Django (1966 film)  

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Django (1966) is an Italian film directed by Sergio Corbucci and starring Franco Nero in the title role.

Popular in Europe, it became a cult film in the US.

Nero went on to play a similar antihero in many subsequent Westerns.

Lee Perry's second album is titled Return of Django, and he has released tracks called "Django (Ol' Man River)" and "Django shoots first".

Contents

Production

The film's look was the work of production designer Carlo Simi, who had created costumes and sets for Corbucci's earlier film Minnesota Clay, and who worked frequently with the signature spaghetti-Western director, Sergio Leone.

Plot

Django (Franco Nero) is a gun runner who drags around a coffin that conceals a gatling gun. He rescues a young woman, María (Loredana Nusciak), from being murdered by bandits led by Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo), a man whom Django is seeking revenge on for the murder of his wife.

After killing most of Jackson's men, Django makes a deal with a Mexican general, Hugo Rodriguez (José Bódalo), who is in conflict with Jackson, and the two steal a large quantity of gold. When the General is slow in paying for his supplies, Django steals the gold. Unfortunately, the gold falls into quicksand. When Rodriguez catches up to the them, María is shot (though she survives) and Django's hands are crushed. Rodríguez and his men are massacred by Jackson, who then goes looking for Django in a cemetery. However, Django, who has bitten the trigger-guard off his pistol, kills Jackson and his five surviving men.

Reception

Django received an 18-certificate in Italy due to its violence. Bolognini says Corbucci "forgot" to cut out the ear-severing scene when the censors requested he remove it. There are rumored to be over 100 unofficial sequels, though only 31 have been counted. Four were made the same year, in 1966. Most of these films have nothing to do with Corbucci's original: Italian copyright law seems to have been very loose in the 1960s and 70s and filmmakers frequently borrowed the names of the protagonists of other successful films - Django, Ringo, Joe, Sartana, and Sabata frequently appeared.

Sequels

Filmmaker Nello Rossati claims that his Django 2 or Django Strikes Again! (Italian title: Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno) is the only official sequel. Franco Nero plays an older Django, who is now a monk. Donald Pleasence also stars.


Cultural references

  • The infamous "ear cutting scene" in the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs was inspired by this film which shows the Mexican leader cutting the ear off of one of Major Jackson's men.
  • Django is the film being watched by the theater audience in The Harder They Come, which is about a Jamaican outlaw styled after Ivan Rhygin.
  • Lee Perry's second album is titled Return of Django, and he has released tracks called "Django (Ol' Man River)" and "Django shoots first".
  • An episode of Cowboy Bebop features a character dragging a coffin.
  • The video game and anime series Gungrave features the main character carrying a coffin full of weapons.
  • In Tenchi Universe, the character Nagi enters the climatic battle while dragging a coffin to a Western-looking city on Venus.
  • Mr. Black, a boss in the video game Red Dead Revolver, carries a coffin with a gatling gun inside.
  • The main character in the Boktai video game series is named Django; characters named Ringo and Sabata also appear. When Django defeats each Immortal boss, it retreats into its coffin, and Django must drag the coffin to a room where it can be properly destroyed.
  • The punk band Rancid has a song inspired by the movie, aptly titled "Django", on its album Indestructible. The chorus is Django!/You drag your coffin around/You drag your coffin around/You drag your coffin around. Django!/You drag your coffin around/All around town/Just like a dead man does".
  • One-man metal band Thrones covers the theme song to Django on the album Sperm Whale.
  • In the Rob Zombie song "Feel So Numb", the opening lyrics to the third verse are "Django drag a coffin nail across your back".
  • The Danzig music video for "Crawl Across Your Killing Floor" features Glenn Danzig dragging a coffin.
  • Filipino billiards champion Francisco "Django" Bustamante earned his nickname after having been called "Django" by his friends; he eventually adopted it as his professional name.
  • "Don't Tango with Django" is the name of a track on the 'b' side of Joe Strummer's Gangsterville single, released in 1989.




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Django (1966 film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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