DJANGO, Big Sky Video, 1966.
Dir. Sergio Corbucci, Perf. Franco Nero, José Bódalo, Loredana Nusciak.
Review by Dominic

Classic celluloid pulp from Sergio Corbucci, Django opens with its eponymous hero (Nero) towing a coffin through the mud as film’s theme-tune croons the melancholy romance of his various character traits (Django, have you always been a-lone?). The tender cadences of Django’s lyrical backstory contrast with the severe, black-clad figure on screen—suggesting that the two have yet to be properly reconciled. They also contrast with the scenery of sludge around him—which, as it happens, sets the film’s tone: Django is rougher than a sandpaper sportsbra. Its characterization is crudely minimalist, established primarily through dialogue, and ostensibly directed toward fulfilling the demands of the scene at hand. This is no-frills fun, committed to the coarse Spaghetti code of pragmatism and powder burns.

Django lugs his mysterious load into town, a dreary cesspit whose rancid roads and rickety construction indicate its moral instability. The inhabitants play favorites between two equally murderous factions: a load of Mexican thugs led by the corrupt General Rodriguez (Bódalo), and the ex-Confederate Klansmen of the brutal Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo).

Django comes to the defense of those caught in the middle, and his character is developed primarily in terms of his respect for women and denial of racial hierarchy and partisan hypocrisy. Despite his grotty appearance and moody, chin-in-chest postures, the coffin-hauling stranger is a tried-and-true good guy: Django has an endearing comic-book affection for its hero, and juxtaposes his good deeds against the squabbling of the wretched townsfolk.

No good deed goes unpunished, however, and Django’s trigger-happy style of charity brings a steady stream of opponents, including the minions of Rodriguez and Jackson.

It is difficult not to feel that Django’s reputation exceeds its quality. Corbucci’s plot is stripped down and skin-kneed, with the odd gratuity to keep it lively, including the famous ear-cutting scene that reportedly inspired Mr Blonde’s brutal episode in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992). Bad weather and bloodlust aside, though, the film largely lacks the moody intensity of several of its Italian counterparts. For one thing, a great deal of the plot owes its existence to the hero stalling a blatantly inevitable climax. The body-count is preposterously high and decreases the tension considerably: as the hero mows through the masses, another crowd of bland banditos rise to meet their end just as routinely. Moreover, Bacalov’s score hasn’t the captivating allure of some of his other work in the genre, although the film’s main theme is both catchy and quirkily poignant.

Nevertheless, for all its camp excess there is still something primitive and enduring about Django’s vision of the West as a post-Civil War scrapheap one cannot traverse without getting some serious muck their boots. In fact, the film achieves a striking quality through the stark contrast it presents when posed alongside its classic American counterparts. An extended bar-fight sequence, for instance, recalls that of Shane (1953) and invites comparison between Django’s joyless world of cause-and-effect savagery and the rhythms of romance and idealism that sustained George Stevens’ opus.

Additionally, the new print from BSV, re-mastered from a negative confined to a Rome vault for 30 years, looks crisp and fabulous. Now you don’t have to squint through the grit to see, well—the grit, and experience Django in all its feral glory.