10,000 Ways To Die
A Director's take on the Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western is one of the most delicious terms ever coined to describe a film genre. It was invented in the pages of Variety, the entertainment industry bible, as a mocking way to describe a wave of new westerns washing up in America in the mid-1960s from that most unlikely of sources Italy! Today fans of the Spaghetti Western embrace the term as one of affection and as an easy way to identify this unique mash-up of Hollywood & European sensibilities in hundreds of films made over approximately 15 years from the early-60s to the mid-70s. Many casual film fans may not realize that the film that launched Clint Eastwood’s career as a movie star, also ignited the Spaghetti Western, “A Fistful of Dollars” directed by Sergio Leone who went on to make two more classics with Eastwood, “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”. In his book “10,000 Ways to Die” English film director Alex Cox reviews those films and many more from the special perspective of a fan who grew up with them and a professional filmmaker of many years. The book has a unique structure organized around the years the films came out starting in 1963 and running through the Seventies. This allows Cox to discuss how the Spaghetti Western came into existence and how the genre and filmmakers developed over the years. For each film Cox offers a summary of the plot and then a review that mixes personal and professional opinion about the qualities or lack there of for each film while peppering in factoids and asides about films and filmmakers. My only real complaint is that is would have served the reader better to break these digressions out from the reviews as they are very informative and might otherwise be missed. That said, the book is a really entertaining read and a great way for film fans to learn more about the films they love and even discover some new Spaghetti Westerns to devour from this remarkable genre.
