Spaghetti Western

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Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name in a publicity image for A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone

The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success.[1] The term was used by foreign critics because most of these Westerns were produced and directed by Italians.[2]

The majority of the films in the spaghetti Western genre were international co-productions by Italy and Spain, and sometimes France, West Germany, Britain, Portugal, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the United States. Over six hundred European Westerns were made between 1960 and 1978.[3] Most spaghetti Westerns filmed between 1964 and 1978 were made on low budgets, and shot at Cinecittà Studios and various locations around southern Italy and Spain.[4]

Leone's films and other core spaghetti Westerns are often described as having eschewed, criticized or even "demythologized"[5] many of the conventions of traditional U.S. Westerns. This was partly intentional, and partly the context of a different cultural background.[6] In 1968, the wave of spaghetti Westerns reached its crest, comprising one-third of the Italian film production, only to collapse to one-tenth in 1969. Spaghetti Westerns have left their mark on popular culture, strongly influencing numerous works produced in and outside of Italy.

  1. ^ Nelson, Peter (9 January 2011). "The spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone". Spaghetti Western Database. Archived from the original on 21 October 2016. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  2. ^ Gelten, Simon; Lindberg (10 November 2015). "Introduction". Spaghetti Western Database. Archived from the original on 30 June 2017. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Riling was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Moliterno was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Dirks, Tim. "Westerns Films (part 5)". Filmsite. American Movie Classics Company LLC. Archived from the original on 16 February 2009. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
  6. ^ Frayling (2006), pp. 39–67.