I used a historical context and a genre, the Western, as a pretext for talking about something else. The corpses in the cave, the ditch shooting and the governor’s escape by train refer to specific events (which the Italian audience knows) that occurred during the fight against fascism in Italy, namely, the discovery of 350 Jewish bodies in a quarry near Rome and Mussolini’s escape.
It is the lesson of Chaplin all over again: with his comedies he said and did more for socialism than any politician. The bank scene with Steiger leading the freed prisoners comes directly from Modern Times when Charlie waves his red flag in the crowd.
Because of the key role played by Morricone’s music in my films, they have often been associated with opera. I feel closer to the great melodrama and to Homer, or the picaresque novel, where there are no heroes, no good or bad men. I love close-ups because they express the soul. Usually cinema employs them to stress a particularly important event, whereas it is life itself: when we talk to one another or look at one another it’s a close-up. In the stagecoach, the camera getting closer and closer intends to turn the bourgeois faces into asses. While in colonel Gutiérrez’ case it is the expression of violence advancing. In the past, no one got closer than Ford in grasping the truth of the Western world. But Ford is an optimist: in his films when one of his characters opens a window he looks at the horizon with hope. I am a pessimist: it is the fear of being killed that inspires that very same action…

Sergio Leone, Entretien avec Sergio Leone, “Ecran 72”, n. 5, may 1972, interview by Guy Braucourt