WE CONTINUE OUR SERIES OF REPORTS FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT JOHN EXSHAW'S DIARY FROM THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL.

Started the day by calling in on Giancarlo Santi at his hotel, having arranged an interview with him last night. He was just finishing his breakfast, but otherwise seemed quite ready to hit the trail and “git them dogies rolling”. Politeness required that I kept my generally low opinion of ‘The Grand Duel’ to myself – though to be fair to Santi, I never got the impression that he himself regards it as an imperishable classic. In any case, I was much more interested in hearing him talk about his time as assistant director to Sergio Leone on ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’, ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ and ‘Giù la testa’ (‘A Fistful of Dynamite’, ‘Duck, You Sucker’). Santi speaks pretty good English, but as the interview progressed, he tended to lapse into Italian with increasing frequency. When he apologized for this, I suggested that he continue in Italian, saying I could always get the tape translated at a later date.

Giancarlo Santi

The best-known story involving Santi concerns his aborted direction of ‘Giù la testa’, caused by Rod Steiger’s refusal to work with anyone other than Leone. After about three days, so the story goes, Steiger refused to continue under Santi’s direction, responding to Leone’s assurances that Santi was perfectly capable by saying, okay, I’ll send along my stand-in, he’s perfectly capable too. And so, reluctantly, Leone demoted Santi and assumed the directorial burden himself . . .

Santi, however, remembers things rather differently. At the end of filming ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, he recalls, Leone turned to him, removed his viewfinder and placed it around Santi’s neck, telling him, “You will direct the next film.” Santi, who doesn’t appear to have harboured any great desire to be a director, thought no more about it. Some two years later, when Santi was working in Africa as assistant director on Glauber Rocha’s ‘The Lion Has Seven Heads’, Leone, unbeknownst to him, took out a full-page ad. in Variety announcing ‘Giù la testa’, “to be directed by Giancarlo Santi”. Leone was immediately bombarded with telegrams from both Steiger’s and James Coburn’s agents: their clients had accepted the film on the understanding that it was to be “Directed by Sergio Leone”, and they weren’t going to settle for the crown prince in place of the king. When Santi did join the film as assistant director, it was the first he’d heard of all this rumpus, and he categorically denies that he shot any principle scenes, or any scenes which would not fall within the usual remit of the assistant director.

We continued talking about his work with Leone, but such stories as emerged will have to wait for another time. Before I left, he whipped out a digital print of Lee Van Cleef and himself on the set of ‘The Grand Duel’ and proceeded to inscribe it to me. Remembering Lee and Dave’s injunction to “spread the good word”, I presented him with a back issue of Cinema Retro, shook hands and oiled off.

Our Man Exshaw has returned home from the city of mystery and intrigue, having covered one of the world's most important film festivals. John's columns have attracted the greatest number of readers our site has ever had, so we're happy to continue his diaries reflecting on the events that took place at the Venice International Film Festival's tribute to Italian Westerns. We'll be presenting the remaining segments of John's daily diary of events that took place at the festival. Please note that the diary entries were written contemporaneously with the on-going events.

Monday got off to a similar start to Sunday, with the need to file copy putting paid to a second and last chance to catch the new Jesse James movie. Then, at 3:30 p.m., I filed into the press conference hall for a gabfest entitled “Eastern Western: The Impact of the Spaghetti Western in Asia and America”. The panel for this event comprised of Marco Giusti, Richard Corliss (Time), Jim Hoberman (The Village Voice), and Sadao Yamane (or Yamane Sadao, if you prefer the Japanese surname-first rendering), a venerable cinema journalist and current Professor of Film Studies at Tokei University. It was chaired by Peter Cowie, the equally venerable founder of The International Film Guide and author of definitive studies of The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now.

Cowie began with a mea culpa on behalf of himself and his generation of film critics who had dismissed the Spaghetti Western as a sacrilegious abomination in the 1960s, saying that for those raised on the classic, formal Hollywood Western, it was simply not possible then to appreciate the innovation and iconoclastic viewpoint of directors like Leone and Corbucci. He ended by noting that while “Hollywood won’t back actual Westerns, [there are] plenty of films that are derived from the Spaghetti Western template” – a perfectly valid general point, if somewhat undercut by the recent or forthcoming release of ‘Seraphim Falls’, ‘3:10 to Yuma’, and the Jesse James opus.

Giusti then talked about growing up with the Italian Western in the 1960s, and how domestic product filled a gap in the second-run cinema schedules created by the decline in Hollywood’s output of B-Westerns by the likes of William Witney and R.G. Springsteen.

Richard Corliss recalled his youth in Philadelphia and how he and his friends would enjoy the three types of Italian films then on offer: the auteur film, the “personality” film (in which they could see actors such as Marcello Mastroianni whom they’d first encountered in auteur films), and genre films such as pepla and Westerns. He then proposed an hitherto overlooked contribution by Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood to Western fashion – the three-day growth of beard, which Leone used to make Eastwood look older and more hard-bitten and which, as Corliss said, “is still very much with us.” He also mentioned a story told by Sergio Donati, of how Eastwood began to modulate his naturally “musical” voice after hearing the slower and more laconic delivery of Enrico Maria Salerno, the actor who dubbed Eastwood in Italian prints.

THE SPAGHETTI WEST

Dir: David Gregory

With (in order of appearance): Sergio Donati, Sir Christopher Frayling, Howard Hughes, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Franco Giraldi, Enzo G. Castellari, Sergio Martino, Ferdinando Baldi, Manolo Bolognini, Alex Cox, Franco Nero, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima, Ennio Morricone, Alessandro Alessandroni, Damiano Damiani, and Tomás Milian

Docurama/IFC, 2005 NTSC/Region 1/56 mins. $26.95

Review by John Exshaw

Once upon a time in a film class, a lecturer was heard to bemoan the presence in video stores of an abundance of “cheap Spaghetti Westerns” in a tone which indicated, quite unambiguously, that he was not just complaining about the prices. Nor, it is safe to assume, was he merely venting his displeasure at the films’ paucity of production values. No, what was agitating this sage of celluloid was the complete and utter lack of authenticity inherent in Spaghetti Westerns; they were, by place of birth, ethnicity, definition, and any other criteria one might care to apply, most definitely not the real thing.

Spaghetti Westerns did not show a true picture of the Old West – unlike, say, the Hopalong Cassidy films or those of Gene Autry. They were not historically accurate – unlike, say, They Died With Their Boots On or My Darling Clementine. They were not made by American directors – unlike, say, Rancho Notorious or High Noon. They did not star American actors – except when they did. They were not shot on genuine Western locations – such as the legendary Columbia backlot. And they were cheap, goddammit, quite unlike the big-budget, super-productions synonymous with studios such as Republic and Monogram. Yes, folks, down with “cheap” Italian Westerns, and hooray for Hollywood, the home of authenticity!

A need to write up my reports, combined with a lack of sleep, meant I had to pass on an 11:00 a.m. showing of ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’, a film one sincerely hopes is less clumsy than its title. The former kept me occupied till 5:00 p.m., when I rode up for the ‘Spaghetti Western Round Table 1’, at which the participants were: Giuliano Gemma, Fabio Testi, Enzo Castellari, Carlo Lizzani, Tinto Brass, Sergio Salvati, Luis eEnriquez Bacalov, and Pasquale Squitieri.

Testi was asked about his 1978 film, ‘China 9, Liberty 37’, directed, depending on which sources one consults, by Monte Hellman and/or Antonio Brandt, and which featured Sam Peckinpah in the cast. Testi recalled that, “Sergio Leone was supposed to do a role, and met Peckinpah on the set . . .” Whenever Testi had any scenes with Bloody Sam, he said, Peckinpah always wanted the dialogue rewritten so that he would have the last word.

Japanese poster for "The Hills Run Red"

Lizzani spoke next, about Italian cinema in general, with occasional references to the first of two Westerns he directed, ‘The Hills Run Red’ (1966, and due to be screened tomorrow). Lizzani has often been quoted as saying he made the film only as a favour to producer Dino De Laurentiis (who told him, “We have the three Cs in common – cuore, cervello e culo” - heart, mind and ass). In cold print, Lizzani’s comment made it seem as if he, as part of the second wave of neo-realist directors (with all that implies in terms of political engagement and intellectualism), was dismissing the film, but in person he appeared quite happy to have made Westerns and talked about them with affection and wry good humour.

Arrived back on the Lido to catch a showing of Alex Cox’s new film, ‘Searchers 2.0’, which is not part of the Spaghetti Western retrospective, but with a title like that, and knowing of Cox’s love of Italian Westerns, I figured it was something a gringo like me should see. On the way, I ran into Enzo Castellari and his son, Andrea, who, like his old man, gives the impression he probably wrestles bears before breakfast just for the hell of it. When I told them where I was going, Enzo said he’d love to see the movie and that he’d hoped to meet Cox at the festival.

At the cinema, I introduced myself to Cox as an admirer of his ‘Moviedrome’ series, which used to run on the BBC in the days when British TV stations treated films as more than disposable time-fillers. Indeed, it was Cox who presented what was, in effect, the British première of ‘Django’, which had been banned outright on its original release, as well as giving many of us our first exposure to the delirium that is Giulio Questi’s ‘Django, Kill!’. Cox and I arranged to talk later, and he and Enzo got on famously.

‘Searchers 2.0’ is a “micro-budget” road movie, shot with a digital camera which Cox made sound little more sophisticated than something you’d buy in a pharmacy, and is executive-produced by Roger Corman, who also has a cameo in the film.

Right after the main title, there appears on screen the legend, “Benito Stefanelli… morto!”, which surprised and amused Enzo, and let me know I’d made the right decision to check this out. (In the unlikely event that there is actually anyone out there who doesn’t know who Benito Stefanelli was, I should perhaps explain that he was Sergio Leone’s head stuntman, and also appeared in most of his films.)

Wednesday – Today’s proceedings started with Sergio Sollima’s masterly ‘The Big Gundown’, with Lee Van Cleef and Tomás Milian, on which I had to pass, having made a loose appointment to interview Sergio Donati at yesterday’s press conference. Donati, who co-wrote ‘The Big Gundown’ with Sollima, turned up at the screening with every intention of watching it again, but when I explained that I would have to leave for another interview before the movie ended, he very kindly agreed to give it a miss too, saying with a smile, “It’s okay, I know the story.” He did, however, ask to watch the opening credit sequence before we left. Was this an example of a screenwriter, even forty-one years after the event, just wanting to make absolutely sure that, no, he hadn’t been screwed out his screen credit, or just a tribute to the film’s wonderful titles and Morricone’s great score? Quien sabe, hombre?

Anyway, we spoke for the best part of an hour, and needless to say, it was fascinating, not least because Donati is highly intelligent, witty, and doesn’t speak in soundbites. As it would be impossible, as well as bad manners, to try to summarise his responses in the context of an on-line interview, we’ll have to leave it there for now. But did you know that Jason Robards, while working on ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, heard of the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, he proceeded to drink the bars of Almería dry, telling anyone who’d listen that he was sick of living in a country where such things could happen, and that he wanted out? And that the next day, Robards arrived on the set and personally apologised to everyone present for his behaviour? Nice story, don’t you think?

Jason Robards in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West

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Thursday 3:00 p.m.  For the Spaghetti Western posse, the day started with a press conference for the official launch of Spaghetti Western: The Secret History of Italian Cinema 4, overseen by Festival chairman, Davide Croff, and the co-curators, Marco Giusti and Manlio Gomarasca. The guest line-up was comprised of Franco Nero, Sergio Donati, and Tonino Valerii, with American director Eli Roth, and New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, also on hand. After Manlio had described the Spaghetti Western as, “the Italian genre which most contributed to change in worldwide cinema,” Nero spoke with passion about the Western and its continuing importance: “No male actor in the world doesn’t want to play in Westerns. Westerns were often A-movies in America, but B-movies in Italy. But these B-movies paid for all the auteur films. When I travelled to Japan and South America, in the hotel registers, they would just write “Django” . . . So I say it is a mistake not to make Westerns today, look at the worldwide sales of DVDs... To make Westerns in the Seventies’ style is a good idea. Westerns are something mythical, legendary.”

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He recalled the great Sergio Corbucci, calling him, “an under-appreciated director in the true sense of the word, like Tonino Valerii. They really are sound directors who get the best out of a story.” He then told his anecdote about Corbucci’s legendary sense of fun, in which, during the filming of the title scene of Django, Corbucci told Nero to walk past the camera, pulling his iconic coffin, and to keep going until they had enough footage and Corbucci shouted “Cut”. Nero duly obliged, trudging on and on through the mud, the coffin getting heavier and heavier, wondering when on earth Corbucci would be satisfied. Eventually, having had enough, he stopped and looked back. There was no one in sight; Corbucci had told the crew to pack up and leave as soon as Nero was out of earshot. . . . Corbucci, he added, ‘would arrive on the set and ask, “How many are we going to kill today? Ten? Twenty?” . . . I really miss him.’

Valerii, after giving a quick account of how he came to make his first film, Taste for Killing, in 1966, mainly talked about the making of A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die, and his comments would be best read in conjunction with the report on that film.

On Tuesday evening, the day before the Festival officially opened, there was a press screening of the newly-restored Italian print of Fistful of Dollars. While normally the best way to watch a foreign film is in the original language with subtitles, that is not the case with Leone’s movies, unless you particularly want to hear Clint Eastwood dubbed into Italian by Enrico Maria Salerno. Contrary to rumours that recently-found additional material had been restored, the print seems much the same as that released in Italy on the Ripley’s Home Video label, only with the original opening credits – which feature as an extra on the currently-available disc – cleaned and restored, so that once again Ennio Morricone is credited as ‘Leo Nichols’, and Leone as ‘Bob Robertson’. Also, the scene in which the Rojos and the Baxters shoot it out at night in the cemetery, which was previously scratched, appears to have been cleaned up. However, what we were watching lacked the clarity of a restored celluloid  print, and the suspicion arose that it was the restored DVD – which Ripley's presumably intend to reissue as a Special Edition – being projected on the screen.

At 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, there was a press conference relating to this restored edition. According to the day’s guest list notification for the press, Tonino Valerii, assistant director on Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, was due to attend, but he didn’t (though he's still expected later for the screening of his A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die). This left a number of people involved in the restoration to talk on in an alarmingly technical way about the Techniscope process, four-sprocket frames, digital re-mastering of soundtrack material, etc., etc., etc. If you’ve ever sat through one of those ‘Restoring the Film’ documentaries included as DVD extras, you’ll know what I mean. The most interesting fact to emerge was that, apparently, the restoration of Per un pugno di dollari cost more than the film itself (which had a budget of about $200,000).

Monday night, watched a 1959 movie called Venezia, la luna e tu (‘Venice, the Moon and You’), in which Alberto Sordi played a gondolier who – you’ve guessed it – gets involved with two silly foreign girls. With only Tonino Delli Colli’s colour photography to recommend it, the main surprise of the film was in seeing Sordi, Nino Manfredi, and director Dino Risi – all of whom, a year or so later, became leading figures in the commedia all’italiana movement which cast a critical eye on contemporary mores in a changing Italy – caught up in such an inconsequential piece of fluff.

Tuesday morning: As there was nothing kicking off on the Lido till the evening, I caught a vaporetto over to Dorsoduro and made my way to the church of San Nicolò dei Mendicoli, which Donald Sutherland worked so hard to restore in Don’t Look Now. Obviously, whoever took over from him wasn’t killed by a red-coated, homicidal dwarf because the building looks much better than it did in the movie, the restoration having been completed by the Venice in Peril foundation – whose sign can be seen on a wall in the film – by the end of the Seventies.

San Nicolo dei Mendicoli

And so down to business . . . Last month, the Venice Film Festival announced a 32-film retrospective entitled Spaghetti Western as part of its ongoing series, The Secret History of Italian Cinema. This strand of the Festival began in 2004 with Kings of the Bs, co-curated by Quentin Tarantino, who is also named as “the godfather” (yes, that’s really what they call him in the publicity handouts) of this year’s event.

The 2004 line-up included examples of Westerns, pepla (sword-and-sandal movies), poliziesci (Seventies’ cop movies), horror, and giallo by such stalwarts of Italian popular cinema as Riccardo Freda, Vittorio Cottafavi, Antonio Margheriti, Sergio Sollima, Enzo G. Castellari, Fernando Di Leo, Umberto Lenzi, and Lucio Fulci. Surprisingly, even Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust was allowed to rear its controversial head as well. In 2005, the series was reduced in scope to accommodate a Secret History of Asian Cinema, but managed to find room for two films each, fully restored, by Mario Bava and Massimo Dallamano, as well as four biopics of Casanova. The following year provided even thinner pickings for Spaghetti fans, with only a restored print of For a Few Dollars More featuring in a line-up dominated by centennial celebrations of Rossellini, Visconti, and Mario Soldati, along with The Secret History of Russian Cinema (which must have been a lot of fun).