Memories of Blue
September 29, 2016
You may or may not be a fan of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti
westerns, but there is no escaping the fact that they have an enduring
influence; Quentin Tarantino, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese are
self-confessed fans, and Clint Eastwood dedicated his Oscar for Unforgiven to
Leone. I grew up with spaghetti westerns — there was a time in the ’80s that
they were a staple on Greek television, and not just Leone’s well-known ones,
but also obscure ones by Sergio Corbucci, Enzo Barboni and others. Some of
these were real gems — I still think Corbucci’s The Great Silence is one of the
best revisionist westerns to come from either side of the Atlantic. The main
reason I liked spaghetti westerns was the iconography: the low-angle shots of
larger-than-life characters, the stylized action and the comic-book sensibility
that was so different from anything coming from the United States. They were
also great fun to watch.
Instrumental in the creation of that iconography was the
work of production designer Carlo Simi, Leone’s collaborator and designer of
films like For a Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good,
the Bad and the Ugly. Looking at Leone’s films again, one can identify the
visual devices and the carefully structured staging that Simi and Leone used to
establish this highly stylized world. One of these visual devices was the way
they used the architecture, the locations and the landscape to frame the
action. A good example is the famous shootout in Sad Hill, the cemetery in The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Setting this climactic scene within the big
circular center of the cemetery elevates the characters from mere combatants to
high-drama actors on stage in an ancient tragedy. This action framing is found
everywhere in Simi’s work; every whitewash archway, every telegraph pole or
wooden fence frames or complements a dramatic moment.
Above: Ancient Roman Amphitheatre in Fiesole, Italy.
Below: Sad Hill cemetery.
Highly stylised staging can be risky in cinema. In the
hands of a less talented director, actors can become parodies of themselves,
and in the hands of a less talented designer, stylised settings can lose their
grounding in reality. Leone and Simi were clever enough to infuse their
stylised settings with a great deal of historically accurate detail, thus
making them believable. The Spanish location builds, like the famous town of
‘El Paso’ built in the desert of Tabernas in Almeria, look more real than the
real thing. They easily compare with or surpass the detail in the best films of
Ford or Peckinpah. But Simi did not just create the sets. He also designed the
costumes, and is credited with the creation of the iconic poncho-caped look of
Eastwood’s “man with no name” character.
A testament to Simi’s influence is how much his costume
and set designs have been imitated throughout the years, not just in westerns,
but also in commercials, music videos and indeed in the work of postmodernist
directors like Tarantino. Carlo Simi’s work in realising Sergio Leone’s vision
of the Wild West illustrates perfectly how a production designer’s influence
can occasionally define and characterise an entire genre, but also reach beyond
that.
For more information about Carlo Simi, check out a
Facebook page dedicated to his life and work here.
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