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Few storytellers have shaped the modern American Western than, ironically, Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone, who approached the genre with an outsider's view and pioneered the Spaghetti Western. Unlike his predecessor John Ford, Leone portrayed his "heroes" as morally ambiguous and argued that survival and greed shaped the American frontier more than duty and honor. Though he may have seemed cynical, Leone revered the filmmaking process, lending his passion and worth ethic to future filmmakers just as much as his visual style.

Sweeping vistas interspersed with dramatic close-ups were Leone's trademarks, a juxtaposition between the powerful landscapes of the open frontier (shot mostly in Spain rather than the United States) and the dirty, sweaty faces of its worn-out and corrupt settlers. As influential as these camera techniques were, Leone had a special affinity for what happened in post-production, treating editing and sound mixing like they were sacred rites.

The Editing Room Altar

Leone's father Vincenzo,...

Sergio Leone was born Jan. 3, 1929; he would have been 90 this week. Though he directed only seven films, their impact has been wide and long-lasting, including making Clint Eastwood a star.

On Oct. 11, 1967, Variety carried a guest column by Lee Van Cleef shortly before the U.S. bow of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” The actor countered criticism that Leone’s films are too violent: “What could have more violent sequences than the Bible?” he wrote. Van Cleef added that the films were authentic and heavily researched, saying that on the set the filmmaker “carried a small library of well-illustrated American books devoted to American history of those times.”

In that same issue, Leone said he didn’t invent Westerns all’Italiana. There were two dozen before the 1964 “Fistful of Dollars.” But the film was such a hit, he said, it inspired more than 200 spaghetti Westerns in the following two years,...