Review of Django (1966) by Al M — 10 Jan 2009

Sergio Corbucci's italo western "Django" has very often been copied and quoted and is still one of the best European films of the sixties. "Django", played by the great Italian western and thriller actor Franco Nero, established the total anti-hero opposed to traditional western values. He wears dark clothes, is dirty and unshaved, rude and selfish, corrupt and uses unfair tricks in gunfights. But he also stands on the site of the weak and lost ones, fighting the power alone with his fast colt and machine gun that he drags behind him in an old coffin.

The whole movie is violent and ark and dirty - and fascinating from the very fist scene to the surprising final showdown. Django is a modern myth, a cool comic figure and the creative art output of the change of social values in the 1960's. And it's no wonder that the 1968 students like Django as well as middle class school kids or film critics... next to Clint Eastwood's roles in the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns and Charles Bronson in "Once Upon A Time In The West", "Django" is a great modern European western opera with guns and horses and blood and a roaring gattling gun and with no space left for love, hope and traditional values. Highly recommended!