The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
In Leone’s “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” the title of the film alone breaks tradition by introducing a third element into the western landscape, but the titular labels themselves are proven to be completely extra-diegetic in their application. In early commercials for the film, Tuco, the character labeled in the final movie as ‘The Ugly,’ is deemed ‘The Bad’, as if the two titles are interchangeable, and in the film itself the characters are introduced out of order altogether; Tuco, Angel Eyes, Blondie. ‘The Good’ character takes part in a bounty hunter con, ‘The Ugly’ loudly teeters between threatening and saving ‘The Good’s life, and ‘The Bad’ is the most honest of the three. The moral ambiguity of all three characters, driven by the very greed condemned in “Shane” and made visually apparent in their rapid shifting between costumes and loyalties in the surrounding Civil War, questions the reliability of their own labels. Tuco’s mantra, “There are two types of people in th