On Sky Documentaries the work written and directed by Francesco Zippel, enriched by the testimonies of many filmmakers
In John Ford’s films, when an actor always opens a window to look at the immense future ahead of him. In mine, on the other hand, when they open a window they are only afraid and terrified of receiving a bullet between the eyes. Talking about Sergio Leone, to whom he dedicated a powerful documentary written and directed by Francesco Zippel and enriched by the testimonies of filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Ennio Morricone: Sergio Leone – The Italian who invented America (Sky Documentaries).
As a lover of the western genre I have always wondered to what extent Leone has worked on the eccentricity of the rules with respect to the center of the system. In his films, everything is excessive, everything redundant, even the dead times: all of his narrative geometries are a clear example of an attempt to break away from previous constructive systems. His originality and greatness lies in having taken all the stylistic features of the genre to the maximum limit, making them literally explode, pushing the epic into the territories of mannerism: the classicism of John Ford is followed by the baroque of Sergio Leone.
Watching Sergio Leone movies – says Steven Spielberg – I understood that the man was still a child, inside and out. A little boy who plays cowboys, who loves to amuse his friends. An unpretentious artist and very generous when he wanted to entertain. Here, the classic western was born as the story of an epic, as the founding myth of the frontier and of the future America, and often operates on the level of values. The individual embodies collective values, defines with a single stroke the origin of morality that often goes beyond the law. Hence that profoundly messianic universe, the epic breadth of the story. Leone, on the other hand, plays, embroiders, tries to arouse surprise and wonder, through a different perception of space and time.
February 5, 2023 (change February 5, 2023 | 22:23)
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