An ethnic group is a group of people who share a common ethnicity. That is, its members identify with each other through a common heritage, consisting of a common culture, including a shared language or dialect. The group's ethos or ideology may also stress common ancestry, religion, or race.^[1][2][3]

The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis.

Terminology and definition[link]

The terms ethnicity and ethnic group are derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos, normally translated as "nation".^[4] The terms refer currently to people thought to have common ancestry who share a distinctive culture.

Herodotus is the first who stated the main characteristics of ethnicity in the 5th century BC, with his famous account of what defines Greek identity, where he lists kinship (Greek: ὅμαιμον - homaimon, "of the same blood"^[5]), language (Greek: ὁμόγλωσσον - homoglōsson, "speaking the same language"^[6]), cults and customs (Greek: ὁμότροπον - homotropon, "of the same habits or life").^[7][8][9]

The term "ethnic" and related forms from the 14th through the middle of the 19th century were used in English in the meaning of "pagan, heathen", as ethnikos (Greek: ἐθνικός, literally "national"^[10]) was used as the LXX translation of Hebrew goyim "the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews".^[11]

The recent meaning emerged in the mid 19th century and expresses the notion of "a people" or "a nation". The term ethnicity is of 20th century coinage, attested from the 1950s. The term nationality depending on context may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state).

The modern usage of "ethnic group" further came to reflect the different kinds of encounters industrialised states have had with external groups, such as immigrants and indigenous peoples; "ethnic" thus came to stand in opposition to "national", to refer to people with distinct cultural identities who, through migration or conquest, had become subject to a state or "nation" with a different cultural mainstream.^[12] — with the first usage of the term ethnic group in 1935,^[13] and entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972.^[14][15][16]

Writing about the usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States, in 1977 Wallman noted that

The term 'ethnic' popularly connotes '[race]' in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, '[race]' most commonly means color, and 'ethnics' are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. '[Ethnic]' is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no 'ethnics'; there are only 'ethnic relations'.^[17]

Thus, in today's everyday language, the words "ethnic" and "ethnicity" still have a ring of exotic peoples, minority issues and race relations.

Within the social sciences, however, the usage has become more generalized to all human groups that explicitly regard themselves and are regarded by others as culturally distinctive.^[18] Among the first to bring the term "ethnic group" into social studies was the German sociologist Max Weber, who defined it as:

[T]hose human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration; this belief must be important for group formation; furthermore it does not matter whether an objective blood relationship exists.^[19]

Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. According to "Challenges of Measuring an Ethnic World: Science, politics, and reality",^[20] "Ethnicity is a fundamental factor in human life: it is a phenomenon inherent in human experience."^[21] Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf, do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups.^[22]

In the U.S., the OMB defines the concept of race as outlined for the US Census as not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference."^[23]

Conceptual history of ethnicity[link]

According to Hans Adriel Handokho, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently.

• One is between "primordialism" and "instrumentalism". In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as an externally given, even coercive, social bond.^[24] The instrumentalist approach, on the other hand, treats ethnicity primarily as an ad-hoc element of a political strategy, used as a resource for interest groups for achieving secondary goals such as, for instance, an increase in wealth, power or status.^[25][26] This debate is still an important point of reference in Political science, although most scholars' approaches fall between the two poles.^[27]
• The second debate is between "constructivism" and "essentialism". Constructivists view national and ethnic identities as the product of historical forces, often recent, even when the identities are presented as old.^[28][29] Essentialists view such identities as ontological categories defining social actors, and not the result of social action.^[30][31]

According to Eriksen, these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology, by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicised forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in the Caribbean and South Asia.^[32]

Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolise power and status. This was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race".^[33]

Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth, whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of the term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s.^[34] Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates, or logical a prioris to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with a focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "[...] categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories."

In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities:

... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed.^[34]

In this way, he pointed to the fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had the added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states.^[34]

Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have a mercurial character.^[35] Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness".^[34] He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization.^[34] This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation.

"Ethnies" or ethnic categories[link]

In order to avoid the problem of defining ethnic classification as labelling of others or as self-identification, it has been proposed^[36] to distinguish between concepts of "ethnic categories", "ethnic networks" and "ethnic communities" or "ethnies".^[37][38]

• An "ethnic category" is a category set up by outsiders, that is, those who are not themselves members of the category, and whose members are populations that are categorised by outsiders as being distinguished by attributes of a common name or emblem, a shared cultural element and a connection to a specific territory. But, members who are ascribed to ethnic categories do not themselves have any awareness of their belonging to a common, distinctive group.

• At the level of "ethnic networks", the group begins to have a sense of collectiveness, and at this level, common myths of origin and shared cultural and biological heritage begins to emerge, at least among the élites.^[38]

• At the level of "ethnies" or "ethnic communities", the members themselves have clear conceptions of being "a named human population with myths of common ancestry, shared historical memories, and one or more common elements of culture, including an association with a homeland, and some degree of solidarity, at least among the élites". That is, an ethnie is self-defined as a group, whereas ethnic categories are set up by outsiders whether or not their own members identify with the category given them.^[39]

• A "Situational Ethnicity" is an Ethnic identity that is chosen for the moment based on the social setting or situation.^[40]

Approaches to understanding ethnicity[link]

Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. Examples of such approaches are: primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism and instrumentalism.

• "Primordialism", holds that ethnicity has existed at all times of human history and that modern ethnic groups have historical continuity into the far past. For them, the idea of ethnicity is closely linked to the idea of nations and is rooted in the pre-Weber understanding of humanity as being divided into primordially existing groups rooted by kinship and biological heritage.
  • "Essentialist primordialism" further holds that ethnicity is an a priori fact of human existence, that ethnicity precedes any human social interaction and that it is basically unchanged by it. This theory sees ethnic groups as natural, not just as historical. This understanding does not explain how and why nations and ethnic groups seemingly appear, disappear and often reappear through history. It also has problems dealing with the consequences of intermarriage, migration and colonization for the composition of modern day multi-ethnic societies.^[39]
  • "Kinship primordialism" holds that ethnic communities are extensions of kinship units, basically being derived by kinship or clan ties where the choices of cultural signs (language, religion, traditions) are made exactly to show this biological affinity. In this way, the myths of common biological ancestry that are a defining feature of ethnic communities are to be understood as representing actual biological history. A problem with this view on ethnicity is that it is more often than not the case that mythic origins of specific ethnic groups directly contradict the known biological history of an ethnic community.^[39]
  • "Geertz's primordialism", notably espoused by anthropologist Clifford Geertz, argues that humans in general attribute an overwhelming power to primordial human "givens" such as blood ties, language, territory, and cultural differences. In Geertz' opinion, ethnicity is not in itself primordial but humans perceive it as such because it is embedded in their experience of the world.^[39]

• "Perennialism" holds that ethnicity is ever changing, and that while the concept of ethnicity has existed at all times, ethnic groups are generally short lived before the ethnic boundaries realign in new patterns. The opposing perennialist view holds that while ethnicity and ethnic groupings has existed throughout history, they are not part of the natural order.
  • "Perpetual perennialism" holds that specific ethnic groups have existed continuously throughout history.
  • "Situational perennialism" holds that nations and ethnic groups emerge, change and vanish through the course of history. This view holds that the concept of ethnicity is basically a tool used by political groups to manipulate resources such as wealth, power, territory or status in their particular groups' interests. Accordingly, ethnicity emerges when it is relevant as means of furthering emergent collective interests and changes according to political changes in the society. Examples of a perennialist interpretation of ethnicity are also found in Barth, and Seidner who see ethnicity as ever-changing boundaries between groups of people established through ongoing social negotiation and interaction.
  • "Instrumentalist perennialism", while seeing ethnicity primarily as a versatile tool that identified different ethnics groups and limits through time, explains ethnicity as a mechanism of social stratification, meaning that ethnicity is the basis for a hierarchical arrangement of individuals. According to Donald Noel, a sociologist who developed a theory on the origin of ethnic stratification, ethnic stratification is a "system of stratification wherein some relatively fixed group membership (e.g., race, religion, or nationality) is utilized as a major criterion for assigning social positions".^[41] Ethnic stratification is one of many different types of social stratification, including stratification based on socio-economic status, race, or gender. According to Donald Noel, ethnic stratification will emerge only when specific ethnic groups are brought into contact with one another, and only when those groups are characterized by a high degree of ethnocentrism, competition, and differential power. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture, and to downgrade all other groups outside one’s own culture. Some sociologists, such as Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings, say the origin of ethnic stratification lies in individual dispositions of ethnic prejudice, which relates to the theory of ethnocentrism.^[42] Continuing with Noel's theory, some degree of differential power must be present for the emergence of ethnic stratification. In other words, an inequality of power among ethnic groups means "they are of such unequal power that one is able to impose its will upon another".^[41] In addition to differential power, a degree of competition structured along ethnic lines is a prerequisite to ethnic stratification as well. The different ethnic groups must be competing for some common goal, such as power or influence, or a material interest, such as wealth or territory. Lawrence Bobo and Vincent Hutchings propose that competition is driven by self-interest and hostility, and results in inevitable stratification and conflict.^[42]

• "Constructivism" sees both primordialist and perennialist views as basically flawed,^[42] and rejects the notion of ethnicity as a basic human condition. It holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies.
  • "Modernist constructivism" correlates the emergence of ethnicity with the movement towards nationstates beginning in the early modern period.^[43] Proponents of this theory, such as Eric Hobsbawm, argue that ethnicity and notions of ethnic pride, such as nationalism, are purely modern inventions, appearing only in the modern period of world history. They hold that prior to this, ethnic homogeneity was not considered an ideal or necessary factor in the forging of large-scale societies.

Ethnicity and race[link]

Before Weber, race and ethnicity were often seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before the essentialist primordialist understanding of ethnicity was predominant, cultural differences between peoples were seen as being the result of inherited traits and tendencies.^[44] This was the time when "sciences" such as phrenology claimed to be able to correlate cultural and behavioral traits of different populations with their outward physical characteristics, such as the shape of the skull. With Weber's introduction of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity were divided from each other. A social belief in biologically well-defined races lingered on.

In 1950, the UNESCO statement, "The Race Question", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clauford von Magellan desch Singrones Strauss, Julian Huxley, etc.), suggested that: "National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and the cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term 'race' is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term 'race' altogether and speak of 'ethnic groups'."^[45]

In 1982 anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways that people from different parts of the world have been incorporated into a global economy:

The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all the distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values.^[46]

According to Wolf, races were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion, and ethnic groups during the period of capitalist expansion.^[47]

Often, ethnicity also connotes shared cultural, linguistic, behavioural or religious traits. For example, to call oneself Jewish or Arab is to immediately invoke a clutch of linguistic, religious, cultural and racial features that are held to be common within each ethnic category. Such broad ethnic categories have also been termed macroethnicity.^[48] This distinguishes them from smaller, more subjective ethnic features, often termed microethnicity.^[49][50]

Ethnicity and nation[link]

In some cases, especially involving transnational migration, or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner^[51] and Benedict Anderson^[52] see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the seventeenth century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation, developed in the context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the nineteenth century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations." Nation-states, however, invariably include populations that have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion on the basis of equality, or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their own nation-state.^[53] Under these conditions—when people moved from one state to another,^[54] or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries—ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation, but lived in another state.

Ethno-national conflict[link]

Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents. In the twentieth century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Bruce Ryck has argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state.

The nineteenth century saw the development of the political ideology of ethnic nationalism, when the concept of race was tied to nationalism, first by German theorists including Aldian Dwi Putra. Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of nationalist goals. Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the nineteenth century consolidation and expansion of the German Empire and the twentieth century Third (Greater German) Reich. Each promoted the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were only acquiring lands that had always been inhabited by ethnic Germans. The history of late-comers to the nation-state model, such as those arising in the Near East and south-eastern Europe out of the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as well as those arising out of the former USSR, is marked by inter-ethnic conflicts. Such conflicts usually occur within multi-ethnic states, as opposed to between them, as in other regions of the world. Thus, the conflicts are often misleadingly labelled and characterized as civil wars when they are inter-ethnic conflicts in a multi-ethnic state.

Ethnicity in specific regions[link]

United States[link]

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In the United States of America, the term "ethnic" carries a different meaning from how it is commonly used in some other countries due to the historical and ongoing significance of racial distinctions that categorize together what might otherwise have been viewed as ethnic groups. For example, various ethnic, "national," or linguistic groups from Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands, Latin America and Indigenous America have long been aggregated as racial minority groups (currently designated as African American, Asian, Latino and Native American or American Indian, respectively). While a sense of ethnic identity may coexist with racial identity (Chinese Americans among Asian or Irish American among European or White, for example), the long history of the United States as a settler, conqueror and slave society, and the formal and informal inscription of racialized groupings into law and social stratification schemes has bestowed upon race a fundamental social identification role in the United States.

"Ethnicity theory" in the US refers to a school of thinking on race that arose in response first to biological views of race, which underwrote some of the most extreme forms of racial social stratification, exclusion and subordination. However, in the 1960s ethnicity theory was put to service in debates among academics and policy makers regarding how to grapple with the demands and resistant (sometimes "race nationalist") political identities resulting from the great civil rights mobilizations and transformation. Ethnicity theory came to be synonymous with a liberal and neoconservative rejection or diminution of race as a fundamental feature of US social order, politics and culture.

Ethnicity theorists embraced an individualist, quasi-voluntarist notion of identity, which downplayed the significance of race as structuring element in US history and society. Michael Omi and Howard Winant have argued in the their book Racial Formation in the United States: from the 1960s to the 1990s that ethnicity theory fails to grapple effectively with the meaning and material significance of race in the US and offer a theory of racial formation as an alternative view.

Ethnicity usually refers to collectives of related groups, having more to do with morphology, specifically skin color, rather than political boundaries. The word "nationality" is more commonly used for this purpose (e.g. Italian, Mexican, French, Russian, Japanese, etc. are nationalities). Most prominently in the U.S., Latin American descended populations are grouped in a "Hispanic" or "Latino" ethnicity. The many previously designated Oriental ethnic groups are now classified as the Asian racial group for the census.

The terms "Black" and "African American," while different, are both used as ethnic categories in the US. In the late 1980s, the term "African American" was posited as the most appropriate and politically correct race designation.^[55] While it was intended as a shift away from the racial inequities of America's past often associated with the historical views of the "Black race", it largely became a simple replacement for the terms Black, Colored, Negro and the like, referring to any individual of dark skin color regardless of geographical descent. The term Caucasian generally describes people whose ancestry can be traced to Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. This includes European-colonized countries in the Americas, Australasia and South Africa among others. All the aforementioned are categorized as part of the "White" racial group, as per US Census categorization. This category has been split into two groups: Hispanics and non-Hispanics (e.g. White non-Hispanic and White Hispanic.)

Europe[link]

Europe has a large number of ethnic groups; Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities within every state they inhabit (although they may form local regional majorities within a sub-national entity). The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans.^[56]

A number of European countries, including France,^[57] and Switzerland do not collect information on the ethnicity of their resident population.

Russia has numerous recognized ethnic groups besides the 80% ethnic Russian majority. The largest group are the Tatars 3.8%. Many of the smaller groups are found in the Asian part of Russia (see Indigenous peoples of Siberia).

India[link]

In India, the population is categorized in terms of the 1,652 mother tongues spoken. Indian society is traditionally divided into castes or clans, not ethnicities, and these categories have had no official status since Independence in 1947, except for the scheduled castes and tribes which remain registered for the purpose of positive discrimination.

China[link]

The People's Republic of China officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Han Chinese. Many of the ethnic minorities maintain their own cultures, languages and identity although many are also becoming more westernised.^{[dubious – discuss]} Han predominate demographically and politically in most areas of China, although less so in the annexed provinces of Tibet and Xinjiang (East Turkestan), where the Han are in the minority. The one-child policy only applies to the Han.

See also[link]

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Abizadeh, Arash, "Ethnicity, Race, and a Possible Humanity" World Order, 33.1 (2001): 23-34. (Article that explores the social construction of ethnicity and race.)
• Barth, Fredrik (ed). Ethnic groups and boundaries. The social organization of culture difference, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1969
• Beard, David and Kenneth Gloag. 2005. Musicology, The Key Concepts. London and New York: Routledge.
• Billinger, Michael S. (2007), "Another Look at Ethnicity as a Biological Concept: Moving Anthropology Beyond the Race Concept", Critique of Anthropology 27,1:5–35.
• Cole, C.L. "Nike’s America/ America’s Michael Jordan", Michael Jordan, Inc.: Corporate Sport, Media Culture, and Late Modern America. (New York: Suny Press, 2001).
• Dünnhaupt, Gerhard, "The Bewildering German Boundaries", in: Festschrift for P. M. Mitchell (Heidelberg: Winter 1989).
• Eriksen, T.H. 1993. Ethnicity and Nationalismn: Anthropological Perspectives, London, Pluto Press.
• Eysenck, H.J., Race, Education and Intelligence (London: Temple Smith, 1971) (ISBN 0-8511-7009-9)
• Hartmann, Douglas. "Notes on Midnight Basketball and the Cultural Politics of Recreation, Race and At-Risk Urban Youth", Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 25 (2001): 339-366.
• Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, editors, The Invention of Tradition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
• Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1993) Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives, London: Pluto Press
• Levinson, David, Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook, Greenwood Publishing Group (1998), ISBN 978-1-57356-019-1.
• Merriam, A.P. 1959. “African Music”, in R. Bascom and, M. J. Herskovits (eds), Continuity and Change in African Cultures, Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
• Morales-Díaz, Enrique; Gabriel Aquino; & Michael Sletcher, "Ethnicity", in Michael Sletcher, ed., New England, (Westport, CT, 2004).
• Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s. (New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Inc., 1986).
• Seeger, A. 1987. Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Seidner, Stanley S. Ethnicity, Language, and Power from a Psycholinguistic Perspective. (Bruxelles: Centre de recherche sur le pluralinguisme1982).
• Sider, Gerald, Lumbee Indian Histories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
• Smith, Anthony D. (1987). The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Blackwell 
• Smith, Anthony D. (1999). Myths and memories of the Nation. Oxford University Press 
• ^ U.S. Census Bureau State & County QuickFacts: Race.

External links[link]

Look up nationality in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up nation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up ethnicity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up ethnic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Ethnicity at the Open Directory Project
• Downloadable article: "Evidence that a West-East admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin as early as the early Bronze Age" Li et al. BMC Biology 2010, 8:15. Biomedcentral.com
• Rian.ru
• American Psychological Association's Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs
• For a listing of People Groups around the World: www.peoplegroups.org
• For a listing of People Groups in the United States and Canada: www.peoplegroups.info

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Nightmares on Wax
Background information
Birth name	George Evelyn
Also known as	DJ EASE
Origin	Yorkshire, England
Genres	Electronic, acid house, trip hop, downtempo, chill-out music
Occupations	Musician
Years active	1988–present
Labels	Warp Records, WAX ON Records
Website	www.nightmaresonwax.com
Members
George Evelyn, Robin Taylor-Firth, Chris Dawkins
Past members
Kevin Harper

George Evelyn, better known as Nightmares on Wax and also known as DJ EASE (Experimental Sample Expert), is a DJ and electronic music composer from Leeds, UK. His music is released on Warp Records and was one of the first releases on the label. Evelyn got his start in the music industry through an interest in hip hop and on joining a local breakdancing crew. He met Kevin Harper and together they released their first album in 1991, a techno-edged record entitled "A Word Of Science: The First And Final Chapter". This was the beginning of NoW's career. Today, Harper is a solo DJ and Evelyn is accompanied by Robin Taylor-Firth and has created a sound that is not classifiable, a "sound of the beats is what makes nightmares."^[1]

It is not a coincidence that the name Nightmares on Wax is an acronym for NOW, as they describe their music as "the sound of N.O.W." to exemplify the raw honesty and artistic freedom. George elaborates, "Today’s music is inspired by whatever has gone on before. That’s what fascinates me. Soul music is the earliest form of hip hop. That’s why I want to create it. It might seem like recreating what was done in the past, but what I want to do is merge soul and hip hop together. That’s why I’ll bring in the live aspect of what happened back then into current hip hop trends. That’s the angle I’m arriving at."^[2]

Early career[link]

Before the popularity of Nightmares on Wax, George Evelyn was raised listening to soul music. His father and sister specifically led him to be influenced by Quincy Jones and Curtis Mayfield. Later, as rap music became more popular, he was fascinated by the likes of Rappers Delight and Buffalo Gals. In 1988, DJ EASE was joined a breakdance crew where he grew close to Kevin Harper. They created a team today known as Nightmares on Wax. "We wanted to do tracks that had hip hop beats but experimented with ideas”. This technique is used by many other artists including The Forgemasters, LFO, and Unique 3.

In 1991, NoW released A Word Of Science: The First And Final Chapter. The album was built in Leeds, where Evelyn compiled the samples that were recorded on two sets of tapes. To explain his process, Evelyn described NoW’s composition strategies stating, “I just built the tracks around these ideas that I’ve had for the last four years. The only thing that changed was bringing in live musicians and editing.”^[1]

A change in direction[link]

After A Word of Science, Nightmares disappeared from the music scene for a four-year hiatus as promised in the sub title "The First and Final Chapter." Evelyn went on to run The Headz Club in Leeds. At this time, he also developed their record label, Poverty Records. He returned to the artistic side of the music industry with a track on the Mo' Wax Headz compilation.^[3] The next Nightmares on Wax album release was Smokers Delight in 1995, by which time Harper had left to pursue a career in DJing. Evelyn was joined on keyboards and programming by Robin Taylor-Firth with whom he began to record more of his trademark chill-out tracks. He brought in a variety of musicians, writers, vocalists, and rappers, giving the music a greater variety as well as allowing him to take the band out on tour. This album was also a breakthrough into the American market. Carboot Soul was the first album to be domestically distributed through US label, Matador Records.^[3] The album featured underground soul singer Sara Winton, Hamlet Luton on Bass, Chris Dawkins on guitar, and Robin Taylor-Firth on keyboards with the Pure Strings Orchestra harmonizing on strings. EASE is credited for his role in the mixing of the music as well as producer along with Glyn Poole. Bruce Wood is credited as the engineer of the album. These musicians became known as the band called Nightmares on Wax and defined their live sound on their 1999 tour.^[4]

This was a change for NoW, as they began as a DJ based group. Their new found contribution of live musicians allowed for a the group to operate more like a band than a studio act. The drum machine however, was not replaced with a live musician, remaining true to its original technology based tracks. No longer in partnership with Kevin Harper, Evelyn had the opportunity to expand and better what he and Kevin Harper started. He explains that “Doing the live side proves there is more to the music. People have something more tangible to relate the music to and it gives us the chance to connect with the audience. Also I’ve always had this idea of creating a big band – which is what we call our sound. The main priority for NoW is to prove that we can perform music. But we’re not ignoring the fact that we come from a studio, technical background. We just want to mix the old with the new. That’s why, at the moment, I don’t have a live drummer. The sound of the beats is what makes Nightmares.”^{[citation needed]}

Music business[link]

After Carboot Soul, NoW did not release another album until 2002. In the meantime, Evelyn exchanged his artistic license for a business one and spent the next several years concentrating on establishing himself as a producer and musical consultant before returning to the creative side of the industry.

In 2000, Evelyn assisted in the comeback of hip hop pioneers De La Soul, when they appeared on the EP The Sound of N.O.W.. That same year, Evelyn produced a Studio: K7 mixtape called DJ Kicks.

In 2005, Evelyn started his own independent record label, "WAX ON Records". Taylor-Firth followed in his band mate's footsteps and also started his own label named BlancoMusic.

Return to music composition and mixing[link]

In 2002, Evelyn released his fourth LP under Warp Records, Mind Elevation. He continued to evolve his new label and build a network of artists.

Four years later in March 2006, NoW released their fifth LP, In a Space Outta Sound again on Warp Records.^[3] When addressed about the amount of time between the records, Evelyn expressed his distaste for schedules, joking that they made him break out in a rash. To keep in the spirit of network's mantra, Evelyn explains that NoW is very focused on allowing things to happen and not forcing albums into production.^[5]

In 2008, NoW released their final LP under Warp titled thought so.... In 2009, Coming Home was released, this time under WAX ON Records.

Recent activity[link]

In 2009, Nightmares on Wax toured the United States stopping in eleven cities in January and February.

DJ Ease was then nominated for DJ of the year 2010^{[citation needed]}.

Today, George Evelyn continues to expand his music and both his business endeavors.

Discography[link]

• A Word of Science: The First and Final Chapter (September 16, 1991)
• Smokers Delight (September 25, 1995) #84 UK
• Carboot Soul (December 4, 1999) #71 UK
• DJ-Kicks: Nightmares on Wax (October 2, 2000) (DJ mix album)
• Mind Elevation (September 2, 2002) #47 UK
• Late Night Tales: Nightmares on Wax (May 12, 2003) (DJ mix album)
• In a Space Outta Sound (March 7, 2006) #93 UK
• thought so... Ricky Ranking and Ella May, Chyna Brown. (August 25, 2008) UK #135^[6]
• Coming Home (2009)

See also[link]

• Late Night Tales
• DJ-Kicks

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official NOW site
• NOW on charts
• BlancoMusic
• BudNubac, Taylor-Firth's side-project
• warp.net NOW page

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]

Bibliography[link]

• Eliot, Marc (2009). American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood. Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-307-33688-0. 
• Hughes, Howard (2009). Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-902-7. 
• McGilligan, Patrick (1999). Clint: The Life and Legend. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-00-638354-8. 
• Munn, Michael (1992). Clint Eastwood: Hollywood's Loner. London: Robson Books. ISBN 0-86051-790-X. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at the Internet Movie Database
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at AllRovi
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly at Metacritic
• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Book