GIU LA TESTA/ ONCE UPON A TIME...REVOLUTION

Tonight I got a real desire to watch Giu la Testa again and it was well worth it. It's probably the film that I disagree most with its critical and popular reception. Even comparing the film with the rest of director Sergio Leone's filmography it stands out for its quality, and alongside that, how undervalued it is. Two scenes in particular should be listed alongside the shoot-out in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and the opening scenes of Once Upon a Time in the West as truly iconic (a word so overused today I hesitate to employ it) cinema moments.

The scene in which Juan (Rod Steiger) unintentionally frees the masses of revolutionaries held prisoner in the Mesa Verde bank employs all of Sergio Leone's distinctive strengths: inventive editing and shot selection, seamless marriage of visual track to a Ennio Morricone score; great attention to detail in terms of the mise-en-scene and a course, tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. The peasant's reluctant rise to a "grand, glorious hero of the revolution" is one of the greatest heist scenes in cinematic history, yet belongs to a largely forgotten film.

The second scene that really stands out and should be seen by any film fan regardless of their opinion of Westerns, Italian Cinema or Leone. That is the scene where Dr. Villega (Romolo Valli) informs on his comrades in the rain. With the only on-screen lighting a car's headlights Leone creates a chiaroscuro portrait of betrayal. We see from Villega's point-of-view through the rain-swept windshield while his interrogator manually wipes in a clever use of altered perspective typical of Leone. We also see the scene, both visually and emotionally, from Sean Mallory's (James Coburn - one of my favourite actors cf. The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid) as he finally loses all faith in revolution and the men who enact it. Leone, according to Christopher Frayling, wanted the scene to resemble one of Goya's Disasters of War paintings and does so. In the hands of a Fellini or De Sica the scene would be heralded by every pretentious critic out there but it remains fairly obscure.

The film as a whole never quite reaches the level of the two scenes described but is a veritable success and should be seen, especially by those fond of Leone's similarly toned Once Upon a Time in America and Once Upon a Time in the West.