好家伙、坏家伙、怪家伙

摄影机在空旷的西部大地上一扫而过，紧接着镜头滑落在一张过晒、孤绝的脸上。一个从远景切换到脸部的大特写镜头，意在揭示此地并不是真正的空旷，而是被一个近在咫尺的亡命之徒占据着。

在电影的开篇，赛尔乔·莱翁内就为《黄金三镖客》贯彻了一个镜头准则：眼见不一定为实，内容的呈现受制于画面的边框。在影片中的一些重要时刻，镜头以外、人物看不见的地方，为莱翁内提供了创作的自由，他的镜头也成为我们获得意外发现的入口，而这些意外往往不能以常理度之。

例如有一次，人们没有一开始就注意到联邦军队的巨大营地，而是在一次偶然间发现了它。还有一次在墓地里，一个本该在一英里之外就能被发现的人，却显得像是凭空出现的。男人们走在大街上，视野全然，但是周围却没有人击中他们，或许是因为两拨人并不在同一个画面里。

莱翁内不关心实际如何或是华而不实的东西，他致力于以个人化的艺术风格变废为宝，在陈词滥调的西部片废墟上建造他的伟大电影。《荒野大镖客》（1964）和《黄昏双镖客》（1965）上映不久以后，在1967年底，本片在美国上映，观众知道他们会喜欢它，但是他们知道为什么吗？

我是坐在东方剧院包厢的前排看完本片的，其宽银幕是观看莱翁内作品的理想选择。记得我反应激烈，彼时我不过是个刚成为影评人不到一年的菜鸟，尚不具有跟随本心而非审慎的智慧。回顾我的旧评，我意识到我在描述一部四星电影，却只给它打了三星，或许因为它是一部“通心粉式西部片”，所以不能成为艺术。

但它确实是艺术，是莱翁内运用想象力将其描绘在宽银幕上的艺术，它是如此的生动，以至于我们忽略了它只是一部小成本制作的事实——克林特·伊斯特伍德当时是好莱坞的弃子；预算限制造成的一系列错误（大镖客的预算只有200000美元）；没有太多的对话，因为以音效来代替配音更节约成本。甚至还有为了让影片看起来更美国化的无用尝试。我从评论家格伦·埃里克森那里得知，莱翁内在大镖客时期被称作“鲍伯·罗伯森”，作曲家恩尼奥·莫里康内被称作“丹·萨维奥”，他那孤独、伤感的配乐是影片不可或缺的部分。甚至伊斯特伍德的角色，那个著名的“无名客”，也是宣发的产物。实际上，他在第一部电影中的名字是乔，第二部是“曼科”，第三部则是“布兰迪”。

或许是它的异域风味，尤其是像《黄金三镖客》这样气质独特的杰作，使得“通心粉式西部片”区别于传统的西部。与套路的好莱坞模式不同，这些片子里的演员都是西班牙附近地区的人——这些人必须经过长时间的暴晒。想象一下，一个无腿的乞丐用胳膊把自己推进酒吧，并大喊：“给我来杯威士忌！”

约翰·福特在莫纽门特谷地制作了无数伟大的电影，那个地方就是他的灵感源泉。但是莱翁内电影中危机四伏的西班牙风貌却给人以新鲜感，带着一丝怪异。在此之前，我们从未见过这些沙漠。约翰·韦恩也从未去过那里。莱翁内的故事是一种高于现实的梦想，一切都比生活更宏大、更激进、更残酷、更戏剧化。

莱翁内的故事更多的是以画面而非文字来叙述。来看看墓地里那场精彩的对峙戏。据说一笔财宝被埋在某个坟墓里，三个人聚集于此，都想得到它。三位演员分别是克林特·伊斯特伍德（好），李·范·克里夫（坏），埃里·瓦拉赫（丑）【译注：《黄金三镖客》英文名直译过来即为《好·坏·丑》】。每个人都用枪指着另一个人，谁都不敢轻举妄动，否则一损俱损。除非其中两人联合起来对付第三个人，并在后者开枪前打死他。但是联合哪两个，谁又是剩下那个？

莱翁内着重刻画了这一非理性的场景，从细节入手，先是长镜头，紧接着是诸如枪支、脸、眼睛、大量汗水以及苍蝇的特写。他似乎在考验自己，就是为了看看他能将这种悬念维持多久。或者说它算是悬念吗？它或许完全是一种风格化的尝试，由导演蓄意为之，意在聚焦于它本身。如果你能品出其中戏仿之魄力，那么你就能理解莱翁内的表达方式。这不是一个故事，而是一次对技巧的颂扬。

第一次跟莱翁内合作时，伊斯特伍德34岁，如今他已经是此中权威。一个事实是，他出身电视剧演员，曾经担纲主演了《皮鞭》。那时候，一个普通电影观众的想法是，不值得花钱去电影院观看能在电视上免费看到的演员。伊斯特伍德战胜了厄运，但不是任何人都能做到的——也不是和任何导演都能做到的。谈及与莱翁内的合作，他的解释是他想做电影，而好莱坞将他拒之门外。

事实如此，但是伊斯特伍德本人也成为一位重要的导演，甚至他肯定也感觉到莱翁内不仅仅是一个普通的意大利通俗片导演，还是一个充满激情的人。莱翁内和伊斯特伍德一起创造出来的“无名客”，其分量不单单超越了某个电视明星，也超越了某个电影明星——一个从不需要解释，单单凭他的靴子、手指和眼睛就足以填满整个屏幕的人。

我怀疑伊斯特伍德的对白是否有埃里·瓦拉赫（饰图科）的十分之一。“无名客”从不说话；图科则滔滔不绝。图科的表现是瓦拉赫一次创造性的发挥，他极力避免让角色陷入荒谬的境地，转而使之显得绝望而恐惧。当他扮起丑角时，我们感到此举是他有意为之，而非本性如此。作为一位有着长期舞台表演经验的老戏骨，瓦拉赫认真对待这个“低档”角色并发掘出其背后的深度。

“天使眼”李·范·克里夫出生于新泽西，参演过53部电影以及无数电视节目，其中许多都是西部片（他的电影成名作是《正午》，片中他饰演帮派的一员）。影片中他那眯缝的双眼，流露出一种疯狂的痴迷。

此三人都在寻觅内战中失落的黄金，其藏匿信息分散在三人之间（一个只知道墓地而不知道墓碑名字，另一个只知道墓碑名字而不知道墓地）。所以他们在找到坟墓之前会相安无事，但是接下来则很可能是一场互相残杀。

在其180分钟的修复版中，情节并不复杂，但是这并不是说莱翁内缺少构思。它有涉及多人的室外枪战戏。有串通好的骗局，伊斯特伍德将瓦拉赫饰演的通缉犯上交以赚取赏金，在后者快要被绞死的千钧一发之际，伊斯特伍德用他精湛的枪法击断了绳子。有一组宏伟的沙漠镜头，期间伊斯特伍德将瓦拉赫一个人抛弃在沙漠中，然后瓦拉赫又对伊斯特伍德做了同样的事情，太阳像《贪婪》里的一个场景那样燃烧着。还有一辆失控的幽灵货车，里面装满了死人。

此外，令人惊喜的是影片有一组极具野心的内战镜头，堪称戏中戏，以一位联邦军的中尉（阿尔多·久弗瑞饰）为着眼点，带起整个战争场面的刻画，此人关于自己的酗酒颇有一番说辞：战斗前不喝酒的指挥官不是好指挥官，喝酒赢得胜利。他的临终遗言则是：“你能让我多活一会儿吗？我想听到好消息。”

赛尔乔·莱翁内（1929-1989）是一位颇有远见和雄心的导演，虽则他也善于经营自己，正如他一手创造了“通心粉式西部片”。格伦·埃里克森写了关于三部曲的文章（载于www.DVDtalk.com），提到莱翁内喜欢夸大自己的履历，比如他宣称自己是罗伯特·奥尔德里奇《天火焚城录》（1962）一片的助理导演，而事实上他只呆了一天即被解雇。莱翁内在1961年制作了一部已遭遗忘的罗马帝国史诗片，同年紧接着又根据黑泽明的《用心棒》翻拍了《荒野大镖客》，如此看来格斯·范·桑特对《惊魂记》的逐帧翻拍（《98惊魂记》）早有先例。

作为一位雄心勃勃的导演，莱翁内拍出了两部无可置疑的杰作——《西部往事》（1968）和《美国往事》（1984）。在其生涯暮年，好莱坞因担心他的影片过长，竟犯罪般地将《美国往事》从227分钟删减到139分钟。《黄金三镖客》也被删减了19分钟。不过所幸他的未删减版影片都以DVD的形式保存了下来，而时间证明了他有多么出色。

原文：

A vast empty Western landscape. The camera pans across it. Then the shot slides onto a sunburned, desperate face. The long shot has become a closeup without a cut, revealing that the landscape was not empty but occupied by a desperado very close to us.

In these opening frames, Sergio Leone established a rule that he follows throughout "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." The rule is that the ability to see is limited by the sides of the frame. At important moments in the film, what the camera cannot see, the characters cannot see, and that gives Leone the freedom to surprise us with entrances that cannot be explained by the practical geography of his shots.

There is a moment, for example, when men do not notice a vast encampment of the Union Army until they stumble upon it. And a moment in a cemetery when a man materializes out of thin air even though he should have been visible for a mile. And the way men walk down a street in full view and nobody is able to shoot them, maybe because they are not in the same frame with them.

Leone cares not at all about the practical or the plausible, and builds his great film on the rubbish of Western movie cliches, using style to elevate dreck into art. When the movie opened in America in late 1967, not long after its predecessors "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) and "For a Few Dollars More" (1965), audiences knew they liked it, but did they know why?

I saw it sitting in the front row of the balcony of the Oriental Theatre, whose vast wide screen was ideal for Leone's operatic compositions. I responded strongly, but had been a movie critic less than a year, and did not always have the wisdom to value instinct over prudence. Looking up my old review, I see I described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a "spaghetti Western" and so could not be art.

But art it is, summoned out of the imagination of Leone and painted on the wide screen so vividly that we forget what marginal productions these films were--that Clint Eastwood was a Hollywood reject, that budgetary restraints ($200,000 for "Fistful") caused gaping continuity errors, that there wasn't a lot of dialogue because it was easier to shoot silent and fill the soundtrack with music and effects. There was even a pathetic attempt to make the films seem more American; I learn from the critic Glenn Erickson that Leone was credited as "Bob Robertson" in the early prints of "Fistful," and composer Ennio Morricone, whose lonely, mournful scores are inseparable from the films, was "Dan Savio." Even Eastwood's character, the famous Man With No Name, was an invention of the publicists; he was called Joe in the first movie, Manco in the second, and Blondie in the third.

Perhaps it is the subtly foreign flavor of the spaghetti trilogy, and especially the masterpiece "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," that suggests the films come from a different universe than traditional Westerns. Instead of tame Hollywood extras from central casting, we get locals who must have been hired near the Spanish locations--men who look long-weathered by work and the sun. Consider the legless beggar who uses his arms to propel himself into a saloon, shouting, "Hand me down a whiskey!"

John Ford made Monument Valley the home turf of his Western characters, and he made great films there, but there is something new and strange about Leone's menacing Spanish vistas. We haven't seen these deserts before. John Wayne has never been here. Leone's stories are a heightened dream in which everything is bigger, starker, more brutal, more dramatic, than life.

Leone tells the story more with pictures than words. Examine the masterful scene in the cemetery. A fortune in gold is said to be buried in one of the graves, and three men have assembled, all hoping to get it. The actors are Clint Eastwood (the Good), Lee Van Cleef (the Bad), and Eli Wallach (the Ugly). Each man points a pistol at the other. If one shoots, they all shoot, and all die. Unless two decide to shoot the third man before he can shoot either one of them. But which two, and which third?

Leone draws this scene out beyond all reason, beginning in long shot and working in to closeups of firearms, faces, eyes, and lots of sweat and flies. He seems to be testing himself, to see how long he can maintain the suspense. Or is it even suspense, really? It may be entirely an exercise in style, a deliberate manipulation by the director, intended to draw attention to itself. If you savor the boldness with which Leone flirts with parody, you understand his method. This is not a story, but a celebration of bold gestures.

Eastwood, 34 when he first worked with Leone, already carried unquestioned authority. Much is made of the fact that he came from television, that he starred in "Rawhide," that in those days it was thought that a movie audience wouldn't pay to see an actor it could watch for free. Eastwood overcame that jinx, but not any actor could have done it--and not with any director. He says he took the roles with Leone because he wanted to make movies and Hollywood wouldn't hire him.

Yes, but Eastwood himself was to become an important director, and even then he must have sensed in Leone not just another purveyor of the Italian sword-and-sandal epics, but a man with passion. Together, Leone and Eastwood made The Man With No Name not simply bigger than a television star, but bigger than a movie star--a man who never needed to explain himself, a man whose boots and fingers and eyes were deemed important enough to fill the whole screen.

I wonder if Eastwood's character has a tenth as much dialogue as Tuco, the Eli Wallach character. The Man With No Name never talks; Tuco never stops. This is one of Wallach's inspired performances, as he sidesteps his character's potential to seem ridiculous, and makes him a desperate, frightened presence. When he makes a clown of himself, we sense it is Tuco's strategy, not his personality. Trained in the Method, a stage veteran, Wallach took this low-rent role seriously and made something evocative out of it.

Lee Van Cleef, as Angel Eyes, was New Jersey-born, already a veteran of 53 films and countless TV shows, many of them Westerns (his first movie credit was "High Noon," where he played a member of the gang). In a movie with a lot of narrowed eyes, he has the narrowest, and they gleam with insane obsession.

All three men are after the fortune in Civil War gold, and the secret of its location is parceled out among them (one knows the cemetery but not the grave, the other knows the name on the tombstone but not the cemetery). So they know that they will remain alive until the grave is found, and then it is likely that each of them will try to kill the others.

In a film that runs 180 minutes in its current restored version, that is not enough plot, but Leone has no shortage of other ideas. There is the opening shootout, involving unrelated characters. There is the con game in which Wallach plays a wanted man, Eastwood turns him in for the reward, and then Eastwood waits until he is about to be hanged and severs the rope with a well-aimed shot. There is the magnificent desert sequence, after Eastwood abandons Wallach in the desert, and then Wallach does the same to Eastwood, and the sun burns down like a scene from "Greed." There is the haunting runaway wagon, filled with dead and dying men.

And, surprisingly, there is an ambitious Civil War sequence, almost a film within a film, featuring a touching performance by Aldo Giuffre as a captain in the Union Army who explains his alcoholism simply: the commander who has the most booze to get his troops drunk before battle is the one who wins. His dying line: "Can you help me live a little more? I expect good news."

Sergio Leone (1929-1989) was a director of boundless vision and ambition, who invented himself almost as he invented the spaghetti Western. Erickson, whose useful essay on the trilogy is at www.DVDtalk.com, notes that Leone hyped his own career "by claiming to be the assistant director on Robert Aldrich's Italian production of 'Sodom and Gomorrah' (1962), even though he was fired after only a day." Leone made a forgotten Roman Empire epic in 1961, and then based "A Fistful of Dollars" so closely on Akira Kurosawa's samurai film "Yojimbo" that perhaps Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of "Psycho" (1998) was not the first time the technique was tried.

A man with no little ideas, Leone made two other unquestioned masterpieces, "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) and "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984). By the end of his career, Hollywood was suspicious of films with long running times, and criminally chopped "America" from 227 minutes to a sometimes incomprehensible 139. Nineteen minutes were cut from the first release of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." But uncut versions of all of his films are available on DVD, and gradually it becomes clear how good he really was.

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