Tag: Quentin Tarantino

Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Revolver” (1973)

Post author By Reece Crothers
Post date December 16, 2024
No Comments on The Morricone Collection: “Revolver” (1973)

The Maestro around the time he composed the score for “**Revolver**.”

“Revolver” stars **Oliver** **Reed**, **Fabio** **Testi**, and their excellent coats.

The Album:

Not to be confused with Guy Ritchie’s film of the same name, most people will be familiar with Morricone’s excellent 1973 score for director Sergio Sollima’s poliziottesco “Revolver” through the standout track “Un Amico,” which Quentin Tarantino repurposed for his 2009 WWII opus, Inglourious Basterds.

**Morricone**-super-fan, **Quentin** **Tarantino**.

Other Editions:

The Film:

Synopsis from MoMA’s Ennio Morricone Film Series:

“Revolver. 1973. Italy/West Germany/France. Directed by Sergio Sollima. Screenplay by Dino Maiuri, Massimo De Rita, Sollima. With Oliver Reed, Fabio Testi, Agostina Belli, Paola Pitagora. In Italian; English subtitles. DCP. 111 min.

An Italian resistance fighter during World War II, Sergio Solima wrote and directed some of the most socially conscious Spaghetti Westerns The Big Gundown and political crime thrillers, or poliziotteschi, of the 1960s and ’70s. Revolver is a gripping example of the latter, the bitterly cynical story of a deputy prison warden (Oliver Reed) who becomes a pawn in a shadowy conspiracy when his wife is kidnapped by the mob and he’s forced to ally with a convict (Fabio Testi). The film boasts one of Ennio Morricone’s most propulsive scores, anticipating that of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables. Quentin Tarantino, a giddy fan both of Solima and Morricone, quoted the beautiful “Un amico” for the climax of his Inglourious Basterds, the song that seems to capture a lover’s—or a criminal’s—inclination to hope against hope.”

Blu-ray review from cineoutsider.com:

Partners in crime

Oliver Reed is at his restrained best as a prison warden forced to facilitate a jailbreak in order to save his wife in REVOLVER, Sergio Sollima’s rivetingly handled 1973 crime drama. Slarek explores the film on Eureka’s new Blu-ray, and adds another favourite to an increasingly long list.

How’s this for a pre-title sequence? In the darkest of dark Italian nights, the sound of hurried footsteps and exhausted panting is revealed to belong to two men, one of whom is nursing a serious stomach wound and being helped along by his concerned companion. As they reach a row of parked cars, they pause and steal one of them, then speed off into the night to the sound of approaching sirens. As dawn breaks, the car stops at an isolated spot beside a river, and the driver helps his injured cohort out and onto the riverbank, where he bemoans the fact that he came all the way to Italy to be killed by a night watchman. Realising that his injury will soon prove fatal, the wounded man makes his companion promise not to let his body end up on an autopsy table at a morgue. Moments later, he dies, and the man that we by now know is a close and devoted friend mourns his loss with a farewell kiss. Then, as the opening titles unfold, he digs a hole by the riverside and buries his friend with the gun that probably led to his death. And so begins the 1973 Italian poliziotteschi Revolver, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who suspects an influence on the post-title scene of Reservoir Dogs.*If the above wasn’t enough to grab your attention – and it certainly did mine – then worry not, because the intrigue doesn’t stop there. In the next scene, wealthy oil magnate Harmakolos (Jean de Grave) walks out of his plush Parisian hotel and opts to walk instead of taking their car as suggested, dismisses his aide’s concerns about the recent threats to his life. He’s only a few hundred metres from the hotel when a motorcycle rider pulls up and shoots him dead. Elsewhere in the city, popular singer Al Niko (Daniel Beretta) is cheerfully batting away questions from the press about what his connection could be to this assassination as he arrives at police headquarters. Once inside the office on an unnamed Inspector (Marc Mazza), he is shown the wreck of a motorbike, which he recognises as one he bought a couple of years ago and gave to a former friend named Jean-Daniel Auger. It turns out that Jean-Daniel once worked for Harmakolos as his bodyguard and made threats against him after he was fired, and this was the bike ridden by his assassin. The vehicle and the mangled body of its rider were discovered on an unmanned level crossing in Jean-Daniel’s home town of Lyon, and a trip to the morgue sees Niko confirm that the body of the rider is indeed Jean-Daniel. To the Inspector’s coolly expressed relief, the Harmakolos case is thus officially closed.

Over in Italy, a well-dressed Frenchman (Frédéric de Pasquale) disembarks from his flight and is met outside the airport by two taciturn men in a black Mercedes – only later do we discover that the man has flown in from Paris, and that his name is Michel Granier. The purpose for his visit is not yet clear. Meanwhile, on a platform at the central Milan railway station, two Sicilians (Giovanni Pallavicino and Bernard Giraudeau) are approached and offered work by a dodgy-looking tout (Vittorio Pinelli). One of the men takes the tout’s card, looks briefly at it and hands it back. “No,” he says gruffly, “Got work.” Elsewhere in the same city, a woman visible only from the knees down takes off her shoes and steps onto the feet of a man, who begins walking down an apartment hallway, carrying her as he goes, as the two kiss and items of clothing fall to the floor. Eventually, these intimately entwined appendages are revealed to belong to Vito Cipriani (Oliver Reed) and his young wife Anna (Agostina Belli), who are clearly very much in love. We learn that Vito is a warden of the city’s prison when he is called into work the following morning in order to talk a crazed prisoner out of stabbing himself. When he arrives home with flowers of apology later, however, the apartment is empty and a phone call confirms that Anna has been kidnapped. If Vito wants to see her alive again, he’s assured, he must arrange the escape of an inmate named Milo Ruiz (Fabio Testi). It’s only when Vito asks to be taken to Milo’s cell that we discover he’s the man who buried his friend by the riverside in the opening sequence.

A lot of story threads are spun in these opening scenes, and while it is perfectly possible to draw a logical if speculative line of connection between them, not all is what it seems. Indeed, one of the many strengths of Revolver is its ability to continually surprise newcomers and catch them out. With that in mind, if you want to avoid having any of them spoilt even a little bit, then I’d skip the next paragraph, and eve n then proceed with a degree of caution, as it’s nigh on impossible to discuss the film in any more detail than I already have without giving a few things away. That said, I promise to keep the reveals to a minimum and avoid being explicit on later developments.

The first surprise comes when Vito follows a tip from Milo’s cellmate (Sal Borgese) and walks in on sleazy but wealthy criminal kingpin Grappa (Peter Berling). The expectation – my expectation –was that Grappa would get bolshy and the desperate Vito would lose his cool and smack the required information out of him. Instead, after a small bout of self-congratulatory verbal sparring, Grappa is fully cooperative and tells Vito what he knows without fuss, resistance or a hint of irritation, and Vito accepts that what he’s saying the truth and even offers him a small nod of appreciation. The second surprise comes when Vito returns to the jail and has Milo brought to his office, where he sets about viciously beating him about the face. On the surface this is an expression of his anger and frustration, but his actions are then revealed to have a secondary purpose, with the essentially superficial injuries inflicted on Milo providing a reason for him to be moved to the prison hospital, from where, Vito tells him, he will be able to affect his escape. This he does in a process that is lengthy enough to feel plausible, but Milo has only just hit the streets when a car screeches up beside him in a car and he’s ordered to get in at gunpoint by Vito. This gameplaying with expectations and genre convention sets the scene for a plot that rarely follows the predicted path. Thus, a colleague of Vito’s whose arrival looks set to expose his wrongdoing becomes an unexpected ally, a switch of fortune for both Vito and Milo is cancelled out by a surprise rebalancing of their relationship, and even the true reasons for Milo’s forced release prove to be more sinister than they initially seem.

That trademark **Oliver** **Reed** (nostril) flare.

The foundations are laid by a smartly constructed script by director Sollima, Arduino Maiuri and Massimo De Rita, and Sollima’s direction is tight, economic and purposeful, never flashy and always in service of the story and characters. Action scenes are rationed, but when they come they are blisteringly handled, their urgency enhanced by their sharp sense of realism, cinematographer Aldo Scavarda’s immaculate camera placement, and Sergio Montanari’s breathless editing. Adding a further layer of class is a typically fine score by Italian maestro Enno Morricone, one that hits all the right emotional buttons without overplaying them, and at one point feels like a trial run for the main theme of the composer’s score for The Untouchables (1987).

Even more crucial to audience engagement are the performances, the best of which comes from a top-of-form Oliver Reed, albeit with a small but curious caveat. As was often the way with Italian films of the period, particularly those with international casts, all of the dialogue was post-dubbed. And while there’s not a hint of mismatch between Reed’s on-screen delivery and his redubbing of his own voice, for reasons that no-one seems to be able to clarify, he elected to do the whole thing with an imperfect American accent. Given that his character name is Vito Cipriani and that he is a former police detective, we can assume that he is meant to be native Italian rather than Italian-American, and as all of the film’s dialogue was delivered in English with an eye on sales to the American market, for the life of me I can’t work out why he didn’t stick to his usual precise English delivery. The thing is, although this does initially feel a little odd, Reed is so bloody good in all other respects that after just a couple of minutes it ceases to matter. Everything else about his performance is sublime, peaking when he is visibly wrestling to keep his true feelings from exploding, and as so often with Reed, the potential for extreme violence can always be seen bubbling just beneath the surface. It’s a masterclass in restraint and emotional control, and up there with Reed’s very finest work on film. As Milo, Fabio Testi proves he’s more than just a handsome face, balancing the character’s cocky disposition with his increasing commitment to a cause he has been unwittingly recruited to help serve. Frédéric de Pasquale (who the two years previously played drug-smuggling TV personality Henri Devereaux in The French Connection) is appropriate unflustered as gangland middle-manager Michel Granier, and Paola Pitagora has a strong role as politically convicted people trafficker Carlotta. The supporting cast is also peppered with the sort of faces you only seem to find in European and East European cinema, providing the film with thugs who look and behave like the real deal, memorably when the Sicilians track down a potential witness and convincingly arrange his subsequent death to look like an accident.

I came to the cinema of Sergio Sollima via his superb 1967 western, Face to Face [Faccia a facia], and while Revolver is a very different work, it does share some of that film’s central themes. In both, two individuals with opposing moral values find themselves switching position over the course of the story, and like Face to Face, Revolver later moves into the area of political commentary, questioning the power structure of a system that protects the wealthy and is able to arrange the disposal of inconvenient elements of what it regards as the lower order. The result is a compellingly structured, impeccably directed, splendidly scored, and powerfully acted gem of Italian crime cinema, and one of the best films I’ve watched so far this year. It also pulls that rare trick of keeping you guessing right up to the final scene. Even the title is not what it initially seems, being a type of gun not used by the central protagonist, and likely instead intended to be read as a commentary on the transformative journey that Vito and his initially unwilling companion undertake over the course of the story.
sound and vision

Sourced from a new 4K restoration (that’s all the detail I have on this one), the 1080p transfer of Revolver on this Eureka Blu-ray is seriously impressive in all respects. Detail is very clearly defined, and the contrast is nicely balanced, nailing the black levels without crushing the shadows. The colour palette has a very slightly muted feel with a slight greenish hue, all of which look right for the film’s downbeat tone and very nicely captured by this transfer. The image is very clean, with no trace of dirt or damage, and a fine film grain is visible. Very nice.

Revolver was shot with the actors delivering their lines in English and their dialogue redubbed in post-production, and here you have the option to watch the film with either the English or Italian language tracks, both of which are Linear PCM 2.0 mono. The dynamic range is a little restricted on both – there are no deep bass thumps or rumbles here – and while voices seems to have slightly more breadth on the Italian track, they also sometimes have a more dubbed feel. Morricone’s music is of similar quality on both tracks, but differs during the opening titles, with the orchestral title theme of the English track turned into a song on the Italian track.

Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired are available for the English language track, and a second set of optional English language subtitles kick in automatically if you select the Italian language track. Both seem fine, but there is a small omission here, at least on the review disc (it may be adjusted on the release disc). At one point, Vito reads a note written in Italian, and at another the Inspector looks down at a newspaper headline written in French. If you watch the film with the Italian soundtrack, the subtitles offer English translations of both. If you watch the film with the English language track, however, even with the hearing impaired subtitles enabled, no such translations are provided. Fortunately, it’s just a matter of switching between the subtitle tracks if your French or Italian are as weak as mine, and you don’t need to read either to understand what’s going on. It’s also worth noting (again, we’re talking review disc here) that there is no option on the menu to activate hearing impaired subs, but they can be switched on using the disc player’s remote control.

Special Features

Audio Commentary by Barry Forshaw and Kim Newman
Author of Italian Cinema: Arthouse to Exploitation, and a ton of others, joins author, critic and genre commentary favourite Kim Newman to explore a film that they were both impressed by and rate above the poliziotteschi norm. Individual scenes and plot turns are discussed, as is Ennio Morricone’s score, and the work on this film and others of director Sergio Sollima, particularly his 1970 Violent City [Città violenta] (for which there are spoilers). They opine that Fabio Testi was an actor with a limited range but what he could do he did well, and praise the rare depth and strength (at least for this genre) of the Carlotta character played by Paola Pitagora. But the lion’s share of the discussion is focussed on Oliver Reed, whose performance here both men rank as one of his best, and whose work on this and other key films in his career is covered in considerable detail. There’s a lot more discussed here, all of it compelling and acutely observed, and these two really know their Italian crime cinema.

Stephen Thrower on ‘Revolver’ (21:59)
Nightmare USA author Stephen Thrower examines the work of director Sergio Sollima, with particular focus on Revolver, though also covers the director’s segment in the multi-story L’amore difficile (1962), and his westerns The Big Gundown [La resa dei conti] (1966) and Face to Face [Faccia a facia] (1967). Like Forshaw and Newman above, he’s full of praise for the film, for Sollima’s skilled direction, and for Oliver Reed’s central performance. Like them, he’s also confused by the decision to have Reed play the whole thing with a not completely convincing American accent, but argues that the story and the acting are so good that you soon forget about it, a point on which I am in complete agreement.

Tough Girl (10:21)
Actor Paola Pitagora, who plays Carlotta, recalls working with Oliver Reed, who was an idol of hers but used to start drinking early on in the morning, which sometimes caused problems on set, though she does note that he was always top-notch on camera. She intriguingly describes Sergio Sollima as “a war machine,” as someone who was focussed and meticulous but also funny, and Fabio Testi as gorgeous, very enthusiastic, and focussed on his role. She praises the film scores of Ennio Morricone, though admits her admiration for the composer was soured a little by his claim that women all belonged in the kitchen, and has a revealing story about how Reed’s drinking ultimately cut short her role in the film. She also opines that for her, at least as an audience member, genre cinema begins and ends with Thomas Milian.

Action Man (17:07)
An archival interview with actor Fabio Testi, shot in June of 2006 and redressed with new opening titles and credits for this release, and the remastering of what looks like analogue video to HD. Testi looks back at how his work as a stuntman eventually led to him being cast – and doing all of the stunts – in Demofilo Fidani’s 1968 western, And Now… Make Your Peace with God [Ed ora… raccomanda l’anima a Dio!], and how this prompted him to enrol in acting school and embark on a successful career in films and theatre. He manages to top Paola Pitagora’s description of Sergio Sollima with his claim that “he works like a martial artist, every shot is like a sabre blow,” notes how Italian cinema lost its political edge after the arrival of commercial television and a slew of American imports, and remarks that it’s nice that people remember him despite his age, which would have been 64 when this interview was shot. And he still looks damned good here.

English Credits (6:23)
When you select to watch the English language version of the feature, the credits are in the original Italian, so the opening and closing credits of the English language version have been included as an extra.

Original Theatrical Trailer (3:40)
A trailer that really pushes the film’s crime thriller credentials, and employs a trick later favoured by American distributors to sell non-English language films to a potentially subtitle-averse audience by including no audible dialogue – characters speak, but all we hear is Morricone’s score and a few gunshots.

International Trailer (1:15)
Sold here under its original American title of Blood on the Streets, the US trailer sports a seriously toned but hyperbolic narration that includes the news that the film stars “Oliver Reed in a performance that makes Charles Bronson’s Death Wish look like…wishful thinking,” which I have no problem with at all.

Radio Spots (1:33)
Two radio spots pushing the American release, the second considerably longer than the first and both proclaiming that “This is a story of a day all the guns went off.” Er, not quite.
Also included with the release version is a Limited Edition Collector’s Bookletfeaturing two new essays by author Howard Hughes – one covering the background to the making of Revolver – and an extensive piece on Ennio Morricone’s ‘Eurocrime’ soundtracks, but this was not available for review.

Summary
A tightly directed and terrific poliziotteschi that is more thoughtful and restrained than the genre norm, and boasts an excellent performance by Oliver Reed, despite the enduring mystery of that American accent. As is noted in the commentary, it seems likely that the film was at the very least an unconscious influence on the likes of 48Hrs and Midnight Run, but it absolutely holds its own as a compellingly handled and impressively unpredictable crime thriller almost 50 years after it was made. Eureka’s Blu-ray spots a first-rate transfer and some fine special features, including an excellent commentary track. Highly recommended.

The Director:

Sergio Sollima (17 April 1921 – 1 July 2015) was an Italian film director and script writer.

Biography

Sollima graduated from the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1935. During World War II he was in the Italian Resistance.^[1]

Sollima (r) with his “Faccia a Faccia” stars Gian Maria Volonte (l) and Tomas Milian (c).

After the war, he gradually progressed from working as a film critic to screenwriting to becoming a director^[2] Like many Italian cult directors, Sollima started his career as a screenwriter in the 1950s and wrote many peplum films in the 1960s. He made his directing debut doing one of the four sequences in the anthology film Of Wayward Love. Sollima filmed three Eurospy films and then moved to spaghetti westerns. The Big Gundown (starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian) was released in 1966 with big success, despite the fact that it had to compete with Sergio Leone‘s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Sergio Corbucci‘s Django. Sollima soon filmed two more westerns. Face to Face (Milian and Gian Maria Volonté) was released in 1967 and Run, Man, Run! (Milian) in 1968. Although Sollima directed only three westerns and they never reached the level of popularity as the ones by the other Sergios (Leone and Corbucci), each of them is highly regarded among genre enthusiasts.

In 1970, Sollima switched genres again and directed the Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas starred Violent City, which was one of the first violent and fast-paced Italian crime films often known as poliziotteschi. Like for all of his westerns, the soundtrack was provided by Ennio Morricone. Sollima’s last well-known film is Revolver, a poliziotteschi film starring Oliver Reed and Fabio Testi.

Sollima directed the six-part Italian TV series Sandokan starring Kabir Bedi with several feature films spun off the series.

Selected filmography

Tripoli, Beautiful Land of Love (1954)
Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell (1965)
Agent 3S3, Massacre in the Sun (1966)
Requiem for a Secret Agent (1966)
The Big Gundown (1967)
Face to Face (1967)
Run, Man, Run (1968)
Violent City (1970)
Devil in the Brain (1972)
Revolver (1973)
Sandokan (1976, TV miniseries)
The Black Corsair (1976)
La tigre è ancora viva: Sandokan alla riscossa! (1977)

References

p. 93 Fisher, Austin Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema I.B.Tauris, 6 Feb 2014
Vivarelli, Nick (3 July 2015). “Sergio Sollima, Italian Director Best Known Internationally For Spaghetti Westerns, Dies at 94”. Variety. Retrieved 6 April 2019.

External links

Sergio Sollima at IMDb

Posters:

German poster. Also includes the alternate English title “**Blood In The Streets**.”

Links:

Purchase a copy of the vinyl at Discogs here:

Watch the trailer from Eureka Classics here:

REVOLVER (Eureka Classics) New & Exclusive Trailer

If you’re in the Toronto area, stop in and say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host, at “the last great video store,” Bay Street Video, and find a copy of “Revolver” in store, or if outside of Toronto, online here:

https://baystreetvideo.com/title.php?page=1&title=Revolver

Watch the film for free here:

Revolver (1973) di Sergio Sollima (film completo ITA)

Purchase the film on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.ca/Revolver-Oliver-Reed/dp/B000096IA3

Tags Amazon, Bay Street Video, Bjorn Olson, Blood In The Streets, Cineoutsider, Discogs, Ennio Morricone, Fabio Testi, Faccia a Faccia, Guy Ritchie, Inglourious Basterds, MoMA, Morricone, Oliver Reed, Quentin Tarantino, Revolver, Sergio Sollima, The Filmography, Un Amico

Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Battle of Algiers” (1967)

Post author By Reece Crothers
Post date December 5, 2024
No Comments on The Morricone Collection: “Battle of Algiers” (1967)

Morricone (l, w/ trumpet) served as Best Man at “Battle of Algiers” director Gillo Pontecorvo’s (next to the Maestro) wedding.

**Pontecorvo** (l) pals around with Best Man **Morricone** (r).

This original 1967 United Artists release of the soundtrack to “Battle of Algiers” was co-written by the film’s director, Gillo Pontecorvo (“Burn” – also scored by Morricone), with orchestra direction by frequent Morricone collaborator (and distinguished composer in his own right) Bruno Nicolai (“The Red Queen Kills 7 Times“).

Album cover for **Bruno Nicolai’s “The Red Queen Kills 7 Times.”**

Album review from main titles.net:

“La Battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) is a film made in 1966 by Gillo Pontecorvo, with whom Morricone also teamed up for Queimada and Ogro. The political film depicts the beginning of the actions from the National Liberation Front in Algiers against the French colonists, which would eventually lead to their aimed independence in 1962. Above all, it’s a honest piece of cinema, that does not choose sides and which is made in the Italian neo-realism tradition with gorgeous black and white cinematography. It’s an important Morricone film, made in a period which is generally accepted as the most creative period of the composer. Yet, both the film and score never gained so much praises as the more popular projects and that truly hurts.

The most evocative musical idea for the score is the theme for Ali. Pontecorvo was finding it difficult to establish the musical themes for the score and recorded some on his own and presented them to Morricone. The maestro did not want to use them. During the creative process the director unconsciously whistled the themes in the presence of the composer, which had triggered Morricone. Some time later Morricone presented those same themes to the director, pretending not to remember their origins. This is the reason the music is credited as ‘music by Ennio Morricone and Gillo Pontecorvo’. The classic theme of Ali is based on a simple 4 note motif that is performed by a solo flute and accompanied by the orchestra, as can be heard on the 3 minute treatment Tema di Ali. There are also renditions for the orchestra alone, which lack the subtlety and fragility of the solo flute, but are equally strong. Its simplicity proves incredibly powerful, especially in the beginning of the film as Ali is arrested by the French. The intense black and white close-up of Ali is supported by the fragile notes of the motif, which creates one of the most iconic and most beautiful scenes in the history of cinema.

Another element of the score mainly reflects the French from a musical point of view, which is atypical Morricone martial music, mostly in the form of a march. The aggressive rhythm and harsh percussion, piano and brass elements brilliantly depict the military undertakings of the French to overthrow the Algerian resistance. Algeri: 1 Novembre 1954 is a march that Morricone has often included in his concert programs. Some of the actions of the French, who torture, are countered by the the Algerians who detonating bombs; both featurestark rhythmic musical pieces that appear to have been written from a musical neutral zone, while there are certainly hints of both musical worlds. These moments are dictated by the typical frenetic tension building that only Morricone could write.

Occasionally Morricone comments on the aftermath of a retaliation by using an organ. It are these kind of small moments that are equally beautiful to the theme of Ali. Other noteworthy moments are the moving intimacy of the woodwinds in the track Matrimonio clandestinoe and subtle melancholy on Gennaio 1957: Accerchiamento della Casbah.

Clearly, Morricone score is perfect for the film, but I did have problems with the use of music some years ago. The fact that the neo-realism approach generally avoids any kind of dramatic manipulation made it rather difficult to accept that the score often became a bit obtrusive. By now I have somehow accepted this wholly and like the directness of the music.

This release by Quartet records is essentially the same as the cd GDM released in 2005, but all of the music is remastered and now includes liner notes. You can clearly hear it sounds better than ever before, which can be a good reason to purchase this release of a classic work. The 2005 release is becoming a rare item and often does not come very cheap on the second-hand market. I can honestly say I would rather want a reissue of a good score with better sound quality, than a Morricone release that only offers a few uninteresting alternative cues.”

Additional Releases:

As he has done in “Kill Bill” (vols 1 and 2), and other pictures, Quentin Tarantino repurposed Morricone’s “Battle of Algiers” score in 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds,” in the scene where the Basterds rescue Hugo Stiglitz from a German prison:

Hugo Stiglitz clip from “Inglourious Basterds.”

The Film:

Roger Ebert’s review of “Battle of Algiers” from rogerebert.com:

“At the height of the street fighting in Algiers, the French stage a press conference for a captured FLN leader. “Tell me, general,” a Parisian journalist asks the revolutionary, “do you not consider it cowardly to send your women carrying bombs in their handbags, to blow up civilians?” The rebel replies in a flat tone of voice: “And do you not think it cowardly to bomb our people with napalm?” A pause. “Give us your airplanes and we will give you our women and their handbags.”

“The Battle of Algiers,” a great film by the young Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, exists at this level of bitter reality. It may be a deeper film experience than many audiences can withstand: too cynical, too true, too cruel and too heartbreaking. It is about the Algerian war, but those not interested in Algeria may substitute another war; “The Battle of Algiers” has a universal frame of reference.

Pontecorvo announces at the outset that there is “not one foot” of documentary or newsreel footage in his two hours of film. The announcement is necessary, because the film looks, feels and tastes as real as Peter Watkins’ “The War Game.” Pontecorvo used available light, newsreel film stock and actual locations to reconstruct the events in Algiers. He is after actuality, the feeling that you are there, and he succeeds magnificently; the film won the Venice Film Festival and nine other festivals, and was chosen to open the New York Film Festival last November.

Some mental quirk reminded me of “The Lost Command,” Mark Robson’s dreadful 1965 film in which George Segal was the Algerian rebel and Anthony Quinn somehow won for the French. Compared to “The Battle of Algiers,” that film and all Hollywood “war movies” are empty, gaudy balloons.

Pontecorvo has taken his stance somewhere between the FLN and the French, although his sympathies are on the side of the Nationalists. He is aware that innocent civilians die and are tortured on both sides, that bombs cannot choose their victims, that both armies have heroes and that everyone fighting a war can supply rational arguments to prove he is on the side of morality.

His protagonists are a French colonel (Jean Martin), who respects his opponents but believes (correctly, no doubt) that ruthless methods are necessary, and Ali (Brahim Haggiag), a petty criminal who becomes an FLN leader. But there are other characters: an old man beaten by soldiers; a small Arab boy attacked by French civilians who have narrowly escaped bombing; a cool young Arab girl who plants a bomb in a cafe and then looks compassionately at her victims, and many more.

The strength of the film, I think, comes because it is both passionate and neutral, concerned with both sides. The French colonel (himself a veteran of the anti-Nazi resistance), learns that Sartre supports the FLN. “Why are the liberals always on the other side?” he asks. “Why don’t they believe France belongs in Algeria?” But there was a time when he did not need to ask himself why the Nazis did not belong in France.

The Director:

Gilberto Pontecorvo Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (Italian: [ˈdʒillo ponteˈkɔrvo]; 19 November 1919 – 12 October 2006) was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama The Battle of Algiers (1966). It won the Golden Lion at the 27th Venice Film Festival, and earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

His other films include Kapò (1960), a Holocaust drama; Burn! (1969), a period film about a fictional slave revolt in the Lesser Antilles; and Ogro (1979), a dramatization of the assassination of Spanish Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco by Basque separatists. He also directed several documentaries and short films.

In 2000, he received the Pietro Bianchi Award at the Venice Film Festival. The same year, he was ascended as a Knight’s Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

**Pontecorvo** (l) with his “**Burn**” star, **Marlon** **Brando** (r).

Early life

Pontecorvo, born in Pisa, was the son of a wealthy secular Italian Jewish family. His father was a businessman. Gillo’s siblings included brothers Bruno Pontecorvo, later an internationally acclaimed nuclear physicist and one of the so-called Via Panisperna boys, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1950; Guido Pontecorvo, a geneticist; Polì [Paul] Pontecorvo, an engineer who worked on radar after World War II; and David Maraoni. Their sisters were Giuliana (m. Talbet); Laura (m. Coppa); and Anna (m. Newton).

Pontecorvo studied chemistry at the University of Pisa, but dropped out after passing just two exams. There he first became aware of opposition political forces, and first encountered leftist students and professors. In 1938, faced with growing antisemitism in Italy with the rise of Fascists, he followed his elder brother Bruno to Paris, where he found work in journalism and as a tennis instructor.

In Paris, Pontecorvo became involved in the film world, and began by making a few short documentaries. He became an assistant to Joris Ivens, a Dutch documentary filmmaker and well-known Marxist, whose films include Regen and The Bridge. He also assisted Yves Allégret, a French director known for his work in the film noir genre, whose films include Une si jolie petite plage and Les Orgueilleux. In addition to these influences, Pontecorvo began meeting people who broadened his perspectives, among them artist Pablo Picasso, composer Igor Stravinsky and political thinker Jean-Paul Sartre. During this time Pontecorvo developed his political ideals. He was moved when many of his friends in Paris packed up to go and fight on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1941, Pontecorvo joined the Italian Communist Party. He traveled to northern Italy to help organize Anti-Fascist partisans. Going by the pseudonym Barnaba, he became a leader of the Resistance in Milan from 1943 until 1945.

After the war, he coedited the weekly communist magazine, Pattuglia, with Dario Volari between 1948 and 1950.^[1] Pontecorvo broke ties with the Communist party in 1956 after the Soviet intervention to suppress the Hungarian uprising.^{[citation needed]} He did not, however, renounce his dedication to Marxism.^{[citation needed]}

In a 1983 interview with The Guardian, Pontecorvo said, “I am not an out-and-out revolutionary. I am merely a man of the Left, like a lot of Italian Jews.”^[2]

**Robert De Niro** (l) embraces **Pontecorvo** (r).

Film career

Early films

After the Second World War and his return to Italy, Pontecorvo decided to leave journalism for filmmaking, a shift that appears to have been developing for some time. The catalyst was his seeing Roberto Rossellini‘s Paisà (1946). He bought a 16mm camera and shot several documentaries, mostly self-funded, beginning with Missione Timiriazev in 1953. He directed Giovanna, which was one episode of La rosa dei venti (1957), a film made of episodes by several directors.

In 1957, he directed his first full-length film, La grande strada azzurra (The Wide Blue Road), which foreshadowed his mature style of later films. It explores the life of a fisherman and his family on a small island in the Adriatic Sea. Because of the scarcity of fish in nearby waters, the fisherman, Squarciò, has to sail out to the open sea, where he fishes illegally with bombs. The film won a prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Pontecorvo spent months, and sometimes years, researching the material for his films in order to accurately represent the social situations he explored.

In the next two years, Pontecorvo directed Kapò (1960), a drama set in a Nazi death camp. The plot of the film is about an escape attempt from a concentration camp by a young Jewish girl. In 1961 it was the Italian candidate for the United States’ Academy Awards, and it was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film.^[3] In this same year, the film won two awards: the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists awarded Didi Perego a Silver Ribbon for best supporting actress, and the Mar del Plata Film Festival awarded Susan Strasberg for best actress.

The Battle of Algiers

Main article: The Battle of Algiers (film)

Pontecorvo is best known for his 1966 masterpiece The Battle of Algiers (released in Italian as La battaglia di Algeri). It is widely viewed as one of the finest films of its genre: a neorealistic film. Its portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War uses the neorealist style pioneered by fellow Italian film directors de Santis and Rossellini. He used newsreel-style footage and non-professional actors.

He focused primarily on the native Algerians, a disenfranchised population who were seldom featured in the general media. Though very much Italian neorealist in style, Pontecorvo co-produced with an Algerian film company. The script was written with intention that Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leaders would act in it.^{[clarification needed]} (For example, the character Djafar was played by an FLN leader, Yacef Saadi.) Pontecorvo’s theme was clearly anti-imperialist. He later described the film as a “hymn … in homage to the people who must struggle for their independence, not only in Algeria, but everywhere in the third world” and said, “the birth of a nation happens with pain on both sides, although one side has cause and the other not.”

The Battle of Algiers achieved great success and influence. It was widely screened in the United States, where Pontecorvo received a number of awards. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for direction and screenplay (a collaboration). The film has been used as a training video by revolutionary groups, as well as by military dictatorships dealing with guerrilla resistance (especially in the 1970s during Operation Condor). It has been and remains extremely popular in Algeria, providing a popular memory of the struggle for independence from France.

The semi-documentary style and use of an almost entirely non-professional cast (only one trained actor appears in the film) was a great influence on a number of future filmmakers and films. Its influence can be seen in the few surviving works of West German filmmaker Teod Richter, made from the late 1960s up to his disappearance, and presumed death, in 1986. In addition, more recent commercial American films, such as the Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity and others draw from these techniques for less lofty purposes.

Late career

Pontecorvo’s next major work, Queimada! (Burn!, 1969), deals with a fictional slave revolt, set in the Lesser Antilles. This film (starring Marlon Brando) depicts an attempted revolution in a fictional Portuguese colony.

Pontecorvo continued his series of highly political films with Ogro (1979), which addresses the occurrence of Basque terrorism at the end of Francisco Franco‘s dwindling dictatorship in Spain. He continued making short films into the early 1990s. He also directed a follow-up documentary to The Battle of Algiers, entitled Ritorno ad Algeri (Return to Algiers, 1992).

In 1992, Pontecorvo was selected to replace Guglielmo Biraghi as the director of the Venice Film Festival; he was responsible for the festivals of 1992, 1993 and 1994. In 1991, he was a member of the jury at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival.^[4]

In an interview that Pontecorvo gave in 1991, when asked why he had directed so few feature films, his response was that he could only make one with which he is totally in love. He also said that he had rejected many other film concepts for lack of interest.^{[citation needed]}

Death

In 2006, Pontecorvo died from congestive heart failure in Rome at age 86.^[5]

Pontecorvo’s Filmography:

Feature films

Title	Year	Functioned as			Notes
Title	Year	Director	Writer	Composer	Notes
The Wide Blue Road (La grande strada azzurra)	1957	Yes	Yes	No	Nominated – Crystal Globe (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)
Kapo (Kapò)	1960	Yes	Yes	Yes	Nominated – Great Jury Prize (Mar del Plata International Film Festival)
The Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri)	1966	Yes	Yes	Yes	Golden Lion (Venice Film Festival) Nastro d’Argento for Best Director Nominated – Academy Award for Best Director Nominated – Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay Nominated – Nastro d’Argento for Best Score
Burn! (Queimada)	1969	Yes	Story	No	David di Donatello for Best Director
Ogro (Operación Ogro)	1979	Yes	Yes	No	David di Donatello for Best Director

Documentary films

Title	Year	Functioned as			Notes
Title	Year	Director	Writer	Composer	Notes
Missione Timiriazev^[6]	1953	Yes	No	No
Porta Portese	1954	Yes	No	No
Festa a Castelluccio	1954	Yes	No	No
Uomini del marmo	1955	Yes	No	No
Cani dietro le sbarre	1955	Yes	No	No
Pane e zolfo	1959	Yes	No	No
Gli uomini del lago	1959	Yes	No	No
Paras	1963	Yes	No	No
Addio a Enrico Berliguer	1984	Yes	No	No
Un altro mondo è possibile	2001	Yes	No	No
Firenze, il nostro domani	2003	Yes	No	No

Short films

Giovanna (1957, segment of Die Windrose)
Udine (1984, segment of 12 registi per 12 città)
Gillo Pontecorvo’s Return to Algiers (1992)
Danza della fata confetto (1996)
Nostalgia di protezione (1997)

External links

Posters:

Links:

Listen to Morricone’s complete “Battle of Algiers” score here:

Ennio Morricone – La battaglia di Algeri OST

Watch “The Battle of Algiers” (and a slew of bonus materials including featurette “Morricone on Morricone“) on The Criterion Channel here:

Find a vinyl copy at Discogs here:

Watch the trailer for “The Battle of Algiers” here:

https://www.criterionchannel.com/the-battle-of-algiers

Purchase a physical copy of “The Battle of Algiers” blu-ray/dvd from The Criterion Collection here:

“**The Battle of Algiers**” from **The** **Criterion** **Collection**.

If you’re in the Toronto area, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host, Bjorn, and order a copy to buy or to rent from “Toronto’s last great video store,” Bay Street Video in store (or online, if outside of Toronto):

Watch the film for free on YouTube here:

Complete film on YouTube.

Watch Criterion’s bonus featurette “Spike Lee, Mira Nair, and Steven Soderbergh on The Battle of Algiers” here:

Read The Guardian’s obituary for Gillo Pontecorvo here:

Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Il Grande Silenzio” (1968)

Post author By Reece Crothers
Post date December 5, 2024
1 Comment on The Morricone Collection: “Il Grande Silenzio” (1968)

**Morricone** around the time of composing the score to **Sergio** **Corbucci’s** “Il **Grande** **Silenzio**.”

Director **Sergio** **Corbucci** on location

The Album:

Dagored’s 2016 double-coloured vinyl pressing of Morricone’s 1968 score (one of my all-time favourite Morricones) to Sergio Corbucci’s great Spaghetti Western, “Il Grande Silenzio,” represents the “the first re-issue ever” and is limited to 500 copies.

From the album sticker:

“The legendary soundtrack composed by the Maestro ENNIO MORRICONE for IL GRANDE SILENZIO, directed in 1968 by SERGIO CORBUCCI and staring Jean Louis Trintigant and Klaus Kinski.

A melancholic, emotive score, deeply moving and cold as the snow covered landscape of the film, is considered one of the best “western” work by Morricone since the collaboration with Sergio Leone.

FIRST VINYL REISSUE EVER
LIMITED EDITION OF 500 COPIES
DOUBLE COLORED VINYL

This edition © 2016 Dagored
℗ & © 1967 NEAPOLIS (SIAE)
Licenziata da Beat Records.”

Earlier Album Pressings:

Alternate 1978 Italian re-issue (black).

The Film:

**Jean-Louis Trintignant**, beloved giant of European New Wave cinema, as “Silenzio” (Silence).

From A.O. Scott’s 2018 NY Times review:

“I’m not generally one for nostalgia, but I do regret the loss of a certain kind of craziness that used to flourish in movies — the kind that is on rich and ripe display in “The Great Silence,” a 1968 Italian western by Sergio Corbucci that is only now receiving a proper theatrical release in this country.

The cast of “**Il Grande Silenzio**” in a lighter moment on set.

There is something about the film’s brazen mixing of incompatible elements that defies categorization, imitation or even sober critical assessment. It’s anarchic and rigorous, sophisticated and goofy, heartfelt and cynical. The score, by Ennio Morricone, is as mellow as wine. The action is raw, nasty and blood-soaked. The story is preposterous, the politics sincere.

In 2018, it’s possible — and perhaps inevitable — to view “The Great Silence” as a footnote to the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino, whose admiration for Corbucci is well documented. Corbucci’s 1966 western “Django” was an inspiration for Mr. Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” and “The Hateful Eight” shares a snowbound aesthetic and a gleeful commitment to cruelty with “The Great Silence.” The scholarly minded viewer can trace other connections and divergences as well — to classic American westerns and to the contemporaneous and better-known work of the spaghetti maestro Sergio Leone.

The great Jean-Louis Trintignant rides into town.

But this plate of pasta — bitter and pungent, nourishing and perhaps a bit nauseating — should be savored on its own. It takes place at the end of the 19th century in “Snow Hill, Utah,” a place name that sounds infinitely more exotic in Italian. There, farmers have been driven off their land and forced into banditry, leaving them at the mercy of bounty killers, the most fearsome and sadistic of whom is played by Klaus Kinski.

**Klaus Kinski**, legendary madman of **Werner** **Herzog** classics like “**Fitzcaraldo**.”

His character — referred to as Tigrero aloud and Loco in the subtitles — is a whispering sociopath and a symbol of the Darwinian brutality that governs Snow Hill. The actual governor wants to bring the area under the rule of law, and dispatches a bumbling, decent sheriff (Frank Wolff) to bring Tigrero and the rest of the bounty killers into line. The lawman’s earnest efforts are a sideshow to the main drama, though, which pits Tigrero and his minions against a solitary avenger known as Silenzio.

Played by the great Jean-Louis Trintignant, Silenzio is a tragic, poetic variation on Clint Eastwood’s taciturn Man With No Name. Silenzio is not a man of few words, but a survivor of horrific violence. When he was a child, the bounty hunters who murdered his parents severed his vocal cords to keep him from talking. He has grown up into Tigrero’s double and opposite, meting out justice for money and following a strict code of ethics. He will never draw his gun first, but he will always shoot faster than his adversary.

**Kinski** fires his pistol (and remembers to keep his ears warm at all times).

Silenzio’s services are solicited by Pauline (Vonetta McGee), the widow of one of Tigrero’s victims. The fact that she and her husband are black is at once a casual detail and a sign of the film’s anti-authoritarian, democratic ideology. The couple seems to have been welcomed by the other good people of Snow Hill, but their race is a big issue for the bad guys.

The plot takes a twist or two, but serves mainly as a thread linking shootouts and glowering confrontations, with a brief respite for love. The mood is sometimes jaunty, but “The Great Silence” is no joke, and the fatalism of its ending serves as an implicit critique of the sentimental optimism of many Hollywood westerns. Power speaks louder than silence.”

Perhaps the greatest influence “Il Grande Silenzio“” has had on contemporary cinema is on display in the snowy landscapes of die-hard Corbucci & Morricone fan Quentin Tarantino’s 2nd western, “The Hateful 8,” which also features (an Oscar-winning) score by Maestro Morricone.

Still from “the 8th film by **Quentin** **Tarantino**.”

Tarantino’s 1st western, 2012’s “Django Unchained,” was likewise inspired by another Corbucci Spaghetti Western, the one for which he is probably most famous, “Django,” released two years previously (1966).

**Corbucci** ‘s best known work, “**Django**” released two years before “Il **Grande** **Silenzio**.”

Original “**Django**” (1966) poster, and the film itself, are obvious influences on…

**Tarantino’s** Django, **Jamie** **Foxx**, with **Corbucci’s** original **Django**, Spaghetti Western icon, **Franco** **Nero**, in **Tarantino’s** 2012 ode to **Corbucci’s** picture.

Worthy of note in any discussion on “Il Grande Silenzio” is the performance by American actor Frank Wolff as the doomed sheriff first hired by the put-upon townspeople to go after Kinski and his fellow bounty hunters. Having worked extensively in the U.S. with the prince of independent cinema, Roger Corman, Wolff later distinguished himself in many Italian and European films that sprung forth as part of the boom of filmmaking in Rome (and other European cities) in the 1960’s and 70’s. Wolff was an extremely likeable character actor who met a very tragic end, “slashing” his own throat, allegedly over the unrequited love of a young woman, after being left by his wife for another man.

American actor and Italian cinema stalwart, Frank Wolff, who tragically committed suicide just 3 years after appearing as the doomed sheriff in “**Il Grande Silenzio**.”

From Wikipedia:

(Frank Wolff’s) Death:

Wolff committed suicide by cutting his throat in the bathroom of a residence in his Rome hotel room, a few steps from the Hilton hotel, at the age of 43 on December 12, 1971.^[2] Long the victim of a deep depressive crisis, the actor was separated from his wife Alice Campbell, who lived like him in Rome. According to one hypothesis, Wolff would have injured himself for the first time with a razor blade. Having dropped the blade from his hand, the actor would have taken a second one, with which he would have cut the carotid artery. This second injury caused a cerebral anemia that led to his death in a short time.^[3]

His body was found by a 24-year-old Austrian friend on the same day, and police said he had slashed his throat.^[4] It was speculated that the unrequited love for the young woman might have contributed to Wolff’s fatal act, already suffering from a nervous breakdown for some time, after his wife had left him for another man.^[3]

His final two Italian-made films, Milano Caliber 9 and When Women Lost Their Tails were released posthumously in 1972. His voice in the English-language version of Milano Caliber 9 was dubbed in by his frequent co-star and roommate at the time of his death Michael Forest.

Additional Film Stills:

A love story fraught with danger and trauma.

Even in winter, the dead must be buried.

Silenzio reflects in the glow of a solitary candle.

**Kinski** with the bounty hunter’s greatest prop, the wanted poster.

Trintignant makes a grand entrance as “**The** **Great** **Silence**.”

The Director:

“**Il Grande Silenzio**” director **Corbucci** likes what he sees through the viewfinder.

“**The Great Silence**,” **Corbucci’s** great achievement.

Compilation album of 3 collaborations between **Morricone** and **Corbucci**.

Morricone is forever associated with the most famous of the “three Sergios” of Italian cinema, Leone, but equally great are the 7 soundtracks the Maestro scored for another Sergio, that being Mr. Corbucci, for whom Morricone composed the scores for “Compañeros,” “I Crudeli,” aka “The Hellbenders,” “Che C’entriamo Noi Con La Rivoluzione?“, “The Mercenary, ” “Navajo Joe,” “Sonny & Jed,” and of course, “Il Grande Silenzio.”

From Wikipedia:

Sergio Corbucci (Italian: [ˈsɛrdʒo korˈbuttʃi]; 6 December 1926 – 1 December 1990) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed both very violent spaghetti Westerns and bloodless Bud Spencer and Terence Hill action comedies.^[1]

He is the older brother of screenwriter and film director Bruno Corbucci.^[2]

Biography

Early career

He started his career by directing mostly low-budget sword and sandal movies. Among his first spaghetti Westerns were the films Grand Canyon Massacre (1964), which he co-directed (under the pseudonym, Stanley Corbett) with Albert Band, as well as Minnesota Clay (1964), his first solo directed spaghetti Western. Corbucci’s first commercial success was with the cult spaghetti Western Django, starring Franco Nero, the leading man in many of his movies.^[3] He would later collaborate with Franco Neroon two other spaghetti Westerns, Il Mercenario or The Mercenary (a.k.a. A Professional Gun) (1968) — where Nero played Sergei Kowalski, a Polish mercenary and the film also starring Tony Musante, Jack Palance and Giovanna Ralli — as well as Compañeros (1970) a.k.a. Vamos a matar, Companeros, which also starred Tomas Milian and Jack Palance. The last film of the “Mexican Revolution” trilogy – The Mercenary and Compañeros being the first two in the installment – was What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? (1972).

After Django, Corbucci made many other spaghetti Westerns, which made him the most successful Italian Western director after Sergio Leone and one of Italy’s most productive and prolific directors.^[4] His most famous of these pictures was The Great Silence (Il Grande Silenzio), a dark and gruesome Western starring a mute action hero and a psychopathic bad guy.^[5]^[6] The film was banned in some countries for its excessive display of violence.

Corbucci (r) on location with “**Navajo Joe**” star, Burt Reynolds.

Corbucci also directed Navajo Joe (1966), starring Burt Reynolds as the title character, a Navajo Indian opposing a group of bandits that killed his tribe, as well as The Hellbenders (1967), and Johnny Oro (1966) a.k.a. Ringo and his Golden Pistol starring Mark Damon. Other spaghetti Westerns he directed include Gli specialisti (Drop Them or I’ll Shoot, 1969), La Banda J.S.: Cronaca criminale del Far West (Sonny and Jed, 1972), with Tomas Milian and The White the Yellow and the Black (1975), with Tomas Milianand Eli Wallach.

Corbucci (r) with actor **Tomas** **Milian** on set of “**Compañeros**.”

Corbucci’s Westerns were dark and brutal, with the characters portrayed as sadistic antiheroes. His films featured very high body counts and scenes of mutilation. Django especially is considered to have set a new level for violence in Westerns.^[7]

Corbucci was born in Rome.

Later career and legacy

In the 1970s and 1980s Corbucci mostly directed comedies, often starring Adriano Celentano. Many of these comedies were huge successes at the Italian box office and found wide distribution in European countries like Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland, but were barely released overseas.^[8]

His movies were rarely taken seriously by contemporary critics^[9]^[10] and he was considered an exploitation director, but Corbucci has managed to attain a cult reputation.^[6]^[11]

He died in Rome in 1990, at age 63, of a heart attack.^[12]

His nephew Leonardo Corbucci^[13] continues the legacy of film directors in the family in Los Angeles.

In 2021 was released a documentary about Corbucci, directed by Luca Rea, Django & Django, that relies to a considerable extent on an interview with Quentin Tarantino.^[14]

In 2022 German thrash metal band Kreator released the instrumental song “Sergio Corbucci is Dead” as an intro to their album Hate Über Alles. According to vocalist/guitarist Mille Petrozza, “Sergio Corbucci was someone who was very anti-authoritarian in his film. In all his films he has a protagonist who rebels against the authorities. Often these characters are very obscure. I was wondering if there are still people like that who make really political films without trying to preach anything to you. It’s a bit of a dig at the bands who don’t speak their minds out of fear of losing fans.”^[15]

Filmography

Director and writer

Salvate mia figlia (1951)
Foreign Earth (1954)
Island Sinner (1954)
Acque amare (1954)
Baracca e burattini (1954)
Carovana di canzoni (1955)
Suonno d’ammore (1955)
Supreme Confession (1956)
Ángeles sin cielo (1957)
I ragazzi dei Parioli (1959)
Who Hesitates is Lost (1960)
An American in Toledo (1960) *Only writer.
Totò, Peppino e… la dolce vita (1961)
Goliath and the Vampires (1961)
Duel of the Titans (1961)
The Two Marshals (1961)
The Slave (The Son of Spartacus, 1962)
Lo smemorato di Collegno (1962)
The Shortest Day (1963)
Il monaco di Monza (1963)
Gli onorevoli (1963)
Castle of Blood (1964) (uncredited)
Grand Canyon Massacre (1964) (as Stanley Corbett)
Minnesota Clay (1964)
I figli del leopardo (1965)
The Man Who Laughs (1966)
Django (1966)
Ringo and his Golden Pistol (Johnny Oro, 1966)
Navajo Joe (1966)
The Hellbenders (The Cruel Ones, 1967)
Death on the Run (1967)
The Great Silence (1968)
The Mercenary (A Professional Gun, 1968)
The Specialists (Drop Them or I’ll Shoot, 1969)
Compañeros (1970)
Er più: storia d’amore e di coltello (1971)
La Banda J.S.: Cronaca criminale del Far West (Sonny and Jed, 1972)
What Am I Doing in the Middle of the Revolution? (1972)
The Beast (1974)
Shoot First… Ask Questions Later (The White the Yellow and the Black, 1975)
What’s Your Sign? (1975)
The Con Artists (1976)
Mr. Robinson (1976)
Three Tigers Against Three Tigers (1977)
Ecco noi per esempio… (1977)
The Payoff (1978)
Odds and Evens (1978)
Neapolitan Mystery (1979)
Super Fuzz (1980)
I Don’t Understand You Anymore (1980)
I’m Getting a Yacht (1980)
Who Finds a Friend Finds a Treasure (1981)
My Darling, My Dearest (1982)
Count Tacchia (1982)
Sing Sing (1983)
Questo e quello (1983)
A tu per tu (1984)
I Am an ESP (1985)
Rimini Rimini (1987)
Roba da ricchi (1987)
Days of Inspector Ambrosio (1988)
Night Club (1989)
Women in Arms (1991)

Actor

Suonno d’ammore (1955) – Bank customer (uncredited)
Who Hesitates Is Lost (1960) – Billiard player (uncredited)
Totò, Peppino e… la dolce vita (1961) – Man waiting in the line for the telephone (uncredited)
Lo smemorato di Collegno (1962) – Man waiting for the Minister (uncredited)
Gli onorevoli (1963) – Manager of the hotel in Roccasecca (uncredited) (final film role)

References

“Sergio Corbucci”. Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 May 2008. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
Bondanella, Peter; Pacchioni, Federico (19 October 2017). A History of Italian Cinema. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 490. ISBN 9781501307645.
Cox, Alex (1 June 2012). “Once Upon a Time in Italy”. The New York Times. p. 16. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
“Mondo Esoterica – Sergio Corbucci Film Reviews”. mondo-esoterica.net. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
Scott, A. O. (28 March 2018). “Review: ‘The Great Silence,’ a 1968 Spaghetti Western Unchained”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
Hoberman, J. (28 December 2018). “’68 Rides Again: The Return of Sergio Corbucci”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
Tarantino, Quentin (27 September 2012). “Quentin Tarantino Tackles Old Dixie by Way of the Old West (by Way of Italy)”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 27 June2020.
“SERGIO CORBUCCI BOX OFFICE”. BOX OFFICE STORY. Retrieved 24 April 2023.
Wong, Aliza S. (15 December 2018). Spaghetti Westerns: A Viewer’s Guide. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 123–124. ISBN 978-1-4422-6904-0.
Bondanella, Peter (25 July 2019). The Italian Cinema Book. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-83902-024-7.
Mask, Mia (28 February 2023). Black Rodeo: A History of the African American Western. University of Illinois Press. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-252-05402-0.
Flint, Peter B. (1 May 1989). “Sergio Leone, 67, Italian Director Who Revitalized Westerns, Dies”. The New York Times. p. 8. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
“Behind the Scenes: The Legendary Series with Leonard Corbucci on Apple Podcasts”. Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
DeFore, John (8 September 2021). “‘Django & Django’: Film Review | Venice 2021”. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
“Album review: Kreator – Hate Über Alles” (in German). 8 June 2022.

Film Posters:

Links:

Listen to the complete score on YouTube here:

Complete score on YouTube.

Purchase a copy of the vinyl on Discogs here:

Watch Alex Cox’s introduction to “The Great Silence” here:

Alex Cox’s intro to “The Great Silence.”

Watch the trailer for “The Great Silence” here:

Trailer.

Watch a 10-minute behind-the-scenes feature on the making of “Il Grande Silenzio” here:

The making of “Il Grande Silenzio.”

Read J. Hoberman’s NY Times piece celebrating “The Great Silence” (and other Corbuccis) on the occasion of its digital streaming release here:

The above article links to A.O. Scott’s 2018 Times‘ review for “The Great Silence,” which you can read here:

If in the Toronto area, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host Bjorn, and find a copy of “The Great Silence” on DVD or blu-ray at Toronto’s “last great video store,” Bay Street Video, in store or online at baystreetvideo.com:

Order the blu-ray on Amazon here:

Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Faccia a Faccia” (1967)

Post author By Reece Crothers
Post date November 25, 2024

**Morricone** closes his eyes and hears a symphony (or so I imagine!).

Album write-up from elusivedisc.com:

“This is the soundtrack to Sergio Sollima’s Italian Spaghetti western film Faccia a Faccia (also known as Face To Face), starring Gian Maria Volonte, Tomas Milian and William Berger. Composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone, the 1967 movie’s music is a beautiful mix of typical epic ’60s Morricone western moods, experimental moments and even some sheer Country. The orchestra and chorus are directed by Bruno Nicolai, the famous Italian film music composer. His work is featured in Kiss Kiss…Bang Bang and Kill Bill Volume 2 amongst many other movies.”

Other Pressings:

**“Faccia a Faccia”** aka “*Il Etais Une Fois Dans L’Arizona* (“Once Upon A Time In Arizona”).

The Film:

Opening title card to **Sergio Sollima**‘s “**Faccia a Faccia.”**

The perpetually smoldering icon of ’70s international cinema, **Gian Maria Volonte.**

British cult-auteur Alex Cox is probably best known to movie lovers for his ‘80s classics “Repo Man,” and “Sid & Nancy,” but he is also one of the foremost authorities on all things Spaghetti Western, as evidenced by his excellent compendium on the genre, “10,000 Ways To Die,” in which he provides a wealth of information and insight into the film and its production.

British director (and Italian Western scholar), **Alex** **Cox**.

Alex Cox’s “director’s take on the Italian Western.”

**Alex** **Cox’s** best works, “**Repo Man**” and “**Sid & Nancy**.”

Below is the transcript to Alex Cox’s Moviedrome introduction to Sergio Sollima’s “Faccia a Faccia,” originally broadcast by the BBC on August 29th, 1993:

**Cox** introduces “**Face** To **Face**” aka “**Faccia** a **Faccia**” on **BBC’s** **Moviedrome** program.

“Face to Face is one of three ‘political westerns’ by the Italian director Sergio Sollima, who sometimes operates under the pseudonym ‘Sterling Simon’. The other two were The Big Gundown, an excellent bounty-hunter movie starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian, and Run, Man, Run, a rather worse-than-mediocre sequel involving the further adventures of Milian. They were ‘political’ in much the same way as all the spaghetti westerns, setting up a rural/urban conflict in which the city dwellers are always insidious degenerates or usurous bankers, and the rural characters innocent exploitees, often championed by a glamorous social bandit. It’s a straight-forward, simple-minded view that you can find even in supposedly sophisticated Italian films, the most lumbering example perhaps being 1900.

“Face to Face has been described as a parable of the rise of European fascism. Well, maybe. It certainly has the political schematic outlined above, but to me it seems more of a Borgesian tale of fate and doppelgangers. You can take your pick. It also has, and this is where it gets good, some of the most improbable character names, and some of the most outlandish haircuts ever seen in a western. Gian Maria Volonte plays professor Brad Fletcher, a consumptive Boston University professor who heads west for his health. Volonte is, of course, one of the great spaghetti western actors – he was the bandit chief in A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More; he was the unwilling revolutionary in A Bullet for the General. Volonte was a serious actor who had been blacklisted for being a Communist – Leone was the first director to break ranks and give him a job. Later he went on to appear in more ‘serious’ political films, including Sacco and Vanzetti, and Francesco Rosi’s Lucky Luciano. He’s always good, and this is one of his better western roles.

“In Face to Face, Brad Fletcher becomes involved with a Mexican bandit with the unlikely moniker of Solomon ‘Beauregard’ Bennet, leader of a hippie-esque outlaw gang called Bennet’s Raiders. Beauregard is played by Tomas Milian – the Cuban actor who appeared in Sollima’s other political westerns, and in many other spaghettis including the truly extraordinary Django Kill. Milian, like Volonte, is a ‘proper’ actor – he played the priest in Dennis Hopper’s Peruvian epic The Last Movie, and recently was seen as one of the anti-Castro hitmen in Oliver Stone’s JFK.

“The chemistry between Volonte and Milian is really interesting, and it keeps the film alive when it might otherwise expire – as, for instance, in the incongruous hippie commune scenes. There are also those haircuts to contend with. But Face to Face is really quite an entertaining and intriguing film. Watch out for several spaghetti western regulars, including William Berger as the mysterious Charlie Sirringo, Aldo Sambrel as the treacherous polecat Zachary Shot, and Angel del Pozo in the role of the gentleman gunfighter, Maximilian de Winton.”

Watch Alex Cox’s Moviedrome intro to “Faccia a Faccia” here:

BBC Moviedrome – Face To Face – Introduced by Alex Cox.

The Director:

Italian writer-director **Sergio** **Sollima**.

Though he may not be the most famous or critically lauded of the “Three Sergios” (Leone and Corbucci would take gold and silver, respectively, in that contest), Italian filmmaker Sergio Solima was a prolific critic-turned-writer-director with 34 writing credits and 19 directing credits to his name.

The lesser-known of “**The** **Three** **Sergios**,” Italian writer-director **Sollima**.

The *other* other **Sergio**, “**Django**” director **Corbucci**.

A tough and stylish filmmaker who worked confidently and successfully in many genres, Sollima is best known for his excellent Spaghetti Westerns “Faccia a Faccia,” aka “Face to Face,” and “The Big Gundown,” aka “La Resi Dei Conti,” both released in 1967, and “Run Man Run,” released the following year (in which Tomas Milian reprised his Chuchillo character from “Big Gundown“). All three pictures were scored by the Maestro.

**Morricone’s** other collaboration with director **Sergio** **Sollima** from 1967 resulted in one of the Maestro’s best Western scores.

Alternate “**The** **Big** **Gundown**” album pressing under the original Italian title, “**La Resa Dei Conti”**

Cover art for **Blue** **Underground’s** DVD release of “**Run Man Run**.”

The director and composer duo would reunite with similarly impressive results on the films “Citta Violenta” aka “Violent City” aka “The Family,” and “Il Diavolo Nel Cervello” aka “Devil In The Brain.”

Recent vinyl re-issue of “**Citta** **Violenta**” by Ennio Morricone.

But my favourite Morricone/Sollima collaboration has to be 1973’s “Revolver,” starring Fabio Testi and Oliver Reed, featuring the standout track “Un Amico,” which rabid-Morricone fan Quentin Tarantino repurposed to great effect in “Inglourious Basterds.”

Listen to “Un Amico” from “Revolver” & “Inglourious Basterds!” on YouTube here:

Listen to “Un Amico” by Ennio Morricone on YouTube.

Watch the “Un Amico” clip from Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” on YouTube here:

Cinema’s avenging angel, **Mélanie** **Laurent** in **Tarantino’s** WW2 epic.

Sergio Sollima’s Director filmography from IMDb:

**Sollima’s** 1st of two screen credits from the”Faccia a Faccia”‘ title sequence.

VENICE, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 02: Stefano Sollima attends a photocall for the “**Adagio**” at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 02, 2023 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by **Stefania D’Alessandro/WireImage)**

Worth mentioning is that Sollima is the father of director Stefano Sollima, who has established an impressive career in his own right, both in television, directing episodes of acclaimed Italian series “Gomorrah,” and “Zero, Zero, Zero” (both adaptations of non-fiction works by Roberto Saviano), and in features, in Italian productions like “ACAB,” aka “All Cops Are Bastards,” and “Suburra,” and more recently, with Hollywood productions “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” and the Tom Clancy thriller “Without Remorse,” though Sollima returned to Italian cinema with last years’ “Adagio.”

TV adaptation of **Roberto** **Saviano’s** “**Gomorrah**” (also the basis for **Matteo** **Garrone’s** 2008 film).

Another **Roberto** **Saviano** adaptation for television also directed by **Sollima** Jr.

“**All Cops Are Bastards**” (“**ACAB**”) poster.

**Sollima’s** most recent picture, 2023’s “**Adagio**.”

Title Sequence:

“Faccia a Faccia” opens with one of my favourite title sequences of all time (of those not created by Saul Bass, of course), and certainly distinguishes this film from the many homogeneous Spaghetti Westerns produced in its era. Wildly colourful two-tone graphics using (seemingly) hand drawn text, images of its stars, and of various Western film motifs (horses, wagons, etc.) evoke a gritty, expressionistic atmosphere, indisputably fueled by the emotional charge Morricone’s rousing theme music (“Faccia a Faccia (Titoli)”) provides in abundance.

Watch the psychedelic title sequence from “Faccia a Faccia” here:

Title Sequence.

Posters:

Alternate French theatrical poster playing on the title of another **Morricone** and **Sergio** (**Leone**, this time) collaboration, “**Once Upon A Time In The West.**“

Theatrical Poster For United Artists’ American Release of “Face To Face.”

“**Cara a Cara**” aka “**Faccia** **a Faccia**” DVD cover art.

German theatrical poster for “Faccia a Faccia” aka “Von Angesicht zu Angesicht.”

Links:

Purchase a vinyl copy of Morricone’s “Faccia a Faccia” on Discogs here:

Listen to “Faccia a Faccia (Titoli)” on YouTube here:

“**Faccia a Faccia (Titoli)**” by Ennio Morricone.

Watch the trailer for “Faccia a Faccia” on Mubi.com here:

https://mubi.com/en/films/face-to-face-1967/trailer

Watch the trailer for “Faccia a Faccia” on YouTube here:

International trailer.

Watch a clip from “Faccia a Faccia” on YouTube.

Clip on YouTube.

If you’re in Toronto, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host, Bjorn, and pick up a copy of “Faccia a Faccia” by it’s English title “Face to Face” (1967) at “Toronto’s last great video store,” Bay Street Video, in person, or online (with the link below):

Meet my pal, Bjorn, and discover his Pride Week ’24 film recommendations here:

Queer cinema classics for Toronto’s Pride Week 2024.

Outside of Toronto, purchase a copy of the blu-ray on Amazon here:

Watch the complete film (for free) here:

See Morricone in a documentary on his improvisational collective, Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza (aka Il Gruppo / The Group), filmed in 1967, the same year the Maestro composed the score for “Faccia a Faccia“:

The Group on YouTube

Read up on Morricone, The Group, and the 1967 documentary in this tribute piece from The Austin Film Society:

Tags 1900, A Bullet For The General, A Fistful of Dollars, ACAB, Adagio, Alberto Grimaldi, Aldo Sambrel, Alex Cox, All Cops Are Bastards, Amazon, Angel del Pozo, Austin Film Society, Bay Street Video, BBC, Bjorn Olson, Blue Underground, Chuchillo, Citta Violenta, Dennis Hopper, Devil On The Brain, Discogs, Django, Django Kill, Elusive Disc, Ennio Morricone, Fabio Testi, Faccia a Faccia, For a Few Dollars More, Francesco Rossi, Gian Maria Volonte, Gomorrah, Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza, Il Diavolo Nel Cervello, Il Etait Une Fois In Arizona, Il Gruppo, IMDb, Inglourious Basterds, JFK, Kill Bill vol. 2, Kiss Kiss... Bang Bang, La Resi Dei Conti, Le Dernier Face A Face, Lee Van Cleef, Lucky Luciano, Mélanie Laurent, Morricone, Moviedrome, Mubi, Oliver Reed, Oliver Stone, Once Upon A Time In The West, Quentin Tarantino, Repo Man, Revolver, Roberto Saviano, Run Man Run, Sacco & Vanzetti, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Leone, Sergio Sollima, Sicario: Day of The Soldado, Sid & Nancy, Spaghetti Westerns, Stefano Sollima, Suburra, Ten-Thousand Ways To Die, The Big Gundown, The Family, The Filmography, The Group, The Last Movie, The Three Sergios, Tom Clancy, Tomas Milian, Un Amico, Violent City, Von Angesicht zu Angesicht, Without Remorse, Zero Zero Zero

Morricone

The Morricone Collection: “Navajo Joe” (1966)

Post author By Reece Crothers
Post date November 20, 2024
4 Comments on The Morricone Collection: “Navajo Joe” (1966)

Never so bold!
-Lyrics from “Navajo Joe” main theme.

A young **Ennio** **Morricone** around the time he composed the score for “**Navajo** **Joe**.”

Though it was released under the pseudonym Leo Nichols, the score to Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 Spaghetti Western, “Navajo Joe” is unmistakably the work of the Maestro. Despite a screenplay co-written by Fernando Di Leo (“Calibro 9“) “Navajo Joe” is certainly not Corbucci’s best film (that would be “Il Grande Silenzio“), but the music for which it was composed should be counted amongst Morricone’s greatest contributions to the genre.

“**Navajo** **Joe**” director **Sergio** **Corbucci** on location

“Navajo Joe” synopsis from MGM’s North American DVD release.

“A band of outlaws, headed by a sullen leader named Duncan, sweeps across the country like the plague, destroying everything in its path, including an Indian village. The outlaws arrive in the town of Esperanza, where they are hired by a crooked doctor to hijack a bank train and share in the wealth. But the sole survivor from the Indian village, a renegade Navajo named Joe (Burt Reynolds), fells the plan by relocating the money. An irate Duncan holds an innocent Indian girl hostage until Joe surrenders; the brave citizens of Esperanza, under siege by the bandits, risk their lives to free Joe, who is their only hope of surviving. Joe once again takes on Duncan and his ruthless comrades with unforgettable vengeance.”

James Southall’s review of Morricone’s “Navajo Joe” album:

“Sergio Leone’s masterpieces with Clint Eastwood were just beginning to make their mark on America when Navajo Joe came along, attempting to do a similar kind of thing but in an even grittier way; a different Sergio was in the director’s chair (Corbucci, who had made the seminal Django), and Burt Reynolds was in place of Eastwood. One constant was the composer – of course, Ennio Morricone, whose work in this genre I would rank as the most extraordinarily creative and brilliant film music there has been.

Album Cover with **Morricone** given proper credit on **Apple** **Music**.

The main title theme for Navajo Joe is a hoot, unexpected even from this most unpredictable of film composers – it begins with a woman’s screech, a primal and startling sound, before a choir sings the name of the character and occasionally utters some words of wisdom about him (eg: ‘Never so bold!’) – a memorable, striking, vintage piece of Morricone, famously used in Alexander Payne’s ‘Election‘ over thirty years later. And there aren’t many film scores which become ingrained in popular culture because two entirely separate pieces from them cropped up in entirely different films decades later, but as well as the main title in Election, Quentin Tarantino used ‘A Silhouette of Doom‘ in ‘Kill Bill‘ – it’s a driving, suspenseful piece for the villains of the story, built around a five-note motif hammered at the low end of a piano which forms a key building block of the score as a whole.

NOT **Josh** **Brolin**, but **Burt** **Reynolds** as “**Navajo** **Joe**.”

Those two pieces dominate, cropping up in countless variations over the 45-minute score, but always given fresh impetus with each new appearance thanks to the composer’s ingenious knack for building up whole scores sometimes from relatively small (in terms of volume) ideas. It also helps that there are one or two other set-pieces along the way – the inevitable saloon music, ‘The Peyote Saloon‘, with the piano and banjos, the wonderfully outlandish ‘But Joe Say No‘, the two ‘Navajo Harmonica‘ source cues and the breathtakingly beautiful ‘The Demise of Father Rattigan.’

**Reynolds** with **Nicoletta** **Machiavelli** in “**Navajo** **Joe**.”

A kind of legend has built up about this score over the years due to numerous factors – no doubt the fact that it is such good music is the key one, and the use in other films has also helped, the fact that Morricone wrote the score (somewhat mysteriously) under the pseudonym Leo Nichols (and the possibly apocryphal story that Burt Reynolds was furious that the producers were too cheap to hire Morricone so got this Nichols fellow instead) but its peculiar release history also plays a part, with various LPs being issued through the 1960s and 70s which were all unsatisfactory for one reason or another, and the only CD release (in the mid-1990s) suffering from very poor sound. Now Film Score Monthly has put out the definitive release, of the whole score, plus 10 minutes of bonus tracks, in easily the best sound yet (though it is still certainly not problem-free). Even by their standards the liner notes are good, with a short essay by John Bender, track-by-track analysis from Lukas Kendall and Jim Wynorski and a brief note from the latter about his history with the score. Top-notch.”

http://www.movie-wave.net/titles/navajo_joe.html

Corbucci would also engage Morricione to score his next film, “The Hellbenders” (aka “I Crudeli“), as well as “The Great Silence” (aka “Il Grande Silenzio“), “The Mercenary,” “Companeros,” and “Sonny & Jed.”

Above, the original “Navajo Joe” theatrical poster served as inspiration for the fictional “Comanche Uprising” poster featuring Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.”

United Artists’ poster for North American Theatrical Release.

Spanish Poster Art for “**Navajo** **Joe**.”

DVD cover art for MGM’s North American release of “**Navajo** **Joe**.”

Danish VHS cover art for “**Navajo** **Joe**.”

Links:

Find a copy of the vinyl for “Navajo Joe” on Discogs here:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2291564-Leo-Nichols-Navajo-Joe-Original-Motion-Picture-Soundtrack?srsltid=AfmBOop41YLUm_uLZRlIGGAojqDo_HsZkiSEBbT2OPJ2rJNe4OXavfWO

Listen to the 13-minute “Navajo Joe Suite” here:

Morricone’s “Navajo Joe Suite” on YouTube.

Watch the trailer for “Navajo Joe” here:

“Navajo Joe” film trailer on YouTube.

Watch the train robbery sequence from “Navajo Joe” here:

Train Robbery Scene on YouTube.

Watch Quentin Tarantino talk about the fictional meeting between Sergio Corbucci and his “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood” protagonist, Rick Dalton, here:

Watch Netflix’s Sergio Corbucci documentary, “Django & Django,” featuring Quentin Tarantino here:

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/81519575

If you are in the Toronto area, say hi to my Filmography podcast co-host, Bjorn, and find a copy of “Navajo Joe” at “the last great video store” Bay Street Video here:

Toronto’s last great video store, located on Bay Street, just south of Bloor.

Outside of Toronto, purchase a blu-ray of “Navajo Joe” on Amazon here:

Podcast

New Podcast Episode Available Now: “Dog Eat Dog”

Post author By Reece Crothers
Post date September 20, 2024

“I’ve made some important films. ‘Dog Eat Dog’ is not one of them.” –Paul Schrader

**Paul Schrader** directs “**Dog Eat Dog**.”

On this week’s episode of The Filmography podcast, Bjorn and I take a deep dive into Paul Schrader’s wildest picture yet, 2016’s bonkers neo-noir “Dog Eat Dog.”

Nicolas Cage sees red in “**Dog Eat Dog.**”

The film marks the second collaboration between Schrader and Nicolas Cage following their mutual dissatisfaction with the removal of Schrader as director in the botched post-production process of finishing their first picture together, 2014’s “Dying of the Light.”

“**Dog** **Eat** **Dog**” author **Edward** **Bunker** as Mr. Blue (with **Michael** **Madsen**) in **Quentin** **Tarantino’s** debut film, “**Reservoir** **Dogs**.”

**Edward Bunker’s** novel, on which **Mathew** **Wilder’s** screenplay is based.

Adapted from (most of) the novel of the same name by Edward “Mr. Blue” Bunker (“Reservoir Dogs”) , the film features a totally unhinged supporting turn from Willem Dafoe, who was absolutely riveting 17 years earlier opposite Edward Furlong in the excellent Eddie Bunker adaptation “Animal Factory,” directed by Bunker’s fellow “Reservoir Dogs” alum, Steve “Mr. Pink” Buscemi (who also played a small part).

**Willem** **Dafoe** tripping out in “**Dog** **Eat** **Dog**.”

**Steve Buscemi** and **Edward Bunker** as co-stars in **Tarantino’s** “**Reservoir Dogs**.”

**Willem Dafoe** with **Eddie Furlong** in **Steve Buscemi’s** adaptation of **Edward Bunker**’s “**Animal Factory**.”

**Willem Dafoe** in “**Animal** **Factory**”

**Buscemi**, stepping behind the camera into the director’s role on his debut picture, “**Trees** **Lounge**.”

The devil in **Mr. Defoe**: “**Dog Eat Dog.**”

Apparently, after playing smaller parts in “Affliction” and “The Walker,” Dafoe told Schrader not to bother casting him again unless he had a truly interesting character for him to sink his famous teeth into. Dafoe got his wish (and more!) in a role that sees him at his most uninhibited, crazed, and funniest best.

**Dafoe** freaking even himself out with his extreme behaviour.

It’s not the first time that Dafoe and Cage have brought out the extreme in each other on screen before, having previously co-starred in David Lynch’s brilliantly deranged ode to “The Wizard of Oz,’ 1992’s “Wild At Heart.”

**Cage** and **Dafoe** in **Lynch’s** “**Wild** at **Heart**.”

In the lead role, Nicolas Cage demonstrates some of his best and worst thespian instincts. For instance, he spends much of the film impersonating Humphrey Bogart, an alternately amusing and distracting creative choice that he apparently surprised Schrader with on the day.

**Cage** in **Humphrey** **Bogart** mode.

The real thing: **Bogart** in his best and most iconic role in “**Casablanca**.”

Rounding out the trio of disorganized criminals at the heart of the film is Christopher Mathew Cook (“Treme,” “2 Guns”), who steals many scenes from his much more famous co-stars.

The three stooges: **Dafoe**, **Cage**, and **Cook** cosplay in their police uniforms.

**Cook** as “Diesel,” the muscle in **Cage’s** crew.

In particular, Cook is excellent in a scene with one of the few female characters in the film, played with great depth and tenderness (despite her limited screen time) by Louisa Krause (“Billions,” The Girlfriend Experience” series).

**Krause** and **Cook** in a standout scene.

With its midnight-black humour and outrageous violence, “Dog Eat Dog” is a lot of fun, and certainly a step up from the last Schrader–Cage flick, “Dying of the Light,” though it’s hardly a masterpiece.

Dafoe blows the audience away as Mad Dog in “Dog Eat Dog.”

If nothing else, it’s the shotgun-blast, who-gives-a-fuck picture that Schrader clearly needed to make before he was ready to return to his transcendental roots a year later for what is, arguably, his true masterpiece, “First Reformed.”

**Schrader** in press photo for “**Dog Eat Dog**.”

Schrader even makes a rare (and entertaining) cameo in the film as “El Greco” (The Greek), a decidedly non-Greek mobster.

For the complete breakdown of all the highs and lows of Schrader’s 20th picture (including a debate on the meaning of that mad ending!), you will have to check out the full Filmography podcast episode below:

Listen to The Filmography on Spotify (with above link), Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the trailer for “Dog Eat Dog” here:

“Dog Eat Dog” trailer on YouTube.

Watch an interview with Paul Schrader on “Dog Eat Dog” here:

Paul Schrader interview on YouTube.

Read Paul Schrader’s Guardian newspaper interview here:

“I’ve made some important films. ‘**Dog Eat Dog**‘ is not one of them.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/13/paul-schrader-ive-been-involved-in-important-films-dog-eat-dog-interview

Read The New Yorker’s review of “Dog Eat Dog” here:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-goofball-criminals-of-paul-schraders-dog-eat-dog

“**Dog** **Eat** **Dog**” Soundtrack album by **We Are Dark Angels**.

Listen to “Troy’s Theme” from the “Dog Eat Dog” soundtrack here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqgnyfb2po8

Purchase Edward Bunker’s novel here:

“Dog Eat Dog” at amazon.ca

Watch the trailer for “Animal Factory” here:

“Animal Factory” trailer on YouTube.

Watch the trailer for “Wild at Heart” here:

Trailer for “Wild at Heart” on YouTube.

Watch the trailer for “The Wizard of Oz” here:

Trailer for “The Wizard of Oz” on YouTube.

And before next week’s episode of The Filmography where Bjorn and I will take a deep dive into “First Reformed,” check out Paul Schrader’s definitive treatise on “Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dryer” here:

“Transcendental Style in Film” on amazon.ca

The Album:

Other Editions:

The Film:

The Director:

Biography

Selected filmography

References

External links

Posters:

Links:

Additional Releases:

The Film:

The Director:

Early life

Film career

Early films

The Battle of Algiers

Late career

Death

Pontecorvo’s Filmography:

Feature films

Documentary films

Short films

Further reading:

External links

Posters:

Links:

The Album:

Earlier Album Pressings:

The Film:

(Frank Wolff’s) Death:

Additional Film Stills:

The Director:

Biography

Early career

Later career and legacy

Filmography

Director and writer

Actor

References

Film Posters:

Links:

Other Pressings:

The Film:

The Director:

Title Sequence:

Posters:

Links:

Links: