The Classic '60s Western That Influenced Django Unchained Is Streaming For Free

Sometimes a mood is enough to turn a movie into a standout piece of cinema. Sergio Corbucci's highly influential and oft-revered 1966 spaghetti Western, "Django" (now streaming for free on Pluto TV), has plenty of that. It could be argued that the bleak and cynical atmosphere is the true star of the picture, prevailing over its scattered plot, oversimplified characters, and sensational violence. Tailing on the success of the great (if not the greatest) Sergio Leone opuses, 1964's "A Fistful of Dollars" (the film that Clint Eastwood credits for changing his career), and 1965's "For a Few Dollars More," Corbucci's "Django" managed to capitalize on the genre's wide-grown popularity with an effort that was as unflinchingly brutal as curiously innovative at the time.

Shot on a shoestring budget in Italy and Spain, "Django" was a commercial hit that launched Corbucci's unofficial "Mud and Blood" trilogy, giving Franco Nero his breakout role. Nero reprised it once in the only official sequel, 1987's "Django Strikes Again," but evoked it in spirit a few times throughout his career — most famously in Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece, "Django Unchained," which was influenced by Corbucci's original in the first place.

Due to its excessive and graphic gore, "Django" was banned in the U.K. and a few other countries for nearly three decades (eventually getting a release on video in 1993). In retrospect, those uncompromising choices earned the movie a cult status, keeping its unrelenting nature and no-holds-barred approach intact for nearly 60 years. But, we'd argue, it's the untamed, desolate beauty of its direction and cinematography (along with Nero's magnetic charisma) that kept "Django" in the pantheon of immortal Westerns.

The film opens with a striking image: a gritty and lone gunslinger, Django (Franco Nero), dressed in a Union soldier uniform and dragging a wooden coffin in the mud on the U.S.-Mexico border while Luis Bacalov's balladic theme roars in the background. An iconic intro (that Tarantino borrowed along with the titular name) immediately sets the mood, followed closely by a bloody encounter. As Mexican bandits are tying up a mixed-race sex worker, Maria (Loredana Nusciak), and planning to whip her to death, Django quietly observes from a distance. Then, a group of Red Shirts, under the command of ex-Confederate Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo), intervenes and massacres the gang. Maria is left alive but only to be crucified by the vicious supremacists when Django steps in, shoots them dead, and saves her.

Together, the two head to the town close by, populated only by sex workers, a bartender, and a devout Christian who turns out to be a spy. The place serves as a barren and dilapidated neutral zone between Jackson's group and the Mexican revolutionaries who arecurrently at war with each other.

When Django arrives, he's caught in the middle of the conflict, but he's got a reason to be there. He's out for revenge — with a plan to avenge his dead lover, murdered by Jackson — yet when the Major pays him a visit with an entourage, Django spares him after killing his men. Shooting him "would be taking advantage," he remarks. Instead, he tells him to gather all his soldiers and come back for a proper fight. As we later learn, Django also aims to get rich in the process of eliminating Jackson and his bunch, and he needs the Major alive for that. General Rodriguez (Jose Bodalo), the leader of the revolutionaries, whom he happens to know first-hand, is also a key player in the heist.

Based on the plot, it's not hard to realize that racism, revenge, injustice, and excessive violence (among other familiar Western themes) are the cornerstones of Sergio Corbucci's film. We're reassured of that multiple times, most memorably by the Mexican General who introduces the titular character to his men with the line: "This is Django, a thief, a murderer, and an outlaw, but he means more to me than a brother." Django is no hero or saint, and he gets his comeuppance for his sins along with everybody else.

Although the screenplay becomes more disorderly the further we get in the story, it's largely redeemed by Corbucci's stylishly pioneering direction, Enzo Barboni's raw and evocative cinematography, and Luis Bacalov's heart-achingly beautiful score. Words matter less in "Django" than the sheer scale of its powerful images — often contrasting flat, listless dialogue — because Corbucci (who co-wrote the script with his brothers Bruno and Franco Rossetti) prefers to speak to us through action and savagery. "Django" is filled with both (from rapid gunfights to mass murders to gory mutilations), and they're arguably the most vivid and impressive bits that solely focus on delivering a harsh and dark Western exempt from any romanticizing.

Combined with Franco Nero's gravitas and an apt supporting cast — Angel Alvarez's constantly worried and subservient bartender is a hoot as far as the film's black humor goes — "Django" remains a flawed but exceptionally sturdy and salient piece of Italian cinema. No wonder that it spawned over 30 unofficial sequels after its release, as well as numerous efforts from various filmmakers, like Tarantino, who tried to imitate or pay homage to its singular style. It may not have reached the lofty position that some of Sergio Leone's must-watch spaghetti Westerns hold in the genre, but it's still an undeniable classic that has stood the test of time.