so many men wasted so badly
If I can manage it, three movies today: Fistfull of Dollars , For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly . "It's not really easy to like something you know nothing about," the Stranger says about a half hour into Fistfull of Dollars . He's talking about peace, but the thought is much the same for the audience. We don't know this guy, but we like him. Like many a Western hero, he rides into town an unknown. Unlike many another Western hero, he is not readily introduced thereafter through revealing dialogue. This guy's coming manipulations and his motivations are revealed in dialogue but not his identity. Who he is --that remains an unknown. Except inasmuch as he is like the classic Western hero. Function #1: "The hero enters a social group" (Wright, 1975, p. 41). We've seen men who had been away for a while (e.g. Ethan Edwards in The Searchers ) but also complete strangers (e.g. Shane in Shane ). Here we've got the Man with...