DJANGO Explained: Who’s the Guy Dragging a Coffin?

Django trudges through an undefined landscape, dragging a closed coffin behind him—a coffin whose contents will become the film’s central enigma. Though the character is clearly a cowboy and, as his attire suggests, a former soldier, the scenery around him doesn’t evoke a traditional Western. There is no blazing sun or parched earth. Instead, there is a sea of mud in which the wanderer’s boots sink. The atmosphere is somber and dreary, with the sun refusing to peek through the clouds. In the background, the titular song—composed by Luis Bacalov—plays, teetering between kitsch and heartfelt melancholy. A balladeer solemnly narrates his tale in a grave, theatrical voice, accompanied by a mournful choir:

Django, have you always been alone?
Django, have you never loved anyone?

Thus begins the story of one of the greatest legends of the spaghetti Western.

Pizza Delivery to the Wild West

If one were to consider the concept of the Italian Western “rationally,” it might seem entirely absurd. After all, the Western is one of those things—alongside jazz, pickup trucks, and fast food—that Americans can rightfully claim as an inseparable part of their identity. Texan prairies, revolvers, saloons, high-noon duels, and gold-laden stagecoaches are the elements of their mythology, which Hollywood carefully cultivated for years. When the first Westerns began to emerge in the early 20th century, the Wild West still existed. Ex-gunslingers collaborated with Hollywood producers, acting as consultants or stuntmen, to help construct their own legend as heroic defenders of the law. For Americans, the Western became much more than mere entertainment—it was the embodiment of the mythology that every society needs.

To understand why Italians latched onto this sacred genre, one must first grasp how popular Italian cinema functioned in the 1950s and 60s. Astonishing as it may seem today, Italian cinema, having freed itself from the constraints of fascist censorship, was at the time the wealthiest and fastest-growing film industry in the world. Italians were producing about 250 feature films annually (compared to America’s 150–170). Some were high-art films by the likes of Luchino Visconti or Michelangelo Antonioni, but many were genre productions aimed at mass audiences—peplum (sword-and-sandal films, often with fantasy elements) and brutal giallo. The average Italian went to the cinema twice a week (!), and even small towns boasted two or three theaters. Italians loved not only domestic productions but also American imports, particularly Westerns.

The 1960s, however, brought a peculiar problem. American cinema faced a crisis due to the advent of television. Cowboys and bandits moved their shootouts to the small screen, and the production of theatrical Westerns dropped by 90%. Italians, lacking home TV sets, suddenly had nothing to import. Meanwhile, audiences still craved Westerns but grew tired of the outdated formulas found in films starring John Wayne—clear-cut distinctions between good and evil, with honest sheriffs battling utterly corrupt bandits or Native Americans. The Italians came up with a solution: not only would they create their own Westerns, but they would also reinvent the formula by introducing moral ambiguity. The first major success in this Italian Western movement was A Fistful of Dollars. Sergio Leone’s classic sparked a wave of imitators. Among them, the most significant—for many reasons, which we’ll explore—was Django by the “second Sergio”: Corbucci.

For a Few Dollars Less

Sergio Corbucci had been making Westerns since 1963, but none of his early films became hits. It wasn’t until Django (1966) that he truly showcased his potential. In terms of plot, Django is almost a remake of A Fistful of Dollars (which itself was an unofficial remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo—a testament to how loosely Italians regarded copyright law). Much like in Leone’s debut Western, the protagonist is a mysterious wanderer who arrives in a desolate town torn apart by two warring factions and exploits the situation to his advantage.

Two elements, however, set Django apart from A Fistful of Dollars. First, the budget. Corbucci had only a minuscule amount of money, meaning he couldn’t afford to hire an American actor for the titular role. Franco Nero, who became a star thanks to Django, was a 24-year-old theater actor with a few supporting roles to his name when Corbucci cast him. Nero would later share anecdotes about their collaboration, like how they arrived on set without a script or how Corbucci introduced the motif of red masks—worn by Major Jackson’s men, evoking the Ku Klux Klan or the Inquisition—mainly to use one extra for multiple roles and cut costs. In a film with around 150 deaths, this was a crucial consideration.

The second—and more important—difference lies in tone. While A Fistful of Dollars is an ironic, occasionally brutal riff on Western tropes, Corbucci portrays the horrors of the Wild West with unflinching directness. Django was one of the most violent Westerns of its time (The Wild Bunch wouldn’t arrive for another three years), and a now-infamous scene where Major Jackson’s spy has his ear cut off and is forced to eat it shocked even Italian censors, who were notoriously lenient. British censors were even more appalled—the film didn’t air on UK television until 1993.

The bleakness of Django also elicits a far more emotional response than Leone’s Dollars Trilogy. Unlike Clint Eastwood’s character—a nameless, past-less cowboy—Django has a clear motivation: vengeance for his murdered lover. The town he enters is not only deserted but decayed, populated by a few miserable, sickly prostitutes and a bar owner extorted by Major Jackson. Combined with the crumbling wooden buildings sinking in mud and Luis Bacalov’s evocative score, the result is a Western that is, in many ways, kitschy (and, from today’s perspective, even quaint) but undeniably captivating.

Djangomania

And captivated they were—the Italians, that is. While Django didn’t achieve the same success in the United States as Leone’s films, it was a massive hit in Italy and much of Europe, surpassing even the Dollars Trilogy in popularity. Franco Nero, an unknown actor, became an overnight sensation. His piercing, almost unnaturally blue eyes, radiating equal parts sorrow and vengeance, set a standard for male leads in Italian Westerns. Christoph Waltz, who stars in Tarantino’s Django Unchained, even remarked that during his childhood, calling someone a “Django” was universally understood to mean they were “cool.”

Italian producers quickly recognized Django’s immense box-office potential. Between 1966 and the early 1970s, around thirty films with “Django” in the title were produced. In some of these, such as Ferdinando Baldi’s Django, Prepare a Coffin, the character genuinely took center stage, wielding a machine gun and sporting a familiar coat. However, most had nothing to do with Corbucci’s creation aside from the title. Producers would simply rename their scripts or even completed films to include “Django,” knowing it would boost ticket sales. A personal favorite example is Alberto de Martino’s Django Shoots First, where the main character isn’t remotely like Django in appearance or personality and is actually named Glenn Garvin. The English dub, however, occasionally refers to him as “Django” to justify the title—a hilarious nod to the demands of opportunistic producers.

German distributors adopted a different strategy: they slapped the name “Django” onto any movie featuring Franco Nero, regardless of whether it was a Western, a police thriller, or even an Italian knockoff of Jaws (because doesn’t Django vs. Shark sound fantastic?).

When Franco Nero left for the United States in 1967 to star alongside Vanessa Redgrave in the big-budget Camelot, Italian filmmakers were stunned. They couldn’t fathom why their homegrown superstar would abandon his spaghetti Western family to shoot a foreign knightly epic. But they quickly found a solution—bold, yet ingenious. They located an unknown actor with a passing resemblance to Nero, dressed him up as Django, and staged a photoshoot. These photos were shown to a producer, who, believing he was funding another Django hit starring Nero, provided the necessary budget. Thus, Terence Hill, another future spaghetti Western icon (and later star of the TV series Don Matteo), was born.

Return from the Grave

The Django craze, though a major cultural phenomenon in late-60s Italy, faded quickly—much like everything else in Italian genre cinema—and soon afterward, the spaghetti Western itself fell out of favor. Franco Nero returned to the role of Django only once, in the sole official sequel: Django Strikes Again (1987). The subtitle couldn’t have been more fitting, not only because the titular character literally retrieves his old identity (and his Gatling gun) from a coffin in one scene but also because, by the late 1980s, the spaghetti Western genre was entirely dead. Django Strikes Again was meant to be its last hurrah.

To say the attempt failed would be an understatement.     is worse than even the poorest unofficial sequels churned out by Italian filmmakers on shoestring budgets. Initially involved, Sergio Corbucci abandoned the project, leaving it in the hands of Nello Rosatti, a journeyman director who transformed it into a tacky knockoff of… the Rambo franchise. Seriously, Italian filmmakers were so skeptical of reviving the spaghetti Western that they decided to tailor the sequel to resemble the hottest American blockbuster of the time. The setting shifted to the jungles of Colombia (standing in for Mexico), and Django abandoned his old life to don a monk’s habit. Of course, that didn’t last long—when his daughter is kidnapped by a human trafficker, our gunslinger digs up his old gear to slash through the jungle, massacre hordes of enemies, and spout corny one-liners.

The result is excruciating to watch. Although boredom is occasionally broken by sheer disbelief, Django Strikes Again has absolutely nothing to do with Westerns, and Franco Nero bears little resemblance to the brooding avenger he once played. The filmmakers borrow motifs from various global hits—from Rambo: First Blood Part II to A View to a Kill—but instead of reviving the genre, they simply strip it for parts.

Who is Django?

Despite this ignoble episode, Django remains a potent metaphor for the entire spaghetti Western subgenre—a cunning, stoic figure with a shadowy past, teetering on the edge of good and evil yet ultimately capable of distinguishing between the two when it matters most. His character embodies all the elements that made spaghetti Westerns shine in their heyday: the moral ambiguity of the protagonists, the cynicism, and the unique lens through which Italians viewed the Wild West—a lens that initially scandalized Americans.

Quentin Tarantino even jokes that Django Unchained is simply another unofficial sequel to Corbucci’s film. Considering that this isn’t the first modern tribute to Django—Takashi Miike directed Sukiyaki Western Django, blending the spaghetti Western with samurai cinema—it’s fair to say that the legend of the avenger in the black coat lives on.

And Finally, the Song

Here’s the titular song. I guarantee you’ll be humming it soon enough: