Sergio Leone is an Italian director, producer, screenwriter and actor. One of the most influential filmmakers of the twentieth century, is considered the creator of the spaghetti western genre. During his career as a director, he created only eight paintings. Best known for the movies "The Dollar Trilogy" and the crime drama Once Upon a Time in America.
Childhood and youth
Sergio Leone was born on January 3, 1929 in the capital of Italy, Rome. Father - Vincenzo Leone, a director who worked under the pseudonym Roberto Roberty, one of the founders of Italian cinema. Mother is a famous silent film actress Bice Valerian.
While studying at school, I met the famous composer Ennio Morricone, who was a classmate of Leone. Since childhood, the future director was on the set of his father’s paintings, then his interest in cinema arose. At the age of eighteen, Sergio Leone left his studies at the university, where he was supposed to get a law degree, and decided to start his career as a director.
The beginning of professional activity
One of Sergio’s first works was the classic Italian film Bicycle Thieves, where the young filmmaker acted as the second director. Also at this time, Leone began to write scripts.
In the fifties of the last century, Leone began working as an assistant director in Italian films and American films, which were shot in Italy. In those days, historical epics about ancient Rome were extremely popular.
In 1954, Sergio Leone worked as the second director in the comedy film "They Stole a Tram." When the director of the film fell ill, and then quarreled with the main star of the film, Leone, together with another director, finished the comedy.
Historical paintings
The second film by Sergio Leone, where he acted as a director, was the historical epic 1959 “The Last Days of Pompeii”. The director of the film, Mario Bonnard, fell seriously ill in the early days of filming, and the project was completed by Leone along with the scriptwriters of the film.
However, Sergio did not appear in the credits of these two films as a director. The official directorial debut for him was the painting "Colossus of Rhodes." The film was shot by an Italian film crew, but investors insisted that the actors in the picture speak French. Leona had to communicate with them through an interpreter. Later, the director mentioned in an interview that he made the film solely for the fee that he spent on his honeymoon.
The period of "cowboy" paintings
Sergio Leone was a big fan of Westerns, but believed that in the late fifties the genre was completely outdated and ceased to amaze the viewer. That is why he decided to remove his next project in this genre in order to try to revive it.
The film "For a Fistful of Dollars" was released in 1964. The main role was played by the relatively unknown American actor Clint Eastwood. The crew was Italian, and the shooting took place in Spain. The low-budget picture proved to be excellent at the Italian box office, but could only find a distributor in the United States three years later. Critics initially accepted the film coolly, but later Western acquired cult status.
The famous Japanese director Akira Kurosawa filed a lawsuit against the creators of the film, since, in his opinion, the picture not only repeats the plot of his film “The Bodyguard”, but also was shot frame by frame from time to time. The producers paid Kurosawa a sum of several tens of thousands of dollars and gave him fifteen percent of the rental income.
The second film of the so-called “dollar trilogy” was released in 1965 and was called “A Few More Dollars”. Clint Eastwood again played the main role in the film, another American, Lee Van Cleef, got a second central role. Western proved to be even better at the European box office than the first part of the trilogy.
The following year the most famous trilogy movie came out - "Good, Bad, Evil." The main characters in the western again performed Eastwood and Van Cleef, the third central role went to Elai Wallach. All three films of the trilogy were released in the United States within one year and received negative reviews from critics. However, after a few years, a new generation of viewers was able to fully appreciate the work of Leone, and today “Good, Bad, Evil” is included in many lists of the best films in history.
In 1968, the new Western Sergio Leone "Once Upon a Time in the West" was released. The role of the main villain was played by the beloved actor Sergio - Henry Fonda. Also in the picture appeared the famous American actor Charles Bronson. Like previous projects of the director, this film gained cult status several years after the release.
The last western in the career of the director was the film "For a Fistful of Dynamite." He was forced to film after Peter Bogdanovich and Sam Pekinpa left the post of director. This picture proved to be worse at the box office than Leone's previous work and is considered the most underrated western in his career.
Once upon time in America
For many years, the film “Once Upon a Time in America” remained the dream project for the director. Sergio Leone got into the idea of creating a picture back in the sixties, he was looking for funding for a long time, changed the cast of the film several times and even refused to stage the Godfather project for the sake of Once Upon a Time in America.
The film, starring in Robert De Niro and James Woods, was released in 1984. Leona had to cut the timing of the picture several times. As a result, a three-hour version of forty minutes was released in Europe, while in the USA the studio released a tape mounted not by Leone, a little more than two hours long. Initially, the film turned out to be a box office and creative failure. However, over the years, it was the longer, directorial version that gained distribution, and the picture entered the list of the best in history.
In 1989, Sergio Leone died of a heart attack at the age of sixty. His main unfinished project was the film "900 Days", which tells about the siege of Leningrad. The director was able to get a budget of one hundred million from the studio, even without a finished script.
Also in development was a western “Place that Mary Only Knows”, a mini-series “Colt” and an adaptation of the classic novel “Don Quixote”.
Director style and influence on cinema
The Westerns of Sergio Leone laid the foundation for a new direction in European cinema called “spaghetti western”. The special visual style of Leone's films - with close-ups, unusual editing, and vivid acts of violence - influenced such famous directors as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese and John Wu.
Ordinary viewers also over the years began to discover the work of the Italian. Today you can find films by Sergio Leone in the lists of not only the best Westerns, but also the best films in the history of cinema. His paintings have become a real classic, not only for scorched synephiles, but also for the average viewer. Almost anyone, even not being a Western fan, knows the name of the film Sergio Leone - at least one.
Personal life
The director was married to a choreographer named Carla from 1960 until his death. The couple has three children.
Prior to filming Once Upon a Time in America, Sergio did not speak English, communicating with the actors through an interpreter. Many of them later noted the unusual character and numerous antics of Leone.