Fistful of DollarsLeone's First Dollars Film

Sergio Leone's first "spaghetti western" A Fistful of Dollars deals with some interesting questions for morality and law. The town of San Miguel represents a place where there is an absence of both of the above. With this in mind, the question of the Stranger, Marisol, and her son's purpose must be answered. Also what, if anything, is accomplished through the Stranger's actions? Throughout the film, there are subtle clues the lead to the conclusion that law is a thing of the past and morality is even harder to come by. Both will be symbolically thrown aside and killed for the sake of money and power. By the end, the Stranger will turn into a strange savior figure and the evil that resides in San Miguel will totally disappear.

To argue that the Stranger turns into a savior figure, it must first be proven that something must be saved. If San Miguel is indeed a lawless town, then its inhabitants must be brought to justice. It is important to prove that the town is, in fact, missing the proper authority to clean itself of crime. As the Stranger comes back to the Baxter house moments after he is shot at, he tries to get the culprits to apologize to his horse. This attempt is laughed at by the shooters, so the Stranger ends up shooting the men in order to atone for his misfortune. What happens next is interesting. John Baxter, the head of the Baxter house, comes out and claims that the Stranger is at fault and must pay for his actions. He then takes a few moments to search his pockets and find his badge, claiming that he is the sheriff of the town. Of course, the sheriff has no power over the Stranger since he is never reprimanded for the killings, but walks away and makes some humorous comments. The important image to get from this exchange is that Baxter is not wearing his badge, and it takes him awhile to actually find it. He may even be in more danger if he actually did wear the badge. Law has no say in San Miguel and is ignored by everyone, leaving the town in need of someone to clean it up.

A very symbolic "killing" of the law comes in the first scene that we meet Ramon, the most deadly of the Rojo's. The Stranger and his friend watch on as one cavalry is ambushed by another. This would seem to be just corruption of one side of the law, but we later learn that Ramon and his gang have already killed the other side and are posing as them. It is as if every form of law enforcement is being exterminated. There is no law within the town, and now they cannot even get help from law outside of town. During the scene, fast cutting seems to speed up the murders, but the scene takes a very long time to end. When it appears to be over, another body gets up and tries to escape, only to be met with a barrage of bullets. It is as if there is no escape for the law and all of them must die. As the scene ends, a long shot of the entire area shows just how many dead bodies there are. This ties in with the actual scenery around the town itself, totally isolated from any other life. It's not like they can go over to the next town and ask for help. San Miguel is in a hopeless spot, in the control of two different families. Again, the subtle imagery from the camera conveys a message that doesn't seem to be present on the surface, but clearly shows how absent any law enforcement is in the area.

After the law is swiftly taken out of the film, the next step is to visualize the absence of morality. As the Stranger and his friend take two of the dead cavalry men to the cemetery, and interesting image appears. On the caskets and marking some grave sites is the crucifix, a symbol of Christian sacrifice and victory over sin. The strange part is that the only times any cross appears in on a casket or in the graveyard. There is no mention of a church or religion within the town at all. This symbolizes the death of faith and morality within the town of San Miguel. If the cross in supposed to stand for a victory over sin, this film seems to change that around. The cross seems to mark sins victory over faith. All of the crosses produced in San Miguel end up traveling to the graveyard, keeping a continual death of morality present at all times, except for a small family that doesn't seem to fit in with this environment.

There is obvious symbolism in the names of Marisol (Mary) and her son Jesus. The connection with the virgin mother and the perfect son happens whenever names like this appear in a movie. Here, they seem to represent the only surviving faith left in San Miguel. Unfortunately they do not appear to fit in with the corruption and sin of the other characters and must somehow escape. This brings about a change in the Stranger into the "savior" figure. He now uses his powers to help rid the town of corruption and save the only faithful people. In fact, the casket maker calls the Stranger "Joe", making him a more logical connection with Marisol than her actual husband "Julio". "Joe" may belong with this "holy" family more than Julio since the latter lost his wife in a fixed card game. When he reconnects the family and sends them off to safety, the Stranger even gives up the money he has earned so far to help them on their journey. What has seemed to be his only reason to stay in the town is no longer viable. Money is no longer his purpose. There is really no explanation as to why he does this except that he "knew a woman in a similar situation and there was no one to help her out". This doesn't really explain anything though, since we don't know anything else about his past. In fact, his tone and attitude is as if he just wants them to leave and might have just made up a story to appease them. The family leaves and the town is now void of any moral symbols.

The Stranger will continue to transform into a savior by slightly modeling after the life of Jesus Christ. This begins when he returns to the Rojo's house after freeing Marisol's family. Ramon is waiting in his room and they take him to the wine cellar to beat information out of him. Close-ups of the Stranger's bloody face accentuate his pain and the scene takes a long time to complete, similar to the cavalry murder sequence. The really symbolic gesture that occurs is the burning of a cigar on the Stranger's hand, making the connection to the nails in Jesus' hands. He is obviously no longer staying around for himself, because he can get off at any time by saying the where Marisol is. Instead he is sacrificing himself for a moral purpose. The Rojo's leave him beaten almost to his death, but more importantly this is the Stranger's symbolic death from a life of greed to a life of redemption. It even takes three days for the Stranger to emerge from the wine cellar and plan his return, evidenced by one of the men saying, "I've been waiting here for three days..." before entering the cellar and being smashed by a large crate of wine.

With the Stranger missing, the sky is dark and the Rojo's can deal with the Baxter's without interference. The darkness is similar to the atmosphere right after Jesus' death on the cross, not allowing sunlight until his return. Murdering the Baxter's entire household is probably the most immoral action throughout the entire film because they surrender and don't carry weapons. It is also drawn out further than any of the previous murder sequences, with close-ups of the dying faces and of the hatred in the Rojo's faces. People continually come out of the Baxter house in flames and are shot to death without any compassion. Even the most deadly villains in old westerns would only shoot if they other people were armed, but the Rojo's savagely murder unarmed men, and even women. At times the camera takes the Stranger's perspective, lying in a casket from a distance. This image is important to seeing the Stranger as passing from one way of life to another by a symbolic death.

Hiding in a remote place, we learn that only the casket maker and the bar owner know of his whereabouts, much like the disciples soon after Jesus' return from the grave. The bar owner is even being torture for his knowledge of the Stranger, similar to the martyrdom of disciples later in their lives. Upon the return of the Stranger, the bullets of Ramon are of no use, primarily because of a bulletproof vest, but more symbolically because the Christ figure can only have one death. He is unable to die no matter what the Rojo's do to him. The final showdown reveals the power the Stranger has, even more than his first encounter with the Baxter's. He is up against five men with guns. Close-ups of guns, faces, boots, and eyes follow, showing the anger of the Stranger and the frightened Rojo's. This violence is prolonged psychologically rather than physically as violence has been before. The actual shooting is very short, leaving the Stranger with one bullet and Ramon without a gang or a gun. Of course, unlike the Rojo's, the Stranger cannot kill a man without a gun, so he unloads his remaining bullet to free the bar keeper and challenges Ramon to a fair fight. Eventually the Stranger wins, only after another long psychological battle. In the end, the evil Rojo's are no longer alive and the only remaining residents of San Miguel are the two friends of the Stranger and some people we only see at the beginning of the film. It is similar to the Great Flood where God destroys the inhabitants of the earth except for a select few. The Stranger leaves San Miguel with a fresh start and travels on from where he came, an unknown land far from San Miguel.

A Fistful of Dollars appears to be a revisionist western on the surface, but has many layers of symbolism underneath. With it, Leone unravels a new kind of western town without moral values or law enforcement, but with an unnamed man traveling through and finding that he has a purpose besides making money. A reluctant savior accepts his role to rid the town of San Miguel of evil and corruption. The meaning behind the Stranger, Marisol and her son Jesus have been found and have a base in morality and skewed scripture. The town does have a lack of law and morality and by the end, has a chance to redeem itself because of the Stranger. Of course, it is not certain that they will, but the option has been presented.