Sergio Corbucci

Picture a vast, muddy flatlands. There’s nothing to be seen out in the distance except for a man, who’s close enough so you can see his blue civil war rags under the pale midday sky. As he comes closer with his faltering step, you notice that he’s dragging something behind him. A coffin.
When one thinks of the spaghetti western one may think of Clint Eastwood, bad English dubs, and maybe Sergio Leone: Director of the man with no name Trilogy among other things. What might not be thought of is the more influential, more interesting director, the other Sergio. Sergio Corbucci.
If you’ve ever seen a Quentin Tarantino movie you’ve seen the influence of Sergio Corbucci. Quentin Tarantino is credited as a groundbreaking filmmaker, when in reality; Corbucci broke most of that ground over 40 years ago. For example, Tarantinos latest film: Django Unchained was actually a prequel to a Corbucci film, simply titled Django. Another example, in the film Reservoir Dogs there’s a scene where Vincent Vega cuts the ear off of a police officer. This scene is a direct reference to the original Django film, in which Some Mexican Banditos cut the ear off of a KKK member.
Corbucci was born and raised in Rome, Italy where he decided he’d become a businessman. He graduated College with a degree in economics, but got bored of it and switched to film. At film school, he met actor Franco Nero and an inseparable friendship was born. Nero was later quoted saying: “If one of us was a woman, we would be lovers”.
Corbucci was the first Director to look at the Spanish Desert and think: “American West”. He was filming a gladiator movie in Spain and he realized that it looked shockingly similar to the American Westerns he’d been watching.
Franco Nero was also from Rome, and he grew up with the intention of becoming and actor. He never got his big break until he was cast as “Django” in the original Django film. This ended up being both a blessing and a curse, as he never released another film in the European market without it being called Django to cash in on the success of the original film. Nero made a Cameo in Quentin Tarantinos Django.
Django is about a coffin dragging Gunslinger who ends up in a town full of Mexican Banditos and White supremacists. It was incredibly popular all over Europe, but why did it stay relatively unheard of in the US? Is it because it was banned in over five countries? It holds the record for the most deaths in a five-minute period. Spoiler alert: the coffin that Django drags around has a Gatling gun in it.
Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone were friends. However, Corbucci did direct the first spaghetti western, and not only launched the genre, he influenced filmmakers well into the 21st century.