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Man with No Name
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The Man with No Name is a stock character in western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character (or possibly characters) played by American actor Clint Eastwood in what is often called "The Dollars Trilogy" directed by Sergio Leone.
"Man with No Name", as personified by Eastwood, embodies the archetypical characteristics of the American movie cowboy — toughness, exceptional physical strength or size, independence, and skill with a gun — but departed from the original archetype due to his moral ambiguity.
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Encyclopedia
The Man with No Name is a stock character in western films, but the term usually applies specifically to the character (or possibly characters) played by American actor Clint Eastwood in what is often called "The Dollars Trilogy" directed by Sergio Leone.
Characteristics
The "Man with No Name", as personified by Eastwood, embodies the archetypical characteristics of the American movie cowboy — toughness, exceptional physical strength or size, independence, and skill with a gun — but departed from the original archetype due to his moral ambiguity. Unlike the traditional cowboy, exemplified by actors John Wayne, Alan Ladd, and Randolph Scott, the Man with No Name will fight dirty and shoot first, if required by his own self-defined sense of justice. Although he tends to look for ways to benefit himself, he has, in a few cases, aided others if he feels an obligation to, such as freeing a couple held captive in A Fistful of Dollars and comforting a dying soldier after the bridge explosion in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
He is generally portrayed as an outsider, a mercenary or bounty hunter, or even an outlaw. He is characteristically soft-spoken and laconic, speaking only when necessary, with as few words as possible. The character is an oft-cited example of an anti-hero, although he has a soft spot for people in deep trouble.
Image
The character's distinctive appearance consists of a battered brown hat with a telescope crown, pale blue shirt, black jeans, tan boots, a sheepskin vest, and a patterned sarape or "poncho." He is usually armed with one revolver with a metal snake on the grip, which is holstered on a gunbelt. In contrast with other Western heroes of the early- to mid-1960s, The Man is unshaven, almost to the point of sporting a full beard. He habitually smokes a cigarillo while working.
Due to budget considerations, Eastwood made the initial investment for his character's appearance and demeanour. Most of the clothing was purchased second-hand in California (with the exception of the serape or poncho, which was provided by Leone); the gunbelt and holster were from Eastwood's previous TV series Rawhide. The Man's trademark cigars were also from California; their harshness put Eastwood in what he called a "scratchy mood," which aided in his characterization.
Director Leone has admitted that the iconic green poncho, so indelible to the character now, was less a style decision than an attempt on his part to make the conventionally built Eastwood look more like the actor he originally had in mind: American muscleman Steve Reeves, fresh from his years starring in Italian Hercules movies. He found it in Spain where the shooting took place.
Occasional names
The credits for A Fistful of Dollars list Eastwood's character as "Joe" and though the undertaker in the movie calls him by that name, he is the only character to do so (and it is further worth noting that "Joe" is often used as a generic nickname).
In For a Few Dollars More he is called "Manco," meaning "maimed" (another nickname perhaps), referring to his right hand, which is reserved for shooting. Thus, during an entire incident in the beginning of the film, he uses only his left hand when lighting his cigar, dealing the cards and striking the man he is hunting (keeping the right hand on his gun the whole time). However, he uses both hands equally throughout the rest of the film.
In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tuco usually calls him "Blondie". In a scene cut from the international version, a Union Captain asks his name, to which he responds with an "Uhh" imitating Tuco, and the conversation moves elsewhere.
Given that Eastwood's character never states his own name and shows no evidence of having visited any of the locations in the three films previously, a possible conclusion from viewing the films alone is that "Joe", "Manco" and "Blondie" are all nicknames given to him by others simply for the sake of having some means of addressing him.
Origin and evolution
A Fistful of Dollars was directly adapted from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. It was the subject of a successful lawsuit by Yojimbo's producers. The film's protagonist, a gruff, unconventional ronin played by Toshiro Mifune, bears a striking resemblance to Eastwood's character: both are quiet, gruff, eccentric strangers with a strong but unorthodox sense of justice and superhuman proficiency with a particular weapon (in Mifune's case, a katana; for Eastwood, a revolver). Another point of similarity, less obvious, is that the main antagonist in each film uses an unusual weapon: in Yojimbo, a firearm, in Fistful, a lever-action rifle, while the protagonist uses the standard weapon.
Like Eastwood's character, Mifune's ronin is nameless. When pressed, he gives the pseudonym Sanjuro Kuwabatake (meaning "thirty-year-old mulberry field"), a reference to his age and something he sees through a window. The convention of saving an arm to kill is shared as well with Mifune's character typically wearing his arms inside his kimono, leaving the sleeves empty. Prior to signing on to Fistful, Eastwood had seen Kurosawa's film and was impressed by the character. During filming, he did not emulate Mifune's performance beyond what was already in the script. He also insisted on removing some of the dialogue in the original script, making the character more silent and thus adding to his mystery. As the trilogy progressed, the character became even more silent and stoic.
Yojimbo is itself, however, believed to have been based on Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest. Kurosawa scholar David Desser and film critic Manny Farber, among others, state categorically that Red Harvest was the inspiration for the Kurosawa film Yojimbo. Leone himself clearly believed this theory, stating:
"Kurosawa's Yojimbo was inspired by an American novel of the serie-noire so I was really taking the story back home again."
Although Kurosawa never publicly credited Hammett, he privately acknowledged Red Harvest as an influence. Intriguingly, the name of the lead character in Hammett's Red Harvest is also unrevealed — a man with no name — and identified only as a Continental Op after the detective agency he works for.
A subsequent film, Last Man Standing (1996), starring Bruce Willis is a credited remake of Yojimbo.
Other media
The popularity of the character brought about a series of spin-off books, dubbed the 'Dollar' series due to the common theme in their titles were written by Joe Millard and Brian Fox. They included novelizations to A Fistful of Dollars, written by Frank Chandler and For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by Joe Millard and are as follows:
- A Coffin Full of Dollars by Joe Millard
- A Dollar to Die For by Brian Fox
- The Devil's Dollar Sign by Joe Millard
- Blood For a Dirty Dollar by Joe Millard
- The Million-Dollar Bloodhunt by Joe Millard
In July 2007, American comic book company Dynamite Entertainment announced that they were going to begin publishing a comic book featuring The Man With No Name. Set after the events of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the comic will be written by Christos Gage. Interestingly, Dynamite refers to him as "Blondie." The first issue was released in the Spring of 2008, entitled, The Man with No Name: The Good, The Bad, and The Uglier. Luke Lieberman and Matt Wolpert took over the writing for issues #7 to 11 and Chuck Dixon is penciled in to start writing the series after that.
In popular culture
- In 1999 television film Dollar for the Dead is the tribute to the spaghetti westerns. Emilio Estevez portrayed a similar character to the Clint Eastwood's characters. His character's name was unknown.
- The protagonist of George Miller's "Mad Max" trilogy, played by Mel Gibson, shares many traits with the archetypal Clint Eastwood character. In the third film of the series, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the announcer at the Thunderdome introduces the "Max" character to the crowd as "The Man With No Name".
- In the movie version of Paint Your Wagon, although Eastwood's character bears little resemblance to the traditional Man with No Name, he still lacks a name and is referred to simply as "Pardner" throughout the movie. At the end he reveals that his name is Sylvester Newel.
- The Man With No Name is also the inspiration for the main character in the computer game Red Dead Revolver.
- George Lucas attributes the character of Boba Fett to The Man with No Name in the DVD commentary on The Empire Strikes Back. Part of his armour consists of a blanket or short cape that is reminiscent of Eastwood's poncho used throughout the trilogy. The most obvious similarity between the characters is that they are both bounty hunters. In true style of "a man with no name", Fett's name is not mentioned once in The Empire Strikes Back. When he enters the scene on Cloud City after Darth Vader blocks Han Solo's blaster shots with his hand, the clink of spurs can be heard clearly, even though the character does not wear spurs.
- In one episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Tigger featured in a Wild West parody as an outlaw wanted for stealing a train. He called himself "The Tigger with No Name", while his sidekick, Pooh, called himself "The Pooh with A Name (if only [he] could remember what it was)".
- One episode of Animaniacs featured Chicken Boo disguising himself as "The man with no personality."
- One-Eyed Garth in the Magic: The Gathering series of novels, specifically "Arena", bears a strong resemblance to the character, in that he doesn't reveal his name until the end of the book (and then it is someone else who reveals it) and he has a mysterious purpose. Furthermore, the plot of the book loosely follows that of A Fistful of Dollars, with One Eye playing warring organizations against each other and profiting off all of them.
- In the cartoon series Time Squad, an episode featured the team time traveling to cause Billy the Kid to become an outlaw. The team was successful enough that a Man With No Name, bearing a great resemblance to Eastwood, was sent after them. The bounty hunter pursued them throughout the episode, even after they had returned to the future.
- A graphic novel named Dead West features a protagonist who bears a great resemblance to Eastwood, including the serape. The unnamed protagonist, a bounty hunter, chases a bandit to the town of Lazarus, where the dead have risen as Zombies. The bounty hunter eventually burns half the town and kills the leader of the zombies, though his mark manages to escape.
- In the Japanese eroge ( adult computer game ) Satsuriko no Jango by NitroPlus, one of the protagonists is a female gunslinger named Donne Anonime, meaning "a woman with no name". The game itself is based on those spaghetti westerns where the man with no name was popularized.
- In the Japanese film Versus (2000), all of the characters in the film have no name.
- In the Japanese anime film Sword of the Stranger, the main character is a swordsman with no name. Another main character, Kotaro, refers to him as the nameless samurai ("Nanashi").
- In Back to the Future Part III, Marty, going by the alias Clint Eastwood, defeats Buford by imitating the final showdown in A Fistful of Dollars (which he had seen in Biff's penthouse suite in Part II).
- The appearance and personality of the main character of Oddworld Inhabitants' Western video game Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is very similar to that of the Man with No Name. In addition, his name is never revealed, with characters simply calling him "stranger".
- The Marvel Comics character Wraith is based on the Man with No Name.
- Xander Harris, a character from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, dresses as the Man With No Name in the episode "Inca Mommy Girl" for a Halloween party. In explaining his costume Xander claims to be from "the country of Leone, it's in Italy, pretending to be Montana," which is an allusion to Sergio Leone's westerns.
- In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up, Clive Owen's character is known only by the false name "Mr. Smith" and is seemingly invincible as he fights for an innocent baby. Clearly influenced by the Eastwood character, he is referred to by one of the villains of the film to be "a man with no name riding into town on a pale horse." referencing both The Man With No Name and another Eastwood character The Pale Rider.
- In the alternate history novel Back in the USSA, the Man with No Name appears as the sheriff of a post-Communist feudal town in California.
- Rock frontman Scott Weiland is noted for his resemblance to Clint Eastwood, and in the 2007 music video for "She Builds Quick Machines", he portrays a cowboy similar to the Man with No Name in a western setting with his bandmates.
- The man with no name is mentioned by Edward Norton in the 1999 film "Rounders" in reference to Matt Damon's decision to come back and play a poker game despite swearing off gambling. Norton says that Damon's favorite actor is Clint Eastwood, the man with no name, who always doubles back to save a friend.
- The 2002 Zhang Yimou wuxia film Hero stars Jet Li as the protagonist "Nameless", an anonymous county prefect and martial arts expert who participates in a conspiracy to assassinate the King of Qin, who has been waging wars against neighboring kindgoms in an attempt to unite China.
- The Super Famicom RPG Live-A-Live (Created by Squaresoft, never released outside Japan) features a playable character who greatly resembles the "Man with No Name" both in attire, lack of speech and skills in gunplay.
- In the Total Drama Action episode, The Wacky Wild West, Chris Mclean whistles the tune of the Man with no name
Appearances
External links
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