns which had great success between the 1960's and 1970's, and generally they were Italo-Spanish co-productions by Italian directors (they also came known as 'taco-westerns' of mostly Spanish productions).
 
This derogatory manner changed when Sergio Leone stepped in and produced works with classic status, mainly its renowned dollar trilogy with a young American actor Clint Eastwood
 
"A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), "For a Few Dollars More" (1965) and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" (1966), along with a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone that redefined the genre.
 
This mix of nationalities in the cast (which was due to commercial interests to make them look like international productions), is common in the spaghetti westerns where the likes of Lee Van Cliff, Henry Fonda, Klaus Kinski, Jack Palance, Charles Bronson , and others came to participate.
 
Because of the mix of nationalities and the noisy film cameras usd, the rule was that all voices are added in post-production, creating versions in English, Italian, Castilian, etc. (Each actor saying his lines in their original language).
 
The spaghetti western introduced a more realistic violence than most American westerns of the 1940's or 1950's and the now famous anti-hero more than anything else, and where moral correctness is not followed at all.
 
Tragic heroes in historical situations sometimes focused on the Mexican Revolution are part of some of these productions.
 
The violence subsided after the decline of the genre in some of the later productions of the 1970's in search of another public who were more familiar with the times and focusing on comedies of the Old West (Bud Spencer and Terence Hill were the duo most famous in this vein from late the 1960's).
 
Finally, as a curiosity, the same spaghetti western injected new life into the American western, now which influence was seen in American productions of the 1970's with more realistic approaches, tragic or violent as the case of "The Wild Bunch" (1969), directed by Sam Peckinpah.
 
In Mexico films were also produced films under this influence such as "The Desalmados" (1971) or "Las Víboras Cambian de Piel" (1974), among several others.
 
From May 7 to 11, the films will be projected in the following sequence: "A Bullet for the General", "My Name is Nobody", "Tepepa", "Il Grande Silenzio", "Django" and "Rango" for children.
 
The functions will be at 7:00 pm with free entry for children, there is a matinee on Saturday, May 12th at 11:00 am.
 
We recommend arriving 10 minutes before the show begins for better accommodation of the audience.