THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE - Uneasy Riders

As with my earlier essay on DJANGO KILL...IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!, what follows is something I wrote for a DVD release that never made it to the final product. Our first episode(s) of our upcoming podcast will focus on Fulci's horror films, so I thought I'd resurrect this write-up on one of his finest films outside his trademark genre.

Lucio Fulci is of course primarily known for his violent and atmospheric horror films, but before cementing his reputation as the “Godfather of Gore” with ZOMBIE (ZOMBI 2, 1979), the director explored a number of other genres. After launching his career with a string of comedies, Fulci attempted to capitalize on the booming Spaghetti Western market with the solid but rather conventional MASSACRE TIME (TEMPO DI MASSACRO, 1966). The film featured Franco Nero, whose star was on the rise after his iconic turn as the title character in Sergio Corbucci’s earlier release, DJANGO (1966). Although MASSACRE TIME was not a great success, Fulci would collaborate with Nero again on WHITE FANG (ZANNA BIANCA, 1973) and THE CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG (IL RITORNO DI ZANNA BIANCO, 1974), both based on the work of author Jack London.  In 1975 a fourth film—entitled TERAPIA MORTALE—was planned for the pair but the project was put on hold (later filmed without Nero as THE PSYCHIC, 1977) and Fulci’s output during that year was confined to the quickie comedy YOUNG DRACULA (DRACULA IN BRIANZA, 1975) and the far more ambitious THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE (I QUATTRO DELL’APOCALISSE, 1975).

THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE is certainly one of the strangest examples of the Spaghetti Western and it is by far the best of Fulci’s work in the genre. The film takes on a sprawling, epic feel that isn’t present in most of his other, more claustrophobic work. The episodic and rambling narrative—reputedly based on the pulp novels of Brett Harte—is typical of Fulci, but here he and scriptwriter Ennio De Concini shot for something far grander in both scope and style. The loosely constructed plot, concerning a ragtag quartet of outcasts on the hellish road to the big city, is bound together by unifying themes of family and community. These humanistic undercurrents are used in sharp contrast against the bleakly pessimistic worldview viewers have come to expect from the director. Fulci’s other cinematic explorations of Good vs. Evil are far more one-sided in their outlook, but THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE balances dread with hope. Even the birth of a child, a vessel for Evil in many of Fulci’s horror films, is used as a symbol of faith and redemption. These four of the apocalypse may not find the salvation that they seek, but instead of being damned for all eternity as they may have been in the director’s other films, they each find their place or their shining moment in a cruel and inhospitable world. Their fates may not be victorious, but in a world where a descent into madness can be joyfully transcendent, a peaceful death is the best one can hope for.  Optimism peeks through even in the film’s darkest moments, and these glimpses of humanity amid the violence and mayhem add a depth of emotion that audiences may not expect from Fulci. The plot dynamics and characterizations may seem routine, but when viewed in the context of the director’s entire oeuvre there appears to have been a definite effort to engage the audience on emotional levels that were rarely explored in his other films.

It was a bold move on Fulci’s part to attempt a slow-paced, melancholy epic at a time when the Italian Western had already lost the box-office battle to the action-packed poliziotteschi. Fulci himself felt that the final film failed to meet his ambitions and he placed the blame on De Concini, who had previously worked with the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni, Vittorio De Sica and Mario Bava. In an interview with journalist Luca Palmerini, Fulci stated, “Unfortunately, the film was very badly scripted by Ennio De Concini, so it didn’t make one single penny worldwide.  De Concini’s script was useless, proving that he’s only good for soap operas on RAI.” While the film is very disjointed at times, it should be noted that Fulci wasn’t always the best judge of his films and throughout his career he carried on strained and often antagonistic relationships with many of his scriptwriters.

The picture marked the first collaboration between Fulci and cinematographer Sergio Salvati, who was responsible for the look of Fulci’s most popular horror films, including ZOMBIE, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (PAURA NELLA CITTÀ DEI MORTI VIVENTI, 1980), THE BEYOND (L’ALDILÀ, 1981) and THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (QUELLA VILLA ACCANTO AL CIMITERO, 1981). Salvati came to Fulci with a fully formed aesthetic that viewers of the director’s films have since come to associate with the best of his work. With THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE he helped to realize Fulci’s unromantic view of the American West while marking it with the stark beauty and otherworldliness often found in their later collaborations. The talented cinematographer memorably depicted the elements of the fantastique found in De Concini’s screenplay, so it is no surprise that Fulci relied on Salvati’s skills for his later, more overtly horrific work.

At times, Salvati’s photography on THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE recalls Laszlo Kovacs’ work on EASY RIDER (1969), and the presence of Michael J. Pollard in the cast implies that another seminal American film of the 1960s may have influenced the filmmakers.  Co-star Tomas Milian confirmed that Pollard, known for his roles in BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) and DIRTY LITTLE BILLY (1972), affected the shaping of his character, Chaco. “Playing that character and having Michael Pollard there in front of me…What Michael Pollard represents in the American movie [BONNIE AND CLYDE] fed my character,” said Milian in an interview with journalist Eric Maché.  In another nod to ‘60s American culture, Milian claimed that Charles Manson also loomed large in his mind while playing Chaco. “This is Lucio Fulci.  Lucio Fulci is a very…you know, he loves all that violent stuff,” said Milian. “So if you have a director you know, you can flirt with his morbidity.” Milian was very familiar with Fulci’s morbidity having worked with him twice previously, on the brutal historical drama BEATRICE CENCI (1969) and the disturbing giallo DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING (NON SI SEVIZIA UN PAPERINO, 1972).

Milian and Pollard were joined in the cast by Fabio Testi, a veteran of the Italian film scene who would later star in Fulci’s CONTRABAND (LUCA IL CONTRABBANDIERE, 1980); Harry Baird, whose other Spaghetti Western credits include COLT IN THE HAND OF THE DEVIL (UN COLT IN MANO DEL DIAVOLO, 1972) and TRINITY AND SARTANA ARE COMING (TRINITA E SARTANA FIGLI DI…, 1972), in which he starred as the title character Trinity; and Lynne Frederick, who previously appeared in the Hammer Films production VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972) as well as Saul Bass’s strange science-fiction effort, PHASE IV (1973). Frederick later married actor Peter Sellers and retired from making films shortly before his death in 1980. She passed away in 1994.  Also in the film was Irish character actor Donal O’Brien, who appeared in many Italian Westerns but is best known for playing the title role in DR. BUTCHER, M.D. (ZOMBI HOLOCAUST, 1980). As was often the case in his Italian films, O’Brien’s first name was misspelled as “Donald” in the credits for THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE.  O’Brien also worked on Fulci’s second WHITE FANG movie and later appeared in the director’s final Spaghetti Western, SILVER SADDLE (SELLA D’ARGENTO, 1978).

Although SILVER SADDLE fared better at the box office than THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE, it is the least of Fulci’s three Westerns. Conceived as a children’s film along the lines of the WHITE FANG pictures, SILVER SADDLE fails to engage even on that level.  Despite the participation of Sergio Salvati, the poetically surreal atmosphere of THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE was completely absent, as was the gritty violence of MASSACRE TIME, and SILVER SADDLE signaled not only the end of Fulci’s participation in the genre, but also the end of the Spaghetti Western in general. Other filmmakers attempted to revive the moribund genre, but the last gasp of quality provided by THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE, Enzo G. Castellari’s KEOMA (1976) and Sergio Martino’s A MAN CALLED BLADE (MANNAJA, 1977) was not to be repeated.

Interestingly, Fulci himself offered a strange reading of his first two Westerns in various interviews. He maintained that MASSACRE TIME was a “Western that went beyond time and space,” and frequently referred to it as “oneiric,” claiming that French critics called it a “Western reve,” or “dreamed.” It's tempting to assume that Fulci simply got his own films mixed up since these descriptions bear little resemblance to MASSACRE TIME, but could easily be applied to the richly atmospheric FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE. The more likely scenario is that Fulci’s rift with Ennio De Concini affected his opinion of the film and he chose to embellish the reputation of his first Western with the qualities achieved by his second. Regardless of his own opinions, Fulci’s THE FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE is his finest entry in the genre, successfully bridging the gap between his earlier work and his later horror pictures by striking a rare balance of warmth and cruelty.

References

-- Palmerini, Luca M. and Mistretta, Gaetano, Spaghetti Nightmares (Fantasma, 1996), Interview with Lucio Fulci, pp. 58-66.

-- Maché, Eric, Westerns...All'Italiana, Issue #25, Spring 1990, Interview with Tomas Milian.

--MW

Django, Kill...If You Live Shoot! - Notes From The Unhappy Place

Back during the heyday of Euro Cult movies on DVD, I was lucky enough to write a bunch of liner notes for many of my favorite movies, and for various reasons some of them never made it to the final product. While we're leading up to the launch of our podcast, I thought it would be a good time to resurrect some of those unused essays and present them here. The Blue Underground release of Django, Kill featured a booklet with an essay by the far more accomplished and knowledgeable William Connolly of Spaghetti Cinema fame, so I didn't mind getting bumped from this one. I'm not sure if the blu ray upgrade (which looks miles better if you compare it to the DVD screenshots I posted here) contains this same booklet, but it isn't mentioned on the box or in any of the reviews I looked at.

Sergio Corbucci’s landmark Spaghetti Western, DJANGO (1966), inspired dozens of imitators seeking to cash in on the popularity of the title character, none of them more unusual than Giulio Questi’s DJANGO, KILL!…IF YOU LIVE SHOOT! (SE SEI VIVO SPARA, 1967). Some filmmakers and producers attempted unofficial sequels or fashioned quick knock-offs of the original Corbucci picture, while others simply incorporated the name “Django” into the title of their film and performed a quick character name change in the dubbing. Giulio Questi’s film belongs to the latter group, but he neglected the final step in the process (Tomas Milian’s character is only referred to as “The Stranger” in most versions), and aside from the expected nihilism and violence, his film actually has little in common with Corbucci’s picture. DJANGO, KILL! is perhaps the most excessively bizarre film in the entire genre, a wildly overwrought Gothic horror melodrama that earns its place alongside the classics for sheer audacity alone. The film’s combination of extreme violence, outrageous characters, stylized costumes, seizure-inducing edits and impressionistic storytelling was simply unprecedented in the Western genre.

Giulio Questi––who directed the mind-bending giallo DEATH LAID AN EGG (1968) the following year––was more concerned with subverting genre expectations than with simply retracing the footsteps of those who came before him, but it would be a mistake to deny the multitude of influences on this, his sole Western. In its opening moments, DJANGO, KILL! echoes the horror films of Mario Bava––specifically HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD (1961)––with rugged landscapes bathed in a supernatural green light and eerie visions of the dead rising from the grave (the fact that Bava repeated a sequence involving a shower of molten gold and an unfortunate victim in his 1968 film DIABOLIK is perhaps more than a coincidence). The influence of Luis Buñuel’s LOS OLVIDADOS (1950) can also be seen in the image of an outstretched hand reaching from the earth—an iconic moment that was recreated in the artwork for the film’s Italian ad campaign. After the supernatural overtones and horror film histrionics of the credit sequence comes a disorienting montage of flashbacks filled with Godardian edits and dizzying camerawork. The experimental editing of Questi’s longtime friend Franco (Kim) Arcalli is the driving force behind this striking sequence.  Arcalli co-wrote and edited both DEATH LAID AN EGG and DJANGO, KILL! and Questi has acknowledged his partner’s significant creative input in the films. Arcalli, who once commented that he did his best work after two bottles of vodka, would go on to collaborate with Louis Malle, Bernardo Bertolucci and Michelangelo Antonioni before his premature death in 1978.

Federico Fellini is another obvious influence on the film and it should come as no surprise that Questi cut his filmmaking teeth as an assistant for the great director on LA DOLCE VITA (1960). Fellini’s considerable skill at creating surrealist tableaux is emulated by Questi and cinematographer Franco Delli Colli, who began his career as a camera operator for Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolini.  Delli Colli also brought to the picture the influence of Sidney J. Furie’s THE APPALOOSA (1966), a stylishly shot film that took a few visual cues from Leone, but in turn provided inspiration for many Italian Westerns to follow. Furie’s director of photography Russell Metty fashioned intricate compositions that employed various props and architectural details to create multiple frames within a single shot. Similarly, Delli Colli used wagon wheels, hanging laundry, hitching posts and various other props to frame his compositions, creating a sense of depth and infusing the film with its own unique visual poetry. One such image, of Milian’s Stranger peering through a broken wicker basket, was used for some of the film’s advertising materials.

In an interview with the excellent fanzine Westerns all'italiana (issue #25) Tomas Milian referred to Questi as “an intellectual revolutionary” and likened him to Antonioni because of his emphasis on imagery over acting. Milian is a performer who usually enjoys being left to his own devices, so that he may rework his characters to suit his own creative needs. Here, the Stranger is something of a cipher, a Wild West zombie with only a passing interest in the warm embrace of his pyromaniac lover and no need at all for the precious gold he uses to exact his cold vengeance. Milian used props and costume details, like his ever-present white headband, to enhance his character, but the actor eventually surrendered to the idea that Questi was more interested in the visual and symbolic value of his characters than he was in portraying real people with real motives and emotions.

Questi and Arcalli took the basic plot outline––which has a mysterious outsider positioning himself between two rival factions in a hostile town––from Sergio Leone’s seminal A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) (itself of course derived from Akira Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO, 1961), but unlike Leone or Corbucci, they weren’t interested in creating a crowd-pleasing anti-hero like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name or Franco Nero’s Django. This skeletal plot was only a framework used to hang a series of increasingly bizarre and violent episodes in which the Stranger would pass through, meting out punishment to the evildoers and providing comfort to the weak and deranged. For much of the film Milian’s Stranger is not even the focal point of the action, and the plot often finds the character reacting to or being victimized by the outlandish happenings rather than actually propelling the narrative forward himself. He may seem to be an ineffectual hero when compared to other Spaghetti Western protagonists, but the religious connotations hint at a greater depth to the character. The Stranger’s resurrection and crucifixion provide the most explicit Christian imagery, but many of his trials and tribulations result in violence of biblical proportions and every deadly sin seems to be accounted for in the circle of hell that his Native American spiritual guides call “The Unhappy Place.” Sin and temptation reign supreme in this turn-of-the-century Sodom and Gomorrah and the Stranger only moves on after everything has ended in a hail of fire and brimstone.

Possibly commenting on the regressed amorality they perceived in the genre, Questi and Arcalli populated their hellish town with characters that behave like cruel children. The film’s final moments, where a little girl and boy attempt to out-ugly each other, support the idea that the entire movie can be read as a variation on a sadistic children’s game. Sam Peckinpah would later incorporate this idea into the opening sequence of his Spaghetti Western-influenced picture, THE WILD BUNCH (1969). Perhaps the most blatant example of this theme of childlike regression is found in Zorro and his boys-only club of costumed muchachos. Like spoiled brats playing at pirates, Zorro––who even keeps a talking parrot––and his gang egg each other on, raping, pillaging and throwing tantrums until they are all tuckered out and curled up on the floor. Zorro is even allowed a moment of childish emotion when he confides to his parrot, “It’s a pity you don’t understand what my muchachos mean to me.  They make me so happy in their black uniforms.” Not since Nicholas Ray’s JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) had the Western been such a hotbed of heightened sexuality and exaggerated stylizations.

Whether read as a Freudian critique of the genre, a horror film subversion of Spaghetti Western conventions, a Christian allegory about temptation and vice, or simply taken at face value, DJANGO, KILL! is a strange and unsettling film designed to provoke extreme reactions. Graphic violence is intercut with slapstick humor and visual puns, while soap opera plot twists and fairy tale logic challenge the expectations of audiences open to even the most radical genre fare. If you thought that the films of Leone or Corbucci took the horse operatics as far as they could go, then prepare yourself for the genre-bending insanity of DJANGO, KILL!…IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT!

––MW