Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America

Sergio Leone grew up in a film family in Rome, worked as an assistant, and started making his own films in his thirties. The vein he opened with A Fistful of Dollars carried the western to Italy and created the subgenre known as the spaghetti western. The documentary follows that transformation: how a director who had never seen America filmed America, rebuilding the genre from his own country. Francesco Zippel's film was prepared to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of Leone's death. Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Giuseppe Tornatore, Damien Chazelle and the comics writer Frank Miller are among those who speak. Leone's family contribute archive material. The narrative runs chronologically and takes the films in order, with particular room given to his partnership with Ennio Morricone. Who it's for: Anyone interested in Leone's cinema, the European branch of the western, and director documentaries. Who it's not for: The telling is celebratory with no critical view, and there is little new for viewers who already know the basics about Leone.