Synopsis

The endless desert stretches out the years, yet the steam train gives the force driving the wheel of history forward. The film unfolds the stories of the last generation of the American Frontier as the ethereal soprano sings an elegy. Henry Fonda abandons his heroic image and plays a ruthless character who fights unscrupulously for the Sweetwater ranch. A mysterious gunman, who never leaves his harmonica, seeks vengeance rather than power. Morricone uses one theme for the two characters whose fates are intertwined: the former with electric guitars or strings to emphasise the fierceness; the latter with harmonica to create a sorrowful tension with chromatic dissonance.