Like the thrilling genre it identifies, the term "spaghetti western" has steadily gained in esteem and sympathy. Born in the mid-1960s, the Italian Western is a universe in its own right, whose cinematic language, anarchic tone and spectacular iconography have had a considerable impact. Presented in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal, this cycle brings together the must-see films of the "three Sergios" (Leone, Corbucci, Sollima) and a diverse selection of films by the main directors of the period. It's an opportunity to grasp the richness of a genre whose stylistic beauty is matched only by the dirtiness of its protagonists, and which has managed to be alternately irreverent and lyrical, funny and violent, bon-vivant and political, dark and luminous. The versions presented have been chosen on the basis of elements such as language (all these films were dubbed, so there is no single "original" version), complete editing and recent restorations.
The solitary Django, after defending a prostitute, finds himself in the middle of a conflict opposing Mexican revolutionaries and a band of Confederate supremacists. Taking on fanaticism and racism, Corbucci signs one of the most violent westerns ever made, and reveals a star in Franco Nero (who would go on to star in Corbucci's The Mercenary and Castellari's Keoma, among others). The name "Django" would later be abusively used for commercial purposes in around thirty other films. Tarantino paid explicit tribute to Corbucci's film with Django Unchained.
Sergio Corbucci
Born in Rome in 1926, Sergio Corbucci worked for a time as a journalist before becoming an assistant director. He began his film career in 1951 with a melodrama, Salvate mia figlia, and over the next few years worked in all the popular genres in vogue, from musicals to peplums to comedies starring Totò. In 1964, he directed two westerns in quick succession, Massacre in the Grand Canyon and Minnesota Clay, becoming a pioneer of the "spaghetti western" alongside Sergio Leone. Within this genre, Corbucci turned actor Franco Nero into an icon and signed his greatest successes, distinguished by their exaggerated darkness and cruelty, such as Django, The Great Silence and The Mercenary. He made a few more westerns in the 1970s, but mainly returned to popular comedy, a genre to which he devoted most of the rest of his career.
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