FILM & ILLUSTATED LECTURE

To mark the 40th anniversary of Sergio Leone’s Irish-themed epic of the Mexican Revolution, the IFI is delighted to welcome Sir Christopher Frayling, the director’s biographer and author of the first full-length study of the Italian Western, who will give an illustrated lecture on Leone’s fascinating and frequently overlooked retort to the political Westerns of the late 1960s. Using excerpts from such films as John Ford’s The Informer (1935) and The Quiet Man (1952), Frayling will show how Leone’s film can be seen as a response to the American’s romantic vision of Ireland, as well as a commentary on Mussolini’s Italy, events of the Second World War, and the political turmoil of the 1970s.

Also in attendance will be director John Boorman, who assisted Leone in finding the Wicklow location used in the film’s complex and ambiguous flashback sequences. The lecture and discussion will be followed by the first Irish screening of the restored version of A Fistful of Dynamite.

Thanks to the Italian Institute of Culture for supporting this event. (Notes by John Exshaw).<