FREE ESSAY ON SPAGETTI OR MACARONI

SPAGETTI OR MACARONI

Spaghetti vs. Macaroni
Which is the cheesiest? The answer is pretty obvious, but let's take a close look.
"Spaghetti Westerns," as their called, are a genre of western films, that have been
created or filmed in Italy and are meant to portray the "Wild West" of America. "Macaroni
Westerns," as I'll call them, make up the traditional western genre, made in the United
States. Let's take a look at the similarities and differences of these genres, and at two
films in particular that represent each genre; The Good the Bad and the Ugly(1966) and
Rio Bravo(1959), which most critics will agree, are great examples of each genre.
Let's start with the most obvious aspect that differs in the two genres. "Macaroni
Westerns" are the cheesiest. These films have are pure cheese. I can barely sit through
one of them. They have the typical characters; the hero(s), the bad guy(s), the fair
maiden, and the quirky sidekick(s). These characters spout out cheesy lines,
demonstrating how good or how bad they are, but they language always remains basically
clean. In the Spaghetti Westerns, the language is a lot more diverse(lots of cussing).
This is because each of these genres play to a different audience.
The "Macaroni Westerns" are family films. They present right, wrong, and have many morals
played out, such as, "no matter how many bad people are trying to kill you, you can take
them all on if you wear a badge and talk like John Wayne." The "Macaroni Westerns" were
typically family movies, because it was typical Hollywood(serving to the masses, whatever
sells big). Violence, profanity, and not having blatantly evil and good characters,
wasn't selling at the time, so we got "Macaroni."
The "Spaghetti Westerns," on the other hand, were not trying to please everybody.(just
the Italian roughnecks) Sure, these westerns took a lot from the traditional westerns,
but they break away from the traditional "Macaroni Westerns" in many ways.(which we shall
soon see) The "Spaghetti Westerns" play to a more liberal audience. They had a lot more
creative liberty. 
Let's take a look at the aforementioned films in terms of plot, framing, editing, sound
and cinematography. The plot in Rio Bravo is your typical American western. It is a
"conflict between civilized order and the lawless frontier."(Bordwell/Thompson p.56) We
have our heros and bad guys laid out before us in black and white. "Colorado" is the
typical hero who tries to stay out of the conflict and then eventually sides with
civilized order. "Dude" is another hero who fallows the same path. Our bad guys are made
obvious from the early moments of the film by means of a murder. There isn't much to
wonder about. 
In The Good the Bad and the Ugly, everything isn't laid out for us from the beginning.
Our "good guy" isn't revealed till quite a ways into the film. In this film, we get a
pretty good idea who the worst guy is, but we are left to constantly wonder where one of
the main characters stands, or if he will eventually become "good." We are forced to
study each character more as they develop, to know who they are. In Rio Bravo, you don't
give it a second thought.
Rio Bravo introduces the plot motivation at the very beginning. The bad guy is in jail,
and the heros have to keep him there till the marshal arrives. In The Good the Bad and
the Ugly, the motivation is revealed as the 200,000 dollars, but most of the characters
don't know about it for half the film. This film seems to stretch things out like that. 
Now let's take a look at the framing. In Rio Bravo, the framing seems to be very simple.
The main character is always in the center of the frame unless another character is
coming into the frame. In The Good the Bad and the Ugly, there is much more use of set
framing. Many scenes and sequences are framed through window, alleys and doorways. This
type of framing seems to pull you into the film much more. It creates framing in the same
way that we frame things in the real world. Also, in The Good the Bad and the Ugly, there
are many more close ups than Rio Bravo, as well as many extreme close ups that let you
catch small eye and facial movements.
Next let's discuss editing. The Good the Bad and the Ugly have, in general, much longer
shots than Rio Bravo does. These extremely long shots are put together into extremely
long scenes; again, much longer than Rio Bravo. 
Both of these films use great amounts of continuity editing. That's about as far as Rio
Bravo goes. The Good the Bad and the Ugly, goes much further with it's use of graphic
editing. One sees graphic matches again and again in this film. One great use of graphic
matching occurs when a character points his gun towards the camera, so that we stare down
the barrel, then the film cuts to a cannon's barrel facing us and firing directly at us.

Another great example would be the match between the horses legs on the street and the
thugs legs as they walk down the hall toward one of our main characters. When we hear the
horses legs stop, we see the thugs legs stop. This helps the audience make the connection
that the thugs only move when there is noise to cover the sound of their steps.
Another piece of editing that we should take a look at are the fades. Fade in's and Fad
out's are very typical in westerns, and we see them in both of these western genres,
although there are significantly less fades in The Good the Bad and The Ugly, than in Rio
Bravo.
Sound, and more specifically, music, is very important for the overall feel of the film.
In Rio Bravo, we have traditional country cheese music, including the ol' sing-a-long
cliche'. This is perfect for the cheese that we see and hear from the characters. 
The music in The Good the Bad and the Ugly is much different. It is much more dramatic
and orchestrated. It seems like more timeless music. An exception would be the theme
music that appears when something "cool" is about to or currently happening. These eerie
whistle-like sounds cut through everything and let us know when something important is
happening.
Let's now move to lighting. This is an area where we see more major differences between
the two films. Rio Bravo uses the traditional three light system of character lighting.
There is the key light, the fill light and the back light. This creates full and soft
features for the characters. The Good the Bad and The Ugly is a far throw from this
style. In most of the scenes there is only one major light source.(key light) There is
usually a strong key light, no back light, and very little, if any, fill light. This
makes for dark shadows and sharp features. This creates very dramatic lighting for the
scenes. Everything seems more intense and powerful. 
Let's not forget Cinematography. How about some generalizations. Many of the shots from
The Good the Bad and the Ugly have a very deep depth of focus compared to a much more
shallow depth of focus in Rio Bravo. There are also much deeper zooms in The Good the Bad
and the Ugly than in Rio Bravo. 
There are also many cliches that we need to discuss. First of all, let's talk about the
names and nick-names. In Rio Bravo, all of the heros have "clever" little names. We have
Chance, Colorado, Dude, and Stumpy. We see these type of names show up in The Good the
Bad and the Ugly. In this film we have, Blondie, Angel Eyes, and Shorty(not present very
long). Another cliche is the "bad guy gets shot and falls from high above the ground to
his death." In both films we see this play true as bad guys fall from rafters and
buildings.