When it came to Spaghetti Westerns, the only
filmmaker whose reputation came remotely close to Sergio Leone’s was the man
referred to as “the other Sergio”, viz. Sergio Corbucci. And Django, a cult classic of the sub-genre
that spawned over 30 sequels and lent its protagonist’s name along with its
brilliant theme song to Tarantino’s Django Unchained, quite easily remains his most iconic work. Tarantino, in fact,
paid homage to it long back with the infamous ear-slashing scene in Reservoir Dogs. Flamboyant, gleefully
violent, unabashedly stylish and highly entertaining, it was his
reinterpretation of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo,
even though Leone had beat him to it with his A Fistful of Dollars. The titular protagonist (Franco Nero), a
laconic and enigmatic drifter, loner and crack-shot, silently glides into a
dirty one-horse town in the Mexican border pulling a heavy wooden coffin. He
lands right into the middle of a bloody territorial war between Mexican bandits
and White Supremacists – the latter led by the sadistic Major Jackson (Eduardo
Fajardo). Despite the elaborate plot that ensues, as it turns out, Django is in
town to take a very personal revenge against Jackson, and the coffin he tows
along hides a machine gun that he uses against both the sides to operatic
effects. Nero, with his blue eyes, impassive demeanor and natural swagger, did
manage to embody the film’s moral ambivalence with ease, even if he never
really had to act much. Gloriously shot by a restless camera and aptly
scored, it was dark, brutal and almost cartoonish in its depiction of one man against an army, and was memorably aided by the superb title track.
Director: Sergio Corbucci
Genre: Western/Spaghetti Western
Language: Italian
Country: Italy
Red River,
humorously referred to as a ‘cow opera’, remains a gripping Western, if not for
anything else, for its breathtaking scope and audacity. Its themes of
gargantuan human ambitions, male ego, masculinity and father-son duality, with
Biblical overtones and veiled commentary on the stomping march of capitalism, were
accentuated by an alternately classical and revisionist Western framework. It
was also the first time that the two quintessential American icons, Howard
Hawks and John Wayne, teamed up. The film begins with Tom Dunston (Wayne), a
searing individualist, breaking out from his group to start his own cattle
ranch. Many years later, with the economic slowdown brought on by the Civil
War, he plans to take his herd of around 10,000 cattle nearly a thousand miles
across the country, from Kansas to Texas, in the search for a better beef market.
Joining him, among others, is Matthew Garth (Montgomery Clift), his surrogate
son. With the cattle drive, at once the height of human ambition and the depth
of human folly, began a jaw-dropping odyssey that was as much physical as it
was psychological in the way it brought out the worst in Dunston and the best
in Garth, and tested the limits of all. And when Garth eventually rebels
against the increasingly draconian Dunston, after a spectacularly staged
stampede, darker dimensions got added to the epic and tense narrative. The happy
resolution of the conflict was perhaps the sole blemish of this masterpiece. Wayne’s
powerful turn as the bitter, dictatorial and imposing anti-hero would rank as
second only to his superlative performance in Ford’s The Searchers.
Director: Howard Hawks
Genre: Western/Revisionist Western/Psychological Drama/Epic
Language: English
Country: US
César & Rosalie
was Sautet’s charming, perceptive and serio-comic take on an unpredictable love
triangle among the Parisian upper class, and in turn, a delectable and quietly
affecting observation on the class itself. It also provided a fine introduction
to his devastating follow-up film, viz. Vincent, Francois, Paul & the Others. It begins with the two titular characters,
Cesar (Yves Montand), a wealthy and gregarious businessman, and Rosalie (Romy
Schneider), an incredibly beautiful and soft-natured single mom, in a pleasant
and stable relationship. In comes David (Sami Frey), a sedate and talented
cartoonist with whom Rosalie had a tryst in the past, and the whole equation goes topsy-turvy. Cesar initially reacts to his arrival in the scene with
grave suspicion and insecurity, and then with startling mood swings, which, in
a way, compels Rosalie to switch boats. But, what really made this film so far
removed from most love triangles was in its sly reversal of expectations –
instead of this being just a tale of one-upmanship in terms of who wins the
lady, it transitioned into how these two men, who began on the wrong foot with
regards to one another, ironically end up becoming very good friends. The final
scene where the two men, who are polar opposites yet now profoundly at ease
with one another, sharing a light-hearted banter, with the amused Rosalie
silently observing them from afar, followed by a freeze-frame, was a marvelous
way to bring this engaging ménage à trois to a highly satisfying climax. All
the three gave noteworthy performances, but Montand was particularly brilliant
as the animated, pampered, cigar-smoking, card-loving and emotionally fragile
alpha-male.
Director: Claude Sautet
Genre: Comedy Drama/Romantic Drama
Language: French
Country: France
Nicholas Rays’s famed Western Johnny Guitar was a strange film,
particular given the wide range of themes and tones it tackled. It was a
curious mix of political allegory, noirish sensibilities, revisionism, old-fashioned
melodrama, romance, straight-up action, psychological thrills, Freudian
allusions, and gender politics, among possibly others, but it was foremost a
sharp jab at the McCarthy witch-hunts. The titular character (played with quiet
verve by Sterling Hayden) is a smooth, guitar-strumming stranger who, with
quite a swagger, walks into a hotel owned by Vienna (Joan Crawford), in a town
that hates outsiders. As it turns out the town folks, led by the vindictive and
acid-spewing Emma (Mercedes McCambridge), who harbours a personal grudge
against the alpha-female Vienna, who’s always in masculine costumes, wants to
drive her out. Also, as it turns out, Johnny is the former fiancé of Vienna and
a legendary gunslinger who is trying to shed his former identity. When a group
of four led by the Dancing Kid (Scott Brady), who are falsely under the
suspicion of staging hold-ups, rob a bank, Emma shrewdly coaxes the compliant community
to head straight for Vienna’s because of a host of complex psychological
reasons. The elements of melodrama, loud dialogue spewing, love triangle, and
hyper-stylization might dampen the muscular spirit of Westerns for some, the
fact that so many things were at play here and the subversive subtexts, in themselves,
made this a unique work in the genre worth pondering over. The haunting title
song by Peggy Lee was another of its memorable facets.
Director: Nicholas Ray
Genre: Western/Revisionist Western/Romance
Language: English
Country: US
Claude Sautet, who is renowned for his layered portrayals
of the Parisian bourgeoisie, earned his international breakthrough with his
sophomore film, The Big Risk. A taut,
incredibly fatalistic and deeply existentialistic neo-noir, it might seem
distinctly atypical vis-à-vis his filmography in general, given that low-end
gangsters formed his protagonists here; but, his touch was evident from how
friendship, regrets and melancholia pervaded it. Abel Davos (Lino Ventura), a
career criminal, loses everything he holds dear, viz. his wife, his best friend
and the fleeting hope for a normal life, while on the lam from the police.
Stranded with hardly any money, no shelter and two kids in Nice, his last
chance for survival are his former gang members in Paris who owe him big time.
However, as it turns out, Riton (Michel Ardan), who is now a restaurateur,
and Fargier (Michèle Méritz), now a wealthy hotelier, are non-committal
at best. He is instead helped, ironically, by a person he didn’t even know
before. Eric Stark (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a loner and a small-time thug, doesn’t
just take the arduous job of driving him back to the city, he also becomes his
sole source of help, without ever wanting favours, till the day he meets his
comeuppance, and this unlikely friendship between these two tragic outsiders
made this all the more memorable. The excellent B/W photography and the subtly
affecting score wonderfully complemented this tough yet touching film where
everything from betrayal to revenge plays key roles. Ventura was superb as the
implacable anti-hero at the end of his rope while Belmondo was charming as his
affable accomplice; the supporting cast, too, did a very good job.
Director: Claude Sautet
Genre: Crime Thriller/Gangster Film/Buddy Film/Post-Noir
Language: France
Country: France
