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.