The actor as international cult icon: Franco Nero
|
Introduction
In his classic study of the Italian western, Christopher Frayling has identified the importance of the “foundational variant”[1], by which European popular genres use a successful template to proliferate additional and related titles during peak periods of popularity. One of the key case-studies Frayling employs in his analysis is Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 western Django, which starred the (then) unknown actor Franco Nero as a lone gunman who wreaks vengeance on warring clans in a desolate town. Employing the socio-historical perspective that later theorists have also adopted in discussion of cult cinema traditions, Frayling argues that the phenomenal success of Django was due not only to its excessive violence (which as Austin Fisher argues elsewhere in the journal, led to it being censored and even banned in some territories), but also because Nero’s icy portrayal of an immoral, profit–oriented anti-hero impacted with Italian audiences experiencing rapid social change as part of the 1960s economic miracle. For Frayling, Django, which begins with the image of gunslinger (Nero) dragging a coffin into a shanty town, and ends with a vendetta led massacre in a cemetery, reveals a narrative device that can the described as the “Servant of Two Masters” plot. [2] Here, the gunslinger reveals both an amoral and alienated composition, whereby he attempts to exploit rivalries between local gangs in order to maximise his own potential for financial gain. |
Although Frayling notes that traditional markers of Italian stability (such as the family) are replicated in these classic western formats, they either function as an inhibiting factor to the resolution of conflict these texts detail, or else as an emotional support network unavailable to the ‘rootless’ anti-hero. In this respect, Frayling argues that Django’s impact can be registered at both a domestic level (where the newly enfranchised industrial worker was also increasingly having to choose between competing loyalties), whilst the film’s influence on the international stage draws out interesting subcultural readings of race and ideological resistance that non-western viewers have attributed to the text. In purely industrial terms, the impact of Django can be deduced from the endless sequels and spin-offs that Frayling charts in Italy after 1966. Not only did the movie propel Nero into European stardom, but it even managed to eclipse the reputation of the more mainstream work the actor has subsequently appeared in.
For Maggie Günsberg, the impact of Nero’s role as Django can further be measured at both a psychic, as well as a socio-economic level. Writing in the volume Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre, Günsberg argues that the film not only reflected altering industrial work patterns in Italy, but also changing conceptions of masculinity, which were often mediated by the unconscious sexual processes evident in such genre patterns. Indeed, as the author notes, although Nero retained spaghetti western longevity through later appearances in films such as Tempo di massacre (AKA Colt Concert, Lucio Fulci, 1966) and Corbucci’s Il mercenario (AKA A Professional Gun, 1968), his increasingly brutalised persona in these works fed into wider fears surrounding a loss of phallic potency in the increasingly technocratic and urbanized Italian sphere.
If this fear surrounding blurred masculine boundaries is reflected in Italian genre imagery as Günsberg suggests, then it is also reproduced in the concept of the ‘Old Man/Young Boy’ dyad that proves central to her discussion here. Here, masculinity is given over to melancholia, which centers on a nostalgia for earlier patterns (and paternal) figures of virility. One of the most striking cinematic studies of this motif, can be found in Nero’s film Keoma (1976), which was directed by the actor’s long term collaborator Enzo G. Castellari. This revenge-based narrative features Nero as a mixed race hero, who returns to his hometown rescue a heavily pregnant, but plague infected woman, whilst also reflecting on the fallacy of the once potent community. The film offers a fascinating commentary on Italian masculine traumas of the era (that Nero would also reprise in the ‘rogue cop’ roles he also completed during the 1970s). The focus for these melancholic mediations occur via Keoma’s relationship with two older paternal figures: his surrogate father William Shannon (William Berger), who rescued the protagonist following the violent death of his native mother, and a former negro slave George (played with stunning brutality by Woody Strode), whose own racial difference led him to train Keoma with the fighting skills that will eventually defeat his opponents.
The film uses an innovative structure of flashbacks to highlight the disjunctures between idealised and actualised/degraded images of paternal masculinity that circulate within the film. For instance, although spurned by his step brothers for his racial otherness, Keoma returns to the Shannon homestead to rescue a community of excluded plague victims being held captive on the borders of the town. The domestic setting of Keoma’s home evokes a number of flashbacks that reveal the young outcast being tended by Berger’s character, whom is shown in a potent and authoritative light (via an idealised montage of riding and shooting scenes). Castellari here creates impossible temporal timeframes to reveal the intensity of Keoma’s recollections, by having his adult character looking in to observe himself as a youngster being beaten by his antagonistic siblings before the camera pans around to reveal the idealised image of Berger who rescues and tends the native child. At this point, the adult Keoma also turns around to find the paternal agent behind him, but now reduced to an aged shadow of his former glory. Rather than functioning as an isolated example, this unsettling and cynical end shot initialises a pattern whereby the central protagonist’s recollections revel in a degree of trauma (from childhood beatings and memories of his mother’s slaughter), which confirm Maggie Gunsberg’s view that in the Italian western flashbacks not only explain characters motivations and history, but, importantly, illustrate how the “family can be a source of suffering for masculinity.”[3] These inserts also function to reveal the disjuncture between idealised images of the phallic virility that circulate across the racial divide. Thus, Keoma’s nostalgic recollections of the once potent Shannon also complimented and compounded by flashbacks which depict Strode’s character training the young hero in combat, before the present tense revelations reveal George as a feeble drunk unable to defend himself from the frequent racist attacks he is subjected to.
Whilst Keoma is in many respects an influential foundational variant to match the earlier importance of Django, Castellari’s film also provides a crucial bridge to the 1970s Italian crime thrillers that the director also completed with Franco Nero. These texts replaced the tensions around virility and vendetta synonymous with the 1960s western, with the more introspective and nihilistic fears that surrounded Italy’s so-called ‘Years of Lead.’ While being clearly grounded in the social concerns of the day, these works once again also portray a complex and contradictory construction of masculinity, which clearly cast the actor in a range of controversial but intriguing cult texts.
In the following interview, Franco Nero reflects on the continued controversy of key cult texts such as Django, as well as commenting on possible readings of the text’s social and racial politics. The actor also reflects on his later 1970s cop roles, as the differing political and social interpretations that these oft controversial cinematic narratives have generated. The interview was conducted across two sittings (in Rome and London), while Tarantino’s recent Django Unchained (2012) was in production. Tarantino’s recent reboot of the classic western is itself testimony to the longevity of both Nero’s iconic performance and the power of Corbucci’s chilling original vision, both of which have ensured that Django never dies.
Xavier Mendik: I just wanted to start by briefly discussing how the success of Corbucci’s Django affected both your career and subsequent domestic film roles.
Franco Nero: Well, I think Django was very successful because, first of all, it was very original. It was something new to do a western in the mud and with such a very dark atmosphere. It was almost like a Japanese Samurai film. There was a great deal of curiosity to see a film like that, especially after the success of film like Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964). I will never forget that time when I decided to accept the role of ‘Django’. One day Sergio Corbucci called Leone to ask him to come to the set to see the actor he had chosen. Leone came onto the set – I’ll never forget how he was walking in the mud – and he looked at me and he said (to Corbucci) “I think you’re right. Well, I’ll tell you, this young guy will be a winner.”
Although now considered classics in their own right, many of the Italian westerns were rebuked by the Hollywood film industry during the 1960s, who saw them as mangling distinctly American themes. Did you encounter this at all?
Yes, I can tell you a very interesting story here. I met John Wayne a few times and I can tell you this story, because it’s terrible! He once looked at me and said, “They tell me that you are doing spaghetti westerns?” I said, “Yes.” He went on, “When you choose a horse, what do you do? Do you choose a big horse?” I said, “Well, yes!” He said, “Never choose a big horse.” I said “Why?” He continued “Because if you do, the audience will be looking at the horse and not at you!” So the idea was to choose a small horse to make yourself look more important. It was very funny that advice and I was very surprised that such a big American star was so concerned by these things!
Indeed!Christopher Frayling famously termed Django as a “foundation formula”[4] within Italian popular cinema, as it established the theme of the hero as “phantom vagabond”[5] that subsequent westerns would emulate. Would you agree with this estimation?
Yes, it is clear that the movie has been unique. As you know, there were many more movies that took the name of “Django” in their titles, which were not actually Django films at all. I did only one Django movie during the 1960s, and then after twenty years, I did another one – but they kept on using that name for other movies, on and on and on! There was even the mafia movie Il giorno della civetta (AKA The Day of the Owl Damiano Damiani, 1968), based on Leonardo Sciascia’s crime novel which was retitled as Django with the Mafia, even though it didn’t even have a western setting! So what you found was that the title ‘Django’ came to describe not one film, but a whole era of Italian cinema. This happened not just in Italy, but all over the world. When I did Il cacciatore di squali (AKA Shark Hunter, 1979) with Enzo Castellari, the movie was released under the title of Django and the Sharks in West Germany! So many movies used the title of ‘Django’ that I just used to say “That is their problem, not mine!”
One of the incredible features of this film is that it travelled so well internationally, almost becoming a statement on the 1960s, rather than just an Italian one.
Yes. I will never forget also that when I was shooting Camelot I asked to screen a print of Django in Los Angeles, at Warner Bros. I did the screening - and everybody came! They were all there: Terence Young, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman – all those stars who were working at Warner Bros. at the time came to my screening. They were all shocked by the movie. In particular, I remember that Terence Young wanted to see the movie three times. That’s the reason why I feel he did Soleil rouge (AKA Red Sun ,1971) many years later, with Toshirō Mifune and Alain Delon. I will never forget that there was a small company where Jack Nicholson was also involved, and they actually wanted to buy Django for America, but it had already been sold to somebody else. But it was not just in America. Do you know that Django was even number one at the box office in Japan? Franco Nero was number one! I will never forget: Franco Nero, then Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Paul Newman – I just could not believe it! It was sensational so this was a movie that spoke to a great many nationalities during those years.
Exactly, and this links very much with a question I wanted to ask. A great deal has been written on the increasingly political role that Italian genre cinema had in the 1960s and 1970s. Do you see Django’s popularity as in anyway linked to this trend?
Yes, I think that this kind of movie was mainly orientated towards workers, towards people who work all day under a boss. Perhaps in a factory, or perhaps in a field, but always under a boss, and for just one day those workers would love to go into the office and say to the boss, – “Hey Man, from now on everything will be different!” The workers would therefore identify with the leading actor in the movie. In the American western the leading actor was the hero, like John Wayne, and the Indians were the bad ones. But in the Italian western the hero was not the same, he was not really a hero, he was more of a son-of-a-bitch! This is something completely different. So there has been a great revolution in the genre of westerns, and I think a movie like Django appealed to those countries undergoing revolution! I will never forget that I once went to South America and at the hotel they did not enter my real name, they just put ‘Django’ on the hotel register! It was the same in Germany and in Japan, in many other countries around the world the term seemed so appeal to a rebellious spirit, to the non-conformist. Even now, every time I go to Germany to work, I am greeted with “Hey, Django! Hey Django!”
That is a fascinating, and incredible answer. Two things spring to mind from what you have said. Firstly, the ‘workers’ affiliation with Django seems to transcend national and racial boundaries. Secondly, Italy has that strong tradition of Marxist agitation (via Gramsci and others), and I wonder if this helped a political reading of the film?
In Corbucci’s movies I think that there has always been a political element. Let’s not forget that even Carlo Lizzani worked with Pasolini as well as doing westerns. All the left-wing directors did westerns. Giulio Questi, for example, and top directors like Tinto Brass, many of these directors all wanted to do a western. But as you say, this may well be do with the film’s political factors too. When I did Il mercenario (AKA A Professional Gun, 1968) and Companeros (AKA Los Companeros, 1970), they were all political movies that built on the Django myth. If you think very carefully, the Italian westerns were all political movies.
Absolutely. I am also mindful of the fact that the 1960s for Italy, particularly in the North, was a period of rapid economic change. Work patterns changed, and the status of the worker changed.
Oh, absolutely. We are talking about 1968, you know.
And I am wondering whether the ‘The Man with No Name’, actually represents ‘The Worker with No Loyalty’ by this I mean economic relations have destroyed their traditional affinity to family and social networks.[6]
The worker with no loyalty, that’s nice! And in a way you are correct, as I was saying to you before. These films were about the workers, and the worker is like ‘The Man with No Name’. We never know who the workers are, they have no names.
That is very interesting. In terms of Companeros and A Professional Gun, both contain very flamboyant portrayals of masculine virility. I have also noted this in your 1970s work such as Autostop rosso sangue (AKA Hitch Hike, 1976), where once again your heroic or anti-heroic males are never one-dimensional, but many different facets to them.
Well, I always try to change the way of acting the hero, and I have to tell you that I owe it to an English actor – Laurence Olivier. I once had the luck to work with him in the movie called The Last Days of Pompeii (Peter R. Hunt), and I think it was back in 1983. He was already old and quite sick by then. He looked at me and he said: “Well, you know that you have the body and face of a hero. You can play the hero all your life. But you have to do a movie a year, and just be sure that that movie is very successful. Alternatively, you can be an actor, and you can take risks and chances. There will be ups and downs, but in the long run, you will get all the rewards.” I think those words were very important to me. That is the reason why I am an actor who plays all kinds of movies. I have played everything. I’ve done movies for children, political movies, thrillers, love stories, westerns, action movies… I try to do everything, even now. I have a lot of fun. Recently, for example, I went to Calabria. I was doing a movie called Calibro dieci, it means Ten Calibre. It is an independent movie, and I liked my part. He is the boss of the entire crime organisation. He is the padrino (Godfather). But I like the way we play the character because he has a hole in his throat, and originally he was supposed to speak with one of those voice-box amplifiers pressed to the neck. But I objected, saying “Why do I have to do that on top of all the other difficulties of acting?” Instead, I decided to speak in a certain manner. (Nero imitates with the strained and husky voice perfected for the role). I think that is the good thing about acting. The other year I played the part of Saint Augustine, it is the part of a very old man, and I loved it. So as I said, I really like to change. I can go from a B-movie to a top-quality author movie. All through my career I have worked like that.
As you say, such an amazing range of productions. So clearly you are somebody who is drawn to projects that have a degree of creative freedom and I am particularly interested in the creative collaborations derived from your work with Enzo G. Castellari.
Enzo and I have done more than ten movies together. We have always worked so very well together, but you know that on the first occasion I did not want to work with him! You may have read about this story. There was another director who spoke very badly of him. He insisted that Enzo was not a good director and had nothing but criticism for him. In fact, he was so negative about Castellari that it had the opposite effect on me. The very next day I phoned Castellari to tell him that I wanted to do a movie with him. It was a real crime to run down Castellari! With Enzo I think we work so very well because there is an ambiance between us, we understand each other. He likes beauty on the screen and he knows that the leading man has to give something to the audience.
I think you are right about Castellari. He is somebody who appreciates the glory of actors on screen. He understands how good it has to look on the screen, but he is also somebody who appreciates narrative complexity. I am thinking about Keoma. There are many spaghetti westerns, but there are very few philosophical ones…
An (economic?) miracle in the mud: Franco Nero in the brutal Keoma
Well, you know that Keoma was a miracle! With Enzo, there are two movies of his that are miracles. One was Shark Hunter, which had no script, and then Keoma… which practically had no script either! I will never forget, I was shooting 21 Hours at Munich (William A. Graham, 1976) together with William Holden. One day Enzo came to Munich with Manolo Bolognini and he asked me if I wanted to do a western for him. I thought -Who is he? Where is the script? He just said he had an idea and they were writing, but we did not like the story too much. So we started working a little together. We wanted to do a movie with an old witch and a young pregnant woman. The pregnant woman is very important to the film in an allegorical sense. It would be full of strange things, altogether a strange movie….
Almost gothic in a way…
…Yes, gothic. Also, we had Johnny Loffredo an American actor in the cast, who was bilingual. So one day he said “Why don’t we do Shakespeare?” He suggested the three brothers should stand before Keoma when he is tied to the cross and do a do a Shakespearean monologue. So it is a film with many levels.
One of these levels is the film’s examination of racial themes, which is made explicit by your own performance as the mixed race central lead and also by Woody Strode’s incredible performance as the former African American slave George.
Woody was incredible, and as for the race themes, absolutely, they were important. Look, let me tell you something else about Keoma. One of my best friends in America was Clair Huffaker, who died in 1990. He wrote one of the best westerns that I have ever read in my life. This was called The Cowboy and the Cossack, and there was a particular line where he says – “A man who is truly a king never dies.” Anyway, I copied that line in Keoma at the end, by saying, “A man who is born free never dies”. Enzo just said, “I love it, just say it.” That is an example of how we work together. Woody’s character has already died, but the final line is spoken by an Indian talking about freedom. That is a very political work!
In that respect, the use of Strode in such a political movie is particularly interesting because of his existing American star persona. The scene where he refuses to die however many times he is shot and stabbed by his racist oppressors is possibly the most powerful race statement I can remember in a cult movie.
Yes, I feel that Woody really appreciated how he was treated in Italy. I also have to say that Enzo and I have always tried to include race themes in our westerns, as it is so important to the genre. You may even know our last one, Jonathan degli orsi (AKA Jonathan of the Bears [Enzo G. Castellari], 1993) also has the theme of a white outsider taken in by the Indians and was very supportive of their tribes. Originally, we wanted to shoot the film earlier in America, but everyone said “No, no!” They said, “Forget all about westerns, no one want to hear about them or the Indians.” But of course, once Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1991) came out, suddenly they changed their position, and westerns were very welcome again! Anyway, without the funding, we made Jonathan of the Bears with very little money in Russia. We also invented most of the scenes, which is what Enzo and I do best. When we gave the film to America to be sold, they cut the movie by about 23 minutes. All of the dialogues, all of the politics, a lot of race themes, all gone. There was just nothing! I was so upset.
Almost incredible as these politics was the soundtrack to Keoma, which had a real counter-cultural feel to it.
Well to me, De Angelis is the boss! I said to him when we were doing Keoma, “I want Leonard Cohen!”, and this was exactly the kind of soundtrack he prepared. So it was a great cooperation. It was fantastic. We always did wonderful work together. I did the same when we did La polizia incrimina la legge assolve (AKA The Marseilles Connection [Enzo G. Castellari], 1973), I told the brothers “I want Quincy Jones!”, and again the soundtrack that they prepared was perfect.
Freeze-framed fatality: Franco Nero's death scene from the finale of The Marseilles Connection
It is interesting you mentioned The Marseilles Connection because the final line from Keoma of ‘a man who is free never dies’ does make me think about your Italian films of the 1970. Here, frequently your characters do perish, which makes them very interesting companion pieces to the western genre.
Yes, as you say this is the ending to movies like High Crime. But also movies like Il cittadino si ribella (AKA Street Law AKA The Rebellion of the Citizen [Enzo G. Castellari], 1974) and also Il giorno del cobra (AKA Day of the Cobra [Enzo G. Castellari], 1980), these were all very political movies. For example, we made a number of comments about the sensitive issue in Italian policing in High Crime. If you are a law-enforcer and you have to shoot somebody, you (can) go to jail, because you have to be able to show that the other guy shot first, or to prove that you or others were in real danger. I know this, because I have so many friends who are policemen, and they told me all of these things.
What is so interesting about these films is that they often blur moral boundaries with very interesting results.
Well, perhaps you know that the original title for High Crime in Italian was La polizia incrimina, la legge assolve – meaning The Police Incriminate but the Law Absolves. In Italy, if you are too honest you have problems! If you are a crook, you live better (laughs). I can tell you, because I have so many stories relating to justice. It was the same thing in the film The Citizen Rebels. The storyline of the film is about a guy who goes to the law authorities to explain that he has been assaulted, but he feels that he is just talking to a wall. So the best thing in Italy is just to have nothing to do with the justice system. This is the reason why there are so many people who exercise their own justice in Italy, especially in the south!
It is very interesting also, you referred to the South, but in all your films, the westerns, the crime movies, the thrillers there is always theme of vendetta. I am wondering whether you feel these films are drawing on intrinsically Italian themes?
Well, of course, the theme of the vendetta has a long tradition in Italy and it is very strong, particularly if you or your family have been harassed or abused. This leads to a vendetta in the end. You can try to go through the law, but if you do, then you can become an outlaw. In order to settle things you have to become an outlaw. Otherwise you will always be in pain and suffering. You know how many people commit suicide, because they know that they are not guilty, but they have been wrongfully convicted.
That is a very interesting point, and why I raise this is because the international reception of movies like Street Law squarely dismissed the Castellari cop films as rip-offs of Death Wish or Dirty Harry.
Wait, wait! We did The Citizen Rebels about two or three months before Death Wish. So it was definitely not a copy!
I agree, precisely, but the American press reviews are very interesting, because they even said that the De Angelis themes were rip-offs of American-style music.[7] But to me, these films talk very directly to the Italian social and political concerns of that infamous decade of lead.
I do agree with that. Absolutely. Remember we are talking about the period of 1968, with the rebellion of all the students and the workers. These feelings of revolution were still alive in the 1970s. The feeling was very strong in those years. There were all sorts of other movies that I did, with Damiano Damiani, for example, they were the same – they were very political. For instance, I did a movie about prison, I don’t know if you have seen it: L'istruttoria è chiusa: dimentichi (AKA The Case is Closed, Forget It! [Damiano Damiani], 1971). It was a fantastic movie. It was about this man goes to jail by mistake, and what he sees in jail is unbelievable. The boss, the Mafia, corruption, death, everything. It was all about institutional injustice as so many of these fine Italian crime films were. I don’t know if you have ever seen one of the top Italian movies about military life. It was directed by Marco Bellocchio and was called Victory March (AKA Marcia trionfale, 1976). It is a masterpiece about life in a barracks. You should see that movie and you will understand that it is an incredible political movie. Also, the film A Flower in his Mouth (AKA Gente di rispetto, 1975), which Luigi Zampa did in Sicily with Jennifer O’Neill and James Mason, that is another great political movie. I mean, there were so many in the 1970s. Also, a confessional movie called The Chief of Police (AKA Confessione di un commissario di polizia al procuratore della repubblica, AKA Confessions of a Police Commissioner to the District Attorney, 1971). That is another great political movie, by Damiani. I am saying that it was the right moment in Italy for so many of these movies. During this time, popular movies became political movies. Now they are being rediscovered. Now they are saying that they are masterpieces, but they did not say so at the time.
Cult agitation: the strike sequence from The Marseilles Connection
Rightfully so! It is also interesting that your films have a distinct visual vocabulary to their political concerns. I am thinking of High Crime, which we know in England as The Marseilles Connection. It has that incredible scene where your character has to arrest the killer who is hiding in the middle of an industrial strike.
Oh yes, that was a strong scene, a very strong scene. Because at that moment, the workers were all united against the police, they were the enemies of the police. And I said to the Union leader in the scene “There is a killer among you!” and then the whole mass of workers parts to peacefully let me pass. I certainly remember that line. And in a way, the scene shows that we were being sympathetic to the strikers in the way we shot them.
This is why I am puzzled that the international reception of your Italian cop films seems to follow Pauline Kael’s reading of Dirty Harry, in that these are viewed as unapologetically reactionary films.
Well, really we never thought about these films in such terms. Though, it is not just the American press. Sometimes critics said the same thing here in Italy. I will never forget, Gian Maria Volonté, who as you will know was very left-wing, went to see High Crime and he loved it![8] He saw it as anti-establishment. So for us, I don’t think we should classify the films too hastily. It is wrong to say that they were right-wing, I can say absolutely that was not our intention.
That reference to Volonte is extremely interesting, as the polizieschi often feature left-wing or disaffected outsiders whose function is to help the Citizen Rebel. One such character being Tommy (Giancarlo Prete), the disenfranchised student from Street Law.
I agree, and say once again that these were very much left and not just right-wing films. The films were about workers and about students, which is why these groups feature prominently in these movies. I think it is wrong to say categorically which side these films were on. We just wanted to make films showing what was happening in that period and often left and right became confused!
Although not strictly a crime movie, you also did some other very interesting thrillers in the 1970s, including Hitch Hike, which kind of got overlooked as a film. Why do you think people were not more enthusiastic about this film?
You think people were not enthusiastic about it? The reviews were actually good, but yes, it could have been a far bigger movie. Do you remember John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), with Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds? I think that Hitch Hike is that sort of movie. The film is based on an American book, and I think that it is a very strong movie in that American vein. It shows how life can change in a second, just by meeting the wrong person. Life is a question of luck, sometimes, you may not think so, but it really is just luck. Because somebody can be the strongest man, and then one day he finds he carries a cancer, and in three days he’s dead. You can be the fittest and just have an accident and die on the spot. It is a question of luck. If you meet the right people, your life can be fantastic, but if you meet the wrong people, your life can be destroyed. This is the story of Hitch Hike! In Hitch Hike, this couple meets the wrong person, a dangerous person and their lives are destroyed, completely.
Why it remains such a powerful movie is because of the brooding tensions and frisson between yourself and David Hess’ character.
Well, David Hess, I chose him for the film. You know how? I’ll tell you, and this is very funny. David Hess played a small role in 21 Hours at Munich. There were two producers, and they were very miserly, they really did not want to spend money on actors. They asked me, “We know that you work often in America, and over there an actor costs nothing…’”So all of a sudden David Hess occurred to me. I called him and he got on the plane immediately. I thought that he was just right for the role.
I agree, but the moral complexity in the film lies in the dark alterations in your character that Hess provokes.
Well, the question Hitch Hike asks is how can an intellectual become a complete killer? My part was that of a writer, a photographer and journalist. I was an intellectual in the film, but I became a total killer, a brute, an outlaw. My character did not become a killer in the active physical sense, but he became complicit. He was completely changed. So you are right it is very complex in its morality.
And possibly that’s why so many of your Italian performances in these movies remain so potent, because they exploit a sense of moral ambiguity that was in the air at the time.
You know that I have been in about 180 works. Some 90% of these have been in cinema. And for some reason the kinds of movies we have been discussing, just will not die.
But all the other movies, somehow you just forget about them. But these movies, they carry on and on. They come back. Just two years ago, Keoma was on all the newsstands in Italy. Keoma, Django and Companeros. All the time, there are features on them. Even now Django can be seen on TV. ‘Django’ never dies. Twice, or even three times a month, on Italian TV they still show Django. It is the same on German TV and in South America. Everywhere they keep showing this movie all the time. And now with the new Tarantino movie, the legend will go on. So in this way Django never dies!
Oh yes, that was a strong scene, a very strong scene. Because at that moment, the workers were all united against the police, they were the enemies of the police. And I said to the Union leader in the scene “There is a killer among you!” and then the whole mass of workers parts to peacefully let me pass. I certainly remember that line. And in a way, the scene shows that we were being sympathetic to the strikers in the way we shot them.
This is why I am puzzled that the international reception of your Italian cop films seems to follow Pauline Kael’s reading of Dirty Harry, in that these are viewed as unapologetically reactionary films.
Well, really we never thought about these films in such terms. Though, it is not just the American press. Sometimes critics said the same thing here in Italy. I will never forget, Gian Maria Volonté, who as you will know was very left-wing, went to see High Crime and he loved it![8] He saw it as anti-establishment. So for us, I don’t think we should classify the films too hastily. It is wrong to say that they were right-wing, I can say absolutely that was not our intention.
That reference to Volonte is extremely interesting, as the polizieschi often feature left-wing or disaffected outsiders whose function is to help the Citizen Rebel. One such character being Tommy (Giancarlo Prete), the disenfranchised student from Street Law.
I agree, and say once again that these were very much left and not just right-wing films. The films were about workers and about students, which is why these groups feature prominently in these movies. I think it is wrong to say categorically which side these films were on. We just wanted to make films showing what was happening in that period and often left and right became confused!
Although not strictly a crime movie, you also did some other very interesting thrillers in the 1970s, including Hitch Hike, which kind of got overlooked as a film. Why do you think people were not more enthusiastic about this film?
You think people were not enthusiastic about it? The reviews were actually good, but yes, it could have been a far bigger movie. Do you remember John Boorman’s Deliverance (1972), with Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds? I think that Hitch Hike is that sort of movie. The film is based on an American book, and I think that it is a very strong movie in that American vein. It shows how life can change in a second, just by meeting the wrong person. Life is a question of luck, sometimes, you may not think so, but it really is just luck. Because somebody can be the strongest man, and then one day he finds he carries a cancer, and in three days he’s dead. You can be the fittest and just have an accident and die on the spot. It is a question of luck. If you meet the right people, your life can be fantastic, but if you meet the wrong people, your life can be destroyed. This is the story of Hitch Hike! In Hitch Hike, this couple meets the wrong person, a dangerous person and their lives are destroyed, completely.
Why it remains such a powerful movie is because of the brooding tensions and frisson between yourself and David Hess’ character.
Well, David Hess, I chose him for the film. You know how? I’ll tell you, and this is very funny. David Hess played a small role in 21 Hours at Munich. There were two producers, and they were very miserly, they really did not want to spend money on actors. They asked me, “We know that you work often in America, and over there an actor costs nothing…’”So all of a sudden David Hess occurred to me. I called him and he got on the plane immediately. I thought that he was just right for the role.
I agree, but the moral complexity in the film lies in the dark alterations in your character that Hess provokes.
Well, the question Hitch Hike asks is how can an intellectual become a complete killer? My part was that of a writer, a photographer and journalist. I was an intellectual in the film, but I became a total killer, a brute, an outlaw. My character did not become a killer in the active physical sense, but he became complicit. He was completely changed. So you are right it is very complex in its morality.
And possibly that’s why so many of your Italian performances in these movies remain so potent, because they exploit a sense of moral ambiguity that was in the air at the time.
You know that I have been in about 180 works. Some 90% of these have been in cinema. And for some reason the kinds of movies we have been discussing, just will not die.
But all the other movies, somehow you just forget about them. But these movies, they carry on and on. They come back. Just two years ago, Keoma was on all the newsstands in Italy. Keoma, Django and Companeros. All the time, there are features on them. Even now Django can be seen on TV. ‘Django’ never dies. Twice, or even three times a month, on Italian TV they still show Django. It is the same on German TV and in South America. Everywhere they keep showing this movie all the time. And now with the new Tarantino movie, the legend will go on. So in this way Django never dies!
Footnotes
[1] Frayling, C. (2006) Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans From Karl May to Sergio Leone.(London, I. B. Tauris: 51).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Günsberg, M. (2004) Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre. (New York, Palgrave Macmillan: 207).
[4] Opcit., 88.
[5] Ibid., 83.
[6] For an extended review of literature which links the heroic/anti-heroic codes of the Italian western to social and economic transitions in the era, see chapter five of Maggie Günsberg’s volume. Here, she notes (citing Gian Piero Brunetta), that “The mercenary cynicism of the spaghetti western has also been related to the ‘blind social materialism’ of the 1960s.” (Günsberg, 181).
[7] Street Law (review) Variety, Wednesday September 18th, 1974. 22.
[8] For a further analysis of Volanté’s explicit portrayal of contradictory and radicalised characters see the chapter ‘Politics and Ideology in Contemporary Italian Cinema in
Bondanella, P. (2001) Italian Cinema From Neorealism to the Present (New York, Continuum: 318-346). As Bondanella notes, Volanté’s much publicised left-leanings paradoxically became more pronounced through his portrayal of authoritarian and conservative characters including the duplicitous police captain of Elio Petri’s Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (AKA Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, 1969) and the ‘fictional’ party president of Todo modo (AKA One Way or Another, 1976). Given the latter character’s pointed comment in the film that “I never distinguish between right and left” (Bondanella, 338), it seems more than appropriate that Volanté should read more radical messages into the 1970s Italian cop films than domestic and international press reports would imply.
[1] Frayling, C. (2006) Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans From Karl May to Sergio Leone.(London, I. B. Tauris: 51).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Günsberg, M. (2004) Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre. (New York, Palgrave Macmillan: 207).
[4] Opcit., 88.
[5] Ibid., 83.
[6] For an extended review of literature which links the heroic/anti-heroic codes of the Italian western to social and economic transitions in the era, see chapter five of Maggie Günsberg’s volume. Here, she notes (citing Gian Piero Brunetta), that “The mercenary cynicism of the spaghetti western has also been related to the ‘blind social materialism’ of the 1960s.” (Günsberg, 181).
[7] Street Law (review) Variety, Wednesday September 18th, 1974. 22.
[8] For a further analysis of Volanté’s explicit portrayal of contradictory and radicalised characters see the chapter ‘Politics and Ideology in Contemporary Italian Cinema in
Bondanella, P. (2001) Italian Cinema From Neorealism to the Present (New York, Continuum: 318-346). As Bondanella notes, Volanté’s much publicised left-leanings paradoxically became more pronounced through his portrayal of authoritarian and conservative characters including the duplicitous police captain of Elio Petri’s Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (AKA Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, 1969) and the ‘fictional’ party president of Todo modo (AKA One Way or Another, 1976). Given the latter character’s pointed comment in the film that “I never distinguish between right and left” (Bondanella, 338), it seems more than appropriate that Volanté should read more radical messages into the 1970s Italian cop films than domestic and international press reports would imply.