Sergio Leone
Often directly associated with the Spaghetti Western, director Sergio Leone was by no means the inventor of the sub-genre, but did more than any other Italian director to popularize it overseas, particularly in the United States. Leone entered filmmaking at the height of popularity for Sword-and-Sandal epics of the 1950s, making his solo directorial debut with "The Colossus of Rhodes" (1961). Once that genre fell out of favor over the massive budgets, he joined a group of Italian directors who reinvented the Western, turning the genre on its head with films that were gritty, violent and often darkly humorous. For his part, Leone employed a number of techniques like extreme close-ups, rapid-fire editing, punctuated score, and laconic characters in a trilogy of films - "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), "For a Few Dollars More" (1966) and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1967) - that reshaped the modern Western and turned a little-known actor named Clint Eastwood into a star. All three films were derided by critics for their then-excessive violence while also becoming major international box office hits. Leone followed with what many felt was his Western masterpiece, "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968), and later spent over 10 years making his four-and-a-half hour long gangster epic, "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984). When he died in 1989, Leone left behind a legacy as a pioneering director whose influence was felt throughout generations while inspiring a permanent shift of the cultural landscape.
Photos
Sergio Leone
Filmography
Movies
Credit | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
No Score Yet |
|
Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America | Self | - | 2022 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Pan del cielo | Annibale (Character) | - | 2018 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | Troppo forte | Director | - | 1986 |
86% |
|
Once Upon a Time in America |
Director, Screenwriter |
- | 1984 |
No Score Yet |
|
A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot |
Director, Executive Producer |
- | 1975 |
92% |
|
A Fistful of Dynamite |
Director, Screenwriter |
- | 1971 |
96% |
|
Once Upon a Time in the West |
Director, Writer |
- | 1968 |
97% |
|
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly |
Director, Screenwriter |
- | 1966 |
92% |
|
For a Few Dollars More |
Director, Screenwriter |
- | 1965 |
98% |
|
A Fistful of Dollars |
Director, Screenwriter |
- | 1964 |
56% |
|
The Colossus of Rhodes | Director | - | 1961 |
No Score Yet |
|
The Last Days of Pompeii | Screenwriter | - | 1959 |
No Score Yet | No Score Yet | We Stole a Tram | Presenter of the Contest (Character) | - | 1954 |