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.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Original Title:

Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom
Directed by: Ji-woon Kim
South Korea 2008
Western/Action/Adventure, 125min
Distributed by: Njuta Films

Two men sit in a solitary chamber. There’s discussion about a swindle, a map that has been sold is to be taken back. Bounty hunter Park Chang-yi [Byung-hun Lee] smirks at his employer and heads of after disclosing his alternative plan to how the map can be reclaimed from Japanese business man Karemaru [Hang-soo Lee].

Moments later the full power of a steam engine blasts though the frame. The camera moves into the wagon and surprisingly it’s not Park Chang-yi we see but a second bandit raiding the train. Yoon Tae-goo [Kang-ho Song] moves through the wagons blasting soldiers in his way before he bursts into the moving office of Karemaru. With a plan to steal their money Yoon Tae-goo get’s more than he bargains for when Park Chang-yi’s men attempt to stop the train and Yoon by chance discovers the map. A third gunman appears, Park Do-won [Woo-sung Jung] and with an apparent aura of authority surrounding him, he starts to shoot the bandits in Park Chang-yi’s gang, which obviously leaves Yoon Tae-goo in the line of fire. Yoon Tae-goo manages to escape as does Park Chang-yi leaving Park do-won to, just like the other two, ride off in separate directions until their paths cross again – much sooner than they think.

This could have been the opening sequence of any great American or Italian western from the sixties or seventies. But it isn’t, it’s the vibrant and adrenaline inducing presentation of characters in Ji-woon Kim’s magnificent The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

The name being an obvious pun on Sergio Leone’s epic The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - The Good, The Bad, The Weird is more than just a smart play with words, as this movie is by far one of the most impressive modern made westerns of a long, long time. What stands out with the movie is that it’s not just a simple play with the genre, it’s taken the whole characteristics, tone and traits of the western and placed it all in a logic setting that has it feeling like a perfect fitting Stetson hat – a Stetson hat with a definitive taste of bibimbap.

After the very genre fitting opening the action toned movie takes a swerve into adventurous territory as Yoon Tae-goo and his mate Man-gil [Seung-su Ryu] start reading and fantasising what that map is all about. But they are not the only ones after the supposed treasure on the map, as this is why Park Chang-yi – infamous for always getting his man – also is after the map. To complicate it further, as the map has been stolen from the Japanese army, they too want it, and along with that the Manchurian bandits that Yoon Tae-goo and Man-gil once where part of, also want a piece of the action. On top of that there’s Park Do-won who wants’ to capture both Park Chang-yi and Yoon Tae-goo, as they are wanted and their incarceration will bring him a sizeable reward. It’s a complex weave, that spawns several subplots that all come to impact in an outstanding battle towards the end of the movie.

Set in Manchuria during the 1940’s Kim’s movie works solidly off that great genre the Western and their ever fascinating skill for bringing pretty sordid characters to the screen and despite all their flaws and bad doing, having the audience actually taking a liking to even the worst of the characters. That’s exactly what happens here. After a start up segment where the audience label the three characters of the title, the good, the bad and the weird, the movie starts heading into its action adventure mode. Yes there is a sense of the Indiana Jones films , or even Jackie Chan’s Armour of the Gods 1987 invoked, but the film never really get’s as cliff-hangery and fragmented as those movies tend to get. Instead it stays pretty clean and solidly to a “the first man to the X on the map” story, which makes for a more focused and straighter story.

You can’t talk about any spaghetti movie – or Kimchi Western as Kim has referred to his movie as – without talking about glorious gunfights and apocalyptic shootouts. There’s the tour de force of Franco Nero pulling out that Gatling gun and wiping out an entire army in Sergio Corbucci’s Django 1966, there’s the crushing impact of the violent shootouts in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch 1969, and there’s the cynical fun of Enzo Barboni’s My Name is Trinity 1970 - The Good, The Bad, The Weird brings it all, and it’s a very entertaining mix that comes out of the grinder.

There are a lot of things that click to make this movie such a damned fine movie. Amongst them is the casting. I’m of the opinion that to some extent, typecasting is a great tool as it eases the establishment of characters as they bring their catalogue of work with them to the movie. A character who has always been a favourable kind of goody two shoes character will be easier to like, where as he will become much more disturbing if you cast him as an evil character. Just think of someone like Robin Williams in all those quirky good guy roles he’s played and then think of him in Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo 2002 where he’s a complete psycho. William’s back catalogue and the kind of character we are accustomed to seeing him play adds to the tension, because we want Williams to be a good guy and it creeps us out on a deeper more subconscious level when we see him as the sinister Seymour Parrish – a cold blooded psychopath.

Apart from being a who’s who of hot South Korean talent, The Good, The Bad, The Weird uses it’s actors to bring subconscious baggage with them – even if all character positions are to be flipped head over ass in the last act – and it helps the movie in a great way, because you will never see it coming. Casting Woo-sung Jung as the good is fairly obvious as fans of his movies will know that he often plays headstrong and determined good guys in his movies. Just like he did in Sung-su Kim’s blockbuster Musa (The Warrior) 2001. Byung-hun Lee’s enigmatic and scarred character performance in Kim’s previous movie; A Bittersweet Life 2005 brings a enigmatic and scarred edge to his character, and obviously Kang-ho Song’s fantastic performances in Chan-wook Park’s grim and tragic Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 2002, and as the mentally retarded, but still a hero Park Gang-du from Joon-ho Bong’s The Host 2006 help us feel sympathetic to his character from the word go.

After setting up the characters their arcs start to take their journey. It’s a damned fine ride and there is a surprise twist at the end. Staying true to the tone of the movie though, the rightful justice is neglected and the characters that have evolved the most are rewarded instead. Although it is a fitting conclusion as the outcome is determined buy the shifts in character value. HUH? Well yeah, it sounds odd, but take into consideration that the road to redemption is far more effective and motivating than the road to revenge. The road to the climax, and the final reel surprise is told though a healthy dose of effective subplots that deliver back-story and exposition. Sometimes this can harm a movie and make derail off track, but it works like a charm in The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird showcases some highly impressive talent throughout the production. Characters are fascinating, the cinematography is stunning, the effects and huge set pieces are spectacular and the tempo is impeccable! The action packs a punch right from the start, that train sequence that opens the movie is awesome, and has some great moments, and then as we start to understand the constellation of characters the narrative draws us in. To further enhance the movie, there are some outrageous shootouts that challenge that jaw dropping awe that the eighties Hong Kong action brought with them. The final battle – where the three men, and the Manchurian nomads take on the Japanese army are riveting, and just when you think that it’s coming to an end you still have the climactic standoff to get through and the reveal of the map's secret.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is a movie that easily will appeal to fans of Asian action, Bullet ballets, and good old Westerns with a spicy South Korean taste to it. I never really got the hype around Ji-woon Kim’s A Tale of Two Sisters 2003, as it always felt to me as a so-so movie and not really as good as others made a the same time. But I really liked his entry into the first Three series – Memories 2002, and A Bittersweet Life is mind blowing. So The Good, The Bad, The Weird comes as a pleasant surprise. It’s of the lighter nature than his previous pieces, and is without any exaggeration a d fantastic action adventure movie that you should make sure to check it out, because it is a magnificent movie.

Image:
2:35.1 Anamorphic Widescreen


Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1, or Dolby Digital dts. Korean, Chinese and Japanese dialogue, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian or Danish subtitles are optional

Extras:
NjutaFilms trailershow.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is also available on BluRay from NjutaFilms too!

Django Kill ...If You Live, Shoot!

Django Kill… If You Live Shoot!
Original Title: Se sei vivo spara
Directed by: Giulio Questi
Italy / Spain, 1967
Spaghetti Western, 117min
Distributed by: Blue Underground

There are two main plot devices that make for a great Spaghetti Western: Greed and Vengeance. If you know how to use those ingredients the right way you will probably have made a movie that we still enjoy to this day.

Guido Questi’s Django Kill ...If You Live Shoot! is a very entertaining Spaghetti Western featuring the great Tomas Milian [Sergio Corbucci’s Compañeros 1970, Umberto Lenzi’s Almost Human 1974, and Stephen Soderberg’s Traffic 2000] as “the Stranger”. Note that he’s called the stranger in the movie and not Django, as the re-titling would have one believe. In fact this movie has nothing to do with Corbucci’s 1966 classic Django, (apart from being in the same genre), as it’s once again merely a distributors trick to cash in on the success of the previous movie. This is unfortunate and it’s understandable that Questi, dislikes the Django re-naming as his film is a completely different kind of movie even though it uses the same sort of plot devices. But Questi has a few tricks up his sleeve to push this one a bit further than the common Greed and Revenge motifs, and the main protagonist; Milian, has a change of character throughout the movie.

Through an eerie opening sequence, where two Indians find the Stranger clawing his way out of a grave, back story is explored in a series of rapid and forceful flashbacks as we are brought up to date with the stranger, now coming back to his health. We understand that the Stranger was double crossed by his one time partner Oakes [Piero Lulli – Tonino Valerii’s My Dear Killer 1972, Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby… Kill! 1966] who massacred the half-breeds (Milian among them) and left them all in a shallow grave after a heated discussion about his reluctance to divide the stolen booty with them. So instead he kills them all and steals the bags of gold that they have swiped from a Welles Fargo Wagon. Back to now, the Indians heal the stranger and prepare his tools of vengeance, the few pieces of gold that the Stranger had on his person have now been molten down into Golden bullets – “It is your gold, the gold you died for!” “Gold bullets better than lead, go deeper!”– the Indians explain. All they want in exchange is that the Stranger tells them of the happy hunting grounds he has seen on the other side of the river of life. The dialogue is almost a religious text as their wisdom is spoken – The Stranger must use his knowledge of the other side wisely in his choices to come ahead.

At the same time Oakes and his band of outlaws ride into the town that the Indians call – the unhappy place, where the unfriendliness of the town is set through the use of a few small and subtle images; the two children fighting, a young boy being forced into submission under the boots of his “Uncle Max, the married couple fighting behind their windows… The men almost look scared as they enter the saloon, and damned right too as in only a matter of minutes saloon owner Bill Temblar [Milo Quesada – Mario Bava’s initial Giallo, The Girl Who Knew Too Much 1963 and Jesus Franco’s Night of the Bloody Judge 1970] has noticed that Oakes is a wanted man and that they are holding a large amount of gold. After rallying up the towns folk the gang are all shot down and strung up to warn off other intruders. Oakes looks as if he’s going to get away, but then the Stranger and his two Indian companions arrive. The Stranger (who Oakes thinks is a ghost) shoots Oakes but doesn’t actually kill him; instead he meets a fate much worse. Mr. Sorro and his band, all dressed in black, arrive. He stops the townsfolk from stringing up Oakes, and orders the town doctor to get the bullets out of him, as he wants to know all about the gold. And when the old doc pulls out a bullet of pure gold from the groaning, wounded Oakes, they go crazy tearing him apart to get to the golden bullets.

It’s a sinister little sequence that not only introduces the two antagonists’ Temblar and Ackerman, but also establishes the subplot with the Mexican bandit Sorrow’s gang, who also want a piece of the gold. [Sorro played wonderfully by Roberto Camardiel] It’s also the scene where the young Ray Lovelock [Amando Crispino’s Autopsy 1975, Jorge Grau’s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1973, and Umberto Lenzi’s The Oasis of Fear 1971] is introduced into the movie as Evan, son of Bill Temblar. Further there once again is a reference to Milian having returned from the dead – “You’ve come back from hell! – Go On! Fire, you’re supposed to be Dead!”

Keeping Sorro out of the loop, the gold is now divided between the two companions, Temblar and Ackerman [Francisco Sanz – also seen in Grau’s Let Sleeping Corpses Lie 1973, Amando de Ossorio’s The Blind Dead 1971], the stranger left without his share. But this is a Spaghetti Western and greed soon raises its ugly head once again as Temblar and Ackerman argue over the gold. The gold is the tool that everyone in the own needs to get out and start all over again.

The movie takes an interesting turn here, as Milan is “played” by all parts, Templar wants to befriend him to get protection from Ackerman and Sorro, Ackerman offers up his house, and wife Elizabeth [Patrizia Valturi – Antonio Margheriti’s Naked You Die 1968] in his request that the Stranger protect him from Templar and Sorro, and Sorro wants the Stranger to join his merry band and become one of his companeros so they can steal all the gold from Ackerman and Temblar.

Young Evan sees that his father’s new lady, Flory [Marilù Tolo also seen in Tonini Valerii’s My Dear Killer 1972, Sergio Martino’s Murder in an Etruscan Cemetery 1982, and good old Calvin Floyd’s The Sleep of Death 1981] is simply interested in his father because of his new found wealth (this will be shown several times during the rest of the movie) and punishes her by slashing her dresses. Expensive dresses that his father presumably bought her. He then begs Milan to take him with him, no matter where, just away from here. See, everyone wants’ out of this town.

Evan ends up being kidnapped by Sorrow’s gang in an attempt to extort his father out of the gold, but the Stranger steps in and saves Evan, for this time, and get’s an invitation to Sorrow’s ranch in the procedure. Milian later gambles with Sorrow and saves Evan yet again when Sorrow tells his men to shoot the kid after Temblar refuses to pay the ransom. But for some unknown reason, Evan steals a pistol from one of the bandits the next morning and takes his own life… Now at first it seems illogical, then you try to figure some sort of reason out, and it has been suggested that Evan is gangbanged by the bandits during the night and it is with the shame of this ordeal that Evan chooses to take his life. Sure there is enough to support such a claim, the looks Sorro’s men give Evan, and the way they play with Evans hair, but it’s still kind of far fetched. I opt for the answer that Evan refuses to be yet another pawn in his fathers games, to be a victim of his greed - and the simple fact that he’ll be returned to the one place he’s struggled so far to escape from.

Back in town Ackerman and Temblar fall out with each other, as Ackerman refuses to pay half the ransom demand for Temblar’s son. A ludicrous demand to make, which terminates the little friendship that was between the two men, as they both start plotting how to trick the other out of his share. Milian brings the body of Evan back to his father and gets into a fight with him – possibly because he’s so frustrated and angered that his father’s greed has led to the boy’s death - a boy who the Stranger saved several times previously. Instead, Ackerman, who offers up his wife in return for protection, houses the Stranger. And protection he gets’s as the Stranger fends off Sorro’s men who try to claim the gold later that night. After the Stranger get’s his rocks off with Elisabeth that is.

Flory still in lust for all the gold, even Ackerman’s share, convinces Temblar to hide his gold in Evans coffin to keep Sorro’s gang from finding it as they search his house. Ackerman’s final diabolical plan is set in motion. As Temblar returns from Evans funeral Ackerman shoots him in cold blood with the Stranger’s gold bullet pistol, framing him in the process. He then rallies the towns’ folk to find and kill the Stranger, who flees right into the arms of Sorro’s gang who wants to know where the gold is and sets about torturing the Stranger. But ironically it’s love that brings about the downfall of the vile Ackerman - Elisabeth devastated that her lover and possible rescue from the terrifying town – told you that everyone wants’ out didn’t I – sets herself alight with a box of matches resulting with the whole house going down in flames. As the townsfolk gather to watch, yeah watch there’s not to many trying to extinguish the fire, Ackerman tries to salvage the one thing he holds dearest, his gold. But it has all melted in the immense heat and instead of retrieving the bags of loot he if drenched in a pour of molten gold. It reminds me of the South American Indians pouring molten gold down the throats of the conquistadors to settle their thirst for gold.

There’s plenty of gritty violence in the flick, not perhaps as harsh as it would become over the years, but for a mid sixties Spaghetti Western it kind of takes the trophy; Mass execution, close range shots to the head, torso’s torn apart by human hands, scalping, torture by bats, iguanas and a mole and people burning to death. Heavy stuff to unleash on an audience accustomed to the old bang bang-fall down action of the genre. And it’s intriguing that Guesti seems to have a fetish for the transportation of dead bodies. There are plenty of scenes where dead people are moved from one location to another in scenes reminiscent of those seen in war journals where soldiers are moved to and from safety.

The characters are fiendish, holding no respect for anything but themselves. This is proven by the montage where Oakes gang walk into town, the way the town’s folk execute all of Oakes gang, the way they hang them up afterwards, the cynicism of Lori when Evan is kidnapped, Ackerman murder of Temblar, the way he pimps his sister on Milian, the way he manipulates the towns folk to go after the Stranger and his Indian helpers. The coldblooded remarks made by the town people as Ackerman and Elisabeth die in the flaming house. It’s all driven by egocentrism and greed that leaves a devastating wave of death and violence in its way. The Stranger escapes, terminates all the Mexican bandits in one bang, and rides into town just in time to witness Elisabeth die in the flames of the burning house. Instead of claiming his revenge, reclaiming the gold or getting the girl, the stranger rides out of town empty handed in a rather low key ending to this excellent classic Spaghetti Western.

The idea of Milian’s religious aura, like an after death Lazarus presence if you prefer, is evident throughout the movie, and I can’t really shake it off. And even though Questi denies it in every interview he gives about the movie, it’s in there. The religious symbolism can’t be denied. You can even go as far as claiming that Milian even looks like Jesus on the cross in his minimal loincloth, all oiled up for torture by Sorrow’s gang.

I mentioned that Milian's "the Stranger" has a change of character, well its partially true at least. After taking his revenge, without actually killing Oakes, he goes into a remorseful and very passive mood. He only shoot’s his gun a few times and there’s never a deadly shot released, well one, the one that kills Sorro, but considering that Sorro is the main antagonists, it’s only fair that the hero get’s to off the bad guy and his black shirted bandits. After all it’s Sorro who kept the town in fear and drove it’s inhabitants to be the dark characters that they where. The Black Shirted men are most likely political critique against the fascist paramilitary groups of Italy (camicie nere) that Questi fought against as a young anti-fascist partisan during the second world war, and probably what inspired some of the atrocities that take place in the film. This is why the passive character puts an end to the bandit gang in such a violent manner, being forced to put an end to the grip of fear Sorro holds over the town.

The movie has some extremely forceful editing by Franco Arcalli, [the masterful editor of such classics as Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist 1970, Vittorio De Sica’s A Brief Vacation 1973 and Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter 1974] He really splices the heck out of this movie and in the more rapid sequences the images stay for only a four-five frames before blasting on to the next image. It’s ferocious and effective and brings frenzy with it. Many of the action sequences, like the Strangers explosive escape from Sorro’s prison are so violently edited that it’s almost impossible to see what we are being shown, but after a few sequences of rapid cuts the image is all to clear and it’s a innovative way of showing the carnage instead of just landing in shots of corpses and intestines. This is also how Arcalli brings the back story into the movie, with small almost incoherent glimpses that eventually come to reveal the necessary information. Now this isn’t just a postproduction gimmick that Arcalli came up with, as he also co-wrote a number of screenplays too. I can’t say how much he wrote on the movies, [Bernard Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris 1972, and 1900 1976 to name a few] but I wouldn’t be surprised if he during the writing hadn’t already started to edit an imaginary movie in his head. I’d also say it’s a fair bet that Donn Cambern had seen Arcalli’s style found here in Se sei vivo spara when he edited the transitions on Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider 1969.

Upon it’s premiere in ’67 the film did decently but then voices where starting to be heard about the violence and tone of the film, so down it went and after being submitted to the censors two of the most violent scenes – The townsfolk tearing out the gold from Oakes body, and the scalping of the Stranger’s Indian helper where snipped out. But don’t worry as they are reinserted for this Blue Underground release. Obviously cuts like this are the sort of cuts that don’t necessarily damage a movie’s narrative, but it does harm to the vision a director had, as he wanted those scenes in there. But at the same time cut scenes of violence help the film in a way as it creates a buzz about that removed stuff, which soon becomes like a holy grail of missing material. Much like the legendary piranha sequence from Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust 1980 – always rumoured to be missing, but eventually it was revealed that they never even shot the sequence. Remember Se sei vivo spara has been called the most violent western ever and perhaps that’s not the case, but the violence is sadistic to say the least.

Guilio Questi’s Se sei vivo spara is well worth checking out, it’s very interesting and almost has an arty approach to the classic Spaghetti Western formula that brings movies like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo 1970 to mind. Tomas Milian is an almost unique protagonist in this movie as he takes his passive approach to the actions in front of him, but when he needs to react he reacts big time – the dynamite attached to the horse that rides straight into Sorro’s gang is possibly the most aggressive put on screen. The movie also holds a strange aura due to that “after death” thing, and several scenes could have been found in a EuroGoth movie. Elisabeth with her pancake makeup and Ackerman’s demise certainly has a Edgar Allan Poe / Andre de Toth's House of Wax 1953 feeling to them to say the least. So do yourself a favour and check out this oddity, you may end up with a new favourite cult classic on your hands.

Image:

Widescreen 2.35:1 / Anamorphic 16x9

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 English or Italian Dialogue with English Subtitles Optional.

Extras:

Theatrical Trailer, linear notes by William Connolly – Spaghetti Cinema editor, Poster and stills gallery, and the 25min featurette Django, Tell! Where Questi, Lovelock and Milian talk about the movie.

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.