:47:01
He just had one phrase, "Watch me."
:47:04
So what he would do is he would stand on
the set in a cowboy hat with thick glasses,
:47:09
wearing a pair of toy guns,
looking a bit like Yosemite Sam.
:47:13
"Watch me, Clint." And he'd act out
what he wanted the characters to do.
:47:17
So his direction was all done
at the level of mime.
:47:23
The assistant director reminisced to me
:47:25
that he thought one of the distinctive
Italian features of this movie
:47:29
is that in doing the mime, Leone would
turn the character into a Roman character.
:47:35
That actually
in performing it for the actors,
:47:38
the Western hero
became this Roman trickster.
:47:41
This Harlequin figure from Italian culture,
:47:44
a very strong figure within
Italian theatrical traditions.
:47:49
It was the miming, "Watch me, Clint",
:47:51
that created, partly, the character of
the man with no name, Joe the stranger.
:47:57
Partly that, and partly the fact
that when Eastwood arrived in Spain,
:48:01
he thought the script was much too talky
:48:03
and he cut a lot of dialogue to
make the character more enigmatic.
:48:07
The shooting script contains lots of long
speeches. Leone put a line through it.
:48:12
He may be the only actor in movie history
who's actually fought for less lines.
:48:17
Most actors want more,
but he wanted less,
:48:19
because he felt it created the magic,
the enchantment. It created the enigma.
:48:47
The second big set piece scene
is the exchange of hostages.
:48:53
Instead of white fluff,
autumn leaves blowing over the camera.
:48:57
The idea of a brown, autumnal colour.