The Town, Drifters, and the Italian Western: How Italy Changed a Genre

In the essay "Cowboys and Free Markets", Staley Corkin argues that the American movie Western provided "a place to distinguish one American from another
"Drifters" seem to have been around almost as long as the Western genre. In the "classic" Western, Shane (1953), a "drifter" makes friends with a family being pressured to move out of town. Corkin writes about My Darling Clementine (1946) where Wyatt Earp reluctantly saves a town from the ruthless Clanton family. In both films the "drifter" reluctantly becomes the hero "because they are made of better stuff than the others" (Corkin, 67). The cycle of the "drifter" is almost the same in every film the archetype appears. He rides into town for some water or a shave only to find injustice. This revelation keeps him around long enough to stop the injustice, only to move on at the films conclusion. Wyatt Earp assumed the role of sheriff while Shane just remained a house guest.

No matter what occupation the "drifter" assumes, the character invariably delivers the town from its evil inhabitants. The Searchers (1956), Stagecoach (1939), Hondo (1953) and others follow a similar format. As Corkin writes, "This myth defines 'the West' as a condition that removes the artifices of civilization from social life. Within the resulting state of nature, individuals show their essential qualities of character...Such a view relies on a kind of biological determinism, as well as on a simplified concept of nature and civilization" (67). While the American Western simplifies the "drifter's" motives to strong moral character, the Italian Western seems to complicate his morals.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964) creates a similar situation for the "drifter", but his actions are different. It is obvious that Clint Eastwood's 'Joe' is only interested in money and pits the Rojo's and the Baxter's against each other in order to gain as much as possible. Joe's marksmanship is as good or better than those in American Westerns and he continually out-wits the town's two leading families. In most cases, Joe is even framed in the same style as Shane and Wyatt Earp, from below, to make his seem larger and more dominant than his adversaries. However, since Joe's goal is more individualistic, the results he produces are different. The end of the movie has Joe riding off into the sunset, but leaving very few inhabitants left in San Miguel. Both of the head families are dead, leaving only the bartender and the coffin-maker. The town may be better off without the Rojo's or Baxter's, but it is not a prospering new civilization as the ones John Wayne's characters left behind. Joe does not totally escape the American Western tradition, though, since he leaves the town with no money after giving it to a poor family on their way out of town. His intentions are not entirely for money. After this film, a trend begins to develop in Italian Western's that has American characters as "drifters", but also as the villains. They no longer have any good in them, but are solely after monetary gain.

Bill Tate in A Bullet for the General (1967) is such a character. This "drifter" is still faster on the draw and smarter than everyone in the film, but all of his actions are directed at gaining more money. He rides trains carrying firearms for weeks in order to join a group of bandits who, hopefully, will lead him to Elias, a revolutionary leader. Tate doesn't drink, smoke, or like women. When he finally reaches Elias, he shoots him (in the back, which would not be a sign of a typical American drifter) and gains the reward on Elias' head. At one point in the film, Tate and the bandit Chuncho arrive at a town (also called San Miguel). Chuncho wants to stay and help them with their revolutionary fight, but Tate convinces the rest of the bandits to move on and find Elias. Chuncho becomes the character the audience is supposed to relate with.

It is a Mexican, rather than an American that garners the most emotional attention. His conflict between gaining money and fighting for what he believes in is the focal point of the movie. To end the film, Chuncho decides to kill Tate and continue fighting the revolution. As the American Western asked audiences to identify with "heroic figures and the terms of American life they personify: physical courage, moral certainty, and the power of the individual to alter circumstances according to a morally justified vision of the future", the Italian's ask the audience to identify with morally uncertain characters with no idea what the future will hold (Corkin, 74).

The importance of the town is another similarity between the American and Italian Western films. The American Western uses the town as a place for moral and economic growth and to expand on the manifest destiny. Corkin says that American films "ask audiences to engage affectively in a view of the American nation that allows for acts of empire or hegemony to be seen as the expression of a rational and moral imperative that will ensure progress and promote the development of civilization" (74). The "evil" characters try to impede this process while the "good" heroes permit the process to evolve by defeating "evil". After this process the hero can "now move offstage and let a more explicit process of settlement occur" and allow America to grow as planned (Corkin, 75). Again, the simplicity of the American Western town is transformed into an uncanny version of itself in the Italian films.

The town in A Fistful of Dollars is referred to as "dead" on more than one occasion. Throughout the film there is very little reference to any place outside of San Miguel with the exception of the army (that is soon killed off). There is no longer an ideal settlement occurring, but a struggling society on the verge of complete extinction. Inhabitants of the town even look dirtier and apathetic to the constant death around them. Where the American films use "extremely wide or long shots emphasize the openness of the land, a geographical condition that creates the terms of freedom as it invites the exercise of individual will", Dollars is almost entirely shot within the town and without the use of long shots (Corkin, 72). It is much more claustrophobic and does not invite the idea of expansion and new settlement. When Joe leaves town at the films end, he is not exiting to allow for explicit settlement, but leaving behind the dead.

A Fistful of Dollars is unique within the Italian Western because it does stay confined to one town. In most, the town is a small part in a much larger picture. Some films, like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966), completely disregard the idea of a town and continually move the characters from one place to another. A Bullet for the General, however, does keep a town in mind. But much like A Fistful of Dollars the town is in disarray and, eventually, completely decimated. Chuncho's decision to leave San Miguel for money allows for the Mexican government to attack the town without giving it much chance. Similarly, Compañeros keeps the town as a background for much larger ideals.

It is not the development of a town or the expansion of civilization that concerns Professor Xantos and his followers, but the end to an oppressive government and poverty. Xantos' ideology calls for non-violence and acceptance in an ultra-violent world. His followers agree with him in principle, but use violence when they need to. The main scenes in the town occur at the end of the film when the Swede and El Vasco eventually join Xantos and his followers. They must defeat both corrupt Mexican revolutionaries and American bounty hunters out for money. Both the Swede and Vasco are "drifters" who reluctantly join the cause of the town. However, while Vasco is ready to stay and help the town grow, the Swede decides to leave in search of another economic opportunity. This idea fails when he sees the Mexican government coming to attack the town. The Swede then comes back, with rifle in the air, ready to help the cause. This ending does not show the battle, but it isn't hard to imagine that the Mexican government would win with more soldiers and arms. Again, the American's are portrayed as "evil" and the town is not given an opportunity to develop with the accepted ideology.

After finding these differences the logical question would be, why? Both countries made these films in the post World War II period and during the Cold War. The political ideology of each country seems to play a large part shaping the Western. As explained to a certain degree earlier, the idea of American manifest destiny gave the American Western the morally certain, powerful heroes that allowed for the countries ideal growth. Corkin writes that "American exceptionalism is the way in which the 'West' ultimately produces a world made safe for corporate capitalism in an international context" (89). It is not only the town being saved, but ideologically, the world. The heroes sometimes literally become sheriffs, patrolling the surroundings and clearing out differing ideological groups. This could be considered cleaning out Communism or even other, "scary" races (as with the Native Americans). American Westerns stay consistent through this time period in being morally certain and in search of safety from "evil".

The Italian films take a different approach by looking at expansion through a European perspective. Constant threat of nuclear war seems to be concerning Italian Westerns. A Fistful of Dollars becomes a very nice allegory of the Cold War by pitting two powerful leaders on either side of the town. Joe becomes an atomic bomb of sorts, being used by both sides and eventually killing both. Only a very small portion of the population survives with little hope of growth in a destroyed world. A Bullet for the General sees the American's as money hungry and interfering with the growth of communism as a possible option for poorer countries. Chuncho and Elias seem to believe in the communist system and hope to put it into practice after dismantling the current government. Of course, Tate kills Elias and the hopes of many communist believers. The end does suggest a slim hope for anarchy when Chuncho suggests that the shoeshine boy uses the gold to buy dynamite and not bread. The American bounty hunters in Compañeros also kill the leader of a rebellion and try to stop the spread of new political ideology.

Even though the Italian Western keeps many structures from the American version of the genre, its changes are important. Both the "drifter" and the town recall the American ideal and the hope of expansion, but the outcomes differ greatly. Hope and growth are exchanged for death and destruction. The American characters eventually become vilified in a genre that is prototypically American. Threats of the Cold War and nuclear bombs cause different concerns for each country and showed themselves through Western films. The simplicity of morally concerned "drifters" and the destiny of the frontier are not taken for granted in Italy, but are actually upended. For Italy, it is not the strongest that survives, but the wealthiest and most numerous that prosper. The underlying hope, if any, is that this trend changes and the strong-willed actually do fulfill their supposed destiny and one day rule.