A colorful story of the Italian western told by filmmaker Alex Cox. An erudite and passionate look!

10,000 Ways to Die, a filmmaker's perspective on the Italian Western
A book by Alex Cox
Translation by Alexandre Prouveze
14.6 cm x 20.46 cm (size of the Ozu Notebooks ) | 624 pages including a photo book

With 10,000 Ways to Die , British filmmaker Alex Cox does more than paint a colorful and subjective panorama of the Italian western: he restores its creative, economic and social epic, defining the genre as one of the most political, protesters and anarchists in the history of cinema.

Unexpected bridge between the surrealist fetishism of a Buñuel and the aesthetic radicalism of punk, the spaghetti western according to Cox refers in turn to the chambara of Kurosawa, to the emergence of queer or to the pop-culture of the 60s, to Brando and in post-Elizabethan theatre. Among the dozens of filmmakers invited here, we will obviously come across the parallel destinies of the two Sergios – Leone and Corbucci – who were the first to formulate this singular all'italiana vision of a great West entirely subject to brutality and corruption, where the cynicism prevails.

Moreover, 10,000 Ways to Die never misses an opportunity to delve into the more or less hazy stratagems of the producers of the time, the games of influence between screenwriters, the ingenuity of the cinematographers and decorators, or the lyricism of a handful of prolific composers – whose greatness of Ennio Morricone certainly hides the forest. Finally, there are beautiful portraits of actors, flamboyant in the register of the western: from the intense Gian Maria Volonté, Klaus Kinski or Tomás Milián to the essentials Lee Van Cleef, Clint Eastwood and Fernando Sancho.

Along this horizon of films, sometimes monumental, often cobbled together, the tribulations take shape of a genre that is both famous and unknown, through the vision of a filmmaker with encyclopedic knowledge, which we discover over the pages in turn admiring, passionate, or grating with sarcasm. A spicy tribute to the spaghetti western in more than 50 deciphered films.

“Certain films, more than others, exerted a considerable influence on the Italian western. And one of them isn't even a western. […] Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa, and One-Eyed Jacks by Marlon Brando. »

About the Author

British independent filmmaker, Alex Cox has shot many successful feature films, from Sleep Is for Sissies , La Mort en bonus ( Repo Man ), Sid & Nancy , Straight to Hell , Walker and Highway Patrolman to Death and the compass , Revengers Tragedy , Searchers 2.0 and Repo Chick . From 1987 to 1994, he presented the famous BBC series "Moviedrome", inviting the general public to discover forgotten or little-known films. He is also the author of True Confessions of a Radical Filmmaker and has written about film for publications as diverse as Sight & Sound , The Guardian , The Independent and Film Comment .

Released November 16, 2021