Thursday
3:00 p.m. For the Spaghetti Western
posse, the day started with a press conference for the official launch of Spaghetti
Western: The Secret History of Italian Cinema 4, overseen by Festival
chairman, Davide Croff, and the co-curators, Marco Giusti and Manlio Gomarasca.
The guest line-up was comprised of Franco Nero, Sergio Donati, and Tonino
Valerii, with American director Eli Roth, and New York Times film critic
Elvis Mitchell, also on hand. After Manlio had described the Spaghetti Western
as, “the Italian genre which most contributed to change in worldwide cinema,â€
Nero spoke with passion about the Western and its continuing importance: “No
male actor in the world doesn’t want to play in Westerns. Westerns were often
A-movies in America, but B-movies in Italy. But these B-movies paid for all the
auteur films. When I travelled to Japan and South America, in the hotel
registers, they would just write “Django†. . . So I say it is a mistake not to
make Westerns today, look at the worldwide sales of DVDs... To make Westerns
in the Seventies’ style is a good idea. Westerns are something mythical,
legendary.â€
.
He
recalled the great Sergio Corbucci, calling him, “an under-appreciated director
in the true sense of the word, like Tonino Valerii. They really are sound
directors who get the best out of a story.†He then told his anecdote about
Corbucci’s legendary sense of fun, in which, during the filming of the title
scene of Django, Corbucci told Nero to walk past the camera, pulling his
iconic coffin, and to keep going until they had enough footage and Corbucci
shouted “Cutâ€. Nero duly obliged, trudging on and on through the mud, the
coffin getting heavier and heavier, wondering when on earth Corbucci would be
satisfied. Eventually, having had enough, he stopped and looked back. There was
no one in sight; Corbucci had told the crew to pack up and leave as soon as
Nero was out of earshot. . . . Corbucci, he added, ‘would arrive on the set and
ask, “How many are we going to kill today? Ten? Twenty?†. . . I really miss
him.’
Valerii,
after giving a quick account of how he came to make his first film, Taste
for Killing, in 1966, mainly talked about the making of A Reason to
Live, a Reason to Die, and his comments would be best read in conjunction
with the report on that film.
Sergio
Donati, co-writer (occasionally uncredited) on all of Leone’s Westerns after Fistful
of Dollars, spoke in some detail of his relationship with the Maestro,
saying, “Sergio Leone taught me 100 per cent of what I know about film.â€
Eli
Roth then recalled how his first exposure to Westerns had come through catching
Leone’s films on late-night TV. His parents took a dim view of this,
encouraging him to watch “proper†Westerns instead. “But,†said Roth, “after
Leone, I just found John Ford boring.†Elvis Mitchell then outlined the
influence of Spaghetti Westerns on black culture. Hugely popular in Jamaica
(remember Jimmy Cliff watching Django in The Harder They Come?),
their influence was brought, via immigration, to the Bronx, where it would
later emerge in hip-hop phrases like “popping a cap in someoneâ€.
The
press conference was followed by a screening of Ferdinando Baldi’s Get the
Coffin Ready (1967), a rather desperate, but highly successful, attempt by
producer Manolo Bolognini of B.R.C. to cash in on Corbucci’s Django, the
company’s big hit of the previous year. With Franco Nero having answered the
siren call of Hollywood and departed to make Camelot, Baldi and
Bolognini apparently dressed up Terence Hill (who’d just appeared in Baldi’s
musical Western, Little Rita nel West) in Django’s outfit, then took
photos of him to various backers who looked at the pictures, assumed they were
of Nero, and duly handed over the necessary fistful of lire.
Like
any number of producers hoping to expand a hit into a lucrative series, the
makers of Get the Coffin Ready weren’t remotely interested in sticking
to any of the narrative details established in the original film – it was
simply a case of take the same ingredients, shake well and serve. Thus, Get
the Coffin Ready finds Django, hands intact and married, hunting down the
people who’ve killed his wife (again). Employed as a county hangman, he
arranges the escape from the gallows of a number of men falsely accused by the
land-grabbing Lucas (George Eastman), the man who led the attack resulting in
Mrs. Django’s demise. Django unleashes his ghost riders and eventually Lucas is
killed. The man behind him, however, is an ambitious politician, played by
icy-eyed Horst Frank. In the final showdown, which takes place in a cemetery,
Django whips out a buried machine-gun and the baddies bite the dust.
The
plot of Get the Coffin Ready moves along swiftly enough, and all the
performers do their best, but Hill’s essentially affable screen persona doesn’t
allow him to convey the essential dead-heart soullessness of the Django
character as portrayed by Nero. And, in any case, as the dozens of
production-line Djangos and even the later “official†sequel with Nero would
prove, a Django without Corbucci is like spaghetti without sauce – filling,
perhaps, but lacking in flavour.
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The
Bounty Killer
boasts excellent performances all round, with even the talentless Wyler’s
customary woodenness turned into an asset, and there’s an atypical role for
Mario Brega as the town’s blacksmith. An outstanding film, and one well worth
tracking down.
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At
8:30 p.m. it was time to catch up with the original Django, both on-screen and
in person. The presence of Franco Nero, who was accompanied by Vanessa
Redgrave, guaranteed a full house, and both he and Sergio Corbucci’s widow,
Nori, were given a rousing reception following their joint introduction of the
film. There were even more cheers when Django guns down a bunch of heavies in
the opening sequence, but these were as nothing compared to the roars and
whoops which greeted the famous scene in which he pulls out his machine-gun and
paints the town red, as it were, causing dozens of extras to bite the dust – or
rather, the mud – in quick succession. Such audience enthusiasm not only bore
witness to the enduring popularity of Corbucci’s and Nero’s creation, but also
gave a good sense of how the film must have been received in some of the
rowdier terza visione cinemas on its first release.
Following
an opening shot in which, as in Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Leone’s Fistful
of Dollars, he is first seen moving away from camera, Corbucci’s
protagonist is immediately confronted with a scene of injustice, one in which
the traditional Hollywood Western hero would be obliged to intervene. Django,
however, like The Man With No Name on the outskirts of San Miguel, is content
merely to observe as, in his case, a half-breed prostitute named MarÃa
(Loredana Nusciak) is brutally flogged by a gang of Mexicans. Only when her
tormentors are shot down by a bunch of red-hooded heavies, who then make clear
their intention to burn her to death on a cross, does Django finally decide to
step in.
Corbucci’s
film is one of delirious excess, full of Gothic imagery (the coffin, the red
hoods of Jackson’s men, the mud-filled ghost town, itself as much a graveyard
as the one in which Django’s wife is buried) and extreme violence (the
mutilation of Brother Jonathan, the crushing of Django’s hands), all served up
in a lurid comic book style that was to prove an enormous influence on the
subsequent development of the Spaghetti Western, to say nothing of
international cinema in general. Indeed, in the character of Django himself –
cool and lethal, yet emotionally dead and motivated only by a desire for
revenge – lies the archetype of all the lone avengers who would later follow in
his bloody and muddy footprints.
A
more recent – and pleasingly notorious – example of Corbucci’s influence can be
found in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), in which Mr.
Blonde’s enthusiastic attempt at amateur surgery deliberately recalls the scene
in Django in which General RodrÃguez gleefully performs a similar operation
on the ear of Brother Jonathan, the preacher who acts as Major Jackson’s
informant. And with Tarantino himself presumably responsible for the inclusion
of Django in this retrospective, this seems as good a place as any to
consider the different approaches of both directors to the material in hand (so
to speak).
In
Reservoir Dogs, as Mr. Blonde gets to work with his trusty razor,
Tarantino pans-and-tilts away from him until the actual amputation has been
effected, whereas in Django, Corbucci unflinchingly keeps the camera on
actor Gino Pernice’s face as RodrÃguez removes the offending article.
Tarantino’s method is certainly the more subtle and effective – it is almost as
if the camera itself cannot bear to record what is happening and must turn away,
thereby forcing the audience, perhaps against its will, to imagine the
grisly proceedings and thus provoking a more disturbing response than anything
induced by mere special effects. Nonetheless, and despite its more comic book
presentation, there is something so outrageous in Corbucci’s refusal to cut
away, in his insistence that, yes, this is happening and you’re going to watch
it to the end, that the scene achieves a quite different but equally powerful
effect – a trance-like state of knowing that something awful is about to happen
and yet being unable to look away.
There
are also differences in how each director handles the aftermath of these
impromptu operations. Tarantino opts to lighten the mood somewhat by having Mr.
Blonde clown around, talking into the severed ear before throwing it away.
Then, just as the audience begins to relax, Tarantino starts to tighten the
screws again, his camera following Mr. Blonde as he ambles out to his car to
fetch a can of petrol. Having doused his prisoner with the contents, he is
about to set light to the fuel when he is gunned down by a fortuitously revived
Mr. Orange. Corbucci, however, having got our attention, ups the ante
immediately, with RodrÃguez forcing the hapless Jonathan to eat his own ear,
then, as the wounded man staggers away, shooting him twice in the back. No
intervention, divine or otherwise, on Brother Jonathan’s behalf. Tarantino’s
scene, it will be recalled, caused quite a stir back in 1992, so what impact
Corbucci’s must have had way back in 1966 is almost impossible to imagine. But
it should make an interesting talking point when il padrino finally
makes it into town . . .     Â
In
its set pieces, Django may be said to live up to its reputation (the
crushing of Django’s hands, first by a rifle butt and then by horses’ hooves,
can still make viewers flinch), though it must be noted that the script is
often uneven, with the thrust of the story somewhat diffused by the
introduction of the Mexicans and the subsequent shenanigans over the gold. Django’s
double-crossing attempt to steal the latter from RodrÃguez does not sit well
with his role as revenge hero (for whom nothing else should matter – “not the
land, not the money, not the womanâ€), while his brief romantic interlude with
MarÃa and his subsequent suggestion that they might have a future together seem
highly implausible, given his grim insistence throughout that such things are
not for him.
Nero’s
performance is generally excellent, and it was a relief to hear him playing the
part in Italian (with English subtitles) instead of having to listen to the
bland, newsreader’s voice he was saddled with in the English-language version.
Nusciak is given little to do beyond looking pensive, but Fajardo, who can
sneer superciliously with the best of them, is in good form as the Confederate
looney, as is Bódalo as the sweaty and sadistic RodrÃguez. Pernice scores well
as the despicable Brother Jonathan, and there is an eye-catching turn (as an
ugly sidekick named Ringo) by an unbilled actor whom I strongly suspect to be Jose Terron, who played Guy Callaway, Colonel Mortimer’s quarry in the
opening scenes of For a Few Dollars More – not least because there
couldn’t possibly have been two actors of such surpassing and similar
ugliness working in Italian Westerns in 1966. Cult actor Luciano Rossi also
makes a brief appearance as one of Jackson’s henchmen. And last, but most
definitely not least, the score by Luis EnrÃquez Bacalov proves to be one of his
best, in particular the opening theme, with its driving guitar work and
strangely insistent and haunting lyrics.    Â
One
final thought – Clint Eastwood has often been quoted as saying that there are
only two purely American art forms: the Western and jazz. With Django,
Sergio Corbucci not only helped to subvert the former, but also, in naming his
hero after Django Reinhardt, the Belgian-born gypsy jazz guitarist who overcame
hand injuries to become one of the masters of the form, succeeded in
highlighting European excellence in the latter as well. And while I don’t
suppose it occurred to Corbucci at the time, it’s amusing to see his film as a
sort of cinematic vaffanculo to those who believe, among other things,
that the only good Western is a Hollywood Western.
Afterwards,
I managed to stay on the trail of Nero’s party until the opportunity presented
itself to cut him out from the herd and to request an interview for the next
day. Unfortunately, Nero seemed to be having difficulties with his telefonino,
which meant circling him at a distance while exercising the patience of an
Apache. Finally, he finished his call and I moved in for the kill, only to be
halted in my tracks by what sounded like the opening salvo of General Mapache’s
birthday celebrations, as a barrage of fireworks suddenly exploded into the sky
somewhere on the far side of the Palazzo del Cinema. As we all stood rooted to
the spot, Vanessa Redgrave, with the perfect timing one would expect from an
Oscar-winning actress, yelled out “DJANGO!†at the top of her voice and then
proceeded to mow us all down with an imaginary machine-gun. Which, as you’d
have to admit, is not the sort of thing that happens every day. . . . Seizing
the moment, I pounced on Nero, who was starting to fiddle around with his
’phone again, and secured a somewhat distracted promise of an interview.
Feeling reasonably satisfied, I headed off to the chuck wagon for a much-needed
shot of something “hot, strong and good.â€
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At
midnight, we all trooped in again to see Tonino Valerii’s A Reason to Live,
a Reason to Die (1972). At the press conference earlier, Valerii had
recalled his difficulties in working with the film’s star, James Coburn, who
arrived on the set and, to everyone’s astonishment, began practicing his
kung-fu moves. Sensing problems ahead, Valerii asked Coburn to sign a copy of
the script. Later, when Coburn began demanding changes, Valerii was able to
pull out the script and say, “Well, you signed it . . .†And when Telly Savalas
arrived (he was only available for nine days’ work on the film), he soon got
fed up with Coburn’s antics and had words with him; after which, said Valerii,
Coburn “retreated into himself†and things proceeded smoothly.
The
role played by Bud Spencer had originally been offered to Eli Wallach, in what
was clearly a blatant attempt to have him play Tuco again, in a different hat.
Before filming started, however, Wallach asked to be excused, saying he had
been offered a theatrical engagement in New York which he didn’t want to turn
down. The casting of Spencer necessitated rewriting the character, whom in the
end was named ‘Eli’.
Whatever
its background, the film itself is a major disappointment, and if Coburn wasn’t
happy with the script, it’s easy to see why. A pedestrian reworking of elements
of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and The Dirty Dozen, the story
has Coburn’s disgraced Union officer leading a group of condemned men on a
mission to recapture a supposedly impregnable fortress once commanded by Coburn
but now in the hands of Confederate Savalas. The film was shot in the fortress
set built for John Guillermin’s less-than-fascinating El Condor (1970,
and see Cinema Retro Issue 5 for a report on the set as it is today) and
more closely resembles similar American-backed productions shot in Spain at
that time than a Spaghetti Western proper. In fact, one gets the distinct
impression that the producers probably thought, “We can use this great set, now
find a story to go with it . . .â€
Valerii
recalled that Sergio Leone waited for him outside a screening of this film, and
proceeded to offer him the direction of My Name Is Nobody, made the
following year. If that was the case, one can only assume that Leone knew
Valerii would do a good job based on his earlier, better Westerns such as Day
of Anger (1967) and The Price of Power (1969), and that he was
waiting outside because he couldn’t bear to sit through the tedious
familiarities of A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die.
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The Arsenale by Canaletto
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