POP ART: Episode 89, The Wild Bunch/Once Upon a Time in the West

POP ART, WHERE WE FIND THE POP CULTURE IN ART AND THE ART IN POP CULTURE.

GO WESTERN, YOUNG MAN: Join me and film producer Colin Vaines (Gangs of New York, Young Victoria, My Week with Marilyn, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool) as we talk The Wild Bunch/Once Upon a Time in America.

First, a mea culpa caveat. There were some technical issues, so at the end, some things were cut short, mainly in how I listed my suggested films, and then I left out what’s coming up for me and the podcast. But other than that, it was a great recording venture.

“When you side with a man, you stay with him!” Oh, the good old days of the west where it was easy to tell the good buys from the bad guys. The bad guys wore black hats; robbed and killed innocent people; and hated Indians; the good guys wore white hats, brought law and order to the community, and hated Indians …Sounds like it’s time for Episode 89 of Pop Art, where we find the pop culture in art and the art in pop culture. It’s the podcast where my guest chooses a movie from popular culture, and I’ll select a film from the more art/classic/indie side of cinema with a connection to it. For this episode, I am happy to welcome as my guest, producer and filmmaker Colin Vaines, who has chosen as his film the existentialist revisionist western, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch, while I have chosen the more postmodern revisionist western, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, both films not just about the changing West, but about the change in Westerns.

And in this episode we answer such questions as: Why did the two filmmakers make so few films? What is the connection between the Mexican warlord Mapache and the Oscar statuette? Who dubbed Claudia Cardinale’s voice and what is she most famous for? What movie did Lee Marvin turn down The Wild Bunch to do? Dario Argento and Bernardo Bertolucci…together? What did John Wayne say about The Wild Bunch? Why did a French movie projectionist hate Once Upon a Time…? What did Peckinpah do after Robert Ryan wouldn’t stop complaining about not getting top billing? What fashion influence did Once Upon a Time… have and what did it have to do with escalators?

Check out Colin’s Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Vainesand his films which can be found on various platforms as well as coming to a theater near you.

Check out my blog at https://howardcasner.wordpress.com/

My books, More Rantings and Ravings of a Screenplay Reader, The Starving Artists and Other Stories and The Five Corporations and One True Religion can be found at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=howard+casner&ref=nb_sb_noss

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