Analysis of the Dollar Trilogy [part 6 and 7 of 7]

 Michele227

Michele Iovinella

July 25, 2025

The Modernity of a Timeless Message

The Contemporaneity of Moral Ambiguity

Despite being set in the nineteenth century, the Dollar Trilogy speaks directly to the contemporary. His reflection on moral ambiguity, systemic violence, and unbridled individualism resonates with particular force in the present era. Leone anticipated themes that would become central to modern cinema: the anti-hero as the protagonist, the criticism of national myths, the representation of war as a collective tragedy.

His characters operate in a world devoid of absolute certainties, where moral choices are determined by practical contingencies rather than universal ethical principles. It is an existential condition that perfectly reflects the uncertainty of values of post-modernity.

Hidden Humanism

Behind the apparent cynicism and brutal violence, the Leonian trilogy hides a profoundly humanist message. His anti-heroes, while moving in a degraded moral universe, retain flashes of authentic humanity. The possibility of redemption, however remote, is never completely precluded.

The Art of Cinematic Paradox

The greatness of the Dollar Trilogy lies in its ability to be simultaneously nostalgic and revolutionary, classic and modern, American and Italian. Leone has created a work that is both homage and deconstruction of the western myth, a celebration and criticism of the Hollywood cinematic imagination.

Through three seemingly unrelated films, Sergio Leone has constructed a coherent and complex fresco of the human condition. From the microcosm of San Miguel to the scenic vastness of the Sad Hill cemetery, Leone has explored all the expressive registers of cinema, from grotesque comedy to epic tragedy, from raw realism to visionary symbolism.

The Dollar Trilogy remains a total cinematic experience that continues to question us about the great themes of existence: good and evil, justice and revenge, individualism and solidarity. In an era of liquid certainties and relative truths, Sergio Leone's artistic and philosophical lesson keeps its disruptive force intact, confirming itself as one of the absolute peaks of twentieth-century cinematographic art.