Sergio Leone [Hardcover]

Christopher Frayling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2005

In the early 1960s, an unknown Italian film director named Sergio Leone was given USD200,000 and leftover film stock, and told to make a Western. With a script based on a Samurai epic, an American TV actor called Clint Eastwood, music composer Ennio Morricone and cameraman Massimo Dallamano, Leone was expected to make what was essentially a throwaway film. What he ended up with was A Fistful of Dollars, the first in a trilogy that came to define the Spaghetti Western. The films that complete the trilogy, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, are, like the first film, violent, cynical and visually stunning. This examination of Leone and the Italian Western contains an authoritative text written by film expert and cultural historian Christopher Frayling. It also includes interviews with Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Sergio Leone, Rod Steiger, Ennio Morricone, James Coburn, Lee Van Cleef, Peter Bogdanovich, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jason Robards and Claudia Cardinale, as well as writings by Sergio Leone on film. The text is accompanied by a wealth of visual material, including production stills, lobby cards, pictorial source sketches, costume and set designs, Italian release posters and photographs of original props.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Sergio Leone is identified with spaghetti WesternsDviolent, visually imaginative Sixties and Seventies films that exploded the clich s of the Hollywood Western. Leone brought stardom to TV actor Clint Eastwood, who was cast as an antihero alien to Westerns and who admitted that Leone "really doesn't know anything about the West." Instead, the director's West existed as a sort of fever dream, and his tales, the author notes, were "fairy-tales for grown-ups." In the first detailed study of this original director, Frayling (Spaghetti Westerns) explores Leone's years of apprenticeship on American films shot in Italy, such as Ben Hur and sword-and-sandal epics like Colossus of Rhodes, which refined Leone's distinctive visual storytelling style. His imagination, however, was fired by the classic Westerns of John Ford. Frayling discusses the director's offbeat humor and considers the charges of misogyny and excessive violence without defending him. These features were evident in Leone's last film, Once Upon a Time in America (1984), an all-star gangster saga that confounded critics and admirers. This informative look at an underappreciated director should spark reappraisals of his work. Recommended for all film collections.DStephen Rees, Levittown Regional Lib., PA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Sergio Leone said he was "obsessed about detail, as everyone knows," so he might have enjoyed this massive biography. Frayling details the late director's life and career, starting with the quirky story lines and prescient casting of the spaghetti Westerns that first brought Leone to public attention and saved Clint Eastwood's career. Nowhere is Frayling's detailing more evident than in the description of the project that became Once Upon a Time in America. The script was based on a possibly autobiographical book by a taciturn recluse who may have been a retired gangster. Leone immersed himself in the story's milieu, which licenses Frayling's ample explanation of the surprising ethnic diversity Leone discovered in the gangsters of the mean streets of the Lower East Side in the 1920s and 1930s. The finished film's viewers will concur that, despite its rather preposterous climax, it looks great and positively drips atmosphere, as so many of Leone's films did. More active than introspective, despite its length, the book drips atmosphere, too. Leone fans and others will find it flavorful and informative. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson (June 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500512280
• ISBN-13: 978-0500512289
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,306,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful biography, February 6, 2003

By 

Michael L. White "impossiblefunky" (Westland, MI United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Paperback)

There aren't too many directors who could inspire me to read a 576-page tome about their career. In fact, apart from a handful of auteurs to whom I'm still trying to speak and the dozen or so who have opened their hearts to Cashiers du Cinemart, there aren't too many directors I'd even like to read about. Yet, of all directors-past and present-it's only Sergio Leone's name that I've been scanning for when I troll the "directors biographies" section at Borders Bookstore. Sure, sure, maybe it'd be fun to read a nicely done work on Fritz Lang or Kenji Misumi but it's Leone who presents me with the biggest challenges.
This Italian mastermind helmed a handful of films, nearly all of which would rank among my favorites. More than creating some damn fine work, Leone's style influenced untold filmmakers. His films were operas powered by the music of Ennio Morricone. His dialogue's sparseness made it all the more powerful. Leone didn't shy away from embracing the language of cinema and creating his own dialect.

Remarkably, though Leone's filmography can be tallied on both hands, the breadth of rumours and conflicting stories are enough to easily fill Frayling's tome. Luckily, Fraying isn't above questioning the veracity of his subject. While never denying Leone respect, Frayling doesn't shirk his journalistic duty to present as many facets of the fiery, passive-aggressive auteur as possible.

Something to Do with Death takes its sweet time to get moving (I had to skip the second chapter and skim a few others before getting to the real "meat" of the book) but, once it gets going, there's little that can deter the reader from delving into the life of a truly enigmatic talent. (ISBN: 0571164382)

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leone is God, and this is the Bible, April 16, 2003

By 

John David Felter (New York (Ripper)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Paperback)

I worship Sergio leone. I've been a huge fan of his films since my childhood in the late Seventies. I've always wanted/needed a weighty, fact-filled bio-reference to illuminate his here-to-fore mysterious life/career. This is that book. More detailed than the expensive, picture-packed Italian book on Leone, S.T.D.W.D. will stand for a long time as the essential Leone tome. Literate, balanced, and exhaustive, this book is a triumph in every respect.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, April 5, 2002

By 

James "Realboss" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sergio Leone: Something to Do with Death (Paperback)

I cannot understand the first review of this book. I understood this book to be a biography of Sergio Leone, not a story about Spaghetti Westerns so I was pleasantly surprised when the author began by desribing the whole cultural background of Mr Leone. The book is certainly not without emotion, but the author has attempted to provide a detailed and unbiased insight into the life of Mr Leone.

Had the book been more "humourous" as per the intial reviwer thoughts, this would have diverted from the objective of a biography, as I am sure Sergio's life was not just fun all the time, no offense to the first reviewer ("You smell like a pig already, lets try not to make things any worse" Tuco's guard "The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly")

Mr Frayling has obviously researched his subject in a fantastically detailed way, constructing a clear picture of his life, not just by his films, but by the people around him. This is evident in that Sergio himself contacted Prof Frayling after reading his earlier book on Spagehtti Westerns as it contained information about Sergio's father that even he hadn't previously known.

Check out Cenk Kirals site for Sergio Leone info (he was thanked by the author in the book)