 Cael ei ddweud y gallwn ei ddweud yn ei ddweud yn mynd i chi. Mae'r ddweud o'r disgaws i'r Blwythol yn Gwyllgorol, ac yn y llwyth i'r gennych, yw'r Cymru yn y 60s a 70s, os ydych chi'n gyfnodd llwythol yn gwlad yn y dyfodol iawn i'r gwaith cynnwys, cynnwys, Marxist, ac yn dweud o'r ddwyllgorol ymgyrchol yn gweithgau. Over the past few years I've been interested in how constructions of the Bible, Christianity, Judaism and religion have changed over the past 50 years in English political discourse. Today though I want to take this one aspect of Italian takes on socialist understandings of religion and the Bible which seems quite different from my usual interest in English politics in that in Italian political discourse on the Bible the role of violence or even the reactions against it. Very significant and very central fashioned in light of Gramsci, Fanon, the recent fascist past, colonial uprisings and so on. One particular manifestation was the then notoriously violent Italian or spaghetti westerns of the 60s and 70s and while a number of radical socialist wrote and directed these films they are most famously represented in the UK and North America by Sergio Leone who I think also represents a key moment in redirecting the radicalness towards neoliberalism. Now even if someone has not somehow not seen Sergio Leone's westerns the poncho wearing cigar, smoking gun tot and stubble growing image of its breakout star Clint Eastwood as well as the distinctive Enio Morricone soundtracks may still provoke some kind of recognition. For those unfamiliar with Leone's westerns the key films include the dollars trilogy, just for the dollars, a few dollars more, the good, the bad and the ugly and once upon a time in the west. The dollars trilogy involves quests for money and focuses mainly on Clint Eastwood's bounty hunter or bounty killer character often referred to as the man with no name though in each film he actually has a different name. Once upon a time in the west shifts the focus to another dangerous figure just called Harmonica played by Charles Bronson but he ultimately gives way to Jill McBain played by Claudia Cardinale of nonviolent former prostitute who becomes the mother in inverted commas of the new town of Sweetwater and that's how it ends. As Christopher Freyling probably the most influential analyst of Leone would detail Leone's westerns were also a critical commentary on the American western transforming the optimistic view of the frontier into a world of death and corruption to which I would add that all the all pervasive death functions as a means of unleashing revolutionary change whether from the right or the left. One of the oldest questions and once upon a time once the most popular question in the critical study of Leone's westerns was as Freyling put it. Why did the moment of the Italian westerns appeal so much to the children of Marx and Coca-Cola in Europe especially the generation of May 1968 to which I think we should extend the geography to include North America and widen the timeframe to include its ongoing reception to the present. Leone's westerns can be read as simultaneously celebrating and critiquing capitalism and Hollywood westerns and that such tensions have always surrounded their various receptions including for what it's worth Leone's own understandings of himself. Eastwood's anti-authority character and distinctive style in the Leone westerns seem to have resonated with the social change of the 60s and the stylistic statements of the associated Vietnam protests. Yet this individualistic gunslinger with little time for bureaucracy is not too far removed from figures in other films which would soon pick up on various western themes and which represent the next stage in the development of the Eastwood and Bronson personas. I'm thinking here of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry and Bronson's role as in Michael Winner's Death Wish both films representing a very firm shift to the right and a reaction against the perceived progressive politics of the 1960s. There are many ways we can try to understand the popularity and survival of Leone's westerns. One and only one is to look at their ideological fit, if that's the right phrase, with changes happening in Europe and North America since the 1960s. I'm thinking here again a term used regularly in this conference, neoliberalism and the emergence of. The timing of the marketable and pop-out image of the recognisable Eastwood persona that emerged from the Dollar's Trilogy, in which Eastwood was very keen to protect, is crucial because of the instant image and PR would become a defining feature of neoliberal or postmodern capitalism from the 60s onwards. More broadly, leftist criticisms of traditional forms of authority alongside a sustained critique of the dominance of Marx's meta narratives were also significant for understanding the emergence of neoliberalism, of course. In a prime example of the law of unintended consequences, the rhetoric of freedom, liberty, individuality and challenges to the role of the state which came out of the 60s would be appropriated by the right, albeit in economic terms, and adapted in many parts of popular culture in the organisation or thaturisation of media, journalism, universities, economics and politics. The values associated with Leone's protagonists are sometimes compatible with, though sometimes critical of, the dominant values that have since become associated with neoliberalism. Leone's immoral and seemingly unconstrained entrepreneurial bounty killers are after all obsessed with accumulating a personal fortune. But, and there's a terrific book on this by Austin Fisher, the Italian westerns of the 1960s were also engaged in radical left-wing political debates. From violent revolution through to the rise of fascism to multi-ethnic communes pitted against vigilantes and the sheriff, and the need to kill off plenty of these kind of proto-cooclux clanners. You get this, for instance, in face-to-face, you don't get this in Leone at all, you get a sort of multi-ethnic, mixed-gender hillbilly communes fighting against fascism in the hills. I mean, very explicit. This political engagement though includes Leone's westerns as well. Basic influences can be seen in the critique of corporate greed in Once Upon a Time in the West, the classic image of the railroad boss, for instance. And the relatively sympathetic treatment of bandits as symptoms of social economic circumstances. For those of you who watch the films, Toukoin, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, who can gain popular support in small rural towns. Even the very nasty bandits are supported by the peasantry. But Leone's westerns were not radical enough for some. The Italian actor Jean-Marie Volante, who played the roles of Ramon and Indio in fiscal dollars and a few dollars more respectively, was a Communist Party member who, despite his prominence in Leone's westerns and growing fame, turned down a main role in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly because he wanted to take on more significant political roles. These were just not left-wing enough for him. Volante, I think, had a point as the political critique in Leone is largely muted. When Leone gets to his more cynical work called Duck You Sucker or A Fistful of Dynamite in 1971, which is on the Mexican Revolution, the political critique is levelled more at the intellectual concept of revolution, post-68 disillusionment and attacks on the Italian westerns of the revolutionary Zapata variety. Though the film is how Leone's sympathetic and puts class distinction in sharp focus and adds degrees of chaos and complexity to understanding revolutionary commitments and attitudes. Okay, I want to talk next about what in Leone's films what I call the first transformative stage of capitalism. The political mark of the Italian western runs deep in Leone's westerns. It's still there, without doubt. Taken collectively, they provide a materialist explanation of the origins of American capitalism which further helps us understand their political ambiguities. There are effectively two transformational stages of capitalism in Leone's westerns, which I think resonated with the tensions leading up to the emergence of neoliberalism. In the dollar's trilogy we have this represented, the first stage of transformative capitalism is where death and chaos rule. In this stage the deceitful untrustworthy morbidly entrepreneurial masters of all the new violent technologies thrive. Latching on to death as a commodity and wiping out the lingering feudalism of the rival families in A Fistful of Dollars or the outdated peasantry and peasant technology at the beginning of the good, the bad. And the ugly, which just has a peasant boy endlessly circling a well on a mule, soon to be overpowered by the solitary killer and his gun. Unlike the two opposing families in Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood's character can move freely across boundaries and sells his services to both sides. As Timothy Campbell argues, Eastwood here comes to stand in for a technological form linked to the mode of postmodern capitalism in which circulation of bodies, objects and labour power is key. But once the macabre market has dried up, Eastwood's character moves on to make more money from death elsewhere in a world increasingly suited to his particular talents. At the beginning of For A Few Dollars More, the follow-up film, we get the explanation to the audience that the reason for the bounty killers was that life may not have value but death sometimes has a price. The seemingly appealing disregard for traditional authority by the main characters is a marked feature of Leone's first transformative stage of capitalism and represented by the Dollars trilogy. Paralleling the overturning of the lingering feudalism, the state, government and local authority are not only corrupt or outdated but are constantly undermined, used or humiliated by a form of individualism represented by Leone's main characters. In this stage, the corrupt sheriff is no longer loyal, courageous and especially honest, as Leesewood points out in A Few Dollars More. With no other authority than his own, Eastwood can remove the sheriff's badge and toss it away with impunity. But traditional authorities are not simply involved in petty corruption. The northern prison camp can be used by the great western baddie, the grids of them all, Levan Clief, to carry out torture in his pursuit of Carson's gold. Indeed, we might say that the bigger the authority in the films, the more destructive and more indifferent to suffering it can be, even to the point where it discusses Eastwood's character in the final of the Dollars trilogy. Alongside money and the pervasiveness of death, a very typical theme in the Italian western generally, Christianity is one of the most prominent discourses which illuminate this first transformative stage of capitalism. Much more can be added on the pervasiveness of death, but it should be obvious enough anyway, I think, to anyone who's seen them. In striking contrast to American westerns, Leone's representation of Christianity is almost always Catholic and Latin rather than Protestant and white. The representation is typically a profane version of Christianity in this period of Leone's historical schema where death knows no boundaries. The normative family structure for Leone is presented in terms of the Holy Family, particularly in Fistful of Dollars and a few Dollars more, and is either uprooted or its members murdered. Throughout the films are desacralised, Christian imagery is clear enough in rowdy last supper scenes, broken statues, disused and ramshackle crosses, crumbling churches. Churches' bandit hides out an ominous church bells. The main characters are presented in similarly ironic ways. You get bandits preaching a parable, his term, from the pulpit about robbing the bank of El Paso. You get bounty killer dressed up as a priest reading the Bible. Eastwood the trickster is a golden-haired angel, and there are various trickster judices, which is as much a compliment as an insult in a world where betrayal and trickery in pursuit of money are the closest things to virtues. In this profane world, resurrection plays a transformative role for at least three of Leone's lead characters, which leads to the ultimate deaths and the ultimate prize. In Fistful of Dollars, for instance, Eastwood escapes in a coffin, nearly dead, complete with a shut lid and a few seconds of black screen, followed by his resurrection in, of course, a cave. The new Eastwood dramatically returns seemingly immortal thanks to the trickery of his protective metal vest. But this profanation of Christianity's grotesque, macabre, macho, and something integral to the pursuit of money and transformation of the world of the American Western is part of a world that also gets transformed in Leone's schema in order to hasten the development of American modern American capitalism. And that's why the next stage, the second stage of transformative stage of capitalism is important. Well, once upon a time in the West continues Leone's critical engagement with the American Western, he would now incorporate his Dollars trilogy as part of his critique in what is the second transformative stage of capitalism for Leone. At this point in Leone's story, the age of the gunslinger is coming to an end as they die off or leave the boom town. By the end, it's Jill McBain, the mother of sweetwater, who now represents the American future. The gunslingers had their uses in protecting her from the remaining ravages of the first stage of capitalism, but it's the investment in building materials for a strategically located town that guarantees its long term future. The second transformative stage of capitalism in once upon a time in the West involves a shift to a different form of capitalism. In sharp contrast to the Dollars trilogy, financial gain is not a primary motivation for the gunslingers in once upon a time in the West. By the end of the film, the successful use of money is now associated with investment and the emerging business class. Death is now controlled and regulated once again as the wiping out of the old world and its values are complete. The killers defend and aid McBain in her development of sweetwater before their departure from the historical stage. Now we get the development of the railroad, the staple of the American Western, which picks up on conventional Western themes, but now with a Leone spin. This new technological advance brings death, whether in troops or criminals in the bad and the ugly, bounty killers in for a few dollars more, or the gang of killers in once upon a time in the West. But once the railroad is in place and Jill McBain is taking control of water and labour, the development of the railroad becomes domesticated in the next stage of capitalism as the old killers are all removed. Already in once upon a time in the West, the trains bring or will bring commerce, they bring Jill McBain, and they bring different ethnic groups, including Native Americans, who are conspicuous by their absence in every other aspect of Leone's westerns. As Leone himself implied, this harnessing of a more ethnically diverse community and labour force is part of the construction of new boundaries, new towns in this stage of capitalist development. A recirculised Christianity is also found in once upon a time in the West, especially in the forgotten plans for a church within the town. A profane Christian imagery of the era of the bounty killer and gunslinger continues, but by the time Jill McBain secures the train station and guarantees the future of sweet water at the end of the film, murdering angels, resurrected killers, trickster judices are dead, long gone or in the process of being carried out of town. Gone to are the decaying statues and crooked crosses. The construction of this desacralised religion is now associated with a bygone era, either in its decline or in a time when, as Tuco pointed out to his brother amid scrumbling statues, you either become a bandit or a priest and of course being a priest is the easy option. But once upon a time in the West, religion is now controlled, put in its place, though interestingly not obviously Catholic. A push it might be argued that McBain picks up on the Holy Mother and Hortropes that have been associated with the two most famous mairies in the New Testament and in some aspects of Catholic tradition. Lyoni certainly had interested Holy Family imagery, but what we see at the end in sweet water could be a town for any town from the Hollywood mainstream rather than a distinctly Lyoni one. But whenever we make of it denominationally, the church is now domesticated and as the gunslinger's discovered, put in its place alongside the post office corral water tank in the rediscovered and now implemented plans for the building of the town. It's one more final point on a different kind of revolution at stake here. A culmination of a Marxian reading of history, though it may be, once upon a time in the West still ends optimistically and is hardly an overt condemnation of American capitalism, found in other Italian westerns. The dollar's trilogy may well have turned the world of the American Western upside down, they may have linked capital with the forces of death and they may have challenged traditional forms of authority and community in a way that would be appealing in the 60s and the 60s counterculture. But Lyoni's second transformative stage of capitalism showcases the values of amoral capitalism, untrustworthiness and a certain form of individualism which had the alien to the emerging neoliberalism. It is also perhaps significant that the optimistic and initially heavily edited once upon a time in the West was not the immediate success of the dollar's trilogy and it was not until Vietnam was comfortably in the past and Reaganism was firmly in the ascendancy that its reputation as a cinematic classic began to develop and with an extended version released in 1984. By the time of the westerns of Lyoni and Italian cinema were being showcased now through the relentless borrowing, as Lyoni himself had done, from the 1990s onwards the radical leftist element of the violence was now largely drained, although there is a case that Tarantino's Django Unchained intensifies the critique of the racist heritage. Nevertheless, we might contrast two of the most obviously political Italian westerns at the time, a bullet for the general and Requiscom. Both films cover similar themes of death, as all Italian westerns do, revenge, money and religion and have considerably more prominent female roles among the fighters and revolutionaries that would ever be found in a Lyoni film. In fact, Lyoni films, the case is fairly strong that these borderline misogynists. I couldn't find too many pictures, but at the end of the films you get the bandit groups are pretty much 50-50 gender wise as they go off to fight for the revolution. Both films deal with the development of a country, but this time Mexico and the way that American involvement in capitalism as well as the Mexican government and landowners play their part. As the film's side, firmly with the peasants and against Lyoni, these films use death to further the revolutionary cause. Money is now associated with corrupt capitalists or was associated with corrupt capitalists and imperialists rather than any virtue. In both films there is an element of Christianity profane through violence, crucifixion on a railway line for instance, or a capitalist landowner comparing himself with the God of the Bible. But Christianity can use violence for revolutionary good. The idealistic heart of both films are revolutionary priests. Santo, Claw Skincey there, and of course, Pasolini in Rechwisgan. In Bullet for the General, Santo is the most hardened of revolutionaries, almost blindly loyal to the cause who believes that stolen weapons are being used for God's work. He tells another priest that Christ sided with the poor and downtrodden and died between two bandits and so a good priest should be a violent revolutionary. He grenades the military in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and ends his grenade with an amen. And in place of poor prisoners he puts their captors in a prison cell telling them they will die slowly where they can take time to think about forgiveness of sins. Santo too asks forgiveness for shedding blood but he says it's necessary for the revolution. In Rechwisgan this film with the same name follows a familiar path of developing political awareness but the Bible itself is on this path. He's brought up by a non-violent preacher embarks on a mission to find his half sister with the Bible both physically and in quotation. Always justifying his actions, always accompanying him in his fights and even protects him from a bullet. But it takes the commentary of Pasolini beginning with the Bible landing at his feet to reveal the Bible's full revolutionary potential. Pasolini's character claims this is the book that will bring people freedom. And in sharp contrast to Leone's characters Pasolini denounces individualist revenge and enjoyment of violence. Instead Pasolini claims that violence is an unfortunate necessity in order to fight the capitalists and landowners of this world who will steal land and it will bring us justice and liberty. The endings of both films make for sharp contrast with Once Upon a Time in the West. Rather than the backdrop of a boom town of sweet water we get peasants tilling the land as a group of freedom fighters, men and women, ride off to fight for the cause. Or in the case of a bullet for the general the gringo assassin of the revolutionary leader is shot dead and sent packing on a train backed to the land where they put a price on everything, America. By Once Upon a Time in the West Leone had become enamored with the romance of the American West before moving on to a jaded view of revolution in Duck You Sucker. Nevertheless revolutionary Christianity is not entirely overturned in Leone's deconstruction of the Zapata Western and James Coburn's character returns the cross that he had previously ripped off from the peasants neck and gives it him as the new revolutionary general in the making. But Once Upon a Time in the West was full of radicals, but unlike or partly because of Leone's overarching narrative they've become a thing of the distant past. Leone's westerns are heavy on individualism and freedom but little on community, little on the need for revolution or sustained anti-capitalism or multi-ethnic, multi-gendered communes beyond the vigilante and the sheriff. But if ever there were a time in recent decades for return to a more radical past, one that goes beyond contemporary Hollywood in its critique of bad capitalism in the name of good capitalism, is it not now as the validity of the assumptions of neoliberalism are being challenged like never before since the 2008 crash. And I'll leave you with the answer that they haven't been challenged by a group I've been studying but I'm not going to talk about here and this is the Bob Crow Brigade. English, Scottish and Irish revolutionaries who have gone out in the past few years among the anarchists and Marxists to fight for the socialist and feminist revolution against ISIS in Rajava in northern Syria and their Corbyn supporters as I'm sure you were aware. And where death is relentlessly reinterpreted in terms of revolutionary potential as a means of smashing through neoliberalism and left melancholia.