By Marian Tutui
As with any illegitimate children it is really difficult
to reveal the ancestors of non-American westerns. We may consider them
pedantic, and therefore not take into account Charles Ford’s explorations of
early cinema, which unearthed films like Indian Banquet/ Repas d`Indien (1896,
directed by Gabriel Veyre for the Lumière brothers), or the 1911 Joë Hamman’s
cycle Arizona Bill, proclaiming them to be ‘the first European or French
westerns’. Acknowledging Giacomo Puccini’s 1910 opera “La fanciulla del West”
as the first spaghetti western would be just as shocking. However, it may be
acceptable to consider La Vampira Indiana (1913) among the old roots of the
spaghetti western, at least because it was directed by Vincenzo Leone, father
of Sergio Leone. Further on, it is difficult to pinpoint the first western film
in a certain country because we should previously decide if we are going to
accept only the pastiches and not the parodies and local adaptations of the
genre. Robert Hossein’s films The Taste of Violence/ Le goût de la violence
(1961) and The Rope and the Colt/ Une corde, un Colt… (1969) and Luc Moullet’s
A Girl is a Gun/ Une aventure de Billy le Kid (1971) can be regarded as first
French “modern” westerns.
If we do not take into consideration all the adaptations
whose plots take place elsewhere than in the United States, we have to ignore a
lot of important films which are sometimes considered “local westerns”. Among
them, we would find films like Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961), György Szomjas’ Goulash westerns from 1976- 1979, and lots of
other films such as Captain Lechi (1960, Yugoslavia, d. Živorad ‘Žika’
Mitrović), Miles of Fire/ Ognennye versty/ Огненные версты (1958, USSR, d.
Samson Samsonov), The White Sun of the Desert/ Beloe solntse pustyni/ Белое
солнце пустыни (1970, USSR, d. Vladimir Motyl), At Home Among Strangers,
Stranger at Home/ Svoy sredi chuzhikh, chuzhoy sredi svoikh/ Свой среди чужих,
чужой среди своих (1974, USSR, d. Nikita Mikhalkov), the Bulgarian films Manly
Times/ Mazhki vremena/ Мъжки времена (1977, d. Eduard Sachariev) and The Judge/
Sadyata/ Съдията (1986, d. Plamen Maslarov), the Greek Blood on the Land/ To
Homa vaftike kokkino/ Το χώμα βάφτηκε κόκκινο (1964, d. Vassilis Georgiadis),
as well as the Romanian cycle of films featuring the character Mărgelatu (1982-
1987, from The Yelow Rose/ Trandafirul galben to The Turquoise Collier/
Colierul de turcoaze).
If we limit our search to non-American westerns whose
plots are located in Western America things get much easier. For example, with
West or East German westerns it is easy, in both cases, to go back to the
origins: Treasure of Silver Lake/ Der Schatz im Silbersee (directed by Harald
Reinl, starring Pierre Brice and Lex Barker), produced in 1962, is the first
West German western (although it is, in fact, a West German – Yugoslav - French
co-production), while East Germany’s first film of the genre was the 1966 The
Sons of Great Bear/ Die Söhne der großen Bärin, directed by Josef Mach, also a
co-production (East German - Yugoslav). We can add that Treasure of Silver Lake
was also the first western shot in Yugoslavia. Bulgaria was also a partner in
such co-productions, both with West Germany (1965, Legacy of the Incas/ Das
Vermächtnis des Inka, d. Georg Marischka, a film also co-produced by Spain and
Italy), and with East Germany (1971, Osceola, d. Konrad Petzold, a production
in which Cuba was also involved).
In Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia also delivers an early
western parody in 1964 with Lemonade Joe/ Limonádový Joe aneb Konská opera (d.
Oldrich Lipský, after Jirí Brdecka’s novel and play with the same title).
All of the westerns or related films made in the 1960s
mentioned above, along with a lot of other genuine American westerns, have been
shown in Romanian movie theatres. We can even detect Sergio Leone’s influence
on both the Transylvanians’ and the Mărgelatu cycles of Romanian western
inspired films, even only because the main characters John Brad (played by
Ovidiu- Iuliu Moldovan in the Transylvanians’ cycle), and Mărgelatu (played by
Florin Piersic) have unshaven faces, undoubtedly reminding of Clint Eastwood in
Leone’s films. However, without denying the influence of previous foreign
productions, Romania’s foreign policy in the seventies might have actually played
the decisive role in the birth of the three Romanian westerns made between 1979
- 1982.
The Czech film Lemonade Joe had been a parody not only of
the western genre, but also of multinational corporations and the Western way
of life. Like other communist countries, Romania also made films whose plots
were located in the West. Two such films were produced in the early sixties: A
Bomb Was Stolen/ S-a furat o bombă (1961, d. Ion Popescu- Gopo), and The Famous
702/ Celebrul 702 (1962, d. Mihai Iacob). Both have plots which are typical for
crime films, but there is also an ideological aspect, and both films can be
also seen as satires of the West. However, this ideological war was quickly and
almost entirely abandoned in Romania, at least in fiction films.
Beginning with 1965, even before turning into a tyrant,
Nicolae Ceauşescu left his mark on Romanian society. In 1965, on the occasion
of the Ninth Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, he declared the end of
socialist realism as the one and only artistic approach validated by the party,
encouraging the exploration of the whole “diversity of styles”. Indeed, a short
“thaw” followed, whose liberalism was beneficial for all forms of expression,
including cinema 8. However, there was also a negative side to this strong
personal influence Ceausescu had on all aspects of society, and this negative
side finally prevailed. Although generally after 1968 Romanian culture enjoyed
greater freedom, in cinema things were a bit more complicated. For instance,
Ceauşescu loved the historical character Vlad ‘the Impaler’ so much,
considering him a national hero, that he could never accept any horror parodies
on Dracula. Not subjected to such restrictions, the Czech director Oldrich
Lipský could turn Jules Verne’s novel Castle in the Carpathians into a charming
horror parody with his film The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians/ Tajemství
hradu v Karpatech (1983), while Romanian Stere Gulea, in his Castle in the
Carpathians/ Castelul din Carpaţi (1981), could only turn it into a painfully
flat political film. The only time Dracula was mentioned in a Romanian film in
the 1970s was in the documentary Dracula: Legend and Truth/ Dracula, legendă şi
adevăr (1973, d. Ion Bostan), a film targeted at foreign tourists, which aimed
only to explain the relationship between the historical figure of Vlad the
Impaler and the legendary vampire Dracula. The only parody on Dracula accepted
on the Romanian screens during communism was Oldrich Lipský’s film which subtly
alludes to the legend.
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