My Name is Nobody is in a way a very odd kind of western. It mixes seriousness reminiscent of previous spaghetti westerns with slapstick humor which is reminiscent of the silent era ( Also includes a lot of fast forwarding low framerate which is what all the camera's consisted of in those days ), and the end result is surprisingly stunning and charming at the same time.
Terence Hill plays the comical over confident superhumanly quick apprentice like no other, with the bar glass-shooting scene being an absolute high for his character. The acting inside the acting going on in this particular scene is fantastic, and Hill's mannerisms succeed in making this silent era-like slapstick humor succeed. Fonda represents the more serious half of the film which focuses more on scale and paying homage to past classics, primarily Once Upon a Time in the West which is also starring Henry Fonda. Some obvious examples are Morricone's identical near copy of Harmonica's theme in a couple of scenes involving Fonda in My Name is Nobody, or an intro that features three gunman silently observing and pacing around a certain area only to get blown away. His character is quite similar to the one he plays in Once Upon a Time in the West, except for the fact that his morality seems to lean a lot more towards 'Good' in this one. With Fonda's usual intensity he captures the serious half of the film extremely well and delivers a great performance.
Except for the slapstick humor this mostly truly feels like a serious film, because the depth and symbolisms in the film are all there. The story that Hill mentions about the bird, cow & coyote are an obvious example of this. Everything seems to be a metaphor for something else, and the depth in this screenplay is truly impeccable. This in turn makes this motion picture more than just a comic escapism flick. It is an in-depth examination of the death of the west and covers this up well in a comedy homage/parody kind of setting on all the films that made westerns so great. ( Especially spaghetti westerns ) There are not just references to Once Upon a Time in the West since there is also a scene for example in which main characters exchange shots on eachothers hats which is an homage of For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The cinematography is superb with a varied color palette and stunning mixes of close-ups and widescreen shots much in the same manner as the legendary Sergio Leone ( Who also produced this film ). The shots of the Wild Bunch ( Another homage to another western ) riding in the distance while slowly moving closer to the camera while Morricone's odd but brilliant 'The Wild Horde' plays is just cinematic perfection. The greatest use of this is obviously the one in which Jack ( Henry Fonda ) faces the Wild Bunch alone while the camera slowly pans back and upwards. It is such a majestic and elegant way of visual storytelling because the further back the camera pans the more you get the sense of the enormous scale of the numbers of the Wild Bunch, making them more intimidating and heightening Beauregard's feat if he truly manages to defeat them on his own.
My Name is Nobody is a weird mix of comedy & metaphor filled seriousness, but it succeeds like no other because it tells a genuinely humane message about progress and the dying of an old world ( Which is ofcourse the west ) through subtle metaphors & symbolisms. It truly feels like the closing chapter of a fantastic era.
