Django (1966)

Sergio Corbucci’s Django, to me, is one of the most rewatchable films, ever.  Not just as a spaghetti western, but in general, I could put this film on and never be bored.  The stories simple, the acting is solid and the pacing is almost perfect.  The soundtrack is superb thanks to Luis Enríquez Bacalov.  I can’t get that theme song out of my head!

Rating:

The theme for all of you interested:

Django starts off with that very lonely scene of a mystery man walking across the empty ground, dragging a coffin behind.  Who is he?  What does he want?  And, most importantly, what’s in the coffin?  All these questions, and more to come, will be answered later on.  For now, we just over to another scene.  A group of bandits are about to kill a beautiful woman, but the mystery man shows up to save the day and we find out that his name is Django (Nero).  After he escorts her back to town, if you can call it that, we find out that this film may be very much like another significant spaghetti western ( Fistful of Dollars, which stole the story from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo).

Django finds himself in the center of a feud between the bandits and the military.  Of course, Django decides to play their game, but he may have another reason to stay.  It helps that Django is THE anti-hero.  He’s a jerk.  He only cares about himself.  He doesn’t converse well with others.  And, for these reasons, he rocks.  There’s a scene about a quarter of the way through the film, involving Django eating dinner and six armed men surrounding him.  I won’t go into what happens, but, how’s this for a great line to end the scene?

Django: You can clean up the mess, but don’t touch my coffin.

Now, the real fun begins, as he starts to play sides, anger both, and just cause an overall ruckus in town.  The whores are busy, the bad guys are nuts and no one’s underacting in this film.  Django isn’t a very pretty film.  The town is completely filled with muddy streets and decrepit buildings.  The only business that is making any money involves a bed, a woman and a man.  Everything in this film feels dirty.  Even Django wears dirty clothes and doesn’t ever come off as a clear-cut hero, but more as a regular guy just trying to make it through the day.

This isn’t to say Django doesn’t come through on all aspects.  The action is fast-paced.  Just wait ’til you find out what he’s got in that coffin.  Most of us will see it coming a mile away, but it won’t change the fact that I got goose-bumps when it did come.  The fights go from the bars, to the streets, to the city limits, to beyond and more.  The ending is very, very satisfying, and leaves you wishing for more.  Apparently the filmmakers agreed, because there’s over 70 “rip-offs” of Django, and I don’t think there’s one official sequel out there.  It may not be a Leone film, but Corbucci does ‘em right as well.

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