The Development and Principles of Editing

The final duel in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Clint Eastwood, 1966) has three men locking eyes, hands by their trusty six shooters getting ready to fire at their target in a good old Mexican stand off.

For at least a good five ish minutes in this scene is just the three men staring each other down with their hand ready by their trusty sidearms. Just with lots of extreme and normal close ups along with a few long shots can really make a scene seem so intense and it gives the viewers the thought of "oh my jolly gee gosh, who is going to shoot first?".

This scene alone builds up so much tension and gives the viewers a feeling of excite and a rumble in their gut as the three men put on their brave faces for the final duel. Tuco (Eli Wallach) is currently going crazy as he wants the $20,000 and will stop at nothing to get the money. Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) seems like he is calm through the situation but eventually greed gets to him as Blondie (Clint Eastwood) spots him going for his gun and puts him down like the dirty dog he is. Blondie is calm throughout the entire situation as he puts faith into his plan, his reaction time and his trusty six shooter.

at 03:10, Blondie places a stone containing the name of the grave to the money. The camera then zooms in to show that the stone is the McGuffin in this particular scene. throughout most of the film, Blondie is the McGuffin as he knows whose grave contains the money.

Most of these close ups show fear in the eyes of the other two yet Blondie shows no fear as he his much more brave and far more bold than Batman himself!

"You see in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig." is possibly one of the best quotes by Clint Eastwood.