Precisely two decades ago, a friend of mine insisted I go see a movie about the American West, a film made in Italy and shot partially in Spain. At the time, it was intellectually acceptable to be passionate about Italian films that limned the sick soul of Europe; the idea of an Italian western was oxymoronic – at best, like, oh, a German romantic comedy. What's more, in America the western as a genre seemed bankrupt, and going to see A Fistful of Dollars, which featured an international no-star cast headed by Clint Eastwood, some second-banana cowboy on an American TV series called Rawhide, promised to be entertaining in a manner the director, another unknown named Sergio Leone, probably never intended.

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