My father used to love only western movies. Saturday afternoon was a ritual: second show – at 16 0′ clock – cowboys, redskins and horses. The fate of those poor beasts was a source of worry (“do they hurt themselves when they fall down?”). Till, on a rainy saturday, in full grey Milanese autumn, was the turn of “For whom the bell tolls”, an old picture show – precisely from 1943 – inspired by Hemingway’s novel, with Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. I was used to spaghetti western, as easy as they were boring, and I was not prepared for a dramatic western at all. I cried so much that from then on I refused to go to the cinema with him, and only this year I made peace with western thanks to Tarantino and his Django. The modern cowboy played by Jamie Foxx captivated me, but I haven’t recovered yet after the goodbye scene between Maria (Bergman) and Robert (Cooper): the bracket has already closed.