Very different SW but also interesting. Maybe I will rate this a 7/10 after having watched it another time or two, LavagninoĀ“s minimalistic music was recognisable but could have been more substantial.
Fuck, I didnāt remember this film being so good. I had a vague memory of it and didnāt think much of it, but that was probably because the Spanish version I saw 14 years ago was heavily censored.
Super violent and quite daring, The Specialists is a disillusioned work, in the vein of all his Spaghetti Westerns, but with an added touch of nihilism that reminded me of Sonny & Jed. Corbucci always pushes the boundaries. The more I see and revisit his work, the more I like it. An essential artist.
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Iām very glad to see that Iām not the only one who really loves this one.
Good point to mention the nihilistic bent. By then it was clear that the ā68 revolution had failed and Corbucci was desillusioned for theat reason. He also blamed the hippies for the failure (and Johnny Halliday didnāt like them either)
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Yes, Iād also thought that May '68 might have influenced Corbucciās films in some way (although I havenāt read anything about it). I suppose the same as with many other European filmmakers.
Lately, Iāve been thinking that Corbucciās spaghetti westerns seem just as relevant as Leoneās because he approaches the genre from a completely different perspective. And on this subject, although disillusionment is also palpable in Leoneās films (Duck, You Sucker! would be the most obvious example), his cinema has a patina of nostalgia that doesnāt exist in Corbucciās at all.
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Corbucci and Sollima were both left-wing artists, although itās often said that they were not dogmatic; letās say they were film makers, no politicians or ideologists, but their sympathy for Marxist ideas and the ā68 uprising was obvious. Itās not clear whether Sergio Leone was left-wing or not; some think he was because of some ant-capitalist, anti-authoritarian elements in his movies, but the sympathy he often shows for individualists (No Name) or underdogs (Tuco) shows that he wasnāt left-wing in the Marxist-Leninist sense. In my opinion politics werenāt very important to him or to his movies, and Duck You Sucker makes clear that his thoughts on the beliefs of his colleagues werenāt very positive.
I have by the way written extensively about the relation between politics and spaghetti westerns, see:
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