Western all'italiana

The subgenre of the Italian Western (aka Spaghetti Western) emerged in the mid-1960s in Italy. It was made popular and substantially shaped by two movie directors: Sergio Corbucci (Johnny Oro, 1965; Django, 1966; Il grande silenzio, 1968; Il mercenario, 1968) and Sergio Leone (Per un pugno di dollari, 1964; Per qualche dollaro in più, 1965; Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, 1966; C'era una volta il west, 1968). Although the heyday of the Italian Western already began to fade in the early 1970s, the genre left its mark on world cinema and influenced the aesthetics and plot structures of many subsequent films. Our paper introduces the typical features of style and content of the Italian Western and points out the major differences between the Italian and the classical US-American Western. In a second step we will investigate how other movie directors were influenced by the Italian Western. In this context, we will refer to Quentin Tarantino who repeatedly paid tribute to the genre in films such as Kill Bill 1 & 2 (2003-2004), Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015)