Spaghetti Westerns were one of the most innovative — not to mention unlikely — subgenres to emerge the popular cinema of the ’60s and ’70s, and this year’s summer film series at the Briscoe Western Art Museum celebrates 60 years Italy’s stylish, action-packed and often hyper-violent exploration of that most American of film genres. Following the success of Sergio Leone’s “Dollars Trilogy” featuring Clint Eastwood, European movie crews produced some 600 Spaghetti Westerns across Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and even Yugoslavia. Stylistically, the films differ from American Westerns in their cinematic language, including framing and pacing, and also their abundance of morally ambiguous characters.
