The DNA of "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" is less 16th-century Italian fairy tale than it is 20th-century Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa. Several shots in the animated sequel are directly inspired by some of those masters' most famous images. It's all part of how the "Puss" filmmakers used cinematic foreshadowing to convey that "characters chasing the future are oblivious to what's right in front of them," director Joel Crawford says.
"When I saw a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western for the first time, it was the closest thing to a superhero movie for me," he says. "Everything's so dramatic and cool; it made it so fun."
That manifested in some obvious visual references, such as extreme close-ups of eyes during the final duel — a classic in many of the Clint Eastwood westerns with Leone — and less-obvious ones, as when the filmmakers employed sets and framing to ape Leone's in moments such as the Bear Family framed in a doorway as they crash into the house where Puss has been holed up — much as Leone framed a scene in 1968's "Once Upon a Time in the West."
