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Sergio Corbucci.

Sergio Corbucci (December 6, 1927 - December 1, 1990) was an Italian film director. He is best known for his very violent yet intelligent spaghetti westerns. He was for a long time considered an exploitation director, but has now attained a vast following and is easily compared to Sam Peckinpah or Sergio Leone.

He is the older brother of screenwriter and film director Bruno Corbucci.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early career

Corbucci was born in Rome.

He started his career by directing mostly low-budget sword and sandal movies. His first commercial success was with the cult spaghetti western Django, starring Franco Nero, the leading man in many of his movies. 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 directors. His most famous of these pictures was The Great Silence, a dark and gruesome western starring a mute action hero and a psychopathic bad guy. The film was banned in some countries for its excessive display of violence.

[edit] Spaghetti westerns

Corbucci's westerns were dark and brutal, with the characters portrayed as sadistic anti heroes. His films featured very high body counts, scenes of mutilation against the main character (in Django an ear is cut off, in Johnny Oro, Indians are killed in the hundreds and in The Hellbenders, all main characters are brutally shot down). Django especially is considered to have set a new level for violence in westerns.^{[citation needed]}

Besides the violence, his spaghetti westerns are notable for their surrealistic and apocalyptic art direction, a sense of black humour, and social criticism from a left-wing perspective. Corbucci was actually a communist^{[citation needed]}. His films reflected this ideology.

[edit] 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, although they were barely released abroad. His movies were rarely taken seriously by contemporary critics and he was considered an exploitation director, but Corbucci has managed to attain a cult reputation.

He died in Rome in 1990.

[edit] Selected filmography

Minnesota Clay (1965)
Django (1966)
Ringo and his Golden Pistol (1966)
Navajo Joe (1966)
The Hellbenders (1967)
The Mercenary (A Professional Gun, 1968)
The Great Silence (1969)
Companeros (1970)
La Banda J.S.: Cronaca criminale del Far West (Sonny and Jed, 1972)
Di che segno sei? (1975)
The Con Artists (1976)
Il signor Robinson (1975)
Neapolitan Mystery (1978)
Trinity: Gambling for High Stakes (1978)
Super Fuzz (1980)
A Friend Is a Treasure (1981)

[edit] External links