Earlier than “Escape from Alcatraz,” “Soiled Harry,” and his personal decades-spanning profession as a director, Clint Eastwood starred in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns. Whereas he was nonetheless years away from his first directorial work whereas filming 1964’s “A Fistful of {Dollars},” Eastwood already had a eager understanding of what he wished from motion pictures, in addition to a willingness to talk his thoughts. This really led him to rewriting part of the film’s script. Eastwood defined the explanation for this in a 1985 interview with Rolling Stone:
“The script was very expository, yeah. It was an outrageous story, and I believed there ought to be far more thriller to the individual. I stored telling Sergio. ‘In an actual An image, you let the viewers assume together with the film; in a B image, you clarify all the things.’ That was my approach of promoting my level. For example, there was a scene the place he decides to avoid wasting the girl and the kid. She says, “Why are you doing this?” Within the script he simply goes on perpetually. He talks about his mom, every kind of subplots that come out of no-where, and it goes on and on and on. I believed that was not important, so I simply rewrote the scene the night time earlier than we shot it.”
Sure, with out Eastwood’s literal last-minute script doctoring, the Man With No Title may not solely have given us his identify, however his household’s handle, banking particulars, and whole backstory as properly. You possibly can in all probability see why this could have taken some thriller away from the character. Eastwood actually did, and by standing his floor, he performed no small half in bringing the style’s arguably most iconic gunslinger to his legendary standing — each in entrance of the digital camera and behind the scenes.
Eastwood’s imaginative and prescient for the Man with No Title proved appropriate
Clint Eastwood received solid within the Western present “Rawhide” as a fluke, which in flip led to his work with Sergio Leone. In different phrases, the person already knew his approach round a Western, and in hindsight, it is not arduous to see why Eastwood felt the necessity to tinker with the script. Whereas nobody might have recognized it for certain on the time, the “A Fistful of {Dollars}” star was on his method to develop into way over only a well-liked actor. As of 2024, he has 45 directing credit to his identify, and at least 4 Academy Awards for his varied contributions to the craft of movie-making.
Eastwood was solely in his thirties throughout his Sergio Leone period, however his “A Fistful of {Dollars}” script rewriting episode nonetheless proves that he was already forming the uncompromising imaginative and prescient and dedication which have been so evident in his best work. The truth that the {Dollars} Trilogy adheres to Eastwood’s imaginative and prescient of a protagonist who has completely no penchant for prolonged monologues looks as if a reasonably clear indication that Leone ended up agreeing together with his star, as properly. There are lots of ways in which “A Fistful of {Dollars}” might have been an absolute catastrophe, and simply a single manufacturing mistake ended up costing thousands and thousands for the film. Even so, the movie persevered, and Eastwood actually did his share of heavy lifting to make sure its path to traditional standing.
