:29:02
He'd gone on record as antismoking.
:29:05
But they felt this cigarillo,
this Toscano was part of the character.
:29:10
In the 1960s, smoking was seen
as a sign of control and masculinity.
:29:13
Today I guess it's the opposite. But in
the 1960s it was seen as that symbol.
:29:18
And Eastwood said whenever
he lit up, which wasn't often,
:29:21
the cheroot often is half-smoked
and he's not smoking it.
:29:25
When he does, he said, "It put me in
the right frame of mind. Kind of a fog."
:29:29
And when it came to the second movie,
For A Few Dollars More,
:29:33
Eastwood said to Leone,
"Do I have to smoke the cigar?"
:29:36
"I don't like it very much." Leone replied:
:29:39
"Of course you must smoke the cigar.
It's playing the lead."
:29:58
In Yojimbo, there's a strong sense
at this stage in the story
:30:01
of this 19th-century village in Japan
belonging to a wider community.
:30:06
A government inspector
comes to the village
:30:08
and gives you a sense
of the politics beyond,
:30:11
and you also get a sense
that there is law and order
:30:14
in the society of 19th-century Japan, but
it's broken down in this particular place.
:30:20
In Fistful of Dollars,
there is no sense of law and order at all.
:30:24
That there's no law, the sheriff
is corrupt like all sheriffs in Leone's films,
:30:28
so the bounty hunters, those on
the take, the factions, the families,
:30:34
the Hispanic Mafia which runs these
towns is the substitute for law and order.
:30:39
There's a complete
absence of morality and law,
:30:42
which makes it take place
in a kind of moral vacuum.
:30:45
References to governments outside are
perfunctory. This isn't put in a context.
:30:50
It's a piece of theatre about a town
that is a kind of never-never land
:30:55
where morality doesn't exist.
:30:59
You want Eastwood to be the goodie,
but he never quite behaves like that.