So I FINALLY got around to seeing Django, the legendary Sergio Corbucci western that spawned (literally) like hundreds of unofficial sequels. The title character was played by Italian actor Franco Nero, and for a while, after this movie, they would just throw the name "Django" into the title of anything he was in.....regardless of the fact that the movie had absolutely NOTHING to do with the original Django or even with the western genre, for that matter, which is pretty damn hilarious. Shit, okay, so where do I start? Well let me start with the beginning..the title sequence! If you love westerns, you must have already developed a love for really creative and interesting opening credits, but you've also probably developed a sinister glee for really really bad title sequences with ultra cheesy visuals or horrendously tacky music. This my friends, is definitely the greatest (worst) theme song I've ever experienced, it leaves you in complete awe at the suck. Bear witness to the spirit of 1966 below!
The story is basically your usual Spaghetti western fare. It was made in 1966 so it obviously borrowed from Sergio Leone's worldwide smash A Fistful of Dollars that put the genre on the map, which as we all know was a reinterpretation of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which in turn is based on a novel called The Glass Key....exhausting, huh? But getting back to Django's plot, it basically is about a coffin dragging dude named Django that arrives into an incredibly muddy town (more on the mud in a bit) after rescuing a hot red headed piece of ass named Maria (played by Loredana Nusciak) that was tied up and being whipped by these sadist bandits. After killing them (in like a split second, of course) and going into the town for some r&r with Maria, sure enough, the town is being destroyed by two groups of maniacs; these crazy American red-hooded racist nutjobs (the sadist bandits killed were part of this gang) and Mexican outlaws that just love ears (more on the ears later). So voila, there you have it, instant Spaghetti western!! Without giving too much away, Django obviously starts getting involved in "cleaning" up this town by playing dirty and doing shit for his own benefit, which in this case is to avenge his wife's murder and some muthafuckin' gold, which I might add, is some of the fucking fakest looking excuse for gold I've ever seen in a movie, but who cares? Django goes on to single handedly mow down tons of dudes with his secret weapon...he's got a fucking Gatling gun in that coffin!! Lots and lots of dudes flying through the air and ridiculous blood effects ensue, of course, and then EVERYBODY wants a Gatling gun, monkey see, monkey want a Gatling gun!
This was Corbucci's predecessor to what most people consider to be his masterpiece Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence), but you can see the beginnings of what made him one of the better contributors to the Spaghetti genre instead of just a copycat. For example, in both The Great Silence and Django, the locations had an incredible role in the mood of the film. For Silence it was snow upon snow, the entire movie was utterly bleak and cold, and for Django it was tons of fucking mud. Dirty, filthy mud that just screamed misery and hell. I didn't understand why the fuck it never rained in the movie (I don't think it did), but the mud was freaking endless!! There was even a hooker fight in the mud! For some reason, Corbucci just loved to go with extreme weather conditions in his movies, go figure. Another trademark of Mr. Corbucci was violence and gore, well, violence and gore by the sixties standards which is pretty tame when compared to today's standards, but it still managed to get banned in the UK for like 25 years or something. The main reason for the hoopla and uproar in this film was a pretty effective scene where a member of the racist nutjobs gets his ear sliced off and fed to him before getting shot in the back, delicious! Watching this, you realize where Tarantino got the idea for the famous ear scene in Reservoir Dogs. It really looks like a piece of rubber covered in red paint, but damn is it cool looking!
Hooker mud wrestling and ear-tastic fake gore in this clip!
(sorry no subtitles, but you didn't come hear to read, did ya?)
(sorry no subtitles, but you didn't come hear to read, did ya?)
A lot of fake blood, exagerrating stuntmen and mud make this film stand out, but one thing will stick with you forever, and that unsung hero is the theme song! The master behind this little ditty is a Buenos Aires-born man named Luis Bacalov, and I swear he laced that track with some subliminal shit, because tell me you aren't gonna walk around singing "Oh Django!!" to yourself for the next couple of days after seeing that video?!? Hell. Yes.
1 comment:
If you're a real fan of Corbucci, you'd watch Super Fuzz with Terence Hill.
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