Why did the western become arguably the most important genre in post-war filmmaking? From John Ford to Sam Peckinpah, the sweeping vistas and amoral politics lit up the big screen, gifting America a new creation myth. Now, the western is back in a more compact form – and with a transatlantic hue. After Hugo Blix’s excellent The English, Sky Atlantic is rebooting Sergio Corbucci’s Django film franchise as a brooding 10-part stampede through the dawn of the United States.
It’s the Old West, 1872. From the wreckage of the American civil war, John Ellis (Nicholas Pinnock), an almost messianic figure, is building a utopia: New Babylon. His city will be a home to all, regardless of colour or creed, gender or sexuality. Except there’s one man who is apparently unwelcome in this false-front Xanadu. Django (Matthias Schoenaerts) arrives as a drifter, offering himself to the bearpit in a fight to the death. “Are you ready for your destiny?” Ellis asks this scraggy stranger. But when Django shows mercy to his stricken opponent, he breaks Ellis’s covenant, and reveals his destiny as something far greater than a barroom brawl.
