Earlier this semester I went to see “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1967) in the film series. The movie stars Clint Eastwood as a stoic cowboy. It was the final part of the “Man With No Name” trilog—lthough it actually operates as a prelud—hich includes “A Fist Full of Dollars” and “For A Few Dollars More.” These movies by Sergei Leone were the first to popularize the Spaghetti-Westerns, so-called because the films were made by Italians and supposedly took place in the plains of the American west. In truth, they were often filmed in Spain. The genre began during the late 1950s when the desire for American Westerns was dwindling and Europe was having a hard time with distribution rights. It was cheaper to get one big name American star and ship him over to Europe than it was to make a Western in the United States. Eastwood spoke almost no Italian, and the only person who spoke English was a lighting technician. Clint was dubbed in the Italian version of the film and everyone else was dubbed in the American one.
It’s a great film, filled with Leone’s musings on the Civil War, the American cowboy and the intensity of greed. There are a lot of the classic shots of the West, buttes, deserts and a stagecoach. The score is incredible. The dialogue is essentially non-existent. Leone seemed to feel that rather than deal with excessive dubbing, the characters just wouldn’t say much at all. Most of the story comes through Clint’s eyebrows and Ennio Morricone’s music.
A friend of mine suggested to me recently that I try to not speak for a day, which would cause a normal activity to suddenly come to the forefront of my consciousness. I haven’t tried it yet. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Clint Eastwood to act in a film in which he said his lines in English, and received a reply in Italian. It must have seemed to him as though he went weeks without talking.
“Lost in Translation” by Sophia Coppola appears to be an attempt to recreate what Eastwood probably felt. There is that sense of indifference in the film, as Bill Murray realizes it doesn’t really matter if what he says means anything to him—they’re just lines. Coppola too uses music to override the silence of the film, whether it is “My Bloody Valentine” in the background, or Murray singing Karaoke with all of his heart.
I think what “Lost in Translation” portrays so clearly is that the two characters would have trouble expressing themselves no matter where they were, no matter what language they were speaking; that trying to communicate is always difficult. It’s the same in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”. You understand that Eastwood’s character is given the eponym “The Man With No Name” for a reason: so long as no one knows his name, he has no obligations to anyone. Communication would only make things complicated.
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