The Desert and "The Man With No Name"

Spent Monday lounging around, watching Clint Eastwood movies on TCM. The network screened "A Fistful of Dollars", "For A Few Dollars More" and "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" consecutively. I'd not paid attention to them in previous years, but since I had the time (and was feeling \a little run down), it seemed a good time to check 'em out.

Of course, with movies as popular as these, in-depth reviews of characterization, etc., have already been done. Sergio Leone was an artist in directing his series of "spaghetti westerns". Mostly filmed in Spain, using European actors, Leone at once paid homage and came close to parody of Westerns being produced in Hollywood in the late '50s and early '60s.

One thing that struck me in the nearly 7 hours of movies was the starkness of the backdrop. The harsh desert terrain was a key character threading through the films. The desert was an obstacle to overcome, was a tool to punish your enemy or even was refuge from the powers that be.

We all know how unforgiving it can be when the sun is out. We all have heard how bone-chilling cold it can be at night.  To me, there is beauty in the desert. Something about the vastness of it touches me. On a clear day, you can see for miles from certain vantage points. The bits of scrub brush denote a certain persistence  that even in the harshest of climates some things can thrive. On some levels, the desert can be a work of art, as stirring as any other.

The towns that sprung up were usually bare-bones configurations. Not a lot of farming or ranching in most of those towns. Wives and kids endured the hard-scrabble surroundings, while hard-drinking husbands hustled up a buck "by hook or crook".

Eastwood's loner was much like the desert he inhabited. Remote, arid and leather-tough, he had little patience for things that got in the way of his survival. I've not watched enough of his other westerns to know what past events shaped "the Man with No Name", but he seems very much at home in the desert environment. Whether it's bellied up to a bar in a frontier town or walking across the sands at gunpoint, his character reflected his environment.

I don't know if I'll ever seek out the desert as a destination to put down roots (I'm more of an ocean guy), but I appreciate the type of character needed to survive in that climate. The backdrop drew me in as much as the script.