FOR A FEW RUPEES MORE

Shezad Dawood

In the beginning the project wasto be a 3-screen video installation,relocating and extendingthe opening sequence of Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time inthe West’. The famous drawn-outopening sequence, running to 20minutes – which serves to buildup an unbearable tension, beforeexploding in a rapid exchangeof gunfire, would be doubled to40 minutes, and take in multiplepoints of view. Relocated to thedesert between Karachi andHyderabad, in Pakistan, thesemultiple points-of-view, wouldtake in the various shifts inlocation and semiotics.

Having completed castings fornon-professionals to play the leadroles, and found locations thatwould mirror the slippage of theoriginal locations (the film wasshot in various locations fromUtah in the USA to Andaluciain Spain), it was decided that toshoot the video was superfluousto the intentions of the project.Instead the intended soundtrackfor the installation was substitutedas ‘the work’.

For this soundtrack the artisttook the various Ennio Morriconecomposed fragments forthe various westerns of SergioLeone (including ‘The Good,The Bad and The Ugly’ and ‘Fora Few Dollars More’). Thesewere then ‘cut up’ to form a newsoundtrack running to the 40minutes duration of the proposedvideo work, and conforming to itsproposed emotional narrative andstory arc. Subsequently Pakistan’sforemost sitar player: Nafees Ahmed, was commissioned tosolo improvise to this new score.In the final instance the artist’sarrangement was deleted, leavingonly the 40 minute improvisationfor solo sitar.

SHEZAD DAWOOD

Artist based in London. He was trained at Central St Martin’s and the Royal College of Art before undertaking a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University. He works across a broad spectrum of media, his works have been exhibited in numerous solo and group shows in the UK and internationally.
www.shezaddawood.com