A Fistful of Dollars remake has been announced and might be the most egregious modern reboot so far. Should Sergio Leone’s masterworks be untouchable?
The remake and reboot fascination continues with announcements fired out almost daily to tell us some iconic film is being unnecessarily spruced up for the modern audience, who have all but departed cinema in favour of TikTok anyway. The lack of imagination from studio execs and unwillingness to lay their chips on an original concept is not a new thing by any means but even with evidence to the contrary, they still keep pushing those chips onto old titles and scratching their heads when the majority falter at the box office.
There are some you can accept a little more than others. Flawed cult films with a quirky enough tale might well find a niche audience in today’s age and when it comes to horror it feels like a figure like Michael Myers could probably be dusted off fairly easily and still capture the interest of modern horror lovers (enough to make a tidy profit) even if the films inevitably pale compared to Carpenter’s original. The slasher sub-genre is somewhat evergreen too and generally, horrors are cheaper to make than say a big-budget action reboot of something way too culty to be mainstream.
Now the remake machine has set its sights on The Man with No Name, beginning with A Fistful of Dollars, the Sergio Leone classic which effectively kickstarted the Spaghetti Western (Italian-made Westerns, dubbed in English) craze of the ’60s. That original film headed by Clint Eastwood spawned a trilogy that saw For A Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly follow. A US and Italian co-production aims to bring that Spaghetti Western magic into the modern era but the question is, should Leone be untouchable?
Leone’s legacy as a cinematic deity was effectively set in stone by the third in the trilogy and reinforced by Once Upon a Time in the West (starring Charles Bronson). A reason Leone’s Westerns, even with the somewhat cheesy staple dubbing, have been so widely lauded and remain iconic is because of his gifts as a visual storyteller. These are films sparse on dialogue, beautifully crafted and impeccably shot and edited. Scenes breathe and standoffs brim with festering tension. Enigmatic and ambiguous characters tell us so much even when they say so little. A Fistful of Dollars saw Leone still finding his stylistic feet somewhat, at least in comparison to when he made Once Upon a Time in the West, one of the most exceptionally shot and cut movies you’ll ever see (aided of course by a stunning score from the late, great Ennio Morricone).
Leone’s visual eye and precise pacing for every moment was a gift that few had back then and that’s even more rare among modern filmmakers. The auteur, the cinematic master, the visual stylist, they’re all entities increasingly rare in an era where the film has become content and marketing is as important as creativity. This is the general thing that happens for a remake. For Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop or Total Recall, you’re given a modern equivalent by Jose Padilha and Len Wiseman. For John Carpenter’s Halloween, it’s Rob Zombie or David Gordon Green. For Point Break it was Kathryn Bigelow’s opus remade by Ericson Core. Now even those guys will tell you they’re not in the same league as the OGs.
Ironically, Leone’s opener in the Dollars trilogy, about to be remade, was actually a remake (of sorts) of Yojimbo, the Kurosawa masterpiece. Now, here’s the thing. If you’re Leone, you’re in sniffing distance of Kurosawa. You can remake it in your image and add your inimitable stamp. Likewise, Wiseman, Green and others who have rebooted the works of genre masters, are also operating in the very business-orientated restraints of modern cinema (Green’s Joe is a great and sorely underseen film). They’ve all made good films, particularly when operating more independently but when you’re tasked with rebooting an established IP on a beefy budget, you kind of have to operate within constraints (though Green had a fair amount of freedom seemingly).
The point is, when Leone planned out his shots and sat with his editor, he had this innate gift to be able to choreograph perfect camera movement in cohesion with perfect blocking and time the cut to the most precise millisecond. There are awesome guitarists, and then there’s Eddie Van Halen. There’s a difference between great and gift from above. It’s hard enough remaking great films (like The Crow, or Highlander) but to remake a masterpiece? Is it going to be in your image or a studio’s focus group compiled image? There’s a certain unique ju ne sais quoi that directors like Leone had. You can’t mimic that and if you can’t, or aren’t given the freedom to create your own unique version (that’s equally as effective) it feels like a futile exercise. The majority of these reboots also come from a cynical place and aren’t treated with the reverence and care they deserve.
To make the whole thing seem even more baffling, no one watches Westerns on the big screen anymore. Sure, A Fistful of Dollars is relatively smaller in scope than other iconic Westerns and you’d assume that the reboot will be a fairly modest budget, but is there still enough audience? Could we not just rerelease a nice spiffy 4k remaster of the original on the big screen? Hell, gimme Yojimbo too while you’re at it. It feels like there’s also a dearth of performers who have the kind of inimitable presence that Eastwood had as a gunslinger and likewise Bronson.
Remaking something inherently invites comparison and no matter what Euro Gang Entertainment (Gianni Nunnari and Simon Horsman’s company, teaming with Enzo Sisti) conjures, it’s more than likely going to pale (rider) in comparison. Does the title carry any weight that would add box office value above merely doing another riff on the Yojimbo story (there have been innumerable) under a new title? Not really. If anything, using the title and forming that connection with Leone’s classic is going to be counterproductive.
What do you think about the, A Fistful of Dollars remake? Will you see it or should Sergio Leone’s iconic works be left unsullied? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
