Man with No Name
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Man with No Name | |
|---|---|
| Western character | |
 Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly |
|
| First appearance | A Fistful of Dollars |
| Last appearance | Pale Rider |
| Created by | Sergio Leone |
| Portrayed by | Clint Eastwood |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | "Joe" "Monco" "Blondie" "Preacher" |
| Aliases | The Stranger |
| Occupation | Gunslinger |
The Man with No Name is a stock character in western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character (or possibly characters) played by American actor Clint Eastwood in what is often called "The Dollars Trilogy" directed by Sergio Leone.
Contents |
[edit] Characteristics
The "Man with No Name", as personified by Eastwood, embodies the archetypical characteristics of the American movie cowboy — toughness, exceptional physical strength or size, independence, and skill with a gun — but departed from the original archetype in his moral ambiguity. Unlike the traditional cowboy, exemplified by actors John Wayne, Alan Ladd, and Randolph Scott, the Man with No Name will fight dirty and shoot first, if required by his own self-defined sense of justice. In the 1966 film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly The Man with No Name is called Blondie by Tuco. Although he tends to look for ways to benefit himself, he has, in a few cases, aided others if he feels an obligation to, such as freeing a couple held captive in A Fistful of Dollars and comforting a dying soldier after the bridge explosion in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
He is generally portrayed as an outsider, a mercenary or bounty hunter, or even an outlaw. He is characteristically soft-spoken and laconic, speaking only when necessary, with as few words as possible. The character is an often-cited example of an anti-hero, although he has a soft spot for people in deep trouble.
[edit] Image
The character's distinctive appearance consists of a battered brown hat with a telescope crown, black jeans, tan boots, a wool-lined leather vest, and a patterned sarape or "poncho." He is usually armed with one revolver with a metal snake on the grip, which is holstered on a gunbelt. In contrast with other Western heroes of the early- to mid-1960s, The Man is unshaven, almost to the point of sporting a full beard. He habitually smokes a small cigar while working.
Due to low budget considerations, Eastwood made the initial investment for his character's appearance and demeanour. Most of the clothing was purchased second-hand in California (with the exception of the serape, which was provided by Leone); the gunbelt and holster were from Eastwood's previous TV series Rawhide. The Man's trademark cigars were also from California; their harshness put Eastwood in what he called a "scratchy mood," which aided in his characterization.
[edit] Consistence through the series
In the "Dollars" Trilogy, Eastwood plays a character with the same mannerisms, wearing the same poncho, lambskin vest and hat, and sporting a silver rattlesnake-shaped plate on the handle of his gun. The question whether the intention was to portray the same individual character in all three films is debatable, but many fans believe that the last film in the trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a prequel of sorts to the earlier two,[citation needed] since it is set during the American Civil War and before the period thought of as the "Wild West". Furthermore, Eastwood's character gradually acquires the clothing that he wears throughout the other films in the series, getting his hat, vest and other clothing from the assassin "Angel-Eyes" and taking his signature serape from an anonymous, dying soldier, in exchange for his duster. It can also be noted that the actor portraying the undertaker (Joseph Egger) from the first film shows up in the second as someone Eastwood's character is familiar with. Whether this points to the old man playing the same person or not is unknown as many of the same actors played roles in the three films of characters who were obviously unrelated (such as Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in both For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as different characters). An expanded version of the movie soundtrack from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly released in 2004 featured a previously unreleased piece titled Il Bandito Monco, i.e. the "The Bandit Monco" (Monco is the nickname of Eastwood's character in the preceding movie and means "one handed" in Italian), lending support to the theory that Eastwood is intended to portray the same character in the three movies.[1] Another interesting note is that towards the end of the first film, one of The Man With No Name's hands is badly injured in a torture scene, and is never shown to totally heal: this might be a connection to the second movie, in most of which he uses only one hand, the other one being saved for shooting only. However, Christopher Frayling has pointed out in his Leone biography, Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death, that the three films were not intended by Leone or his various script collaborators to be seen as a history of the exact same individual and that it was United Artists, not the filmmakers, who came up with the idea of specifically linking the three films together as a series by referring to the Eastwood character as The Man With No Name in all advertising materials for the movies.[2]
[edit] Occasional names
The credits for A Fistful of Dollars list Eastwood's character as "Joe" and though the undertaker in the movie calls him by that name, he is the only character to do so (and it is further worth noting that "Joe" is often used as a generic nickname). Thus, during the entire incident in the beginning of the movie, he uses only his left hand when lighting his cigar, dealing the cards and striking the man he is hunting (keeping the right hand on his gun the whole time). However, he uses both hands equally throughout the rest of the film. Critic Richard Schickel states in the special edition release of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly that Eastwood's character did have a name as the character is sometimes referred to as "Blondie", although Tuco Ramirez is the only one to do so. Given that Eastwood's character never states his own name and shows no evidence of having visited any of the locations in the three films previously, a possible conclusion from viewing the films alone is that all of the above ("Joe", "Monco" and "Blondie") are nicknames given to him by the other characters simply for the sake of having some means of addressing him.
[edit] Japanese origin and evolution
A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It was the subject of a successful lawsuit by Yojimbo's producers.[3] The film's protagonist, a gruff, unconventional ronin played by Toshiro Mifune, bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood's character: both are quiet, gruff, eccentric strangers with a strong but unorthodox sense of justice and superhuman proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a katana; for Eastwood, a revolver).
Like Eastwood's character, Mifune's ronin is nameless. When pressed, he gives the pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake (meaning "thirty-something mulberry field"), a reference to his age and something he sees through a window. The convention of saving an arm to kill is shared as well with Mifune's character typically wearing his arms inside his kimono, leaving the sleeves empty.[4] Prior to signing on to Fistful, Eastwood had seen Kurosawa's film and was impressed by the character.[5] During filming, he did not emulate Mifune's performance beyond what was already in the script. He also insisted on removing some of the dialogue in the original script, making the character more silent and thus adding to his mystery. As the trilogy progressed, the character became even more silent and stoic.
Yojimbo is itself, however, believed to have been based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest. Leone himself clearly believed this theory, stating:
Kurosawa's Yojimbo was inspired by an American novel of the serie-noire so I was really taking the story back home again.[6]
Kurosawa never credited the author, despite acknowledging the source.[citation needed] The name of the lead character in Red Harvest is also unrevealed, referred to only as the Continental Op after the detective agency he works for.
A subsequent film Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis is a credited remake of Yojimbo..
[edit] Other media
The popularity of the character brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the 'Dollar' series due to the common theme in their titles were written by Joe Millard and Brian Fox. They included novelizations to A Fistful of Dollars, written by Frank Chandler and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and are as follows:
- A Coffin Full of Dollars by Joe Millard
- A Dollar to Die For by Brian Fox
- The Devil's Dollar Sign by Joe Millard
- Blood For a Dirty Dollar by Joe Millard
- The Million-Dollar Bloodhunt by Joe Millard
- The Good & The Bad by David Searle
In July of 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring The Man With No Name. Set after the events of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic will be written by Christos Gage. Interstingly, Dyanmite refers to him as Blondie..[7] The first issue is to be released in the Spring of 2008, entitled, The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier.[8]
[edit] The Man with No Name in popular culture
Other films featuring characters very similar to the Man with No Name include Leone's later Once Upon a Time in the West featuring Charles Bronson in a role somewhat akin to Eastwood's (known in the movie as "Harmonica" since he plays one); Eastwood's own films, High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider; The Tonino Valerii film My Name Is Nobody starring Terence Hill as Nobody; and the more recent Yojimbo remake Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis (directed by Walter Hill). Tony Anthony played "the Stranger" in a trilogy of spaghetti westerns produced by Allen Klein and released by MGM.
The protagonist of George Miller's "Mad Max" trilogy, played by Mel Gibson, shares many traits with the archetypal Clint Eastwood character. In the third film of the series, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", the announcer at the Thunderdome introduces the "Max" character to the crowd as "The Man With No Name".
In the movie version of Paint Your Wagon, although Eastwood's character bears little resemblance to the traditional Man with No Name, he still lacks a name and is referred to simply as "Pardner" throughout the movie. At the end he reveals that his name is Sylvester Newel.
The Man with No Name was the inspiration for Roland Deschain, the protagonist of Stephen King's epic, seven-volume Dark Tower series. Character Eddie Dean even notes "He's some sort of Clint Eastwood."
The Man With No Name is also the inspiration for the main character in the computer game Red Dead Revolver.
George Lucas attributes the character of Boba Fett to The Man with No Name in the DVD commentary on The Empire Strikes Back. His armour is reminiscent of Eastwood's poncho used throughout the trilogy. The most obvious similarity between the characters is that they are both bounty hunters. In true style of "a man with no name", Fett's name is not mentioned once in The Empire Strikes Back. When he enters the scene on Cloud City after Darth Vader blocks Han Solo's blaster shots with his hand, the clink of spurs can be heard clearly, even though the character does not wear spurs.
In one episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger featured in a Wild West parody as an outlaw wanted for stealing a train. He called himself "The Tigger with No Name", while his sidekick, Pooh, called himself "The Pooh with A Name (if only [he] could remember what it was)".
One episode of Animaniacs featured Chicken Boo disguising himself as "The man with no personality."
One-Eyed Garth in the Magic: The Gathering series of novels, specifically "Arena", bears a strong resemblance to the character, in that he doesn't reveal his name until the end of the book (and then it is someone else who reveals it) and he has a mysterious purpose. Furthermore, the plot of the book loosely follows that of A Fistful of Dollars, with One Eye playing warring organizations against each other and profiting off all of them.
In the cartoon series Time Squad, an episode featured the team time traveling to cause Billy the Kid to become an outlaw. The team was successful enough that a Man With No Name, bearing a great resemblance to Eastwood, was sent after them. The bounty hunter pursued them throughout the episode, even after they had returned to the future.
A graphic novel named Dead West features a protagonist who bears a great resemblance to Eastwood, including the serape. The unnamed protagonist, a bounty hunter, chases a bandit to the town of Lazarus, where the dead have risen as Zombies. The bounty hunter eventually burns half the town and kills the leader of the zombies, though his mark manages to escape.
In the Japanese eroge ( adult computer game ) Satsuriko no Jango by NitroPlus, one of the protagonists is a female gunslinger named Donne Anonime, meaning "a woman with no name". The game itself is based on those spaghetti westerns where the man with no name was popularized.
In Back to the Future Part III, Marty defeats Buford by imitating the final showdown in A Fistful of Dollars (which he had seen in Biff's penthouse suite in Part II).
The appearance and personality of the main character of Oddworld Inhabitants' Western video game Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is very similar to that of the Man with No Name. In addition, his name is never revealed, with characters simply calling him "stranger".
In the Futurama episode "Where the Buggalo Roam", Zapp Brannigan says "I am the man with no name... Zapp Brannigan".
The Marvel Comics character Wraith is based on the Man with No Name.
Xander Harris, a character from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, dresses as the Man With No Name in the episode "Inca Mommy Girl" for a Halloween party. In explaining his costume Xander claims to be from "the country of Leone, it's in Italy, pretending to be Montana," which is an allusion to Sergio Leone's westerns.
In transformers animated, there is an episode called Fistful of Energon. Also, a character named Lockdown wears a costume similar to Clint Eastwood's character in this movie.
[edit] Filmography as “The Man with No Name”
- A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
- For a Few Dollars More (1965)
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
[edit] Filmography as "The Stranger"
- High Plains Drifter (1973)
- Pale Rider (1985)
[edit] References
- ^ Amazon.com entry
- ^ Frayling, Christopher. Sergio Leone: Something To Do With Death, Faber & Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-571-16438-2
- ^ Moving Image program notes for Yojimbo
- ^ Roger Ebert review
- ^ From an interview conducted for a DVD documentary on Kurosawa
- ^ Frayling, Spaghetti Westerns (1981)
- ^ Christos Gage on Dynamite's The Man with No Name, July 12 2007, at Newsarama
- ^ Man With No Name: The Good, The Bad And The Uglier #1, Newsarama, March 25, 2008
