Who did Marisol remind him of


Well, obviously we dont find out about it in the movie so i know all we have our theories, but who do you think he was talking about when he said to marisol he knew one person who had no one to help them.

My theory is it was his mom.

It could also be a woman he loved, his sister... maybe he was even talking about himself (im not sure if he says that its a woman he talks about).

So my guess is as good as any but it seems to me he ment his mom. What do others think?

El sueño de la razón produce monstruos

reply

I believe that he was talking about himself.

"gonna throw, my raincoat in the river...gonna toss, my umbrella in the sea"...Sammy Turner.

reply

I believe that he was talking about himself when he used to be a woman.

reply

:)

El sueño de la razón produce monstruos

reply

Yes,

I also always thought she reminded him of his mother, also seen the fact that much attention is based on Jesus (the kid)... which might have reminded him of himself.
Thinking of it now, Leone was a huge fan of Kurosawa (Leone's style is actually an extension of Kurosawa's style)... and there is a scene in The Seven Samurai where Kikuchiyo (Mifune) recognises himself in one of the children victim of a war...

"What if there is no tomorrow? there wasn't one today...!"

reply

I think maybe the scriptwriters just thought they needed to give a reasonable explanation for why Clint's character would stray from his usual opportunism and risk his ass to help someone else. That line of dialogue hinting at something personal and strongly emotive was probably thrown in out of sheer expedience. My guess is the scriptwriters never even thought of anything or anyone specific in way of a background story.

That said, the 'mother' explanation would be as good as any.

reply

I was thinking along these lines. Sometimes they get a movie from overseas, and the cast/crew/writers don't have the same viewpoint as H'wood; they don't feel the need to write "sympathetic characters" to serve as a "rooting interest." So the H'wood executives say, we like it, but it just seems like two bad guys fighting. Make the Eastwood character more moral, or have him make some sacrifice to show he's the hero. So they create a scene which shows him to be acting out of noble motives.

I presumed that this is what happened in Casino Royale, too — there's a scene where Bond starts ranting about how millions of people will die if he doesn't act fast. He actually overacts if you ask me, to drive home the point that Bond really is the hero, even though he seems cold-blooded. (That scene just seemed like it was added at the last minute.)

reply

Well, Sergio's "Man With No Name" films are supposed to be a trilogy in reverse order, right?

Wrong. The films are unrelated in storyline and all the characters are different. This is why VanCleef plays a good guy in For a Few Dollars More and "the" bad guy in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

My vote history link:http://imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=5504773

reply

If you're really curious as to why he helps the family out, it's because that's what Toshiro Mifune's character does in Yojimbo.

As for Lee Van Cleef playing two characters, so does Gian (the guy who played Ramon in Fistful) who also plays the indian in the second film. Several otheer actors are in all three films alongside Clint Eastwood. That's just Sergio Leone using what he has and who he knows. The budgets for these films were not 200 million dollars, they didn't have a lot of resources. And come on, the poncho.

reply

Eastwood says that the script did give him a clear motivation to help Marisol, but he preferred to keep it mysterious and came up with "I knew someone like you once and there was no one there to help".

reply

I think Eastwood also said that the original explanation was just too long which is why he cut it down.

I can't remember Yojimbo but what was the samurai's motivation?

reply

Underpinning the "mother" theory, here is Marianne Koch, former actress, at a recent TV appearance in Germany: https://youtu.be/TjT9PZFYrgU?t=2m30s

reply

[deleted]

I always read it as she reminds him of his mom and the crying sissy boy reminds him of himself. I like the idea that this supreme badass started off as a crying little boy and all that sadness eventually turned to anger and resentment that molded him into the man he became.

reply

I would say Cleopatra with her eyeline makeup.

reply