Bad-ass Anti Heroes From My Childhood
With superhero movies flooding the cinemas and Disney ruining my first cinematic role-model, Luke Skywalker, I got to think about the very first super heros that were introduced to me by my very first superman, my father.
The man with no name
He was a big fan of westerns, or I should say: spaghetti-westerns. The movies by Sergio Leone with music by Ennio Morricone contained my first cenematic super heros. The nameless hero from A Fistful of Dollars was the first movie character that made me stand in awe of masculine bad-assery so incredibly cool I could think of nothing else than wanting to become just like him! Imagine you're in your pre-teens and you're a boy and you see this:
A Fistful of Dollars - "now if you would all apologise..."
It was Clint Eastwood's first major role and as the video rightfully says: a legend was born. Eastwood would continue to make many more of these gems. If you've never seen this movie or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or For a Few Dollars More, you're missing out. The untouchable anti-heroes in these gritty stories populate a hostile world but possess the superpowers needed to survive shootout after shootout. Long before the guided projectiles in Iron Man's suit, we had no-name's never missing quick-draw, and long before Tony Tony Stark's super-brain we had no-name's wit and devious mind.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - maybe the best theme ever
Not long after that dad introduced me to Mr. Harmonica in Once Upon A Time In The West, played by Charles Bronson. Now that movie is a true masterpiece in my opinion and it opens so strong. Watch a three minute clip from the opening of the movie: almost no words are spoken, but the imagery, the music and the sounds, they paint a picture of a hostile world with studies of worn faces that have known adversity only and look as desolate and unfriendly as the desert railway-station itself. And Bronson is every bit the bad-ass Eastwood was in the Dollars Trilogy.
Once Upon A Time In The West - badass opening scene
Okay, these are not really super heroes, they're more like super anti-heroes ;-) But I still love them because they were my childhood heroes given to me by my dad. Thanks dad!
Just some random thoughts I had today, I hope you like these as much as I do. And if you've never seen them before, try one if you have the time. I will be fairly busy with other things the coming days, so forgive me if I can't post every day, or post a long article every day. Things will be back to normal soon enough, so please bare with me :-)
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Oh wow so you love them westerns and I love how Westerns genre love anti-heroes and those that don't necessarily think they are not heroes.
Like Django unchained, True Grit.
There is something about these characters that makes them relatable.
My Pops loved Charles Bronson, Clint Eastwood and his Westerns.
I have always had a weakness for the anti-hero figure...
In my case my icon childhood anti-hero was Jareth the Goblin King, portrayed by David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth.
I like some Morricone soundtracks, and gee young Clint Eastwood looks a lot like Hugh Jackman.
Yeah, I think that if Clint Eastwood was born a couple decades later, he would play Wolverine for sure :-) And Labyrinth was great! But still, I have another favorite Bowie film: "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence". I watched that film, to my own surprise, until the end: it's not a feel-good movie at all as it paints a dark picture of prisoners of war in a Japanese camp during WW2. There's no action and long conversations. But the culture-clash between East and West is done so well... And when you reach the end of that movie you're treated to one of the most emotional farewells I've ever seen on screen. As brilliant as the opening music in the animated Ghost in the Shell was, so is the ending music in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, by Ryuichi Sakamoto:
I cried... And then I listened again and cried again... Took me years to watch the movie a second time, because I remember how intensely sad I was at the end of it, but that's also what makes it soo good in my eyes...
Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing thoughts @yidneth :-) <3
Well, I have a crush on the Goblin King, let us not deny it, but I think Bowie was really an underrated actor and I think Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence prooves it. I've seen the movie and I remember fondly the iconic main theme of the soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto