Please don't forget the Akira Kurosawa "Easterns" as well.
I just rewatched "Seven Samurai"...expressionistic faces take a while to
adapt to, but then it rightly gets its "Certified Cinema Classic"
status. Staging of the extended last battle scenes (horses, stockades
etc!!) is superb. A journey as much as a film. Remade, of course, as
"The Magnificent Seven".
Also, "Yojimbo". I must see that one again. Remade as "Fistful of
Dollars", thus the model for the Clint Eastwood "Man with no name"
characterisation.
IMHO, they are the two key ones.
They, like a good western, have a mythic quality. I think that is what
separates the wheat from the chaff.
Nick
PS I agree about the Sergio Leone style...along with Ennio Morricone's
music etc. His westerns are not necessarily the best, but they are worth
watching as pulp westerns. Clint certainly knew how to grind down on a
cigar!
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