By Alireza Vahdani
The invention of
the modern antagonist
The nature of the antagonist is the most significant
difference demarcating Italian and American westerns; the Italian antagonist is
totally distanced from the American variant. The latter, as a one-dimensional
character, is simply ‘a bad man’; but this badness is not defined by the film,
or explained in any depth. Instead the character of the antagonist is a nexus
of clichés: he drinks a lot, he is not a gentleman, he is a troublemaker, he is
the one most likely to provoke needless acts of violence, and above all he
stands outside the community, an outcast, which means he is hated by the
townspeople. This type of representation is simplistic because the audience is
not given the chance to really understand why he behaves differently. If
drinking and shouting make men evil, so too are the majority of today’s
university students. Films should develop or at least suggest more profound
elements as to why some men act differently than others.
Italian westerns set out to change the traditional way
that westerns depict antagonists. Cooke (2007, p.180) writes: “Leone, by
breaking and playing with conventions, established a new template for the
western based on liminality and complexity rather than a simple binary system
of good versus bad.” To do so, Leone reduces the space between antagonist and
protagonist. Moreover, the personalities of the two characters can overlap.
This is not an arbitrary attempt, but something that requires certain rules and
tactics. They are:
1. Physical appearance; this means that the antagonist’s
and the protagonist’s features are similar. In A Fistful of Dollars, Ramón is
almost as tall as Joe, and his gun fighting abilities are at Joe’s level.
Moreover, both of them have the same make-up (gruff exterior, unshaven, etc.).
Cooke elucidates this resemblance. He (2007, p.180) writes: “[the antagonist]
is as powerful and charismatic as the hero, in order to maintain interest and
give the hero a real challenge.” Therefore, it can be said, based on Cooke’s
idea, that the antagonist must be a worthy adversary; if not, there is no point
for the protagonist to face up to him.
2. Character establishment; both antagonist and
protagonist establish their presence in the film through the killing of others.
The difference is that the antagonist kills more often than the protagonist. As
the result of using violence for the purpose of identity, the death of the
antagonist carries more meaning than the death of his counterpart in an
American western. According to Bondanella (1996), if in an American western the
antagonist’s death simply means the triumph of the virtuous, in an Italian
western it encompasses the narrative. [7]
3. Heterosexual love; there is always a love interest
between a man and woman in Hollywood films and
this follows in many American westerns as well. The convention is that the hero
falls in love with a woman, but can’t attain her. The reasons are either that
she marries another man (e.g. The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance),
or she has been murdered (Red River).
Moreover, even if he does fall in love with a married woman, he is gentleman
enough to avoid a sexual affair (Shane). Italian westerns re-contextualise the
notion of love. By this I contend that women often are not portrayed as
romantic objects. They are lost in the hierarchical system of the masculine
society of these films. Moreover, they are too feeble to be loved by the
protagonist. As noted before, the hero looks for strong and challenging
characters. It can even be said that when it comes to women, the hero is
asexual. In addition, in these films it is the antagonist who is more likely to
fall in love (like Ramón who loves Marisol). This love is not the conservative
and romantic love of Hollywood,
e.g. to enact on his love for Marisol, Ramón separates her from her child and
husband, bringing dysfunction upon her family life.
4. Selfishness; in Hollywood
films, one element of the protagonist’s character is that he is unselfish and
down to earth. The character of Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) in The Man who shot
Liberty Valance is an ideal example. In opposition to this, the protagonist in
the Italian western cares for no one and nothing, outside of his personal gain.
As noted earlier in A Fistful of Dollars, Joe’s goodwill act toward Marisol
still serves a personal purpose. The irony is that in these westerns, the
antagonist is usually more caring and unselfish than their counterparts. This
does not necessarily mean that he is a decent or lovable man, but that as long
as people stay within his rules he will not bother them. Ramón shows his hatred
to the protagonist only when Joe causes Marisol to leave him. In Hollywood films, the antagonist has few friends and many
enemies; this formula is echoed in Italian westerns, where it is the
protagonist who has few friends and many enemies.
Conclusion
Among the four changes that Leone established in A
Fistful of Dollars, the most significant one is the representation of the
villain. The traditional bad man of Hollywood
no longer carries the same weight. Viewers today are only satisfied by complex
and menacing villains. In the last few years characters such as the Joker
(Heath Ledger) in The Dark Knight (dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008) and Bill “The
Butcher” Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis) in Gangs of New York (dir. Martin Scorsese,
2003) epitomise this change.
As all the above dichotomies suggest, the Italian western
is not a sub-genre of the Hollywood western,
but a genre of its own. [8] The westerns of both traditions are different in
terms of visual style, theme, and characterisation. They may be grouped
together as westerns, but they function under differing semantic and syntactic
patterns. To quote an ancient Iranian proverb, “not every round object
signifies the walnut.”
Endnotes
1 According to Christopher Frayling cited in Bertellini
(2004, p.163), “between 1962 and 1976, over 450 westerns were produced in Italy or
involved an Italian financial interest.”
2 The term Spaghetti western has been considered
derogatory by some scholars, as discussed by Dimitris Eleftheriotis (2001,
p.92), because of the way it [spaghetti] “connotes inferiority and
foreignness.” However, Dimitris Eleftheriotis uses the term as a springboard
for theoretical and critical discussion around issues of genre. My own
preference for this essay is to use the term ‘Italian Western.’
3 Frayling (2006) says that the film’s budget was 200,000
US dollars; it earned 8 million Dollars worldwide
4 As an example, Shane (dir. George Stevens, 1953).
5 As an example, The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956).
6 This reminds one of a contemporary Hollywood
film, Blood Diamond (dir. Edward Zwick, 2006). In the film, the protagonist
Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio) explains the acts of violence in Africa as a result of God having left there a long time
ago.
7 In American westerns, going back home or reunion with
love ones conclude the narrative.
8 For a thorough examination of the spaghetti western and
genre theory I recommend Dimitris Eleftheriotis’ essay “”Genre Criticism and
the Spaghetti Western,” in his book Popular Cinemas of Europe, 92-133.
Bibliography
Cooke, Paul. (2007) Dialogues With Hollywood, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Bertellini, Giorgio. Ed. (2004) The Cinema of Italy, London: Wallflower Press.
Bondanella, Peter. (1996) Italian Cinema from Neorealism
to the Present, New York:
The Continuum International Publishing Group INC.
Eleftheriotis, Dimitris. (2001) Popular Cinemas of
Europe: Studies of Texts, Contexts and Frameworks, New York: The Continuum International
Publishing Group INC.
Frayling, Christopher. (2006) Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys
and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone, London: I.B.Tauris and Co Ltd.
Russell, Bertrand. (1961) History of Western Philosophy,
2nd ed. London:
George Allen and Unwin LTD.
Alireza Vahdani lives in Oxford, UK.
He holds a M.A in Popular Cinema and, a B.A in Film Studies/ Communication,
Media, and Culture from Oxford
Brookes University.
He is an Associate Lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes
University. His research
interests are Japanese period drama films, Italian popular cinema, classic
American Westerns, and English linguistic.
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