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🦋 Best Western

This evening I watched Once Upon a Time in the West, which I think might be the finest thing in its genre that I've ever seen. The things it brought to mind were some of my favorites (and which I think of as similarly superlative) -- the use of cliché made me think of North by Northwest, the long, slow shots and pacing and soundtracking/ambient sound (and sparseness of dialogue) of Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the mythic characterizations of Against the Day -- note the overlap between "use of cliché" and "mythic characterizations" -- and also it brought to mind Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid as being a failed imitation.

I want to know what woodwind instrument is playing the harmonica solos, and why they did not have a harmonica playing them. (I might be wrong? There was definitely a harmonica towards the very end -- but the earlier iterations really sounded very un-harmonica-like.) Beautiful, haunting music and the oddness of it I guess heightened the sense of cinematic surreality.

posted evening of Friday, March 7th, 2008
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