Western all'italiana | Offscreen
On the occasion of the release of Quentin Tarantino's “The Hateful Eight”, this B-to-Z offers you a trip to the western all'italiana universe that inspired the American filmmaker.
“Il Pistolero dell'Ave Maria” (“Forgotten Pistolero”) is one of the highlights from the golden age of the Italian western in the 1960's. A baroque mise-en-scène, an unforgettable music score à-la Morricone, themes of vengeance and cruelty: all the ingredients of the mythical genre are present. This is one of the Italian westerns that shows its mediterranean roots by transposing elements of Greek and Latin mythology (in this case the tragedies Agamemnon and Electra) to the Far West.
During the 1970s, the Italian western transforms into the crime films known as poliziesci, in which the cowboy stories take place in the Italian reality of the so-called “years of lead”. “Milano Calibro 9” is directed by Fernando Di Leo, the Italian Melville. “The greatest Italian-noir ever made”, as it is called by Tarantino!
Il Pistolero dell' Ave Maria
The father of Sebastian and Isabel is assassinated by his wife's lover. Fifteen years later, Sebastian is ready to avenge his father's murder. The Greek and Far West mythology intertwined in Ferdinando Baldi's best western film.
Milano Calibro 9
Portraying the Milanese underworld with harsh, at times brutal realism, Ferdinando Di Leo poliziesco is a phenomenal film with non-stop suspense and rough action. The score is another knockout by Luis Enrique Bacalov (“Django”) and prog rockers Osanna.