Pardon My Three Rioters

Good Morning Everyman and Everywoman,

So, check out the latest comment from Dr. V. down below in the comment section. She has provided us with some interesting brain fodder, making some connections with other great Western films and medieval plays. I find this “Pardoner’s Tale” connection to the “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” interesting and I am wondering if this tale could have been part of Sergio’s early classical education. Did the Italian schools of the pre-war era teach medieval classics…you would think so? More likely, since we know from GBU history, that Sergio was a fan of all things in western film and that his films, especially the GBU, represented many of the films he loved and the things he loved about them, except twisted.

Notice Dr. V’s reference to the “three rioters” in this play and the film. They are apparently seeking death in their search for gold. Sound familiar. But unlike the “Treasure”, when the three main characters face death over gold in the GBU, only the Bad perishes, while The Good betrays the Ugly, but only to save him…oh and improve his odds. Seems more moral to me.

So the answer here is to delve into the “Pardoner’s Tale” for a time and see what insights it may hold for us. See you when I am done.

Lament

Some Professional Help

Hey Everyman and Everywoman,
I have something interesting for you. Dr. V. Some professional help to better understand this morality play thing. I added her blog to right. Check it out. Looks like we have some more reading to do. Lament

Ne rocket science pas

Greetings readers or relatives as it may be. Added several interesting links on the right. Second and third. Check them out.

Mr. Greenblatt says:

Morality plays are “more often centered on the stock character generally known as the Vice. This jesting, prattling mischief-maker---bearing in different interludes names such as Riot, Iniquity, Liberty, Idleness, Misrule, Double Device, and even, in one notable instance, Hickscorner---embodied simultaneously the spirit of wickedness and the spirit of fun”

Interesting. If you take all his vices and line them up with Tuco’s full Christian name, you get this. More proof of the GBU is a morality play.

Riot, Iniquity, Liberty, Idleness, Misrule, Double Device

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan-Maria Ramirez

Well close enough. It might be science.

Lament

A Fistfull Of Morality Facts

Just some thoughts. I have been reading the Sergio Leone book, Something About Death. by Christopher Frayling. In a passage Sergio talks about his motivation for the story of the GBU. We can see that he was thinking about GBU as a morality play as well. He comments on his characters and their personification of abstract ideas like goodness, badness and of course ugliness as is common in the average everyday morality play.

Leone says...I had always thought that the good, the bad and the violent did not exist in any absolute, essential sense. It seemed to me interesting to demystify these adjectives in the setting of a Western. An assasin can display a subline alurism while a good man can kill with total indifference. A person who appears to be ugly may, when we get to know him better, be more worthy than he seems and capable of tenderness. I had the old Roman song engraved in my memory, a song which seemed to me full of common sense.

E'morto un Cardinale (A Cardinal is dead,)
che ha fatto bene e male (who did good and bad things.)
Il mal l'ha fatto bene (The bad, he did well)
e il ben l'a fatto male. (and the good, he did badly.)

Interesting, don't you find? The making of a morality play, on film of course, if I every did see one. And using such a revered reference and some Italian even. Lends a bit of class and credence to my arguement that GBU is indeed what it appears, a spaghetti western morality play.

Ok, it is a stretch, but I have to try. Perhaps my ideas will become more clear and the connections made more profoundly as we process. I could of course use some help.

Lament

Everyman Evolves

Arch Stanton As Promised

Arch Stanton's grave. Soon to be added to the Sad Hill Cemetery Prop. Oh goodie.

Just enjoying working on some the of the props. This one is part of the Sad Hill Cemetery in Scene 7. Sad Hill was the place where the gold in GBU was supposed to be buried. Blondie and Tuco were making their way there, with Blondie knowing the grave and Tuco knowing the cemetary. There will be a partial iron fence added as well as a second open grave where another character, marionette with reside until Everyman comes to lament his situation. The grave will be a wooden cross with the name Arch Stanton on it, the name of the person that resides next to the unknown soldier's coffin that contains the two hundred thousand in gold in the GBU.