Django: A Retrospective

With Tarantino’s Django: Unchained set for release some time very late this year/very early next year it seems like an appropriate opportunity to take a retrospective look at Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 cult Spaghetti Western oddity Django, the primary inspiration behind Tarantino’s latest cinematic endeavour and one of his all time favourite films.

                When someone mentions the “Spaghetti Western”, the first name that instantly pops to mind is Sergio Leone (with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Ennio Morricone and potentially Klaus Kinski bringing up the rear). Leone’s mid-60’s classic trilogy of Westerns re-defined the parameters of the genre; removing the Western from its homeland of America (both in terms of production and often narrative location), proffering new and more explicit representations of violence as well as producing unforgettable and exhaustingly drawn out duel sequences that highlighted his work as being distinctly different from the traditional Hollywood Western. Leone’s body of films and his frequently copied cinematic style opened up the new sub-genre of the Spaghetti Western, so titled for their predominantly Italian crews, under which Django very neatly falls.

                As the names of director Sergio Corbucci and lead actor Franco Nero would suggest Django is a very Italian affair. This on top of its explicit violence, which interestingly resulted in the film being refused release in the UK until 1993, showcases Django’s operation as an interesting example of a Spaghetti Western-come-Exploitation flick. With Tarantino being somewhat of an expert and fan boy of both Exploitation and Spaghetti Western cinema it comes as no surprise that he’s chosen to work on a film whose title and history so resolutely recalls and embodies both cinematic categories.

                Corbucci’s Django opens with the boldly bizarre and endearingly uncanny image of its eponymous hero dragging a coffin through a desert, the contents of which remains a mystery until later. After saving a girl called Maria whom he finds being tortured in the desert Django makes his way to a town within which the rest of the film’s gun slinging antics take place. In typical Spaghetti Western narrative tradition the town is ruled over by a ruthless militia force led by the callous Major Jackson who subjects the town’s people to his homicidal cruelty. After acerbically dispatching the town of Major Jackson and his men Django teams up with a local band of Mexican bandits, hatching a plan with them to steal huge sums of gold from a nearby Mexican army outpost. To avoid spoilers for those who haven’t seen the film I’ll refrain from further details here, in spite of the relative predictability of the plot.

                Django’s focus on the lone drifter gunslinger character and its understanding as a Spaghetti Western seems to openly invite comparison to Leone’s work, as is the case arguably with all Spaghetti Westerns. However this association seems to misjudge Django’s strengths. Django has none of the cinematic grace, visual verve or serene brutality of Leone’s best work. When watching something like For a Few Dollars More or Once Upon A Time in the West you sort of feel as if you’re watching an art film as opposed to a violent genre piece and Django feels much more like the latter. Its poor visual effects, low budget and cartoonishly 2-dimensional characters coalesce to form a joyously sleazy watch which is a far cry away from the very different charms of Leone’s work. Not that one is better or worse than the other.

                From beginning to end Django holds you in a sort of bemused trance. The English language dub is so bad that it goes from initialling being very funny to becoming quite alienating, with it finally transforming into one of the primary joys of the film’s adorable incompetencies and trashy charms. The acting is equally as beguilingly entertaining, with Franco Nero doing his best to channel the surly gazes and stern phrases of Clint Eastwood and Jóse Bódalo manufacturing an engagingly caricatured impression of a drunk, horny, greedy and impressively sweaty Mexican bandit for the duration of his role as General Hugo Rodriguez.

                While the violence in Django now seems fairly tame the body count is satisfyingly high and the emphasis largely remains on the action, which is genuinely well crafted. A graphic sequence where a man has his ear cut off is what caused most of the controversy around the film’s explicit content, yet this scene now stands out more pertinently as a means to showcase Tarantino’s derivative debt to the film; with the infamous torture sequence from Reservoir Dogs operating as a clear homage to Corbucci’s visceral cinematic vision. The misguidedly racist representation of Mexicans as having only the capacity to be perverts, drunk, avaricious or all three, alongside the overt misogyny within the text, act as further contributing factors to Django’s exploitative elements; simultaneously lowering the film’s integrity whilst bolstering its cult appeal. 

                Django’s success spawned a multitude of indirect sequels, rumoured at over one hundred, which took its name sake to cash in on its success. Only one of these sequels however involved Corbucci and Nero and as such most bear little to no continuity with the original. Tarantino’s latest project, whilst certainly having the highest profile of Django’s unofficial sequels, sounds like it will have as little to do with the original as the rest.

                Django: Unchained is set in the Deep South and will follow the freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) in his quest to liberate his wife from the cruel plantation owner Calvin Candie (DiCaprio). If the original Django was controversial for its violence it is clear that Tarantino’s will no doubt be controversial for its race politics since it seems unlikely that the film will be taking its characters or its representations too seriously, as is the case with most of Tarantino’s work- I’d point you towards Inglorious Basterds in this regard.

                However this doesn’t seem a problem since a project like Django: Unchained lends itself seamlessly to dubious politics, cartoon violence and ideological carnage as a result of the franchise’s history. If Tarantino can imbue his film with the same sense of carefree abandon that Corbucci wove into his 1966 original then we have something very special to look forward to this winter. If not, we’ve got another regrettably self-indulgent and overtly esoteric affair headed towards our screens. Either way, this writer is intrigued and hopes that Django: Unchained will fulfil its promise and stand proudly next to the classic Spaghetti Western’s of Leone, Corbucci and many others.

Looper

Dystopic futures, time-travel, super human powers - all pretty familiar stuff by now, right? Wrong? Well, sort of both. Rian Johnson’s third feature length film is set in 2042, envisioning a future where time travel hasn’t yet been invented but, thirty years from then, it will have been. Time travel is illegal in the future, but the mob of 2072 use it to send those they want killed back in time for the deed to be executed and for the bodies to be disposed of, so as not to alert the attention of 2072’s authorities (apparently disposing of bodies is really hard in the future, but hiding a huge time-machine isn’t. Must be a weird place.)

            The film’s protagonist Joe, played by flavour of the year Joseph Gordon Levitt, is a “Looper”; an assassin hired by the future’s criminals to kill their targets at the precise moment that they’re thrust back in time. Joe’s life is going pretty well up until the day when he recognises the target as his future self, wonderfully brought to life by the immutably satisfying on screen presence of Bruce Willis. The shock of this encounter results in Joe failing to kill his target and “close his Loop”; which, as you’ll learn if you see the film, is pretty bad news. Frankly, out of deference to JGL, the shock of realising that your future self is actually Bruce Willis would be enough to stop me from killing old Joe, at least not without getting an autograph and throwing a few Hans Gruber lines at him first. I digress. When the old Joe manages to escape, leaving his younger self unconscious, he goes on a rampage through the city and starts to cause all kinds of time-travel flavoured havoc. Young Joe now has to chase after old Brucey in efforts to hunt him down before the mob kills his present and future self themselves.

            The most striking feature of Looper, for this writer at least, was in its rendering of the future city. Most Science Fiction films make great efforts to exhibit their imagined future’s art design, often through audaciously grandiose establishing shots. Looper, refreshingly, takes a much more low-key approach to its representation of the future’s cityscape. The mucky alleys and dog-eat-dog attitude of the poverty stricken streets, where a tangible sense of unease courses from one person to the next, superbly backdrop the opening few scenes of the film. Without obtusely spelling things out to its audience Looper manages to completely immerse them in the smoky and intimidating tone of the city’s streets.

            As one would expect from a big budget Science Fiction film, it is, at least initially, fairly action-centric. The whole film manages to consistently nail its action sequences bang on the head and provide some real shock factor with nuanced and consistently subtle flair. A stand out scene in this regard sees Paul Dano’s character’s future self desperately trundling through the city streets slowly losing digits and limbs as his past, younger self is tortured for his failure to close the Loop; it’s superbly gruesome without being overtly gratuitous. This said, there is a fantastic scene involving Bruce Willis, some guns and lots of dead people which was a joy to behold for its acerbically violent extravagance.

            However, as the narrative progresses the emphasis on action recedes, with much of the film playing out as a character study of both Joes whilst taking on a sort of domestic drama vibe in the latter half of the film, I’m refraining from details here to avoid spoilers. Looper starts to lose itself a tad in this section of the narrative. In its exploration of JGL’s relationship with a female farmer, played by Emily Blunt, and her young son, Rian Johnson’s familiarity with the American Independent film sector comes to the fore. The film’s investigation of the bonds and relationships between characters whilst unveiling the fragility of the modern, neigh the future, domestic space of America ironically doesn’t feel quite at home in the context of Looper’s prior dynamic and fast paced kineticism. Fortunately however it’s not too long before the film picks up its pace again for the electrifying narrative crescendo.

            Looper, like all great Science Fiction, is able to entice, engage and excite its audience not just through bombastic spectacle but, more pertinently, through the set of ideas and possibilities that the technology of the future imposes on its narrative. In this case, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s time travel. Looper manages to propose a set of fairly complex ideas within an impressively linear narrative and for the most part, the ideas hold up. This is not to say that Looper provides a particularly mind shattering exploration of time, rather that it is competent and comfortable in the simplicity and relative austerity of its plot’s fluctuating temporalities; quietly clever without ever being pompous.

            In spite the film’s often clumsy oscillation between Hollywood spectacle and American Independent melancholia, never quite managing to balance the two comfortably, Looper is by and large a bold, imaginative and searingly cool piece of Sci-fi. Bruce Willis and JGL pair off against one another perfectly, with a strong supporting cast, including the always magnificent Jeff Daniels, helping to maintain a keen level of interest even in the slightly less engaging sections. “This decade’s The Matrix”- probably not, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Looper is an inventive, refreshing and humbly unique package that is sure to entertain and enthral in equal measure.

Berberian Sound Studio

                British director Peter Strickland’s second feature film charts the work of a sound-engineer/foley artist called Gilderoy on the schlocky Italian horror film ‘The Equestrian Vortex’. Upon being flown out to Italy the sense of unease that Toby Jones’ Gilderoy faces is palpable, both in the uncomfortable exchanges between him and the crew as well as in the mysterious absence of Santini, the film’s director. Gilderoy’s labour on the film predominantly involves shredding, splicing and smashing an assortment of vegetables to create the sound effects for the movie’s series of extremely violent scenes. Interestingly, as an audience we are never actually shown a single clip from Santiams become hopelessly tangled in a web of Lynchian flavoured confusion, resulting in audio clips from the film, from Witches’ vaginas sizzling as they’re invaded with red hot pokers to libidinous goblins being rudely awoken from their slumber. Gilderoy contorts and builds upon these audio-scapes; bending and manipulating the sound waves whilst also recording additional material for them, namely in the form of Italian women repeatedly screaming.

 

                At times the film utilises these sound recordings for cheap laughs, most memorably in the case of the goblin, whilst at others managing to create a tangible sense of mesmeric, hysterical dementia through the variety of screams and splatters that are endemic to The Equestrian Vortex’s narrative. The discordant sense of unease on set, coupled against the inherently disturbing nature of the film’s sound design, drive Gilderoy to the brink of his sanity. He becomes hypnotised and overtly embroiled in his work on The Equestrian Vortex, which perniciously begins to engulf him. The lines between reality, the film and our protagonist’s dreams become hopelessly tangled in a web of Lynchian flavoured confusion, resulting in the latter half of Berberian Sound Studio  descending, or perhaps even collapsing, into a hallucinogenic whirlpool of the bizarre.

                Strickland’s first horror film seems to fall under the bracket of the art house-horror; horror films that are not merely self-reflexive in style by seemingly self-corrosive with regard to their generic framework. Berberian Sound Studio is not only very aware of the genre’s history, as seen in the good deal of esoteric reference points made to the giallo tradition, but consciously aims to dissolve and re-work the conventions and expectations of the genre. What better a narrative framework in which to do this than the film within the film, allowing The Equestrian Vortex to operate within Berberian Sound Studio as a tool of distanciation; highlighting the difference between its own goals as a horror film from the more camp and bawdy excesses of 1970’s Italian horror. While Berberian’s score and sound design are frequently shrill, foreboding and exceptionally uncomfortable, its narrative doesn’t share its aural backdrop’s, or The Equestrian Vortex’s, concern for scaring its audience.  

                And therein lies the rub. Berberian Sound Studio is constantly hinting at its propensity to terrify without every truly delivering. While by portions the film is a unique, intriguing and often spell-bindingly uncomfortable experience, its inability, or perhaps lack of concern, with frightening its audience is a bit of a letdown. While I wanted the film to punch me square in the face with a fist galvanised with fear, Strickland’s touch turns around to be more akin to an inappropriate face stroking; disconcerting yet ultimately quite harmless. Although I felt that I’d rather have watched The Equestrian Vortex, namely for a sequence wherein witches’ corpses are re-animated in a “poultry tunnel”, and aside from its reductive fear factor, Berberian Sound Studio is a bold and admirably unique plunge into the depths of the genre. It provides equal doses of laughs and chills through its superb sound design whilst masterfully disintegrating itself into a nightmarish daze of psychological turbulence.

The Artist

If you've heard anything about The Artist, allow me to set things straight- yes, it is actually a silent film. It's a film about the era of Classical Hollywood silent film making, centring around the tragic decline of silent film star George Valentin's career when the birth of sound cinema, "Talkies" as they were called back in the day, came into play. As Valentin's career falls apart around him a young aspiring actress Peppy Miller's soars to the heights of fame as she is swept up by the studios as the demand for "Talkies" rises. A complex romantic relationship between Valentin and Miller effectively ties these two parallel plots together into a seamless whole. The Artist doesn't just tell a story set within a particular era but masterfully espouses the cinematographic, acoustic and quaint qualities of the films produced in the period. It genuinely feels like you're watching an old 1920-30's silent film, and I mean that in the best way possible. The combination of highly theatrical performances, charming soundtrack, perfectly pitched emotional peaks/troughs and a brilliant, brilliant dog left me with a contented smile on my face and a sprightly spring in my step throughout the film and for hours afterwards.

First and foremost it seems important to talk about the silence of the film. I have to say I was genuinely surprised at the boldness to produce a silent film in today's cinematic climate of high octane visuals and acoustics. Studios desperately try to sustain audience attention through sonic overload, which for the most part seems to be depressingly effective-as the dominance of 3D displays. By deleting such a key element of film, on screen sound, which is indelible to all contemporary mainstream, "art-house" and even avant garde films The Artist not only shows bravery and strength of vision but manages to highlight an almost mystical quality to the image that has arguably been lost in recent years. The subtraction paradoxically operates as an addition to the film, allowing the images to speak very much for and of themselves. Not only do the shots in the film eloquently display the style of the period they also seem to frequently explicitly reference some classics of old. There's some very nice allusions to The Public Enemy, Duck Soup and the later (but no less relevant) CitizenKane to look out for. I'm also pretty certain that George Valentin is a nun too subtle reference to the hugely famous silent film star RudolphValentino. Fortunately these references remain subtle and don't suffocate like a Tarantino movie might; it remains very much its own film.

The centrality of focus on the image within The Artist also inescapably highlights the actors' performances. Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo are dazzling as Valentin and Miller respectively. Both manage to recall the highly theatrical style of performances associated with the period as well as managing to tone down their performances into a more subtle nuance for the softer and more emotional scenes.Whilst the relationship between Miller and Valentin is incredibly saccharine and predictable it really doesn't seem to matter and if anything that's sort of the point; their inherently cinematically constructed relationship sets up and contributes to The Artist's veneration and celebration of the cinematic. Valentin's dog also deserves a huge shout out for being a really nice guy and providing some delightfully saccharine and humorous moments throughout the film. John Goodman has a small supporting role and is a pleasure to watch on screen as always, his huge face greedily puffing away at cigars is an experience like no other. There's also a completely bizarre cameo from Malcolm McDowell, the purpose of which continues to confuse me somewhat.

A common misconception with silent films is that they're totally silent. Whereas they were actually anything but silent as a musical score would commonly play over the entirety of the picture, as is pretty much the case with The Artist. The soundtrack is used in a very classical sense, shifting in tone and tempo to reflect the mood and atmosphere of each scene. With charming vaudevillian numbers to enhance the exaggerated, slapstick sequences and softer, sombre songs to reflect the more emotive moments. While by and large the score is incredibly effective it does start to become a tad tedious and repetitive in the last quarter of the film. It's surprising and to The Artist's credit that the rest of the film didn't become at all tedious considering that most silent films of the 20's/30's would clock in way under the standard 90 minutes of our contemporary feature lengths. To captivate an audience for 100 minutes is hard enough at the best of times, let alone without the use of sound.

The Artist's plot in many ways seems arbitrary, it's more used as a framework in which to explore the allusive and magical qualities that are present in a largely lost era of cinema which is now nearing a century in age. The images and soundtrack of the film articulately recall the past whilst allowing for contemporary innovation and development. It's a charming watch from beginning to end and I can almost guarantee it will put a smile on your face. While this is not explicitly a Christmas film at all it seems comparable in aesthetic, structure and tone to the all time family favourite and Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. Like Its a Wonderful Life, The Artist manages to capture a genuine feeling of warmth and sympathy for it's characters which renders you emotionally enthralled from the get go. On this line of festive thought I would say for my money The Artist is a better choice of family film this Christmas that Scorsese's Hugo. Hugo spends a great deal of time trying to explore the same themes as The Artist but without the same sense of noble grace and subtle charisma (it's in 3D and has Sacha Baron Cohen in).