Django (1966)

Note to filmakers - we don't need to hear the entire theme song and see the list of credits before a movie. It's just annoying. I could have made some peanut butter toast.

Sorry, I am a polar bear in the cold who wants to eat like a polar bear in the cold but shouldn't and won't

Evil Mexican Bandits tie redheaded white woman to a stake so they can whip her in full view of  the cowboy Django...thus allowing him to save her and enact brutal revenge while establishing, for the audience, the anti-hero of the day.

It's a goofy way to start the morning but there you have it. These Italian westerns are pretty easy to understand but people forget that before they started to become a charactatures of themselves, Django was unlike anything people had seen before. It's the prototype for the roles that Clint Eastwood and director Sergio Leone made famous - spaghetti western revenge sagas. Good guys and bad guys revenging themselves upon on another.

The 'town' is your typical western desert shit hole town. I like the way it looks like it's been there forever because the whole place is designed with local materials. All the characters are pretty stock and sounded the same but that makes sense. The version I enjoyed was dubbed into English.

 

Django (Franco Nero) holes himself up in a whorehouse with the girl he saved from both the Mexicans Renegades and the KKK Americans. One wanted to whip her and the other wanted to burn her. Harsh. but suits the situation where the town is neutral ground in the battle between the renegades and the rebels. How can Django mess things up around here? And why is he there in the first place?

The KKK who wear red sashes and hoods and local Mexican people run for sport as the racist southern leader kills with impunity. They are some evil bastards these peckerwoods and due for some good old Mexican justice.

I had forgotten how great the soundtracks were to these kinds of films. If you don't already know what to feel by the actions you are seeing, then you will have the music pound you over the head - in case you were looking for subtlety or subtext. Here there is none.

Everyone is a tough guy or aspires to be. They don't so mind that you cheat or steal, it's getting caught doing so that really pisses them off.

The movie doesn't like women and slaps them around at every occasion or uses their nudity as a distraction - something, of course that even noble Django participates in. All is fair as long as Django gets what he wants. It's enough for him to twist up an elaborate plan to get the gold, get the girl. and kill all his enemies.

The film’s title references the rich tradition of Italian popular cinema. The name Django refers to the gunslinger from a 1966 cult western directed by Sergio Corbucci, who dragged a coffin behind him through the mud with a machine gun hidden inside.