Il mio nome è Nessuno

Sergio Leone picked a good director to helm his production of My Name is Nobody, as Tonino Valerii brings a sensibility that wouldn't of been the same had Leone taken the helm. It's not that Valerii steers too far away from certain trademarks of the quintessential spaghetti western director: expansive close-ups, beautiful master-shots showing the sprawling landscapes of the deserts and small towns of the old west, and of course Ennio Morricone. But this time there's a change of the guard in terms of homage- now it's not just going for an epic quality, but full-on comedy stylings.

There's room to compare this to old westerns with Henry Fonda just as much as there's comparison to the Three Stooges. Or Buster Keaton. Because nothing is taken too seriously, it ends up having some strong underlying statements about gunslingers in the old west, the young catching up with the old, and the old 'times they are a changing' logic that comes with the territory.

The tone is light, though at the same time there's still that level of ultra-cool suspense that can be found in Leone's work. Valerii takes it up a notch in the direction of something a little less violent, however (the film is technically rated PG, despite quite a few dozen deaths at one point). Terrence Hill is the title character, a guy who's strikingly handsome but perpetually goofy, who takes on as a big challenge Jack Bouregarde (Fonda, his last western, a good one to go out on, if not as great as his previous role as Frank), who's a hero gunslinger. Nobody has fixed a 'Wild Bunch' to come after him, and to what end? Much of the film focuses on Nobody, until the second half when Nobody keeps prodding on Jack with his vague threats in the guise of 'fairy tales' his grandfather used to tell him.

And all the while it's consistently hilarious material, particularly if you know Leone's stuff well (eg the gag from For a Few Dollars More where shooting a hat holds as much danger as comic timing), and tries at least to plug into the viewer who's in on the joke of not just an homaged western and homaged Leone western (Morricone's score has tones from Once Upon a Time in the West, but comes close to sounding like a coffee commercial at times), but an homage to silent comedies and slapstick.

Where else, for example, will you see a gunslinger such as Nobody fight off a potential assailant in a bar by just continually slapping him around as if Moe Howard possessed him for a full minute? How about the gun being slung up at 16 frames-per-second? Or a montage within an action sequence with Jack versus the 'Wild Bunch' where freeze-frames of reactions from Nobody and pages from 'history' showing Jack killing off the posse pop up? And there's a fun-house/mirror scene that comes about as close to The Lady From Shanghai as the most memorable in all cinema.

Some of it might just be all silly-by-proxy; it's a big belly laugh to see Hill with a serious face hold a stick still in the air waiting for a bug to go underwater to catch a fish. In fact Hill is strangely enough a huge part to the success of the film by sticking to his two-dimensional profile with just the best bits of subversion: looking at his eyes one can't always tell whether he's being serious, crazy, or just plain joking around, like in the saloon. He wouldn't work as the typical bad-ass, stoic Leone anti-hero/villain, but Valerii understands how to handle his abilities. Same goes for Fonda, only he doesn't have to go too far to be effective: all he needs to do is to keep a silence going, a look that says everything that needs to be said (albeit he lays it on heavy in the final letter, something that definitely would not be in a typical Leone film).

And yet even with all of Valerii's kidding moments and high-spirits (watch out little guy on stilts!), there is some genuine artistry at work too, as when the Wild Bunch is seen coming ahead through the desert (the wide-reaching over-head angle is the best shot in the film), and it reveals that there could be some worth in checking out other obscurer efforts of his. As it stands, I could watch it anytime it's on TV, if only as a pick-me-up if it's a soggy day. For fans of the western it is a must-see, if only for the fun of it all, and to get a pure in-joke regarding Sam Peckinpah.

My Name is Nobody is in a way a very odd kind of western. It mixes seriousness reminiscent of previous spaghetti westerns with slapstick humor which is reminiscent of the silent era ( Also includes a lot of fast forwarding low framerate which is what all the camera's consisted of in those days ), and the end result is surprisingly stunning and charming at the same time.

Terence Hill plays the comical over confident superhumanly quick apprentice like no other, with the bar glass-shooting scene being an absolute high for his character. The acting inside the acting going on in this particular scene is fantastic, and Hill's mannerisms succeed in making this silent era-like slapstick humor succeed. Fonda represents the more serious half of the film which focuses more on scale and paying homage to past classics, primarily Once Upon a Time in the West which is also starring Henry Fonda. Some obvious examples are Morricone's identical near copy of Harmonica's theme in a couple of scenes involving Fonda in My Name is Nobody, or an intro that features three gunman silently observing and pacing around a certain area only to get blown away. His character is quite similar to the one he plays in Once Upon a Time in the West, except for the fact that his morality seems to lean a lot more towards 'Good' in this one. With Fonda's usual intensity he captures the serious half of the film extremely well and delivers a great performance.

Except for the slapstick humor this mostly truly feels like a serious film, because the depth and symbolisms in the film are all there. The story that Hill mentions about the bird, cow & coyote are an obvious example of this. Everything seems to be a metaphor for something else, and the depth in this screenplay is truly impeccable. This in turn makes this motion picture more than just a comic escapism flick. It is an in-depth examination of the death of the west and covers this up well in a comedy homage/parody kind of setting on all the films that made westerns so great. ( Especially spaghetti westerns ) There are not just references to Once Upon a Time in the West since there is also a scene for example in which main characters exchange shots on eachothers hats which is an homage of For a Few Dollars More (1965)

The cinematography is superb with a varied color palette and stunning mixes of close-ups and widescreen shots much in the same manner as the legendary Sergio Leone ( Who also produced this film ). The shots of the Wild Bunch ( Another homage to another western ) riding in the distance while slowly moving closer to the camera while Morricone's odd but brilliant 'The Wild Horde' plays is just cinematic perfection. The greatest use of this is obviously the one in which Jack ( Henry Fonda ) faces the Wild Bunch alone while the camera slowly pans back and upwards. It is such a majestic and elegant way of visual storytelling because the further back the camera pans the more you get the sense of the enormous scale of the numbers of the Wild Bunch, making them more intimidating and heightening Beauregard's feat if he truly manages to defeat them on his own.

My Name is Nobody is a weird mix of comedy & metaphor filled seriousness, but it succeeds like no other because it tells a genuinely humane message about progress and the dying of an old world ( Which is ofcourse the west ) through subtle metaphors & symbolisms. It truly feels like the closing chapter of a fantastic era.

The title "My name is Nobody" was, I think, taken from a text in Homer's Odyssey which Odysseus said to Cyclops, the one-eyed giant. And, indeed, if one considers that fact one could better see what this film's message is: While old Jack Beauregard could, after a long voyage, at last go home to Europe, "Nobody" was destined to continue his odyssey far from home in countries that were never his cultural homeland.

Albeit the film itself is a parody of other westerns, of 'C'era una volta il West' and/or 'The wild bunch' for example, and therefore should be (and is in fact) comical and funny, one nevertheless hears a slightly melancholy song sung by/about Odysseus(= Nobody) who had forgotten his homeland. Owing to that (please let me dare say)'depth', 'Il mio nome e nessuno' succeeded in being far more than a simple parody and in appealing not only to 'genre fans' but also to 'general' movie lovers: Fonda's brilliant performance, Fonda and Terence Hill's unique combination, Morricone's perfect score. It's all really tasty.

I still remember that a Japanese film critic at that time has rated this film low, because 'it was a spaghetti western made by an assistant of Sergio Leone'. But when I myself saw the film later, I (please excuse me for being cheeky and cocky) doubted his eye of a film critic: Why hasn't he seen that this film clearly stood out from other Italian westerns? Why has he ignored the fact that Tonino Valerii could make excellent westerns without Leone and without Morricone? (I of course mean 'Il prezzo del potere' and 'I giorni dell'ira'.)

All that gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) wants to do is retire while he's still alive. But Nobody (Terence Hill) wants to see Beauregard go out in blaze of glory. Nobody dogs him across the West insisting that if Beauregard will just face one more enemy, he's sure to go down in the annals of history. But Nobody's idea is for Beauregard to have it out with the 150 man strong Wild Bunch - all alone.

The shortest and most to the point description that I can come up with for this movie is "Sergio Leone Meets the Three Stooges". On the one hand, you've got Henry Fonda in the traditional Western role (albeit Spaghetti Western). On the other hand, you've got Terence Hill performing some of the best slapstick and pantomime since the era of the silent film. It sounds like an unlikely combination, but Valerii successfully marries the two styles into a very enjoyable experience. The scenes with Fonda and Hill together are as good as you'll see in a Spaghetti Western.

While some of Hill's comedy seems goofy and doesn't work that well, most of it is very funny. There are moments of pure genius. The shooting scene in the saloon is a particular favorite of mine.

Morricone's score is amazing. He draws inspiration from and pays homage to some of the earlier scores he did. I was reminded several times of Once Upon a Time in the West, the Dollars Trilogy, and other Spaghetti Westerns. Writing positive comments on a Morricone score is becoming a bit redundant. Did he ever write a score that you could call bad?

For those of us who have only seen My Name is Nobody on VHS with bad transfers and missing footage, the new Image DVD is a real treat. It was a lot like watching the movie for the first time. I never thought this movie could look so good. My only complaint is the lack of extras. The disc doesn't even have a trailer.

I'm surprised i had never heard of this film before, i only got it because I'm a big fan of Henry Fonda. This movie reminds you of Once upon a time in the west and all the other spaghetti westerns but with a sense of humor and a great soundtrack. The movie stars out in 1899 with Henry Fonda playing a gunfighter named Jack Beauregard who just wants to get enough money so he can retire. Terence Hill plays another gunfighter named nobody who is obsessed with Beauregard. He's always following him around and wants him to fight the wild bunch, a group of 150 men, so he can be in the history books. This movie was produced by Serigo Leone and this was Henry Fonda's last western.