Novajo Joe/ Good Bad and Ugly

The Spaghetti westerns films differ a lot than the Westerns that are made in the US by the US directors. I guess the major difference in them is the Violence. Spaghetti westerns are way more violent than the American Westerns.
Also, one of the movies shows reversal of roles. In the movie Navajo Joe we see that he (a native Indian) has been portrayed as the hero and the American white men are the bad guys, we see how Joe saves the entire village. In the regular Western, the Natives were always shown as the inferior class and the White American as the good guys.
In the movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, we see that all the three main characters are continuously willing to kill each other. The gold makes them all the more violent. They constantly make promises and break them. It’s no big deal for them to break their word. All they cared was about themselves and how they could make more money. In the American Western we never see an Alpha male turning back from his word. Once he had said anything, that was engraved in the rocks. No one could change that.
We see how the perspective of the International Audience is completely different from the Americans. They feel that the Americans were not to be relied on nor were they really good people who cared for the society. They were violent, and very destructive. The natives who were thought of the Salvages in the American society were actually the real Hero’s in the mind of the International people.

Navajo Joe and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Spaghetti western films differ from the western films made in America mostly because of the roles specific characters play, and the amount of violence seen throughout the films. These two characteristics make a statement about how other countries viewed the United States during that time period. The film Navajo Joe chronicles the life of an Indian, and how he saves an American village after his is attacked by outlaws. The film opens with Navajo Joe's village being ransacked by American men. The Americans are extremely brutal and violent toward the Indian tribe, while Navajo Joe is depicted as a hero; he is captured and tortured by the white Americans on multiple occasions because of his heroic actions. In American western films, the roles are reversed, and the Indians are displayed in a negative light, portraying the American cowboys as heros and role-models. This is one aspect where the spaghetti western differs from the American western.
Similarly, in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the three main characters Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes, all make multiple alliances and friendships throughout the film, but end up going against all of them in order to find the golden treasure. Each one is willing to back-stab the other in order to further himself in the journey to find and claim the treasure for himself. Because of this, the film is full of violence and shoot-outs, portraying the American west as an extremely violent place. This differs from American westerns where violence is present, but at a much smaller extent. Typically, American western films build up to a major encounter between two forces at the end, but the spaghetti westerns have violence throughout the entire film.
This hints towards the fact that foreign countries looked towards America as a self-serving country willing to use any type of force, whether justified or not, to achieve its goals.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly/Navajo Joe

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Navajo Joe both introduce a much more violent western. Both films placed a much larger emphasis on the "other" and lessened the appeal of the white, alpha-male cowboy. In Navajo Joe, the alpha male and "other" roles are reversed. Joe, instead, assumes the role of the alpha male and saves the town from a band of outlaws as he seeks revenge for the brutal massacre of his village. In a cultural studies sense, the spaghetti westerns are much more realistic in their depiction of the implications of manifest destiny. Where other westerns seemed to imply Native Americans as savages, Navajo Joe portrayed the white men as reckless, killing innocent people and committing countless crimes. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is overwhelmed with violence. In one scene, Angel Eyes directs much of this violence towards a women, a level of disrespect that had never been seen in westerns before. Overall, both films seem to suggest that the nation was much more violent than it was made out to be. Other countries viewed America as being inhuman in their actions taken against others, especially with regards to Native Americans, blacks, and women. While filmmakers in the United States sugar-coated our actions, the spaghetti westerns laid them out on the line for what they truly were. While America defended it's view as being "divine" and rightful in the sense of imperialization, other countries were critical of this. This criticism shown through in such spaghetti westerns.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly / Navajo Joe

Navajo Joe opens with the slaughter of Joe’s village by Duncan and his band of outlaws. This spaghetti western’s opening scene show the Indians as innocent people and the outlaws as violent murderers. They then scalp the bodies and try to get money for the scalps in town; when they hold the town under siege and attempt to rob the train that is coming with money, Navajo Joe saves the day. This movie has the roles of the Indians and the white cowboy reversed. In classic westerns, the alpha male cowboy is white and takes revenge on a band of Indians who ruthlessly attacked his family, such as in The Searchers. Navajo Joe depicts the brutal effects manifest destiny had on the Indians, slaughtered and pushed onto reservations to make way for the white man.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is an excessively violent film, which is characteristic of spaghetti westerns. In this film, Blondie, the alpha male cowboy, has unfaithful sidekicks who are interested in solely benefiting themselves. Blondie must trick them and fool them in order to survive and get his share of the gold. He is a unique alpha male cowboy because of this situation. He is not loyal to sidekicks since they are not loyal, and, as a result, he is only looking out for himself. He does not have any commitment to duty because he is only looking to benefit himself by finding gold. At the end, he even leaves Tuco, one of his sidekicks, in the desert with his share of the gold.

Spaghetti westerns are more violent than classic westerns. Many people, both those who are criminals and those who are innocent are murdered. Made by other counties as a comment on our society, spaghetti westerns depict America as a ruthless and violent country full of callous individuals who murder without thinking. The movies depict Americans as people who are violent by nature and looking out for their own self-interest.

Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo y Navajo Joe

There are many differences between spaghetti westerns and classic westerns. Some revolve around the making of the film, location, producers, directors and actors. Others revolve around the plot, and the characters. First the locations of the film in Spaghetti westerns usually are filmed in low-priced backdrops that resemble the American Southwest, like Sardinia or Abruzzo. The second factor is usually the director’s nationality in a classic western is American, while Spaghetti westerns typically have Italian directors. In both movies the directors are Italian, Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone. Lastly the actors, are primarily Italian or Spanish with one primary American actor, like Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Burt Reynolds in Navaho Joe. The plots differ; classic westerns usually deal with the conflict of Indians (savages) with the cowboys (civilized). While Spaghetti westerns plots gyrate towards the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border between Mexico and the U.S. In the Good, The Bad and The Ugly,Tuco (The ugly) is a Mexican bandit who is trying to get the gold, also the film is filmed on the backdrop of the civil war. In Navaho Joe, his village gets murdered, and so does his wife. He sets off to get revenge for his wife. This is also a classic western because it focuses on the other instead of the cowboys. From a cultural studies perspective, it is evident that most Italian producers focus on the plight of the Spanish speaking public, and their attitudes towards the American culture. They try to humanize characters from the (other) that most classic westerns ignore.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly/Navajo Joe

Explain with examples how these spaghetti westerns and the spaghetti western in general differ from the classic western. From a cultural studies perspective, what arguments do the films make? Explain with examples from and analysis of the films.

Blog #7 - The Unforgiven

The Unforgiven serves as a revisionist film in several ways. The first and clearest way is through using Morgan Freeman's character Ned as a protagonist instead of playing the role of the "other." In previous films, African-Americans had been the alpha male's second hand man, such as in The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, but the character was very shallow and unexplored. In The Unforgiven, Ned is the equivalent to Clint Eastwood's character Will. Ned has talents that Will does not, such as skill with a rifle, which was never the case in previous films. When Ned is captured and mercilessly whipped to death, the emotions that his death stir up in Will are beyond hatred and his character returns to the outlaw that he used to be. In previous films, the alpha male was rarely emotionally connected at all to an African American or any other form of the "other," but in this film the African American is Will's best friend and true partner.
The second way The Unforgiven is a revisionist film is through the fact that it switches perspectives from the cowboy to the outlaw. The alpha male cowboy, Little Bill, is portrayed in a negative light and is viewed as over the top and brutal. He uses violence to assert his will, and to the audience, his will is unjust. The outlaw however, in this film Will, assumes the role of protagonist and though he uses violence to distribute justice. The justice is swift and results in the death of many men, but the viewer agrees with Will and his actions, despite of the fact that he is killing cowboys, the typical American hero.