Massacre Time

Massacre Time

Original title: Tempo Di Massacro

Directed by: Lucio Fulci

Italy, 1966

Spaghetti Western, 92min

Distributed by: Substance

The Lucio Fulci Spaghetti Westerns, all three of them - five if you count his two adaptations of Jack London’s Call of the Wild [Zanna Bianca (White Fang) 1973 & Il ritorno di Zanna Bianca (Challenge to White Fang) 1974 - but as far as straight Spaghetti Westerns – three. Nowhere near enough if you ask me. There’s plenty of shitty comments and hard critique aimed against these flicks. Perhaps more than the praise really they deserve is aimed at theses three movies. But they are important movies, and movies where Fulci explored and rooted some of his most favoured themes and traits.

From the opening scenes of “Junior” Scott’s merciless manhunt, obviously inspired by Ernest B. Schoedsacks The Most Dangerous Game 1932, the tone of Lucio Fulci’s Massacre Time is set instantly. A hard, brutal and sadistic movie is exactly what is being served up here, and if you didn’t quite catch just how bad ass Junior is, there will soon be several more occasions to see just how deep his hate of mankind goes.

There are a lot of fans that like Massacre Time, and try to force the works of Fulci upon other filmmakers, as to give some sort of cultural value to the works of Fulci. I can completely understand them, and appreciate why they do it, but for myself I have reached a point where I don’t feel the need to evaluate Fulci’s work compared to others. He was a masterful visionary, and a great director, so there’ nothing to debate, Fulci stands alone. As should every filmmaker! One point that commonly get’s “forced” into Fulci’s final scenes to Massacre Time is that it’s supposedly a influence or sometimes “similar in style to the ballistic ballet” of John Woo’s eighties action flicks. This is obviously completely absurd. Yes it's an amusing thought, but we don’t need to force Fulci referents into other works, and I’ll get back to what those pigeons mean in a while.

The only scenes in any Fulci movie to seemingly have had an apparent inspiration someone further down the road – apart from the obvious effects and grotesque moments - is the Egyptian bookend that opens and closes Manhattan Baby 1982. A little movie called Hellraiser 1982, directed by Clive Barker opens and starts in the exact same way. A mysterious market, a strange merchant and the obvious one, the Medallion/Lament Box being passed on and on. Fulci considered Barker to be one of his friends and dedicated Voci dal profondo (Voices from Beyond) 1994 to Barker, and Claudio Carabba.

The Fulci westerns are decent westerns, and they certainly do polarise their audience, where most Spaghetti Western fans consider them so-so, the gore hounds find them slow and tedious, whilst the hardcore Fulci fans are fascinated by them lapping up every second of the narrative as he brings his assortment of traits to the wild west. That’s where you find me; I’m still finding new stuff on each occasion I re-watch a Lucio Fulci flick.

Franco Nero, somewhat mimicking his performance in Sergio Corbucci’s Django, (Franco who also starred in Mino Guerrini’s Giallo Il terzo Occhip (The Third Eye) Antonio Margheriti’s I diafanoidi vengono da Marte (War of the Planets) and as Abel in John Huston’s The Bible all in the same year - no wonder the guy looks tired), gives an somewhat engaging performance as the young Tom Corbert, who after receiving a letter from home returns to the town he once rode out of. There’s an uncertainty to who summoned him when he confronts his drunken half-brother Jeffrey [George Hilton], who obviously didn’t call for Tom’s assistance. Although there is a very clear protagonist presented when Tom first rides into town and sees the insignia of J.S. on almost everything in town, and moments later the scornful Junior [Nino Castelnuovo in an awesome performance]. The two brothers share no love, and there’s some really sublime stuff going on in the Colt house. In one scene Junior points out to his father how he misses his late night love… make what you will of it, but there’s definitely an incest theme going on there, and they climax the scene by playing a tune together on the piano!Needless to say Tom and Jeffrey – who proves to be the real hero of the piece if we where to apply Joseph Campbell’s The Heroes Journey as he’s the one who “refuses the call” – argue and bicker until they have a good old classic bar brawl that more or less joins them at the hip and they decide to take on the sinister Scott family. Which exactly what they do, with a few obstacles along the way – obstacles like a good old whipping, some sneaky shot in the back executions and a jolly violent massacre at the end.

An important thing to keep in mind here is that up until Massacre Time, Fulci had only directed comedies and rather chirpy movies with musical segments. Massacre Time is of importance as this is where he first starts to explore the traits that would become synonymous with his later work in the seventies and eighties. The wonderful sadistic and exploitative violence of Lucio Fulci, and if you fail to see it, then just check out the whip scene and think of Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture a Duckling) and/or Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead), and you will know exactly what I’m talking about. Where Dario Argento frequently uses several waves of assault in his violent scenes – like being pulled though a glass window, stabbed repeatedly in the heart, tossed through a ceiling window, hung and then finally fall to the ground, see never an easy death in an Argento flick – Lucio Fulci often tended to focus on the sadistic effects of events on his characters. It’s not just one or two bullwhip lashes that tear the skin of Tom Corbett, but an exaggerated and prolonged suffering that is a classic Fulci trait, all 87 of the lashings.

Being a stereotypical Spaghetti Western Massacre Time uses the schematic laid by previous movies, and has the hero take one hell of a beating before standing back up and settling the score. Massacre Time has the splendid peculiarity that the “Hero” in the traditional meaning still stays quite passive, and it’s brother Jeffrey, who actually is the sharpshooting settler of scores when it all comes around.

The script was written by Fernando di Leo, who was writing a lot of crime and Polizietti flicks at the same time, taking into consideration that there are No female characters of importance – a trait quite common in di Leo’s work – it’s most likely that Fulci didn’t have too much to do with the script. Because Fulci commonly had at least one cornerstone female in the most of his best works, and here’s that vital “Fulciesque” ingredient is missing. But this is not just a cheap spaghetti western when you start to explore it. I’d like to point out that there’s almost a story with Greek tragedy proportions hidden away in that great script. – Now before I get into explaining this, I need to warn you that I’m going to spoil a huge part of the movie here with this thread, so you ma want to skip over to the next section. - Tom Corbett is missing, lacking if you like, or even yearning for a family It may not seem so considering that he abandoned his mother, and he never really had any connection with his brother Jeffrey. But he packs up and heads home in a jiffy when receiving that letter summoning him back to Laramie. He has no idea of who his father is either. He’s quite a lonely character when it all comes around and there lies the desire to belong to a unit, a positive value, a family. He tries to bond with his older half brother Jeffrey, but Jeffery won’t have it, and instead they annoy each other. So during the final act, there’s a great sinister twist about to hammer down on the Tom character. An ironic twist, with a definitive tragic motif as Tom learns that his real father was Mr. Scott [Guiseppe Addobbati]. It was also Mr Scott who sent the letter to summon Tom back to Laramie, and Mr. Scott’s hidden agenda was to leave all the Scott fortune to Tom! This is also why Mr. Scott reacts to that exaggerated whipping earlier on; after all it’s his “favoured” child that’s getting his ass kicked. But it’s all going to be a waste of time as Mr. Scott is shot dead by his other son Junior after telling Tom about his inheritance plans. This leaves Tom’s final revenge on Junior even more cynical and harsh.

As for the Pigeons in that final shoot out… well to be true, the only thing the pigeon’s symbolise here is peace! The town of Laramie has had peace reinstated with the death of Junior. The town, the inhibitors and even the Corbet’s finds peace, hence the flying pigeons. To think that a simple shot of pigeons flying into the sky after a shoot out is an influence on Woo is about as abstract as claiming that George Hilton’s “Excuse Me Guys”, catchphrase used throughout the movie, was an influence on Richard Donner’s Goonies 1985 and The Sleuth’s “Hey You Guys!” catchphrase. It’s wishful thinking, and completely taken out of context, it’s peace they symbolise and this is further proven when sharpshooting Jeffrey lowers his revolver instead of shooting the dove that flies away in the last scene.

Massacre Time has a pretty catchy theme song “A man alone” sung by Sergio Endrigo to Coriolano Gori’s composition. Riccardo Pallottinis’ camerawork is nothing spectacular and never really gets above just doing the job, but it’s true to the genre and all the required wide shots and extreme close-ups of concerned gunfighters are in place. And I have to applaud the brilliant wagon-shooting stunt at the final battle, because that one is a gem.

A further co-worker of importance on Massacre Time was editor Ornella Micheli who once again worked with Fulci on what would end up a string of eighteen movies together. A string of movies that would contain some of Fulci’s finest mid-period works like Una sull’altra (One on top of the Other) 1969, Non si sevizia un paperino (Don’t Torture a Duckling) 1972 and Sette note in nero (The Psychic) 1977.

Massacre time – a great starting point for Lucio Fulci’s western trilogy, only to be followed by I Quattro dell’apocalisse (Four of the Apocalypse) 1975 and Sella d’argento (Silver Saddle) 1978.

Image:

16x9 Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, English dialogue, no subtitles.

Extras:

Nothing fancy, a small poster gallery and the US and Italian trailers.

Django

Django

Directed by: Sergio Corbucci
Spaghetti Western, 1966
Italy, 88 min.
Distributed by: Atlantic Film.

Story:
Django walks slowly through the dry barren desert dragging a coffin behind him. He first rescues a young woman, Maria, from the claws of two opposing gangs, Major Jackson’s red hooded hoodlums and the Mexican bandits, splicing him in-between the two enemy camps. He claims to be their to avenge the only person he ever loved and sets out on a one man rampage killing all of Major Jackson’s gang but soon proves to have further motives, namely to swipe the gold from Fort Charriba with the help of the opposing Mexican bandits. Gambling high Django goes up against two separate gangs, wedging himself in between the two rival parts in his quest to achieve his two goals, vengeance and money.


Me:
Probably one of the most known Spaghetti Westerns outside of Leone’s fistful of genre classics, Sergio Corbucci’s Django sure makes it’s mark and there’s a very obvious reason that it made an impact full impression back in 1966 when it was released on the big screens and later on when the wonderful world of home entertainment exploded and video tapes hit the shelves of rental stores allover Europe.

Banned when it first hit screens outside of Italy (both cinema and domestically on VHS) due to the sadistic violence and nihilistic tone that the movie holds it’s fair to see why audiences wanting to push further into the genre beyond the Eastwood/Leone westerns start out by tracking down Corbucci’s milestone Spaghetti Western. And even though it has some flaws that distract from the all round experience the movie is a milestone in the aspect that it generated almost thirty, follow-ups and copycat movies.

Corbucci had previously directed four Spaghetti Westerns, nowhere near the brilliance of Django, but like them it was inspired by the dark anti-hero take of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo from 1961, (just like Leone’s Fistful of Dollars the year after) and was an important addition to the army of Italian Spaghetti Westernsthat in cold blood blew the old school American westerns out of the saloon and into the mud outside.

Then there’s the violence and the flip-flopping of characters that make the Italian genre cinema so much more attractive than most of the boring old tricks that other non-European countries where shipping out at the same time. In Django the gore hounds get what they want (although don’t go there today expecting a blood fest, but put in the correct time frame and it’s gore galore, sit like this wasn't happening in other Westerns!) almost fifty hoodlums are torn apart by extensive gunfire from the Gattling gun Django pulls out of the coffin he’s been dragging with him allover the place, prostitutes fist fight in the mud, a preacher gets his ear sliced of and then force fed it, and then there’s the extensive beating that Django takes. And we’re not talking about a few punches to the face and gut here, no first Mexican bandit General Hugo Rodriguez has his right hand man smash the butt of his rifle into Django’s hands some twenty times, then the entire band of Mexicans ride their horses over the mangled digits that Django so skillfully uses to quickly shoot his enemies down. And what good is a gunslinger that can’t use his trigger finger?

A few years ago (when it was released on DVD by Criterion in 2000) I revisited Perry Henzell’s 1972 excellent Jamaican crime flick The Harder They Come, which features the machinegun massacre of Django in a key scene, and as I hadn’t seen Django since years ago I was surprised that the infamous Gattling gun scene was already over and done with before the movie hit the halftime mark, I was convinced that this scene was the grand finale, but nope. Midpoint, or possibly point of no return, as Django wipes out the entire gang that rides with Major Jackson [Eduardo Fajardo], letting only him flee for he hills.

How do you possibly escalate a move after that ecstatic crescendo of death and violence? Well Corbucci moves to new ground and shifts from the classic “Revenge/Vengeance” plot to the “Greed/Money” plot that he and his brother Bruno Corbucci explored in many of their great scripts. Money and greed is almost always the single driving force of all characters in a Corbucci Western. Django befriends, or rather is reunited with his old jail buddy General Hugo Rodriguez, (played by Jóse Bódalo who also just like Eduardo Fajardo and Gino Pernice starred in Corbucci’s Compañeros against Franco Nero four years later) and as they celebrate the victory over Major Jackson’s band Django suggests the plan to raid Fort Charriba and share the gold held there. Stealing from the Fort and hefty heists are a Corbucci trait too, as it is recurrent in several of his Westerns. With the money from the heist, the Mexicans would have enough money to buy nine more Gatling guns that Django claims to be available. And with these the bandits could return to Mexico as heroes with massive firepower on their side. So even here the motif of greed is important.

General Rodriguez can now return home to Mexico a powerful man that will hold a valuable position. His greed drives him into the plan. Needless to say there’s a second twist and Django goes a step further and his greed makes him attempt to double-cross the General and swipe the gold for himself… which brings the first of two main plots full circle the damned bridge over the quicksand, the same where Django saved Maria’s [silently portrayed by Loredana Nusicak] life at the start of the movie, the one that leads on to freedom and the future, Django says to Maria during the opening that he’s not ready to cross the bridge yet, and now that he’s facing it once again it becomes his downfall. The coffin containing the gold slips from the wagon and plummets into the quicksand. Despite Django’s desperate attempts to salvage it he fails, Maria is gunned down by the Mexicans and only due to previously having saved General Rodriguez in prison (yet another unexplored subplot if you ask me) Django gets to keep his life, but only barely and not with his fast gun hands intact. But you can’t keep a good man down, and if he can’t escape his past through hue wealth, he better redeem it in the way he originally set out to do; Vengeance. Needless to say the last part of the movie builds towards the final shootout with Major Jackson and the few remains of his once terrorizing gang, and even though it isn’t as formulated and stylized as later Spaghetti Westerns with their low angles, deep focus, cross cut with extreme close-ups of eyes, fingers and the inedible waiting for the shots to come, because that’s what differs the finale of Italian Westerns over American ones. Where the US movies focus on the actual shootout (i.e. Ford, Houston, Peckinpah) the Italians focus on the mood an atmosphere just before the shots ring out giving us those wonderful moments of cinematic glory. The shootings are over in a few seconds, the villains, or in some cases the heroes are dead, but that moment of pre-death still lingers on emotionally. A Corbucci-esque metaphor for life, it can be slow, tedious and disregarded, but taken from us in the blink of an eye.

I have read several analysis of Django that claim that there are no sub-plots to this magnificent movie, but I tend to disagree and claim that there definitely are subplots to be found, and these are what make main plots click into each other, even if the subplots are not closed. The story of Maria, which is left uncommented, (apart from the information that she used to be the whore of Major Jackson, went over to the Mexicans and then fled from them too, leaving her in the troublesome state she’s in at the start of the movie. There’s the dark “Love story” between Maria and Django. Yes it is there. After he saves her she offers herself to him in the safety of the brothel, and he isn’t late in responding, even if Corbucci chooses to let this happen behind closed doors. This is also what allows Django to tell the story of his dark past later on when he tells Maria that he once knew love and will never know love like that again. And don’t forget that Maria follows him as he makes off with the gold, saving his life before her own is put in jeopardy on the bridge. There’s the “revenge” story that Django unfolds during his visit to the cemetery, and the untold story behind what happened all those years ago. There’s the entire subplot of The Mexican Band of Bandits vs. Major Jackson and his troops, which Django uses in his quest for both his goals, swipe the gold and take his revenge. So to say that there are no subplots is pretty far fetched I feel.

A further directorial trait I love about Sergio Corbucci is his Fellini-esque ugliness that is found in almost everything, the sets really look shitty and abandoned, the prostitutes are butt-ugly, the violence is always way exaggerated, and there’s always a morbid fascination for death and the grotesque in his films. This exemplified in the finale out where Django chews the trigger guard off his pistol (probably wrecking what’s left of his teeth in the process) and uses a cross in the cemetery to wedge his gun in between before slamming his mangled hands on the cock and trigger in the final shootout.

On the down side, I feel that Django perhaps is not the masterpiece that it’s hailed as, as it certainly has its flaws and I feel that Corbucci made some better Westerns after this one, but the main letdown of the movie has to be the terribly poor dubbing and dialogue. Sure, being a fan of Italian movies, I’m all for dubbing and sound overlays, it’s all part of the charm when it comes to Italian genre cinema. Silly voices, awkward grammar, and faulty dialogue, and we all know about the 300 page scripts actors where getting, and just by own decisions slicing away dialogue from, hence creating some of he most memorable Western characters ever…, but it all comes together neatly and with discretion in the majority of cases. But Django unfortunately feels as nobody ever really took the time to look through the dialogue, and then when it was overdubbed it was laid down very sloppy and often out of sync with the actors. Which is a shame, then there’s the soundtrack. Right off the bat, I’m not a big fan of Luis Enriquez Bacalov’s score for this movie at all. Sure there is a damned good push in that title track, DJANGOOOO! With its powerful chorus and all, and god knows it was copied over and over again by others, but the score to the rest of the film just gets me annoyed. Just like the sound dubbing I get a very determined feeling that nobody really gave a damn about this important part. I’m sure that Sergio Corbucci was involved, but to what extent is questionable, as he did script and direct three/four other movies during the same year. Where was Nick Alexander when we really needed him?

Anyhow, Django, a masterpiece or not is a defining moment for Spaghetti Western history, and it makes an impression still today, and is a very enjoyable movie with a great early (not first, contrary to common belief) leading role from Franco Nero as the classic anti hero Django.

Image:
Anamorphic Widescreen 16x9 [original proportion 1.85:1]

Audio:
English Dolby Digital 2.0. Stereo. Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian subtitles optional

Extras:
So lame that it’s hardly worth calling them extras, but there’s a very weak poster and artwork galley, and a complete waste of space “cast and crew” text that is really just the credits all over again. Unfortunately this Atlantic release is a real shitty print, the colors dip at time to time and there is a lot of damage to the print, but it was a cheap one I found in a box during holiday, and just looking at the Franco Nero as Django artwork on the front of the box made me decide I needed to see Django ASAP. In retrospect I should have waited and ordered the far more superior Blue Underground edition instead.

Compañeros

Compañeros
Original title: Vamos a matar, compañeros
Directed by: Sergio Corbucci
Italy/Spain /West Germany, 1970
Spaghetti Western, 118min
Distributed by: Blue Underground.

Story:
Swedish arms dealer Yodlaf Peterson arrives in San Bernardino to sell weapons to general Mongo. In San Berdnaninio he meets Mongo’s top henchman El Vasco, who doesn’t find the intruders presence a pleasure. When General Mongo finally arrives he tells the Swede about his sinister plan to crack the town safe and steal the valuables, which he offers to split with Yodlaf. The only problem now is that the only person who knows the combination to the safe is Professor Xantos, who is incarcerated in the state prison. The two foes Yodlaf and El Vasco have to put their differences aside and put together a swindling plan to break the professor out of his prison. A job perhaps easier said than done.


Me:
Sergio Corbucci, possibly one of the finest directors of Spaghetti Westerns, and easily on par with Sergio Leone, directed Compañeros in 1970 and is together with his two previous films Django (1966) and The Great Silence (1968) often quoted as three of the finest entries into the Spaghetti Western genre. Although lacking the grittiness and harshness of the two above mentioned movies, Companero’s takes a slightly lighter approach to the genre. Sure the violence and grit is still there, it’s just eased up with a few comedic scenes and several humorous encounters. But this works in favour of the movie as it brings a healthy balance to the relationship between the two lead characters The Swede [Franco Nero], and El Vasco [Tomas Milian] as they work out their love hate relationship throughout the movie. From that first meeting in the town square, to the final stand off at the end, they insult, torment, tease and bicker with each other all the way through, even though they are working towards the same goal they are very dependant on their represented counterpart. And finally we end up with them starring at each other in glorious Spaghetti Western close-ups in a final climactic duel, where the love/hate relationship shows its true colours. But I’ll return to that later.


I find it very amusing that Corbucci shows the real crook in this movie, is not as in US westerns, the Indians, the Mexicans, the Chinese, or the Europeans etc, but the rich white man and their corporations. When all of your main lead characters are in one way or another villains, Yodlaf, El Vasco, John the bounty killer, you have to put something else in the contrast frame. And Corbucci does it with subtlety. There’s two small scenes in the movie were vile business man Rosenblum demands that Professor Xantos [Fernando Rey] gives him uncompetitive access to the oil found in the land, and if he agrees to this they will contribute a large donation to the revolutionaries cause. But when Xantos refuses, because the land belongs to the people of Mexico, Rosenblum pays a visit to the mercenary John [excellently portrayed by Jack Parlance] and asks him to take care of the professor. Contracting Professor Xantos death to lay his hands on that valuable oil.


Let’s stay with Palance for a moment. His villain, like the rest of the cast, villains, is a rather interesting character. A bounty killer who cares for nobody but his pet hawk, a hawk which we learn saved his life after Yodlaf and he had a rather nasty encounter in Cuba. Hence the agitation towards the Swede, who he by the book tracks down and leaves hanging from a noose in the middle of nowhere. Determination and the satisfaction of completing a task, and also the promise of more marijuana cigarettes drive this cold blooded killer who not only fails his task once, by three times. But not before he kills the Professor, making all the struggle and overcome obstacles of the movie ironically pointless.


Sticking close to the rules of the genre, no Spaghetti Western is complete with out its grand finale showdown, and just like in the previous movie, Django, the Gatling gun is brought back out for a final frenetic thundering explosion of death and bullets as the Swede and Vasco go up against General Mongo and his men. But then there’s the added value of the wraparound tale. The main body of the movie is told as a long flashback initiated from those opening scenes where El Vasco and the Swede are staring each other down in a final duel. A Final duel where the two characters affection for each other overcomes their hate, and instead of shooting each other, they take out John’s henchmen who have hidden away in the background. Then they fight off John in one last blaze of glory. There’s a fine thread in the movie where the two lead villains, El Vasco and later Yodlaf actually evolve and take up new causes in life. They both walk from the path of villains, to become revolutionaries and fight for a good cause instead. Remember that Yodlaf early on in the movie says that he doesn’t care who he sells his arms to, as long as they pay. But in the final scene he revaluates his position and free of charge chooses to fight with the revolutionaries for freedom and a better future. It’s a neat detail that sets up a great climax to the movie. These evil characters come over to the good side.

It's fascinating that so many small details planted through out the movie return at one point or another just to play a larger role than first indicated. It’s these small details that showcase the craftsmanship of Carlucci once again. There’s the arms wagon that Nero arrives in town with which later is his salvation from John’s bullets, the dollar given to Vasco which later becomes his lifesaver, the wealth and value of the people of San Bernardino which gets flipped upside down in a last surprise as the safe is opened up by Yodlaf, it all comes back very nicely bringing the threads to a satisfying payoff. And even though Corbucci lightens this one up with a few gags, and comic themes, there is still a dark sinister tone, and the theme of Greed saturates the movie. Everyone is driven by their greed. Their greed for money, power, dope, revenge, or simply for peace and justice.

Compañeros is indeed a grand Spaghetti Western, complete with top notch cast, one of the best Morricone soundtracks, beautiful cinematography, wonderfully edited by Eugenio Alabiso (just feel the pacing of those shootouts, frenetic to say the least.) that brings it all tightly tighter, standing the test of time and is easily comparable to some of Leone’s better movies. A must for fans of the genre.

Image:
Widescreen 2.35:1 / 16x9

Audio:
Dolby Digital 2.0. English or Italian soundtrack, with optional English subtitles.

Extras:
The 17 minute, In the Company of Compañeros where Franco Nero, Tomas Milian and Ennio Morricone discsuss the movie, the Theatrical Trailer and written talent bios.

Keoma

Keoma
Directed by: Enzo G. Casterllari
Italy, 1976
Spaghetti Western, 97min
Distributed by NjutaFilms

Story:
When the civil war has ended Indian half-blood Keoma returns to his hometown only to find it under the suffering grip of the tyrannous Mr. Caldwell. To make things worse there’s a plague harrowing the inhabitants and no one is allowed to leave the isolated village unless they are dead or being taken to the mines where the sick are disposed of. Among Mr. Caldwell’s band of hoodlums are Keoma’s three stepbrothers, Butch, Sam and Lenny, who never accepted that their father William Shannon saved Keoma from death and raised him as his own son. Subsequent to rescuing Lisa who is pregnant but still being sent to the mines as her husband had the plague, Keoma makes it his mission to let Lisa give birth to her child and free the town. But freedom rarely comes without a price.

Me:
Like so many other Italian directors of the seventies/eighties, Enzo G. Castellari followed, started and perfected the trends and made the movies in demand. Keoma was his eight western and perhaps one of his finest, as it explores themes frequently used in the Italian Spaghetti Western; oppression, injustice, and the fight for freedom, but also uses a heavy dose of symbolism to make a statement about life and death. Shot in 1976 when the gritty Spaghetti Westerns where a fading kind, being replaced by more a comedic approach perfected by Enzo Barboni in the “Trinity” movies, often featuring Terence Hill [aka Mario Girotti] and Bud Spencer [aka Carlo Pedersoli] and post apocalyptic Sci-Fi adventures, Keoma is a great latter day entry into that magnificent genre that still stands strong against the tests of time.


Staying true to the traits of the Italian Spaghetti Westerns, it’s established from the start that Keoma is an unwanted guest in his home town, an outcast, a minority, in other words a traditional underdog, and we always root for the underdog. Not an underdog in the sense that he’s a weakling, because he is in fact the second fastest shot in the west out done only by his father, but more from a racial standing point. He’s an Indian, just below the recently freed slaves on the scale. After he is reunited with his father William [William Berger] they philosophize about the civil war that has just ended. In a somber comment Keoma's father points out that before the war the white man had a guilty conscious for slaughtering the native Indians, so they went to war to free the Negro slaves. Now that the Negro's have their freedom they have gone back to butchering the Indians. A sublime commentary on mankind and in many ways still true today where world leaders take to war in foreign countries to shift the focus of their poor jobs in office. Also there's an important indicator that even won battles can be failures. AS Keoma spends his first night in the town, he stumbles upon his old friend George [Woody Strode] who was the family caretaker when they where young, as seen in several flashbacks. George, once a slave, has now been given his freedom after the civil war, but has become an drunk instead. "I found out what freedom was worth. That's why I drink.". he replies when Keoma points out that the war is over he had gained his freedom, that which he dreamed of.



As usual Franco Nero does a great job of his portraying his character, Keoma, an Indian who returns to his hometown after the Civil war just to find that sinister ex-confederate Mr. Caldwell holds the small town in a tight grip. During the start of the film he encounters the gang as they slaughter townsfolk being shipped off to the mines where the inhabitants that have been infected with the plague are dumped to die. This is where he picks up a very pregnant Lisa [Olga Karlatos], and in a kind of statement against all the death and horror he’s witnessed in his lifetime he makes it his task to keep Lisa safe so that she can have her child. And he really goes through hell and high water to allow her to give birth to that kid. Lisa dies giving birth, symbolically cross cut against the final showdown between Keoma and his brothers; Death vs. Life, and as Keoma mounts his horse the old Witch [Gabriella Giacobbe] stood holding the child claims that she can’t look after the child because it will die, Keoma replies; “He Can’t Die! You know why? Because he’s free, and a free man never dies!” then rides off into the sunset. Also this final line is symbolic antithesis of the violent solutions taken to most problems met so far in the film, which could be interpreted as Keoma beating death, hence the old witch being Death, and when presenting her with a new life (the child,) he brings death to an end forcing her to embrace life instead. This theory is supported by the few times that the Witch reappears in the movie. Just after Keoma saves Lisa from death in the mines, as Keoma hangs beaten in the town, also when he completes killing off the gang members. Death is there to watch over his actions, possibly guiding him on. But Keoma makes his mark, he proves his point, the time of death is past, the leaders are dead, the gang disbanded. The townsfolk have their freedom once again and with it new hope as new life is brought into the world.


It’s uncertain how much of Luigi Montefiori’s [Aka George Eastman, another great Italian character actor and still to this day an active screenwriter.] original script was used during the shoot. Rumors has it that Castellari, unsatisfied by the script discarded them and had new scenes written as they where shooting. Although I think that it’s just an entertaining anecdote and pretty unrealistic as the movie is a very tight production and holds a high level story wise. I find it hard to see how they could have scripted the plot and all it’s subplots [the story of hatred and jealousy between Keoma and his step brothers as children, the three brothers own sinister plans to take over the town after Caldwell is killed by Keoma, the long thread death and life that battle throughout the movie, etc], while in the midst of production. It doesn’t add up, and Keoma would have been a much lesser movie if this was the case.


Keoma is a delight to watch and there are some amazing camera tricks that still hold up today. In the pre-title sequence there’s the origin of Keoma told through a flashback that still surprises me each time I see it. Just a simple trick as panning to the left and we are suddenly in the midst of an Indian slaughter, set up so that we learn the origin of Keoma and his tragic background. Also there are several occasions where his memories of his childhood fighting his three stepbrothers, hanging out with his stepfather, being taught to shoot bow and arrows by George [Woody Strode] are elegantly woven into the scene initiating the flashback, and on some occasions even have Keoma as an adult in the midst of the events. This is done as the picture editing of Gianfranco Amicucci, and the cinematography of Aiace Parolin all come together very neatly .And you can't really talk of Keoma with out discussing the soundtrack by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis which features really strange folk/opera singing by the enigmatic Sybil & Guy. But as terrible as it may be at times, they are singing the movie plot and pushing it forward, asking questions and making statements, which is really entertaining, and kind of works as an inner monologue of Keoma. So if your after a great piece of late seventies Spaghetti Western with out the laughs and comedic gags, then Keoma is definately something you might want to check out.


Thanks to Jenny for sugesting that the old Witch was Keoma’s subconscious when she first appeared in the pre-title sequence, for this got me thinking about the Sub Conscious - Defeating Death – Seventh Seal – Theme.

Image:
Cinemacope 2.35:1 - Anamorphic

Audio:
English Language, Dolby Digital Surround 2.0


Extras:
20 Minute interview with Castellari on the westerns and Keoma, the original trailer, poster and still gallery, biographies for both Castellari and Nero, and trailers for Sergio Martino's Torso, Jamue Balugero's The Nameless, and Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper also available from AWE.