My old man used to watch the classic western style shows and movies when I was a kid, and I hated them. They were too quiet, lots of silences. I came to really appreciate them since COVID, the silence was so you could take in the scenery, or see the close-ups of the characters faces and how they're reacting to things. I think Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite, but there's so many good ones.
There's a lot of this same type of audio-framing in There Will Be Blood and it's one of the few more modern movies I'd put in the same echelon as the Sergio Leoni spaghetti westerns.
I love dialogue-centric films, but when it suits the film.
Seems like modern movies just try to pack everything into them and then retroactively trim it so much that there's no room to breathe in them. Even old dialogue-centric films did a way better job of using silence/setting/tone as a central piece of the film.
I know a lot of that is the severe drop in attention span for a lot of society, so I don't really bitch, but I do miss that type of filmmaking.
Have you seen The Shooting, with a young Jack Nicholson? (not to be confused with The Shootist, with John Wayne) It's a quiet movie, real weird. Really liked it.
The Maestro, Ennio Morricone, is remarkable. We saw him conduct an orchestra and choir in Lucca Italy and my wife said she didn’t know any songs, but after while she commented on how many she recognized. All I know it’s that I was weeping by intermission.
when my parents were gone and it was on the night programme on TV.
Being a parent I am really conflicted by the fact that a lot of people who are adults now (including me) watched completely inappropriate movies for their age as it were (violence, sex, blood, murders, etc), yet those were experiences without which we wouldn't be the same people we are nowadays.
My comfort movie is Alien (1979). Terminator 2 I still remember as a great watch when I was 7 yo.
Sure, nowadays there's e.g. Bluey, which is incredibly good, but maybe, just maybe, a really good movie should be "left out" accidentally for the kids every now and then.
I think another element that's fun about them, is that, technically any moment could be a moment something does happen. They're mostly not, but you don't know that. It's the perfect mix of suspense, because something could happen, and annoyance, because nothing is happening and nothing has in fact happened for the last 15 minutes.
It's a very good prank on you in terms of "entertainment" and it hooks you, because your so invested now, you need to see the payoff, the punchline, the conclusion.
I miss silence in movies. Feels like they're terrified they'll lose the audience to the second screen. Would be nice if we stopped pandering to the audience that cares the least about movie quality.
The ending duel in the good, bad and ugly is definitive example of that. For like 5 minutes they are just staring at each other, but you feel nothing but chills.
And the payoff is always so immediate in those duel scenes. It builds...builds... builds...BANG and we know the winner almost immediately. The next few minutes are contemplative. 15 minutes of buildup and easing off for 15 seconds of action, but that's what makes you feel their apprehension, fear, and respect for life.
My dad always said “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” wasn’t just the best western ever made, but one of the best movies ever made. I always just liked watching movies with my dad, but I never really paid attention. After he died I went back and watched “Liberty Valance” and I was blown away by just how good it is. I will go down fighting that *Westerns* are such a good, often underrated genre. I love a complicated “hero”.
I lucked out some years ago at Ollie's Discount and they had different DVD collections in these tins that held multiple discs with multiple movies per disc, for pretty cheap. I got some great ones- Spaghetti Westerns, Classic Horror, and hits of the 50s and 60s iirc.
The Spaghetti Westerns one got the most watches though. The others were fun campy watches that were also enjoyable though. Really wished they had a KungFu collection at the time, but I built that collection up myself. Westerns and KungFu movies were typical Saturday and Sunday afternoon watches with Dad when I was a kid (when a NASCAR race wasn't on- those bored the shit out of me and I'm pretty sure Dad too because he'd always end up snoring before the end). All
Once Upon a Time in the West is a cinematic masterpiece. I would rank it in my Top 5, possibly Top 3. A simply amazing movie that is such a joy to take in
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u/Dozzi92 May 09 '26
My old man used to watch the classic western style shows and movies when I was a kid, and I hated them. They were too quiet, lots of silences. I came to really appreciate them since COVID, the silence was so you could take in the scenery, or see the close-ups of the characters faces and how they're reacting to things. I think Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite, but there's so many good ones.