CALLAZO, Spain, Sept 13 (Askume) – In the Clint Eastwood film “The Unknown Man,” a hostile gunman who has run out of bullets says, “There are two kinds of people in the world.” One had a loaded gun, the other had a backhoe. “You dig.”
Volunteers in northern Spain took his words seriously and recently were preparing to dig a grave on the set of Sergio Leone’s 1966 classic spaghetti Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” in an effort to turn the area into a sacred space.
The province of Burgos is about 200 kilometers from Madrid. To the north (125 miles), the countryside near the town of Santo Domingo de Silos features hills covered in heather bushes that represent the American Southwest in the epic story of the American Civil War.
The final film in the Dollars trilogy brought actor Eastwood international fame and has been included in most lists of the greatest films of all time.
In 2015, a local cultural association launched a sponsorship campaign to recreate the fictional Cedar Hill Cemetery, the site of the famous showdown in Eastwood’s “The Unknown Man” and home to a large number of artifacts buried between the two rivals.
The cemetery contains over 5,000 graves.
Christine Guzmán of the regional film commission said the renovation should attract fans to visit and “create a new pilgrimage site”.
Angel Sanchez, 63, from Toledo in central Spain, told Askume he was considering whether to have his ashes buried there.
East of the cemetery is Camp Beetwell, where Eastwood and Ellie Wallach play gunslingers captured by Federal troops.
Beatville was rebuilt from juniper trunks that burned in a fire in the surrounding nature park in 2022. The project received 50,000 euros ($55,000) in funding from the park and hired professional construction crews.
Last Sunday the renovators celebrated the completion of the project.
Sergio Garcia, a founding member of the Sade Mountain Cultural Association, dressed in an association official’s uniform unveiled a plaque commemorating the hundreds of local artists who participated in the original performance.
In a cemetery, a man poses for a painting as a lovely song from Ennio Morricone’s film “The Golden Goose” plays on his portable speaker.
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