黄金三镖客

赛尔乔·莱翁的不朽名作。 　　——BBC4 　　莱翁将自己的想象生动的展现在大银幕上，这就是艺术。 　　——《芝加哥太阳报》 　　一部完美至极的意大利西部片。

　　意大利西部片宗师瑟吉欧·莱昂内执导的镖客电影三部曲的完结篇，由克林特·伊斯特伍德、李·范·克里夫和伊莱·沃勒克分饰英文片名所指的好人、坏人和丑恶之人。三人在美国南北战争期间趁着政局混乱，打算谋夺一批属于南方政府的财富，但每个人只知道一部分藏金的细节，必须联合 起来才可以取得全部的钱。 　　于是三人既互相利用又勾心斗角，产生不少有趣的笑料和张力十足的戏剧性对峙。本片制作严谨，气派十足，具有同类娱乐片所有吸引人的元素，主角的演出和颜尼欧莫利克奈的配乐均令人难忘。 　　这是『镖客三部曲：荒野大镖客（1964）、黄昏双镖客（1965）、黄金三镖客（1966）』的终曲，也是萨吉欧里昂西部作品中，被后世公认成就最高的电影。『镖客三部曲』非但让原本死寂的西部电影重新复活（西部片始自1903年『火车大劫案』）；把年已34、终日碌碌的克林伊斯威特捧红；让同班同学颜尼欧莫瑞克奈变成举世闻名的配乐大师。导演更创下许多先例，包括发展出所谓『通心面西部片』（意式西部片）； 主角非好人，甚至不是帅哥；对话精简，运用大量动作特写蕴酿气氛；而黄沙、落日、身影、口哨更成为西部片的代表。 　　当然，意式西部片还有许多传奇，开山祖师萨吉欧里昂是意大利人，拍片地点是西班牙，而原本计划是要拍给意大利人看，没想到引起美国观众狂热回响。而他三部曲之一『荒野大镖客』，非但是处女成名作，其实更是黑泽明的『大镖客』的『西部版』，根本就是临摩之作！ 　　虽然全片加长后长达三小时，且西部片无法像东方武术，可发展出精彩的打斗场面，枪战全在一瞬间解决，于是整体气氛的掌握、剧情及对人性的描写，就成为成功西部片必备的要素。本片三个小时中，透过好人、坏人与丑鬼反射出来的人性，以及几场重要经典戏，均不是后来那些『大打一场、主角永不受伤』的动作片，或者只重打斗毫无内容的电影可比拟。这也是近40年后，本片仍能名列影史前30名内的原因，值得推荐与收藏。

摄影机在空旷的西部大地上一扫而过，紧接着镜头滑落在一张过晒、孤绝的脸上。一个从远景切换到脸部的大特写镜头，意在揭示此地并不是真正的空旷，而是被一个近在咫尺的亡命之徒占据着。

在电影的开篇，赛尔乔·莱翁内就为《黄金三镖客》贯彻了一个镜头准则：眼见不一定为实，内容的呈现受制于画面的边框。在影片中的一些重要时刻，镜头以外、人物看不见的地方，为莱翁内提供了创作的自由，他的镜头也成为我们获得意外发现的入口，而这些意外往往不能以常理度之。

例如有一次，人们没有一开始就注意到联邦军队的巨大营地，而是在一次偶然间发现了它。还有一次在墓地里，一个本该在一英里之外就能被发现的人，却显得像是凭空出现的。男人们走在大街上，视野全然，但是周围却没有人击中他们，或许是因为两拨人并不在同一个画面里。

莱翁内不关心实际如何或是华而不实的东西，他致力于以个人化的艺术风格变废为宝，在陈词滥调的西部片废墟上建造他的伟大电影。《荒野大镖客》（1964）和《黄昏双镖客》（1965）上映不久以后，在1967年底，本片在美国上映，观众知道他们会喜欢它，但是他们知道为什么吗？

我是坐在东方剧院包厢的前排看完本片的，其宽银幕是观看莱翁内作品的理想选择。记得我反应激烈，彼时我不过是个刚成为影评人不到一年的菜鸟，尚不具有跟随本心而非审慎的智慧。回顾我的旧评，我意识到我在描述一部四星电影，却只给它打了三星，或许因为它是一部“通心粉式西部片”，所以不能成为艺术。

但它确实是艺术，是莱翁内运用想象力将其描绘在宽银幕上的艺术，它是如此的生动，以至于我们忽略了它只是一部小成本制作的事实——克林特·伊斯特伍德当时是好莱坞的弃子；预算限制造成的一系列错误（大镖客的预算只有200000美元）；没有太多的对话，因为以音效来代替配音更节约成本。甚至还有为了让影片看起来更美国化的无用尝试。我从评论家格伦·埃里克森那里得知，莱翁内在大镖客时期被称作“鲍伯·罗伯森”，作曲家恩尼奥·莫里康内被称作“丹·萨维奥”，他那孤独、伤感的配乐是影片不可或缺的部分。甚至伊斯特伍德的角色，那个著名的“无名客”，也是宣发的产物。实际上，他在第一部电影中的名字是乔，第二部是“曼科”，第三部则是“布兰迪”。

或许是它的异域风味，尤其是像《黄金三镖客》这样气质独特的杰作，使得“通心粉式西部片”区别于传统的西部。与套路的好莱坞模式不同，这些片子里的演员都是西班牙附近地区的人——这些人必须经过长时间的暴晒。想象一下，一个无腿的乞丐用胳膊把自己推进酒吧，并大喊：“给我来杯威士忌！”

约翰·福特在莫纽门特谷地制作了无数伟大的电影，那个地方就是他的灵感源泉。但是莱翁内电影中危机四伏的西班牙风貌却给人以新鲜感，带着一丝怪异。在此之前，我们从未见过这些沙漠。约翰·韦恩也从未去过那里。莱翁内的故事是一种高于现实的梦想，一切都比生活更宏大、更激进、更残酷、更戏剧化。

莱翁内的故事更多的是以画面而非文字来叙述。来看看墓地里那场精彩的对峙戏。据说一笔财宝被埋在某个坟墓里，三个人聚集于此，都想得到它。三位演员分别是克林特·伊斯特伍德（好），李·范·克里夫（坏），埃里·瓦拉赫（丑）【译注：《黄金三镖客》英文名直译过来即为《好·坏·丑》】。每个人都用枪指着另一个人，谁都不敢轻举妄动，否则一损俱损。除非其中两人联合起来对付第三个人，并在后者开枪前打死他。但是联合哪两个，谁又是剩下那个？

莱翁内着重刻画了这一非理性的场景，从细节入手，先是长镜头，紧接着是诸如枪支、脸、眼睛、大量汗水以及苍蝇的特写。他似乎在考验自己，就是为了看看他能将这种悬念维持多久。或者说它算是悬念吗？它或许完全是一种风格化的尝试，由导演蓄意为之，意在聚焦于它本身。如果你能品出其中戏仿之魄力，那么你就能理解莱翁内的表达方式。这不是一个故事，而是一次对技巧的颂扬。

第一次跟莱翁内合作时，伊斯特伍德34岁，如今他已经是此中权威。一个事实是，他出身电视剧演员，曾经担纲主演了《皮鞭》。那时候，一个普通电影观众的想法是，不值得花钱去电影院观看能在电视上免费看到的演员。伊斯特伍德战胜了厄运，但不是任何人都能做到的——也不是和任何导演都能做到的。谈及与莱翁内的合作，他的解释是他想做电影，而好莱坞将他拒之门外。

事实如此，但是伊斯特伍德本人也成为一位重要的导演，甚至他肯定也感觉到莱翁内不仅仅是一个普通的意大利通俗片导演，还是一个充满激情的人。莱翁内和伊斯特伍德一起创造出来的“无名客”，其分量不单单超越了某个电视明星，也超越了某个电影明星——一个从不需要解释，单单凭他的靴子、手指和眼睛就足以填满整个屏幕的人。

我怀疑伊斯特伍德的对白是否有埃里·瓦拉赫（饰图科）的十分之一。“无名客”从不说话；图科则滔滔不绝。图科的表现是瓦拉赫一次创造性的发挥，他极力避免让角色陷入荒谬的境地，转而使之显得绝望而恐惧。当他扮起丑角时，我们感到此举是他有意为之，而非本性如此。作为一位有着长期舞台表演经验的老戏骨，瓦拉赫认真对待这个“低档”角色并发掘出其背后的深度。

“天使眼”李·范·克里夫出生于新泽西，参演过53部电影以及无数电视节目，其中许多都是西部片（他的电影成名作是《正午》，片中他饰演帮派的一员）。影片中他那眯缝的双眼，流露出一种疯狂的痴迷。

此三人都在寻觅内战中失落的黄金，其藏匿信息分散在三人之间（一个只知道墓地而不知道墓碑名字，另一个只知道墓碑名字而不知道墓地）。所以他们在找到坟墓之前会相安无事，但是接下来则很可能是一场互相残杀。

在其180分钟的修复版中，情节并不复杂，但是这并不是说莱翁内缺少构思。它有涉及多人的室外枪战戏。有串通好的骗局，伊斯特伍德将瓦拉赫饰演的通缉犯上交以赚取赏金，在后者快要被绞死的千钧一发之际，伊斯特伍德用他精湛的枪法击断了绳子。有一组宏伟的沙漠镜头，期间伊斯特伍德将瓦拉赫一个人抛弃在沙漠中，然后瓦拉赫又对伊斯特伍德做了同样的事情，太阳像《贪婪》里的一个场景那样燃烧着。还有一辆失控的幽灵货车，里面装满了死人。

此外，令人惊喜的是影片有一组极具野心的内战镜头，堪称戏中戏，以一位联邦军的中尉（阿尔多·久弗瑞饰）为着眼点，带起整个战争场面的刻画，此人关于自己的酗酒颇有一番说辞：战斗前不喝酒的指挥官不是好指挥官，喝酒赢得胜利。他的临终遗言则是：“你能让我多活一会儿吗？我想听到好消息。”

赛尔乔·莱翁内（1929-1989）是一位颇有远见和雄心的导演，虽则他也善于经营自己，正如他一手创造了“通心粉式西部片”。格伦·埃里克森写了关于三部曲的文章（载于www.DVDtalk.com），提到莱翁内喜欢夸大自己的履历，比如他宣称自己是罗伯特·奥尔德里奇《天火焚城录》（1962）一片的助理导演，而事实上他只呆了一天即被解雇。莱翁内在1961年制作了一部已遭遗忘的罗马帝国史诗片，同年紧接着又根据黑泽明的《用心棒》翻拍了《荒野大镖客》，如此看来格斯·范·桑特对《惊魂记》的逐帧翻拍（《98惊魂记》）早有先例。

作为一位雄心勃勃的导演，莱翁内拍出了两部无可置疑的杰作——《西部往事》（1968）和《美国往事》（1984）。在其生涯暮年，好莱坞因担心他的影片过长，竟犯罪般地将《美国往事》从227分钟删减到139分钟。《黄金三镖客》也被删减了19分钟。不过所幸他的未删减版影片都以DVD的形式保存了下来，而时间证明了他有多么出色。

原文：

A vast empty Western landscape. The camera pans across it. Then the shot slides onto a sunburned, desperate face. The long shot has become a closeup without a cut, revealing that the landscape was not empty but occupied by a desperado very close to us.

In these opening frames, Sergio Leone established a rule that he follows throughout "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." The rule is that the ability to see is limited by the sides of the frame. At important moments in the film, what the camera cannot see, the characters cannot see, and that gives Leone the freedom to surprise us with entrances that cannot be explained by the practical geography of his shots.

There is a moment, for example, when men do not notice a vast encampment of the Union Army until they stumble upon it. And a moment in a cemetery when a man materializes out of thin air even though he should have been visible for a mile. And the way men walk down a street in full view and nobody is able to shoot them, maybe because they are not in the same frame with them.

Leone cares not at all about the practical or the plausible, and builds his great film on the rubbish of Western movie cliches, using style to elevate dreck into art. When the movie opened in America in late 1967, not long after its predecessors "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) and "For a Few Dollars More" (1965), audiences knew they liked it, but did they know why?

I saw it sitting in the front row of the balcony of the Oriental Theatre, whose vast wide screen was ideal for Leone's operatic compositions. I responded strongly, but had been a movie critic less than a year, and did not always have the wisdom to value instinct over prudence. Looking up my old review, I see I described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a "spaghetti Western" and so could not be art.

But art it is, summoned out of the imagination of Leone and painted on the wide screen so vividly that we forget what marginal productions these films were--that Clint Eastwood was a Hollywood reject, that budgetary restraints ($200,000 for "Fistful") caused gaping continuity errors, that there wasn't a lot of dialogue because it was easier to shoot silent and fill the soundtrack with music and effects. There was even a pathetic attempt to make the films seem more American; I learn from the critic Glenn Erickson that Leone was credited as "Bob Robertson" in the early prints of "Fistful," and composer Ennio Morricone, whose lonely, mournful scores are inseparable from the films, was "Dan Savio." Even Eastwood's character, the famous Man With No Name, was an invention of the publicists; he was called Joe in the first movie, Manco in the second, and Blondie in the third.

Perhaps it is the subtly foreign flavor of the spaghetti trilogy, and especially the masterpiece "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," that suggests the films come from a different universe than traditional Westerns. Instead of tame Hollywood extras from central casting, we get locals who must have been hired near the Spanish locations--men who look long-weathered by work and the sun. Consider the legless beggar who uses his arms to propel himself into a saloon, shouting, "Hand me down a whiskey!"

John Ford made Monument Valley the home turf of his Western characters, and he made great films there, but there is something new and strange about Leone's menacing Spanish vistas. We haven't seen these deserts before. John Wayne has never been here. Leone's stories are a heightened dream in which everything is bigger, starker, more brutal, more dramatic, than life.

Leone tells the story more with pictures than words. Examine the masterful scene in the cemetery. A fortune in gold is said to be buried in one of the graves, and three men have assembled, all hoping to get it. The actors are Clint Eastwood (the Good), Lee Van Cleef (the Bad), and Eli Wallach (the Ugly). Each man points a pistol at the other. If one shoots, they all shoot, and all die. Unless two decide to shoot the third man before he can shoot either one of them. But which two, and which third?

Leone draws this scene out beyond all reason, beginning in long shot and working in to closeups of firearms, faces, eyes, and lots of sweat and flies. He seems to be testing himself, to see how long he can maintain the suspense. Or is it even suspense, really? It may be entirely an exercise in style, a deliberate manipulation by the director, intended to draw attention to itself. If you savor the boldness with which Leone flirts with parody, you understand his method. This is not a story, but a celebration of bold gestures.

Eastwood, 34 when he first worked with Leone, already carried unquestioned authority. Much is made of the fact that he came from television, that he starred in "Rawhide," that in those days it was thought that a movie audience wouldn't pay to see an actor it could watch for free. Eastwood overcame that jinx, but not any actor could have done it--and not with any director. He says he took the roles with Leone because he wanted to make movies and Hollywood wouldn't hire him.

Yes, but Eastwood himself was to become an important director, and even then he must have sensed in Leone not just another purveyor of the Italian sword-and-sandal epics, but a man with passion. Together, Leone and Eastwood made The Man With No Name not simply bigger than a television star, but bigger than a movie star--a man who never needed to explain himself, a man whose boots and fingers and eyes were deemed important enough to fill the whole screen.

I wonder if Eastwood's character has a tenth as much dialogue as Tuco, the Eli Wallach character. The Man With No Name never talks; Tuco never stops. This is one of Wallach's inspired performances, as he sidesteps his character's potential to seem ridiculous, and makes him a desperate, frightened presence. When he makes a clown of himself, we sense it is Tuco's strategy, not his personality. Trained in the Method, a stage veteran, Wallach took this low-rent role seriously and made something evocative out of it.

Lee Van Cleef, as Angel Eyes, was New Jersey-born, already a veteran of 53 films and countless TV shows, many of them Westerns (his first movie credit was "High Noon," where he played a member of the gang). In a movie with a lot of narrowed eyes, he has the narrowest, and they gleam with insane obsession.

All three men are after the fortune in Civil War gold, and the secret of its location is parceled out among them (one knows the cemetery but not the grave, the other knows the name on the tombstone but not the cemetery). So they know that they will remain alive until the grave is found, and then it is likely that each of them will try to kill the others.

In a film that runs 180 minutes in its current restored version, that is not enough plot, but Leone has no shortage of other ideas. There is the opening shootout, involving unrelated characters. There is the con game in which Wallach plays a wanted man, Eastwood turns him in for the reward, and then Eastwood waits until he is about to be hanged and severs the rope with a well-aimed shot. There is the magnificent desert sequence, after Eastwood abandons Wallach in the desert, and then Wallach does the same to Eastwood, and the sun burns down like a scene from "Greed." There is the haunting runaway wagon, filled with dead and dying men.

And, surprisingly, there is an ambitious Civil War sequence, almost a film within a film, featuring a touching performance by Aldo Giuffre as a captain in the Union Army who explains his alcoholism simply: the commander who has the most booze to get his troops drunk before battle is the one who wins. His dying line: "Can you help me live a little more? I expect good news."

Sergio Leone (1929-1989) was a director of boundless vision and ambition, who invented himself almost as he invented the spaghetti Western. Erickson, whose useful essay on the trilogy is at www.DVDtalk.com, notes that Leone hyped his own career "by claiming to be the assistant director on Robert Aldrich's Italian production of 'Sodom and Gomorrah' (1962), even though he was fired after only a day." Leone made a forgotten Roman Empire epic in 1961, and then based "A Fistful of Dollars" so closely on Akira Kurosawa's samurai film "Yojimbo" that perhaps Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot remake of "Psycho" (1998) was not the first time the technique was tried.

A man with no little ideas, Leone made two other unquestioned masterpieces, "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) and "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984). By the end of his career, Hollywood was suspicious of films with long running times, and criminally chopped "America" from 227 minutes to a sometimes incomprehensible 139. Nineteen minutes were cut from the first release of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." But uncut versions of all of his films are available on DVD, and gradually it becomes clear how good he really was.

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　　一向对西部片提不起精神的我，居然花了三个小时看完了这部六十年代的西部片。依然是灰暗的调子，沙尘漫天，枪声大作，却改变了我对西部片的毫无道理的厌恶。对，我承认我的厌恶是没有根据的，因为之前没有看过西部片的上乘之作。 　　The good, the bad and the ugly，多好的名字啊，偏偏要翻成什么“黄金三镖客”，“镖客”在现代汉语中明明是指“旧时给行旅或运输中的货物保镖的人”，相当于现代的托运公司，而电影描述的是三个独行汉寻找宝藏的故事，根本风马牛不相及啊。我又是不喜欢事先看简介的人，差点就因为这个鬼名字而错过了一部好电影。 (1) The ugly 　　对洋人的脸有些辨识困难，所以为了早一点投入电影我总是特别专注电影开幕后出现的脸的特写，在我还没有搞清谁是主角的时候。当三个牛仔从两个方向向农舍逼近的时候，他们似敌非友，剑拔弩张的空气里预报着将有什么要发生。出乎意料地，三个人突然窜进同一扇门，不过一两秒的时间，连续几声枪响，窗户的玻璃被打破，一个圆圆的脑袋捅出来，有些慌张又极其快速地逃离，一个停顿中字幕打出“the ugly”，而刚才的三个牛仔全部倒在农舍里。 　　我松了一口气，这个导演知道我的困惑，一开始就把善恶“盖棺定论”了，有强奸民意之嫌，倒是让我不必为那些陌生的脸蛋彷徨，省却不少麻烦 (2) The bad 　　收了贝克的500美金去杀人，抢了死人的1000美金，又杀贝克灭口。美其名为“受人钱财，替人消灾”，其实是骨子里的阴鸷残毒，从那对三角眼里射出，the bad的出现毫无争议。 (3) The good 　　正当我对the good的出场满怀期待，the ugly再次出现了。警察厅2000美金悬赏捉拿the bad，三个农夫即将得手，“螳螂捕蝉，麻雀在后”，the good出现了。他捉了the ugly，收了警察厅的赏金，又用枪射断了绞刑架上的绳子，救下the ugly. 他，竟然和the ugly是一伙的，串通起来骗政府的赏金。这样的“喜剧”上演了一次又一次，直到the good以为the ugly不值更高的赏金为止。 　　把缚着双手的the ugly丢弃在离小镇70里的野外沙地，the good扬长而去…… 　　The good是个blonde，从头到尾the ugly都是这么称呼他，1米93的高个子，牛仔帽，风衣，年轻的Clint Eastwood帅到掉渣。他不是个通常意义上除暴安良的好人，看似一个未失去本心的好人。有时爱捉弄一下小人，以他天真的本性不知道“小人是不可以得罪的”，为此他差一点丢了性命。 　　至此三大主角全部登场了，以后的故事安两条线发展：the bad是一条，the ugly和the good是另一条。 (4) 故事的结局 　 　　三人最后的决斗在空旷的墓地进行，旋转的镜头，在三人的脸部特写和伸向枪套的手部特写间重复着，伴随着的主题音乐把影片推向了最高潮，留给足够多的时间让观众对即将到来的结尾坐各种假设。The good是唯一知道墓碑名字的人，the bad和the ugly只能打对方的主意，那the good呢？如果我是the good，我的子弹将会向谁飞去？这时候我开了个小差，仔细的研究了一下三人的长相，尤其是比较了一下他们眼睛的大小。光从眼睛的大小来讲，Clint Eastwood扮演的the good是最小的，他那深邃的眼睛总是眯起的状态，似乎被阳光刺到那样，可是谁也没法否认他又是最帅的。原来洋人帅哥靠的不是大眼睛双眼皮……我还没回过神来的时候，枪声响了，the bad倒下，the good拔枪射击的动作总是快而且很隐蔽，而the ugly枪里的子弹早在前一个晚上就被the good取走了。 　　善人之所以是善人，是因为他不会为了达到目的而不择手段，不会为了消灭敌人而滥杀无辜，不会有泛滥的贪念。The good自然不会杀了the ugly，却也没有错过这个捉弄他的好机会。于是又一次，the ugly的脖子上套上了绞绳，策马远去的the good转身射击，绳应声而断，the ugly的头重重地敲击在石头上。不过等着他的结局还挺好的，the good留了一半的金子给他。 （5）真实滑稽的小人 　　导演赋予了他许多黑色幽默的台词，让这个初见粗鄙猥琐的无赖显得有点滑稽，又因为真实开始讨人喜欢。 　　——世界上有两种人，一种是被吊的，一种是切断吊索。 　　——世界上有两种马刺，一种是走正门的，一种是走后门的，嘿嘿 　　——如果你打不中，那最好就干脆打死我，你对我非常不了解，哼哼 　　——如果干活是为了活着，为什么要为活着而累死呢 　　——土豆，哼哼，吃土豆的人一定是穷的要命的人 　　——在我们生长的那个鬼地方，如果不想饿死，除了当神父就是当土匪。你选择你的路，我也选择了我的，我选择的要比你艰难得多。 　　——我吃饱了，我哥人不错吧？ 像我这种流浪汉，不管发生了什么，只要到我哥哥那里，保管一日三餐不愁。 　　——当你想开枪呢，就尽管开枪，别废话 　　——多少钱？？哥们你理解错了，我不是问这把枪多少钱，我是问你能给我多少钱 　　相比the bad和the good，小人更具多面性，他“抢劫”枪店的时候凶恶狡黠，泡澡时杀了长近来报仇的农夫，来一句:when you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk, 不失喜感。跟着the good去炸桥，是为了去河对岸找金子，客观上解救了几千个人的性命；一分钟前还趾高气扬要把好人折磨之死，后一分钟为求金子的下落满脸堆笑，好话说尽，一副唯利是图的嘴脸；和哥哥久别重逢，真情闪现，那是他就是个最普通不过的弟弟，述说着生活的无奈；匍匐在铁轨边，让火车的车轮碾断手上的铁链，这方法残酷，无疑又是有效的；杀人前后总是“伪善”地在胸口划十字；找到伤心坡目的的时候，他在艾艾草青上喜悦地狂奔，穿梭在林林墓碑中，略带慌张地搜寻目标，那种对于金钱的疯癫…… 　　默默的，我期望这个小人能够回到家乡，用这点钱做一个神父和强盗之外的正常人。 （6）战争背景 　　好人与小人冒充南军和对面开来的北军打招呼，他们是凭着灰色的军装判断的，不料，尘土拍去，对方露出蓝色的军服，阴差阳错，他俩成为了北军的俘虏。时代的大环境是任何一个个人无法脱离的，牛仔们再特立独行，命运也再三被也被这南北战争牵来扯去。 　　战争是什么？是两支军队守驻在桥的两头，互相攻击，死伤千余人，为了保护大桥的完整？是明知战争的无谓，又无法从这极度荒诞的大屠杀中解脱出来的军人捍卫军人荣誉的一个信念？“我从没见过这么多人无意义的死去。”好人的一句话道出了导演的心声。 　　 北军军营里，坏人在音乐声的掩盖之下，虐打俘虏（小人），小提琴手眼中躺下了泪水…… 　　在西部片“好人不死”的眷顾下，the good始终是最幸运的一位。南北战的大炮使得他从容地摆脱了the ugly为他准备的绳套；Bill Carson临终的遗言又使得他在沙漠中奇迹地存活下来。我们喜欢这样的安排，他让我们心中燃起正义的信念，在残酷的现实生活获得些许活下去的勇气。 （7）西部精神 　　牛仔精神，或者称为西部精神更恰当一些，对我而言蒙着一层神秘的色彩。它到底是什么？是即使杀人如麻的坏人也不杀女人？是好人为垂死的士兵盖上自己的风衣，递上点燃的雪茄？还是那标志性的音乐，口琴、口哨及小号的相互伴奏，洋溢着野性与桀骜不逊，甚至是玩世不恭？有或者是那戈壁滩上单调重复的马蹄声？