Comparison of male and female life expectancy at birth for countries and territories as defined in the 2011 CIA Factbook, with selected bubbles labelled. The green dotted line corresponds to equal female and male life expectancy. The apparent 3D volumes of the bubbles are linearly proportional to their population.^[1][2]

The word "longevity" is sometimes used as a synonym for "life expectancy" in demography - especially when it concerns someone or something lasting longer than expected (an ancient tree, for example) - however, the two words have slightly different definitions. In a similar dichotomy to "precision" and "accuracy", "longevity" refers to the average number of years that a single person lives, whereas "life expectancy" refers to the number of years that the average population lives. This is illustrated by the fact that a drastic increase in life expectancy (due to a larger portion of the population beginning to live longer) may be accompanied by a small increase in the overall longevity of the population.

Reflections on longevity have usually gone beyond acknowledging the brevity of human life and have included thinking about methods to extend life. Longevity has been a topic not only for the scientific community but also for writers of travel, science fiction, and utopian novels.

There are many difficulties in authenticating the longest human life span ever by modern verification standards, owing to inaccurate or incomplete birth statistics. Fiction, legend, and folklore have proposed or claimed life spans in the past or future vastly longer than those verified by modern standards, and longevity narratives and unverified longevity claims frequently speak of their existence in the present.

A life annuity is a form of longevity insurance.

History[link]

A remarkable statement mentioned by Diogenes Laertius (c. 250 AD) is the earliest (or at least one of the earliest) references about plausible centenarian longevity given by a scientist, the astronomer Hipparchus of Nicea (c. 185 – c. 120 BC), who, according to the doxographer, was assured that the philosopher Democritus of Abdera (c. 470/460 – c. 370/360 BC) lived 109 years. All other accounts given by the ancients about the age of Democritus appear, without giving any specific age, to agree that the philosopher lived over 100 years. This possibility is likely, given that many ancient Greek philosophers are thought to have lived over the age of 90 (e.g., Xenophanes of Colophon, c. 570/565 – c. 475/470 BC, Pyrrho of Ellis, c. 360 – c. 270 BC, Eratosthenes of Cirene, c. 285 – c. 190 BC, etc.). The case of Democritus is different from the case of, for example, Epimenides of Crete (7th, 6th centuries BC), who is said to have lived 154, 157 or 290 years, as has been said about countless elders even during the last centuries as well as in the present time. These cases are not verifiable by modern means.

Present life expectancy[link]

Various factors contribute to an individual's longevity. Significant factors in life expectancy include gender, genetics, access to health care, hygiene, diet and nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, and crime rates. Below is a list of life expectancies in different types of countries:^[3]

• Developed countries: 77–83 years (e.g. Canada: 81.29 years, 2010 est.)
• Developing countries: 32–80 years (e.g. Mozambique: 41.37 years, 2010 est.)

Population longevities are increasing as life expectancies around the world grow:^[3][4]

• Spain: 79.08 years in 2002, 81.07 years in 2010
• Australia: 80 years in 2002, 81.72 years in 2010
• Italy: 79.25 years in 2002, 80.33 years in 2010
• France: 79.05 years in 2002, 81.09 years in 2010
• Germany: 77.78 years in 2002, 79.41 years in 2010
• UK: 80 years in 2002, 81.73 years in 2010
• USA: 77.4 years in 2002, 78.24 years in 2010

Long-lived individuals[link]

The Gerontology Research Group validates current longevity records by modern standards, and maintains a list of supercentenarians; many other unvalidated longevity claims exist. Record-holding individuals include:

• Jeanne Calment (1875–1997, 122 years, 164 days): the oldest person in history whose age has been verified by modern documentation. This defines the modern human life span, which is set by the oldest documented individual who ever lived.
• Sarah Knauss (1880–1999, 119 years, 97 days): The second oldest documented person in modern times and the oldest American.
• Christian Mortensen (1882–1998, 115 years, 252 days): the oldest man in history whose age has been verified by modern documentation.
• Besse Cooper (born 1896): Celebrated her 115th birthday in August 2011, currently the oldest living person.

Longevity and lifestyle[link]

Evidence-based studies indicate that longevity is based on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices.^[5] Twin studies have estimated that approximately 20-30% of an individual’s lifespan is related to genetics, the rest is due to individual behaviors and environmental factors which can be modified.^[6] In addition, it found that lifestyle plays almost no factor in health and longevity after the age of 80, and that almost everything in advanced age is due to genetic factors.

In preindustrial times, deaths at young and middle age were common, and lifespans over 70 years were comparatively rare. This is not due to genetics, but because of environmental factors such as disease, accidents, and malnutrition, especially since the former were not generally treatable with pre-20th century medicine. Deaths from childbirth were common in women, and many children did not live past infancy. In addition, most people who did attain old age were likely to die quickly from the above-mentioned untreatable health problems. Despite this, we do find a large number of examples of pre-20th century individuals attaining lifespans of 75 years or greater, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Cato the Elder, Thomas Hobbes, Eric of Pomerania, Christopher Polhem, and Michaelangelo. This was also true for poorer people like peasants or laborers. Genealogists will almost certainly find ancestors living to their 70s, 80s and even 90s several hundred years ago.

For example, an 1871 census in the UK (the first of its kind) found the average male life expectancy as being 44, but if infant mortality is subtracted, males who lived to adulthood averaged 75 years. The present male life expectancy in the UK is 77 years for males and 81 for females (the United States averages 74 for males and 80 for females).

Studies have shown that African-American males have the shortest lifespans of any group of people in the US, averaging only 69 years (white females average the longest). This reflects overall poorer health and greater prevalence of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer among African-American men.

Women normally outlive men, and this was as true in pre-industrial times as today. Theories for this include smaller bodies (and thus less stress on the heart), a stronger immune system (since testosterone acts as an immunosuppressant), and less tendency to engage in physically dangerous activities. It is also theorized that women have an evolutionary reason to live longer so as to help care for grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Study of the regions of the world known as blue zones,^[7] where people commonly live active lives past 100 years of age, have speculated that longevity is related to a healthy social and family life, not smoking, eating a plant-based diet, frequent consumption of legumes and nuts, and engaging in regular physical activity. In another well-designed cohort study, the combination of a plant based diet, frequent consumption of nuts, regular physical activity, normal BMI, and not smoking accounted for differences up to 10 years in life expectancy.^[8] The Alameda County Study hypothesized three additional lifestyle characteristics that promote longevity: limiting alcohol consumption, sleeping 7 to 8 hours per night, and not snacking (eating between meals).^[9]

Longevity traditions[link]

Longevity traditions are traditions about long-lived people (generally supercentenarians), and practices that have been believed to confer longevity.^[10][11] A comparison and contrast of "longevity in antiquity" (such as the Sumerian King List, the genealogies of Genesis, and the Persian Shahnameh) with "longevity in historical times" (common-era cases through twentieth-century news reports) is elaborated in detail in Lucian Boia's 2004 book Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity from Antiquity to the Present and other sources.^[12]

The Fountain of Youth reputedly restores the youth of anyone who drinks of its waters. The New Testament, following older Jewish tradition, attributes healing to the Pool of Bethesda when the waters are "stirred" by an angel.^[13] After the death of Juan Ponce de León, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo wrote in Historia General y Natural de las Indias (1535) that Ponce de León was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging.^[14] Traditions that have been believed to confer greater human longevity also include alchemy,^[15] such as that attributed to Nicolas Flamel. In the modern era, the Okinawa diet has some reputation of linkage to exceptionally high ages.^[16]

More recent longevity claims are subcategorized by many editions of Guinness World Records into four groups: "In late life, very old people often tend to advance their ages at the rate of about 17 years per decade .... Several celebrated super-centenarians (over 110 years) are believed to have been double lives (father and son, relations with the same names or successive bearers of a title) .... A number of instances have been commercially sponsored, while a fourth category of recent claims are those made for political ends ...."^[17] The estimate of 17 years per decade was corroborated by the 1901 and 1911 British censuses.^[17] Mazess and Forman also discovered in 1978 that inhabitants of Vilcabamba, Ecuador, claimed excessive longevity by using their fathers' and grandfathers' baptismal entries.^[17][18] Time magazine considered that, by the Soviet Union, longevity had been elevated to a state-supported "Methuselah cult".^[19] Robert L. Ripley regularly reported supercentenarian claims in Ripley's Believe It or Not!, usually citing his own reputation as a fact-checker to claim reliability.^[20]

Future[link]

The U.S. Census Bureau view on the future of longevity is that life expectancy in the United States will be in the mid-80s by 2050 (up from 77.85 in 2006) and will top out eventually in the low 90s, barring major scientific advances that can change the rate of human aging itself, as opposed to merely treating the effects of aging as is done today. The Census Bureau also predicted that the United States would have 5.3 million people aged over 100 in 2100. The United Nations has also made projections far out into the future, up to 2300, at which point it projects that life expectancies in most developed countries will be between 100 and 106 years and still rising, though more and more slowly than before. These projections also suggest that life expectancies in poor countries will still be less than those in rich countries in 2300, in some cases by as much as 20 years. The UN itself mentioned that gaps in life expectancy so far in the future may well not exist, especially since the exchange of technology between rich and poor countries and the industrialization and development of poor countries may cause their life expectancies to converge fully with those of rich countries long before that point, similarly to the way life expectancies between rich and poor countries have already been converging over the last 60 years as better medicine, technology, and living conditions became accessible to many people in poor countries. The UN has warned that these projections are uncertain, and cautions that any change or advancement in medical technology could invalidate such projections.^[21]

Recent increases in the rates of lifestyle diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, may drastically slow or reverse this trend toward increasing life expectancy in the developed world.

Scientist Olshansky examined how much mortality from various causes would have to drop in order to boost life expectancy and concluded that most of the past increases in life expectancy occurred because of improved survival rates for young people. He states that it seems unlikely that life expectancy at birth will ever exceed 85 years.^[22]

However, since 1840, record life expectancy has risen linearly for men and women, albeit more slowly for men. For women the increase has been almost three months per year. In light of steady increase, without any sign of limitation, the suggestion that life expectancy will top out must be treated with caution. Scientists Oeppen and Vaupel observe that experts who assert that "life expectancy is approaching a ceiling ... have repeatedly been proven wrong." It is thought that life expectancy for women has increased more dramatically owing to the considerable advances in medicine related to childbirth.^[23]

Mice have been genetically engineered to live twice as long as ordinary mice. Drugs such as deprenyl are a part of the prescribing pharmacopia of veterinarians specifically to increase mammal lifespan. A large plurality of research chemicals have been described at the scientific literature that increase the lifespan of a number of species.

Some argue that molecular nanotechnology will greatly extend human life spans. If the rate of increase of life span can be raised with these technologies to a level of twelve months increase per year, this is defined as effective biological immortality and is the goal of radical life extension.

Non-human biological longevity[link]

Currently living:

• Methuselah: 4,800-year-old bristlecone pine in the White Mountains of California, the oldest currently living organism known.

Non-living:

• Possibly 250 million year-old bacteria, bacillus permians, were revived from stasis after being found in sodium chloride crystals in a cavern in New Mexico. Russell Vreeland, and colleagues from West Chester University in Pennsylvania, reported on October 18, 2000 that they had revived the halobacteria after bathing them with a nutrient solution. Having supposedly survived for 250 million years, they would be the oldest living organisms ever recorded.^[24] However, their findings have not been universally accepted.^[25]
• A bristlecone pine nicknamed "Prometheus", felled in the Great Basin National Park in Nevada in 1964, found to be about 4,900 years old, is the longest-lived single organism known.^[26]
• A quahog clam (Arctica islandica), dredged from off the coast of Iceland in 2007, was found to be from 400 to 410 years old, the oldest animal documented. Other clams of the species have been recorded as living up to 374 years.^[27]
• Lamellibrachia luymesi, a deep-sea cold-seep tubeworm, is estimated to reach ages of over 250 years based on a model of its growth rates.^{[citation needed]}
• Hanako (Koi Fish) was the longest-lived vertebrate ever recorded at 226 years.
• A Bowhead Whale killed in a hunt was found to be approximately 211 years old (possibly up to 245 years old), the longest lived mammal known.^[28]
• Tu'i Malila, a radiated tortoise presented to the Tongan royal family by Captain Cook, lived for over 185 years. It is the oldest documented reptile. Adwaitya, an Aldabra Giant Tortoise, may have lived for up to 250 years.

Biological immortality[link]

Certain exotic organisms do not seem to be subject to aging and can live indefinitely. Examples include Tardigrades and Hydras. That is not to say that these organisms cannot die, merely that they only die as a result of disease or injury rather than age-related deterioration (and that they are not subject to the Hayflick limit).

See also[link]

• Actuarial Science
• Alameda County Study
• Alliance for Aging Research
• Biodemography
• Biodemography of human longevity
• Calorie restriction
• List of centenarians
• DNA damage theory of aging
• Gerontology Research Group
• Hayflick limit
• Indefinite lifespan
• Life extension
• List of last survivors of historical events
• Lloyd Demetrius
• Longecity
• Maximum life span
• Methuselah Foundation
• Mitohormesis
• Oldest viable seed
• Reliability theory of aging and longevity
• Research into centenarians
• Resveratrol
• Senescence
• Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Leonid A. Gavrilov & Natalia S. Gavrilova (1991), The Biology of Life Span: A Quantitative Approach. New York: Harwood Academic Publisher, ISBN
• John Robbins' Healthy at 100 garners evidence from many scientific sources to account for the extraordinary longevity of Abkhasians in the Caucasus, Vilcabambans in the Andes, Hunzas in Central Asia, and Okinawans.
• Gavrilova N.S., Gavrilov L.A. Search for Mechanisms of Exceptional Human Longevity. Rejuvenation Research, 2010, 13(2-3): 262-264.
• Beyond The 120-Year Diet, by Roy L. Walford, M.D.
• Gavrilova N.S., Gavrilov L.A. Can exceptional longevity be predicted? Contingencies [Journal of the American Academy of Actuaries], 2008, July/August issue, pp. 82-88.
• Forever Young: A Cultural History of Longevity from Antiquity to the Present Door Lucian Boia,2004 ISBN 1-86189-154-7
• Gavrilova N.S., Gavrilov L.A. Search for Predictors of Exceptional Human Longevity: Using Computerized Genealogies and Internet Resources for Human Longevity Studies. North American Actuarial Journal, 2007, 11(1): 49-67
• James R. Carey & Debra S. Judge: Longevity records: Life Spans of Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, reptiles, and Fish. Odense Monographs on Population Aging 8, 2000. ISBN 87-7838-539-3
• Gavrilov LA, Gavrilova NS. Reliability Theory of Aging and Longevity. In: Masoro E.J. & Austad S.N.. (eds.): Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Sixth Edition. Academic Press. San Diego, CA, USA, 2006, 3-42.
• James R. Carey: Longevity. The biology and Demography of Life Span. Princeton University Press 2003 ISBN 0-691-08848-9
• Gavrilova, N.S., Gavrilov, L.A. Human longevity and reproduction: An evolutionary perspective. In: Voland, E., Chasiotis, A. & Schiefenhoevel, W. (eds.): Grandmotherhood - The Evolutionary Significance of the Second Half of Female Life. Rutgers University Press. New Brunswick, NJ, USA, 2005, 59-80.

External links[link]

• American Federation for Aging Research
• The Okinawa Centenarian Study
• International Research Centre for Healthy Ageing & Longevity (IRCHAL)

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2010)

Sarah Harper is a British gerontologist. She achieved particular acclaim when she established Oxford's Institute of Ageing, and became the University of Oxford's first Professor of Gerontology. In 2006 she published Ageing Societies Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges and Opportunities,^[1] and an article "Mature Societies" in Daedalus which set the agenda for a new concept of global gerontology. She is active in both Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa. In 2008 she was awarded the University of Malaya Chair in Old Age, as a recognition of her unique contribution to research in Asian ageing studies. Harper was selected to present the 2012 Oxford London Public Lecture on the new global population "21st Century: Last Century of Youth?". ^[2], run in association with the Guardian Newspaper.

In 1986 Harper was elected to serve on the executive of the British Society of Gerontology, while still a postdoctoral researcher, the youngest member ever. The following year she became a visiting professor at the University of Utah and shortly after was invited to take up the Irving B Harris Visiting Chair at the University of Chicago.

In 1997 on her return to the University of Oxford, where she had undertaken her doctoral research, she was invited by the UK Nuffield Foundation to establish and run their new Programme on Older People. The following year she secured funding from the US National Institute of Aging, NIA, for the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a mirror survey of the US Health and Retirement Study she had experience of while in the US, and to establish the Oxford Centre on Population Ageing. This centre was based on her experience of the Center of Demogtraphy and Economics at the University of Chicago. In 2001 the University of Oxford agreed to convert the population centre into a fully fledged Institute -with a focus on global population ageing.

The Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, a multi-disciplinary research institute, was the first to focus on population ageing at the global, national and individual levels. The structure of the Institute OIA draws on Harper's vision which she outlines in her book Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges and Opportunites,^[1] published in 2006, which addresses the impact of population ageing on work, family, health and society in both the developed and less developed regions.

Harper's main focus has been in taking research into policy and practice, and for engaging the wider academic and public policy community in her vision of global population ageing. In the area of work and pensions Harper is a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute,^[3] a Trustee of Club Vita the new longevity comparison club for occupational pension schemes,^[4] and a former Trustee of the Third Age Employment Network.^[5] She serves on the Royal Society working group "Population and the Planet"^[6] and World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Ageing.^[7] Harper has served on the Social Policy and Research Committee of Help the Aged. She has advised the UK Department of Children, Schools and Families on their Education 2030 strategy, the UK department of Science Technology and the Arts, NESTA, on their Age Unlimited Programme, and the UK new Age Equality Board.

Internationally, Harper has worked extensively on ageing in Asia, and was the first chair holder of the International Chair in Old Age Financial Security at the University of Malaya. This is a sister chair to the recently appointed chair in Poverty Studies held by Jeffrey Sachs.^[8] She also advises the 3rd Age Council in Singapore on their Active Ageing Programme. She chaired the US McArthur Foundation European Investigation into Economic and Demographic Ageing. Harper also served on the 2006 and 2008 International Scientific Committees of the International Federation of Ageing, IFA,^[9] and advised the Portuguese Gulbenkian Foundation on their 2008-09 Time of Life Programme.^[10]

Harper's other works include Families in Ageing Societies,^[11] OUP 2004 and Ageing in Asia 2008 (with Roger Goodman). Harper founded the International Journal on Population Ageing and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Population Ageing, published by Springer.

Harper has served as the Global Advisor on Ageing to the international bank HSBC,^[12] and is the Principal Investigator with George Leeson on the Global Ageing Survey, which asked 44,000 people in 24 countries about their attitudes and behaviours towards later life and retirement.

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/people/sarah-harper
• http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk
• http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/research

Aubrey de Grey
In Los Angeles, California, 2008
Born	(1963-04-20) 20 April 1963 (age 49) London, England
Residence	Cambridge, England
Nationality	British
Education	MA, PhD (Cantab)
Alma mater	Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Occupation	Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation
Known for	Work in Biogerontology, Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS)
Spouse	Adelaide Carpenter[1]

Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey (born 20 April 1963) is an English author and theoretician in the field of gerontology, and the Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Rejuvenation Research, author of The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging (1999) and co-author of Ending Aging (2007). He is perhaps best known for his view that human beings could, in theory, live to lifespans far in excess of that which any authenticated cases have lived to today.

De Grey's research focuses on whether regenerative medicine can thwart the aging process. He works on the development of what he calls "Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence" (SENS), a tissue-repair strategy intended to rejuvenate the human body and allow an indefinite lifespan. To this end, he has identified seven types of molecular and cellular damage caused by essential metabolic processes. SENS is a proposed panel of therapies designed to repair this damage.^[2]

De Grey is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, the American Aging Association, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and an advisor to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.^[3] He has been interviewed in recent years in a number of news sources, including CBS 60 Minutes, the BBC, The New York Times, Fortune Magazine, The Washington Post, TED, Popular Science, The Colbert Report, Time, and the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

Early life and education[link]

De Grey was born and brought up in London, England.^{[citation needed]} He told The Observer that he never knew his father, and that his mother, an artist, hothoused him in the areas she herself was the weakest: science and mathematics.^[1] He was educated at Sussex House School and Harrow School. He went to the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1985 with a BA in computer science from Trinity Hall.

Career[link]

After graduation in 1985, de Grey joined Sinclair Research Ltd as an AI/software engineer. In 1986, he co-founded Man-Made Minions Ltd to pursue the development of an automated formal program verifier. He met his wife, fruit-fly geneticist Adelaide Carpenter, at a graduate party in Cambridge, and through her was introduced to the science of anti-aging, when her boss needed someone who knew about computers and biology to take over the running of a database on fruit flies.^[4] From 1992 until 2006, he was in charge of software development at the university's Genetics Department for the FlyBase genetic database.^[5]

In 1999, his book The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging was published, in which he writes that obviating damage to mitochondrial DNA might by itself extend lifespan significantly, though he said it was more likely that cumulative damage to mitochondria is a significant cause of senescence, but not the single dominant cause. On the basis of the book, the University of Cambridge awarded de Grey a PhD in 2000.^[6]

Strategies[link]

De Grey argues that the fundamental knowledge needed to develop effective anti-aging medicine mostly already exists, and that the science is ahead of the funding. He works to identify and promote specific technological approaches to the reversal of various aspects of aging, or, as de Grey puts it, "the set of accumulated side effects from metabolism that eventually kills us,"^[7] and for the more proactive and urgent approaches to extending the healthy human lifespan. Regarding this issue, de Grey is a supporter of life extension.

As of 2005, his work centered upon a detailed plan called Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), which is aimed at preventing age-related physical and cognitive decline. In March 2009, he co-founded the SENS Foundation, a non-profit organization based in California, United States, where he currently serves as Chief Science Officer. The Foundation "works to develop, promote and ensure widespread access to regenerative medicine solutions to the disabilities and diseases of ageing,"^[8] focusing on the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. Before March 2009, the SENS research program was mainly pursued by the Methuselah Foundation, co-founded by de Grey.

A major activity of the Methuselah Foundation is the Methuselah Mouse Prize,^[9] a prize designed to hasten the research into effective life extension interventions by awarding monetary prizes to researchers who stretch the lifespan of mice to unprecedented lengths. De Grey stated in March 2005 "if we are to bring about real regenerative therapies that will benefit not just future generations, but those of us who are alive today, we must encourage scientists to work on the problem of aging." The prize reached 4.2 USD million in February 2007.

In 2005, he was the subject of two highly critical editorials accompanying an article in MIT's Technology Review.^[10]

In 2007, de Grey wrote the book Ending Aging with the assistance of Michael Rae.^[11] It provides a detailed account of the science, politics and social challenges of the entire SENS agenda.^[12]

In a 2008 broadcast on the Arte German & French TV, de Grey confirmed that according to him, the first human who will live up to 1,000 years is probably already alive now, and might even be today between 50 and 60 years old.^[13]

Pro-aging trance[link]

The "pro-aging trance" is a term coined by Grey to describe "the impulsion to leap to embarrassingly unjustified conclusions in order to put the horror of aging out of one’s mind".^[14] According to de Grey, the pro-aging trance or "pro-aging edifice"^[15] is a psychological strategy which people use in order to cope with aging, and which is rooted in the belief that aging is immutable and unavoidable. De Grey refers, in this regard, to the general public's ambivalence towards aging. For example, he states that life extension is often viewed as prolonging, rather than postponing, the period of decrepitude characteristic of old age, a belief that de Grey calls the "Tithonus error", in reference to the myth of Tithonus. He describes this attitude as a rational response to the perceived inevitability of aging. However, de Grey believes that defeating aging is feasible and that the pro-aging trance represents a huge barrier to combating aging.^[16]

The seven types of aging damage proposed by de Grey (The Seven Deadly Things)[link]

1. Cancer-causing nuclear mutations/epimutations:

   These are changes to the nuclear DNA (nDNA), the molecule that contains our genetic information, or to proteins which bind to the nDNA. Certain mutations can lead to cancer, and, according to de Grey, non-cancerous mutations and epimutations do not contribute to aging within a normal lifespan, so cancer is the only endpoint of these types of damage that must be addressed.

2. Mitochondrial mutations:

   Mitochondria are components in our cells that are important for energy production. They contain their own genetic material, and mutations to their DNA can affect a cell’s ability to function properly. Indirectly, these mutations may accelerate many aspects of aging.

3. Intracellular aggregates:

   Our cells are constantly breaking down proteins and other molecules that are no longer useful or which can be harmful. Those molecules which can’t be digested simply accumulate as junk inside our cells. Atherosclerosis, macular degeneration and all kinds of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease) are associated with this problem.

4. Extracellular aggregates:

   Harmful junk protein can also accumulate outside of our cells. The amyloid senile plaque seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is one example.

5. Cell loss:

   Some of the cells in our bodies cannot be replaced, or can only be replaced very slowly - more slowly than they die. This decrease in cell number causes the heart to become weaker with age, and it also causes Parkinson's disease and impairs the immune system.

6. Cell senescence:

   This is a phenomenon where the cells are no longer able to divide, but also do not die and let others divide. They may also do other things that they’re not supposed to, like secreting proteins that could be harmful. Immune senescence and type 2 diabetes are caused by this.^{[citation needed]}

7. Extracellular crosslinks:

   Cells are held together by special linking proteins. When too many cross-links form between cells in a tissue, the tissue can lose its elasticity and cause problems including arteriosclerosis and presbyopia.^[7]

Criticism[link]

[edit] Technology Review debate

A debate over the legitimacy of de Grey's proposals for combating aging was published in MIT's Technology Review. In the end, none of the challengers to de Grey were able to convince the judges that SENS was "so wrong that it is unworthy of learned debate," though the judges noted that "the proponents of SENS have not made a compelling case for SENS."

EMBO Reports[link]

An article about SENS published in the viewpoint section of EMBO Reports by 28 scientists concluded that none of de Grey's therapies "has ever been shown to extend the lifespan of any organism, let alone humans".^[17] The SENS Foundation, of which de Grey was a co-founder, seems to agree with the EMBO Report as it states, "If you want to reverse the damage of aging right now I'm afraid the simple answer is, you can't." ^[18] Nonetheless, De Grey argues that this reveals a serious gap in understanding between basic scientists and technologists and between biologists studying aging and those studying regenerative medicine.^[19] The 15-member Research Advisory Board of his own SENS Foundation have signed an endorsement of the plausibility of the SENS approach.^[20]

Recorded public appearances[link]

See also[link]

• Regenerative Medicine
• List of life extension topics

References[link]

External links[link]

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) is a 1966 Italian epic Spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles.^[3] The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the famous film score, including its main theme. It is the third film in the Dollars Trilogy following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, American Civil War battles and prison camps.^[4]

Plot[link]

In a desolate ghost town during the American Civil War, bandit Tuco Ramirez ("The Ugly," Eli Wallach) narrowly shoots his way past three bounty hunters to freedom, killing two but only badly wounding the third. Miles away, Angel Eyes ("The Bad," Lee Van Cleef) interrogates a former soldier called Stevens (Antonio Casas) about a missing man named Jackson who has taken on the name "Bill Carson" (Antonio Casale) and a cache of stolen Confederate gold. He brutally guns down Stevens and his eldest son after the interrogation, but not before Stevens pays Angel Eyes to kill Angel Eyes' employer, another former soldier named Baker. Angel Eyes later collects his fee for Stevens' killing from Baker, and then shoots and kills him, too.

Meanwhile, during Tuco's flight across the desert he runs into a group of bounty hunters who prepare to capture him when they are approached by Blondie ("The Good," Clint Eastwood), a mysterious lone gunman who challenges the hunters to the draw, which he wins with lightning speed. Initially elated, Tuco is enraged when Blondie delivers him up to the local authorities for the reward money of $2,000. Hours later, as Tuco awaits his execution, Blondie surprises the authorities and frees Tuco by shooting the execution rope; the two later meet to split the reward money, revealing their lucrative money-making scheme. After Tuco's bounty is raised to $3,000, the two repeat the process at another town before Blondie, weary of Tuco's incessant complaints about the dividing of the profits from their scheme, abandons him in the desert, keeping all of the money. A livid Tuco manages to make it to another town and rearm himself with a revolver. Some time later in another town, Tuco enlists three outlaws to come with him to kill Blondie. As the three men break into Blondie's room, Blondie shoots and kills all three of them, but to Blondie's surprise Tuco climbs up through his back window and aims his gun at Blondie and captures him while a skirmish between Union and Confederate troops rages on outside. As Tuco prepares to kill Blondie by fashioning a noose and forcing Blondie to put it around his neck, a cannonball hits the hotel and demolishes the room, allowing Blondie to escape.

Following a relentless search, Tuco captures Blondie using the same scheme with another partner (Tuco doesn't allow Blondie to shoot the rope this time and the unfortunate "Shorty" is hanged) and marches him across the harsh desert. When Blondie finally collapses from dehydration and heatstroke, Tuco prepares to kill him but pauses when a runaway ambulance carriage appears on the horizon heading their way. Inside, while looting the dead soldiers, Tuco discovers a dying Bill Carson, who reveals that $200,000 in stolen Confederate gold is buried in a grave in Sad Hill cemetery but falls unconscious before naming the grave. When Tuco returns with water, he discovers Carson dead and Blondie slumped against the carriage beside Carson's body. Before passing out, Blondie says that Carson told him the name on the grave, so now Tuco and Blondie know half of the secret of the location but neither can get the gold without the help of the other. Tuco takes Blondie (both disguised as Confederate soldiers) to a Catholic mission run by Tuco's older brother Father Pablo. Tuco nurses Blondie back to health, and the two leave, still disguised. They inadvertently encounter a force of Union soldiers (whom they take for Confederates due to thick coatings of grey dust on their uniforms). They are captured and marched to a Union prison camp.

At the camp, Corporal Wallace (Mario Brega) calls the roll. Tuco answers for Bill Carson, catching the attention of Angel Eyes, now disguised as a Union Sergeant stationed at the camp. Angel Eyes has Wallace viciously beat and torture Tuco into revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the location of the gold, but Tuco also confesses that only Blondie knows the name on the grave. Convinced that Blondie would not be easily broken, Angel Eyes offers to take Tuco's place in the partnership to recover the gold. Blondie agrees and rides out with Angel Eyes and his posse. Meanwhile, Tuco escapes while being transported by train to his execution, killing Corporal Wallace in the process.

We next see Angel Eyes' gang, including Blondie, arriving in a town that's rapidly being evacuated due to heavy artillery fire. Tuco, wandering aimlessly through the wreckage of that same town, is oblivious of the bounty hunter that survived at the start of the movie (Al Mulock), who tracks and ambushes Tuco who is taking a bath in an abandoned building. Despite the surprise, Tuco shoots and kills the bounty hunter. Blondie investigates the gunshot, finding Tuco and informing him of Angel Eyes's involvement. The two resume their old partnership, stalking through the wrecked town and killing Angel Eyes' henchmen before discovering that Angel Eyes has escaped and left an insulting note for them.

Tuco and Blondie find their way to Sad Hill Cemetery, but it is blocked by large Union and Confederate forces who are separated only by a narrow bridge. Each side is preparing to fight for it, but apparently both sides have been ordered not to destroy the bridge. Reasoning that if the bridge were destroyed "these idiots would go somewhere else to fight", Blondie and Tuco wire the bridge with dynamite. During the process, the two trade information, Tuco revealing Sad Hill Cemetery as the gold's location and Blondie saying that the name on the grave is Arch Stanton. The two then take cover as the bridge blows up and the two armies resume their battle. The next morning, the Confederate and Union soldiers have gone. Tuco abandons Blondie (who has stopped to tend to a dying young Confederate soldier) to retrieve the gold for himself at the cemetery. Frantically searching the sea of makeshift tombstones and grave markers, Tuco finally locates Arch Stanton's grave. As he digs, Blondie appears (now clad in his trademark poncho) and tosses him a shovel. A second later, the two are surprised by Angel Eyes, who holds them at gunpoint. Blondie kicks open Stanton's grave to reveal just a skeleton. Declaring that only he knows the real name of the grave, Blondie writes it on a rock in the middle of the graveyard and tells Tuco and Angel Eyes that "two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. We're going to have to earn it."

The three stare each other down in the circular center of the cemetery, calculating alliances and dangers in a Mexican standoff before suddenly drawing. Blondie shoots Angel Eyes, who tries to shoot Blondie while he is down only to be shot by Blondie again and roll into an open grave, dead. Tuco also tries to shoot Angel Eyes, but discovers that Blondie had unloaded his gun the night before. Blondie directs Tuco to the grave marked "Unknown" next to Arch Stanton's. Tuco digs and is overjoyed to find bags of gold inside, but is shocked when he turns to Blondie and finds himself staring at a noose. Seeking a measure of revenge for what Tuco has done to him, Blondie forces Tuco to stand atop a tottery grave marker and fixes the noose around his neck, binding Tuco's hands before riding off with his share of the gold. As Tuco screams for mercy, Blondie's silhouette returns on the horizon, aiming a rifle at him. Blondie fires a single shot and severs the noose rope, just like old times, dropping Tuco face-first onto his share of the gold. Blondie smiles and rides off as Tuco, who has his gold but no horse, curses him in rage by shouting "Hey Blondie! You know what you are? Just a dirty son of a bitch!"

Cast[link]

The trio[link]

• Clint Eastwood as "Blondie": The Good, a.k.a. the Man with No Name, a subdued, cocksure bounty hunter who teams with Tuco, and Angel Eyes temporarily, to find the buried gold. Blondie and Tuco have an ambivalent partnership. Tuco knows the name of the cemetery where the gold is hidden, but Blondie knows the name of the grave where it is buried, forcing them to work together to find the treasure. In spite of this greedy quest, Blondie's pity for the dying soldiers in the chaotic carnage of the War is evident. "I've never seen so many men wasted so badly," he remarks.

Rawhide had ended its run as a series in 1966 and at that point neither of Clint Eastwood's Italian films had been released in the United States. When Leone offered him a role in his next movie, it was the only big film offer he had; however, Eastwood still needed to be convinced to do it. Leone and his wife traveled to California to persuade him. Two days later, he agreed to make the film upon being paid $250,000^[5] and getting 10% of the profits from the North American markets—a deal with which Leone was not happy.

• Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes: The Bad, a ruthless, unfeeling, and sociopathic mercenary named "Angel Eyes" (Sentenza—Sentence—in the original script and the Italian version), who always finishes a job he's paid for (which is usually finding—and killing—people). When Blondie and Tuco are captured while posing as Confederate soldiers, Angel Eyes is the Union sergeant who interrogates and tortures Tuco, eventually learning the name of the cemetery where the gold is buried, but not the name on the tombstone. Angel Eyes forms a fleeting partnership with Blondie, but Tuco and Blondie turn on Angel Eyes when they get their chance.

Originally, Leone wanted Charles Bronson to play Angel Eyes but he was already committed to playing in The Dirty Dozen (1967). Leone thought about working with Lee Van Cleef again: "I said to myself that Van Cleef had first played a romantic character in For a Few Dollars More. The idea of getting him to play a character who was the opposite of that began to appeal to me."^[6]

• Eli Wallach as Tuco: The Ugly, Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez, a comical, oafish (though proven also very dangerous as seen throughout the film), fast talking bandit who is wanted by the authorities for a long list of crimes. Tuco manages to discover the name of the cemetery where the gold is buried, but he does not know the name of the grave—only Blondie does. This state of affairs forces Tuco to become reluctant partners with Blondie.

The director originally considered Gian Maria Volonté for the role of Tuco, but felt that the role required someone with "natural comic talent". In the end, Leone chose Eli Wallach based on his role in How the West Was Won (1962), in particular, his performance in "The Railroads" scene.^[6] In LA, Leone met Wallach, who was skeptical about playing this type of character again, but after Leone screened the opening credit sequence from For a Few Dollars More, Wallach said: "When do you want me?"^[6] The two men got along famously, sharing the same bizarre sense of humor. Leone allowed Wallach to make changes to his character in terms of his outfit and recurring gestures. Both Eastwood and Van Cleef realized that the character of Tuco was close to Leone's heart, and director and Wallach became good friends. They communicated in French, which Wallach spoke badly and Leone spoke well. Van Cleef observed, "Tuco is the only one of the trio the audience gets to know all about. We meet his brother and find out where he came from and why he became a bandit. But Clint's character and Angel's remain mysteries."^[6]

In the theatrical trailer, Angel Eyes is referred to as The Ugly and Tuco, The Bad.^[7] This is due to a translation error; the original Italian title translates literally to "The Good, the Ugly, the Bad".

Supporting cast[link]

• Aldo Giuffrè as the Union Captain: A drunken Union officer who befriends Tuco and Blondie. He feels that the bloody confrontation his men are involved in is a futile waste, and dreams of destroying the bridge—a wish carried out by Blondie and Tuco. Mortally wounded in the Battle of Branstone Bridge, he dies smiling just after hearing the bridge's destruction. Giuffré was an Italian comedian who had become an actor.
• Mario Brega as Corporal Wallace: A thuggish prison guard who works for Angel Eyes and brutally tortures Tuco to get him to reveal the hidden location of the treasure. Angel Eyes turns Tuco over to Wallace so that he can turn Tuco in for the reward money. Tuco, however, kills Wallace and escapes. A butcher turned actor, the imposing, heavyset Brega was a mainstay in Leone's films and Spaghetti Westerns in general.
• Luigi Pistilli as Father Pablo Ramirez: Tuco's brother, a Catholic friar. He holds Tuco in contempt for his choice of life as a bandit, but ultimately loves him. Pistilli was a veteran of many Spaghetti Westerns, usually playing a villain (as in Leone's For a Few Dollars More).
• Al Mulock as One-armed Bounty Hunter: Wounded by Tuco in the early part of the film, he loses his right arm. He seeks revenge, only to be shot and killed by Tuco, leading to the line: "When you have to shoot, shoot! Don't talk." Mulock was a Canadian actor who later appeared in Once Upon a Time in the West as one of the three gunmen in the film's opening sequence. Still in costume, he committed suicide by jumping from a hotel window during the making of that film.
• Antonio Casas as Stevens: Killed by Angel Eyes, who was paid to carry out the killing by Baker. Casas was a Spanish footballer turned actor.
• Antonio Casale as Bill Carson/Jackson
• Sergio Mendizábal as blond bounty hunter. One of three bounty hunters killed by Blondie during an attempted arrest of Tuco.
• John Bartha as Sheriff. Takes custody of Tuco. Hat shot off by Blondie.
• Claudio Scarchilli as Pedro, a member of Tuco's Gang. Killed by Blondie.
• Sandro Scarchilli as 'Chico, a member of Tuco's Gang. Killed by Blondie.
• Antonio Molino Rojo as Captain Harper, the good captain at the Union prison camp who is slowly losing a leg to gangrene. Harper warns Angel Eyes not to be dishonest on his watch, but Angel Eyes holds him in contempt and deliberately ignores his orders. Rojo usually played henchmen in Leone's films and other Spaghetti Westerns, but here he played a more sympathetic character.
• Benito Stefanelli as Angel Eyes Gang Member. Henchman killed by Tuco. Leone's stunt coordinator who frequently had bit parts in Spaghetti Westerns.
• Aldo Sambrell as Angel Eyes Gang Member. Henchman killed by Blondie. Sambrell was a Spanish actor whose initially small parts in Spaghetti Westerns made him somewhat famous in his home country.
• Lorenzo Robledo as Clem, henchman sent to follow Blondie when he leaves Angel Eyes' hideout, after Tuco kills the bounty hunter. Blondie discovers him and shoots him in the stomach.
• Enzo Petito as the guileless store keeper robbed by Tuco.
• Livio Lorenzon as Baker, The Confederate soldier involved in the money scheme with Stevens and Carson.
• Rada Rassimov as Maria, a prostitute that is beaten up by Angel Eyes in order to get information about Bill Carson
• Chelo Alonso as Stevens' Wife. An Italian star of the sword and sandal films in the 50s and early 60s, she had worked with Leone on several of his films as an assistant director.

Development[link]

Pre-production[link]

After the success of For a Few Dollars More, executives at United Artists approached the film’s screenwriter, Luciano Vincenzoni, to sign a contract for the rights to the film and for the next one. He, producer Alberto Grimaldi and Sergio Leone had no plans, but with their blessing, Vincenzoni pitched an idea about “a film about three rogues who are looking for some treasure at the time of the American Civil War.”^[6] The studio agreed but wanted to know the cost for this next film. At the same time, Grimaldi was trying to broker his own deal but Vincenzoni’s idea was more lucrative. The two men struck an agreement with UA for a million dollar budget with the studio advancing $500,000 up front and 50% of the box office takings outside of Italy. The total budget would eventually be $1.3 million.

Leone built upon the screenwriter’s original concept to “show the absurdity of war...the Civil War which the characters encounter. In my frame of reference, it is useless, stupid: it does not involve a 'good cause.'"^[6] An avid history buff, Leone said, “I had read somewhere that 120,000 people died in Southern camps such as Andersonville. I was not ignorant of the fact that there were camps in the North. You always get to hear about the shameful behavior of the losers, never the winners.”^[6] The Batterville Camp where Blondie and Tuco are imprisoned was based on steel engravings of Andersonville. Many shots in the film were influenced by archival photographs taken by Mathew Brady. As the film took place during the Civil War, it served as a prequel for the other two films in the trilogy, which took place after the war.^[8]

While Leone developed Vincenzoni’s idea into a script, the screenwriter recommended the comedy-writing team of Agenore Incrucci and Furio Scarpelli to work on it with Leone and Sergio Donati. According to Leone, "I couldn’t use a single thing they’d written. It was the grossest deception of my life."^[6] Donati agreed, saying, "There was next to nothing of them in the final script. They only wrote the first part. Just one line."^[6] Vincenzoni claims that he wrote the screenplay in 11 days, but he soon left the project after his relationship with Leone soured. The three main characters all contain autobiographical elements of Leone. In an interview he said, "[Sentenza] has no spirit, he's a professional in the most banal sense of the term. Like a robot. This isn't the case with the other two. On the methodical and careful side of my character, I’d be nearer il Biondo (Blondie): but my most profound sympathy always goes towards the Tuco side...He can be touching with all that tenderness and all that wounded humanity.”^[6]

Eastwood received a percentage-based salary, unlike the first two films where he received a straight fee salary. When Lee Van Cleef was again cast for another Dollars film, he joked "the only reason they brought me back was because they forgot to kill me off in For A Few Dollars More."^[8]

The film’s working title was I due magnifici straccioni (The Two Magnificent Tramps). It was changed just before shooting began when Vincenzoni thought up Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Ugly, the Bad), which Leone loved. In the United States, United Artists considered using the original Italian translation, River of Dollars, or The Man With No Name, but decided on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.^[7]

Production[link]

Filming began at the Cinecittà studio in Rome again in mid-May 1966, including the opening scene between Clint and Wallach when The Man With No Name captures Tuco for the first time and sends him to jail.^[9] The production then moved on to Spain's plateau region near Burgos in the north, which doubled for the southwestern United States, and again shot the western scenes in Almería in the south.^[10] This time the production required more elaborate sets, including a town under cannon fire, an extensive prison camp and an American Civil War battlefield; and for the climax, several hundred Spanish soldiers were employed to build a cemetery with several thousand grave stones to resemble an ancient Roman circus.^[10] For the scene where the bridge was destroyed, it had to be filmed twice as the first time none of the three cameras were filming it being destroyed by dynamite.^[11] The Spanish government approved production and provided the army for technical assistance; the film's cast includes 1,500 local militia members as extras.^{[citation needed]} Eastwood remembers, "They would care if you were doing a story about Spaniards and about Spain. Then they’d scrutinize you very tough, but the fact that you're doing a western that’s supposed to be laid in southwest America or Mexico, they couldn’t care less what your story or subject is."^[6] Top Italian cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli was brought in to shoot the film and was prompted by Leone to pay more attention to light than in the previous two films; Ennio Morricone composed the score once again. Leone was instrumental in asking Morricone to compose a track for the final Mexican stand-off scene in the cemetery, asking him to compose what felt like "the corpses were laughing from inside their tombs", and asked Delli Colli to creating a hypnotic whirling effect interspersed with dramatic extreme close ups, to give the audience the impression of a visual ballet.^[10] Filming concluded in July 1966.^[5]

Eastwood was not initially pleased with the script and was concerned he might be upstaged by Wallach, and said to Leone, "In the first film I was alone. In the second, we were two. Here we are three. If it goes on this way, in the next one I will be starring with the American cavalry".^[12] As Eastwood played hard-to-get in accepting the role (inflating his earnings up to $250,000, another Ferrari^[13] and 10% of the profits in the United States when eventually released there), Eastwood was again encountering publicist disputes between Ruth Marsh, who urged him to accept the third film of the trilogy, and the William Morris Agency and Irving Leonard, who were unhappy with Marsh's influence on Clint.^[12] Eastwood banished Marsh from having any further influence in his career and he was forced to sack her as his business manager via a letter sent by Frank Wells.^[12] For some time after, Eastwood's publicity was handled by Jerry Pam of Gutman and Pam.^[9]

Wallach and Eastwood flew to Madrid together and between shooting scenes, Eastwood would relax and practice his golf swing.^[14] Wallach was almost poisoned during filming when he accidentally drank from a bottle of acid that a film technician had set next to his soda bottle. Wallach mentioned this in his autobiography^[15] and complained that while Leone was a brilliant director, he was very lax about ensuring the safety of his actors during dangerous scenes.^[6] For instance, in one scene, where he was to be hanged after a pistol was fired, the horse underneath him was supposed to bolt. While the rope around Wallach's neck was severed, the horse was frightened a little too well. It galloped for about a mile with Wallach still mounted and his hands bound behind his back.^[6] The third time Wallach's life was threatened was during the scene where he and Mario Brega—who are chained together—jump out of a moving train. The jumping part went as planned, but Wallach's life was endangered when his character attempts to sever the chain binding him to the (now dead) henchman. Tuco places the body on the railroad tracks, waiting for the train to roll over the chain and sever it. Wallach, and presumably the entire film crew, were not aware of the heavy iron steps that jutted one foot out of every box car. If Wallach had stood up from his prone position at the wrong time, one of the jutting steps could have decapitated him.^[6] The bridge in the film was reconstructed twice by sappers of the Spanish army after being rigged for on-camera explosive demolition. The first time, an Italian camera operator signaled that he was ready to shoot, which was misconstrued by an army captain as the similar sounding Spanish word meaning "start". Luckily, nobody was injured in the erroneous mistiming. The army rebuilt the bridge while other shots were filmed. As the bridge was not a prop but a rather heavy and sturdy structure, powerful explosives were required to destroy it.^[6] Leone has said that this scene was, in part, inspired by Buster Keaton’s silent film, The General.

As an international cast was employed, actors performed in their native languages. Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach spoke English, and were dubbed into Italian for the debut release in Rome. For the American version, the lead acting voices were used, but supporting cast members were dubbed into English. The result is noticeable in the bad synchronization of voices to lip movements on screen; none of the dialogue is completely in sync because Leone rarely shot his scenes with synchronized sound. Various reasons have been cited for this: Leone often liked to play Morricone's music over a scene and possibly shout things at the actors to get them in the mood. Leone cared more for visuals than dialogue (his English was limited, at best). Given the technical limitations of the time, it would have been difficult to record the sound cleanly in most of the extremely wide shots Leone frequently used. Also, it was standard practice in Italian films at this time to shoot silently and post-dub. Whatever the actual reason, all dialogue in the film was recorded in post-production. The relationship between Eastwood and Leone had remained strained from their previous collaboration and it only worsened during the dubbing sessions for the US version because the actor was presented with a different script than the one they had shot with. He refused to read from this new version, insisting on using the shooting script instead.

Leone was unable to find an actual cemetery for the Sad Hill shootout scene, so the Spanish pyrotechnics chief hired 250 Spanish soldiers to build one in Carazo near Salas de los Infantes, which they completed in two days.^[16]

Set of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly with the distinctive rugged terrain in the background

By the end of filming, Eastwood had finally had enough of Leone's perfectionist directorial traits, who, often forcefully, insisted on shooting scenes from many different angles, paying attention to the most minute of details, which would often exhaust the actors.^[14] Leone, a glutton, was also a source of amusement for his excesses, and Eastwood found a way to deal with the stresses of being directed by him by making jokes about him and nicknamed him "Yosemite Sam" for his bad temperament.^[14] Eastwood was never directed by Leone again, later turning down the role as Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) in which Leone had personally flown to Los Angeles to give him the script for, which eventually went to Charles Bronson.^[17] Years later, Leone exacted his revenge upon Clint during the filming of Once Upon a Time in America (1984) when he described Eastwood's abilities as an actor as being like a block of marble or wax and inferior to the acting abilities of Robert De Niro, saying, "Eastwood moves like a sleepwalker between explosions and hails of bullets, and he is always the same—a block of marble. Bobby first of all is an actor, Clint first of all is a star. Bobby suffers, Clint yawns."^[18] Eastwood later gave his friend the poncho he wore in the three films, where it was hung in a Mexican restaurant in Carmel, California.^[19]

Release[link]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was not released in the US until December 1967.^[20] The original Italian domestic version was 2 hours, 57 minutes long; but the international version was 2 hours, 41 minutes—16 minutes shorter.

Given that the Italian Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo literally translates to the English: The Good, the Ugly, the Bad, reversing the last two adjectives, advertisements for the original Italian release show Tuco before Angel Eyes, and, when translated into English, erroneously label Angel Eyes as "The Ugly" and Tuco as "The Bad".

Opening on December 15, 1966 in Italy and in the United States on December 23, 1967, the film grossed $6.3 million.^[21]

Critical reception[link]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was criticized for its depiction of violence.^[22] Leone explains that "the killings in my films are exaggerated because I wanted to make a tongue-in-cheek satire on run-of-the-mill westerns... The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures."^[23] To this day, Leone's effort to reinvigorate the timeworn Western is widely acknowledged.^[24]

Critical opinion of the film on initial release was mixed as many reviewers at that time looked down on spaghetti westerns. In a negative review in The New York Times, critic Renata Adler said that the film "must be the most expensive, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre."^[25] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the "temptation is hereby proved irresistible to call The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, now playing citywide, The Bad, The Dull, and the Interminable, only because it is."^[26] Roger Ebert, who later included the film in his list of Great Movies,^[27] retrospectively noted that in his original review he had "described a four-star movie but only gave it three stars, perhaps because it was a 'spaghetti western' and so could not be art".^[28] Ebert also points out Leone's unique perspective that enables the audience to be closer to the character as we see what he sees.

Despite the original negative reception, today, the film has since accumulated very positive feedback. It remains one of the most popular and well known westerns and is considered to be one of the greatest of its genre. It is in Time's "100 Greatest movies of the last century" as selected by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.^[24] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% percent of film critics gave the film positive reviews.^[29][30][31] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has been described as European cinema's best representation of the Western genre film,^[32] and Quentin Tarantino has called it "the best-directed film of all time" and "the greatest achievement in the history of cinema."^[33] This was reflected in his vote for a 2002 Sight & Sound magazine poll, in which he voted for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as his choice for the best film ever made.^[34]

Empire magazine added The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to their Masterpiece collection in the September 2007 issue and in their poll of "The 500 Greatest Movies," "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was voted in at number 25.

Home media[link]

The film was first released on DVD by MGM in 1998. The special features contain 14 minutes of scenes that were cut for the film's North American release, including a scene which explains how Angel Eyes came to be waiting for Blondie and Tuco at the Union prison camp.

In 2002, the film was restored with the 14 minutes of scenes cut for US release re-inserted into the film. Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach were brought back in to dub their characters' lines more than 35 years after the film's original release. Voice actor Simon Prescott substituted for Lee Van Cleef who had died in 1989. Other voice actors filled in for actors who had since died. In 2004, MGM released this version in a two-disc special edition DVD.

Disc 1 contains an audio commentary with writer and critic Richard Schickel. Disc 2 contains two documentaries, "Leone's West" and "The Man Who Lost The Civil War", followed by the featurette, "Restoring 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'"; an animated gallery of missing sequences entitled, "The Socorro Sequence: A Reconstruction"; an extended Tuco torture scene; a featurette called "Il Maestro"; an audio featurette named, "Il Maestro, Part 2"; a French trailer; and a poster gallery.^[35]

This DVD was generally well received, though some purists complained about the re-mixed stereo soundtrack with many completely new sound effects (notably, all the gunshots were replaced), with no option for the original soundtrack. At least one scene that was re-inserted had been cut by Leone prior to the film's release in Italy, but had been shown once at the Italian premiere. According to Richard Schickel,^[35] Leone willingly cut the scene for pacing reasons; thus, restoring it was contrary to the director's wishes.^{[citation needed]} The 1998 DVD with the original US version of the mono soundtrack is still available in stores, although the sound quality is vastly inferior to that on the restored DVD. (Unlike the original DVD releases of the other two "Dollars" films, the transfer is anamorphically enhanced for 16:9 televisions.)

MGM re-released the 2004 DVD edition in their "Sergio Leone Anthology" box set in 2007. Also included were the two other "Dollars" films, and A Fistful of Dynamite.

On May 12, 2009 the extended version of this movie was released on Blu-ray. It contains the same special features as the 2004 special edition DVD, except that it includes an added commentary by film historian Sir Christopher Frayling.

Deleted scenes[link]

The following scenes were originally deleted from the theatrical version of the film but re-inserted following the release of the 2004 Special Edition DVD.^[35]

• After being betrayed by Blondie, surviving the desert on his way to civilization and assembling a hybrid revolver from parts of various original makes, Tuco meets with members of his gang in a distant cave, where he conspires with them to hunt and kill Blondie.
• During his search for Bill Carson, Angel Eyes stumbles upon an embattled Confederate outpost after a massive artillery bombardment. Once there, after witnessing the wretched conditions of the survivors, he bribes a Confederate NCO for clues about Bill Carson.
• The sequence with Tuco and Blondie crossing the desert has been extended: Tuco mentally tortures a severely dehydrated Blondie by eating and drinking in front of him.
• Tuco, transporting a dehydrated Blondie, finds a Confederate camp whose occupants tell him that Brother Ramirez's monastery is nearby.
• Tuco and Blondie discuss their plans when departing in a wagon from Brother Ramirez's monastery.
• A scene where Blondie and Angel Eyes are resting by a creek when a man appears and Blondie shoots him. Angel Eyes asks the rest of his men to come out (all are hidden as well). When the five men come out, Blondie counts them (including Angel Eyes), and concludes that six is the perfect number. Angel Eyes asks him why, mentioning that he had heard that three was the perfect number. Blondie responds that six is the perfect number, because he has six bullets left in his revolver.
• The sequence with Tuco, Blondie and the Union Captain has been extended: the Captain asks the pair questions about their pasts, which they are reluctant to answer.

Additional footage of the sequence where Tuco is tortured by Angel Eyes' henchman was discovered. The original negative of this footage was deemed too badly damaged to be used in the theatrical cut, but the footage appears as an extra in the 2004 DVD supplementary features.

Lost footage of the missing Socorro Sequence where Tuco continues his search for Blondie in a Texican pueblo while Blondie is in a hotel room with a Mexican woman (Silvana Bacci) is reconstructed with photos and unfinished snippets from the French trailer. Also, in the documentary "Reconstructing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," what looks to be footage of Tuco lighting cannons before the Ecstasy of Gold sequence appears briefly. None of these scenes or sequences appear in the 2004 re-release, however, but are in the supplementary features.

Music[link]

	The Good, The Bad And The Ugly main theme noicon From The Good, the Bad and the Ugly soundtrack by Ennio Morricone
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The score is composed by frequent Leone collaborator Ennio Morricone, whose distinctive original compositions, containing gunfire, whistling (by John O'Neill), and yodeling permeate the film. The main theme, resembling the howling of a coyote (which blends in with an actual coyote howl in the first shot after the opening credits), is a two-note melody that is a frequent motif, and is used for the three main characters. A different instrument was used for each: flute for Blondie, ocarina for Angel Eyes and human voices for Tuco.^{[36][37][38][39]} The score complements the film's American Civil War setting, containing the mournful ballad, "The Story of a Soldier", which is sung by prisoners as Tuco is being tortured by Angel Eyes.^[4] The film's climax, a three-way Mexican standoff, begins with the melody of "The Ecstasy of Gold" and is followed by "The Trio."

The main theme was a hit in 1968 with the soundtrack album on the charts for more than a year,^[39] reaching No. 4 on the Billboard pop album chart and No. 10 on the black album chart.^[40] The main theme was also a hit for Hugo Montenegro, whose rendition was a No. 2 Billboard pop single in 1968.^[41] In popular culture, the American New Wave group Wall of Voodoo performed a medley of Ennio Morricone's movie themes, including the theme for this movie. The only known recording of it is a live performance on The Index Masters. Punk rock band the Ramones played this song as the opening for their live album Loco Live as well as in concerts until their disbandment in 1996. The British heavy metal band Motörhead played the main theme as the overture music on the 1981 "No sleep 'til Hammersmith" tour. American heavy metal band, Metallica has run "The Ecstasy of Gold" as prelude music at their concerts since 1985 (except 1996–1998), and recently recorded a version of the instrumental for a compilation tribute to Morricone.^[42] XM Satellite Radio's The Opie & Anthony Show also open every show with "The Ecstasy of Gold". The American punk rock band The Vandals song "Urban Struggle" begins with the main theme. A song from the band Gorillaz is named "Clint Eastwood", and features references to the actor, with the iconic yell featured in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly's score heard at the beginning of the video.^[43] The film itself has been widely sampled: Punk band Big Audio Dynamite used an audio clip from the movie in its song "Medicine Show"; the audio was taken from the scene in which a judge, after reading a long list of criminal charges, sentences Tuco to be "hanged from the neck until dead." Also, the song "You Know What You Are" from the 1988 album The Land of Rape and Honey by industrial metal group Ministry repeats the song title (a portion of Tuco's final epithet at Blondie) as a background sample.

In popular culture[link]

The film's title has entered the English language as an idiomatic expression. Typically used when describing something thoroughly, the respective phrases refer to upsides, downsides and the parts that could, or should have been done better, but were not.^[44][45]

The film was novelized in 1967 by Joe Millard as part of the "Dollars Western" series based on the "Man with No Name". The South Korean western movie The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) is inspired by the film, with much of its plot and character elements borrowed from Leone's film.^[46] In his introduction to the 2003 revised edition of his novel The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, Stephen King revealed that the film was a primary influence for the Dark Tower series, and that Eastwood's character specifically inspired the creation of King's protagonist, Roland Deschain.^[47]

References[link]