electricsheep

outlandish westerns

A wild bunch of demented gunslingers, mystic outlaws and revolutionary bandidos

issue forty-one To celebrate the release of a box-set including Django, Keoma and A Bullet for the General, we have an article on Italian Westerns. We also look at Glauber Rocha’s take on the holy bandit, Antonio das Mortes, and admire Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to Corbucci’s The Great Silence while writer Patrick Hargadon imagines being Yul Brynner as The Gunslinger in Futureworld.

We interview Claire Denis who revisits Africa in White Material, and Catherine Breillat who reworks the classic fairy tale Bluebeard. Other cinema releases include Christopher Nolan's dream thriller Inception, Splice by Cube director Vincenzo Natali, French musical genius biopic Gainsbourg, and original British gangster movie Down Terrace. Watch the Splice trailer and the Brothers McLeod's new animated film.

In the new DVDs, we review Imamura’s stunning epic Profound Desires of the Gods and George A Romero’s vampire satire Martin gets the comic strip treatment. This month’s Colonial Report from the Dominion of Canada looks at Alain Cavalier’s neo-noir Le combat dans l'île.

In the Short Cuts, we review the Edinburgh Film Festival’s shorts programmes, including Maska, the new film by the Brothers Quay. In the Jukebox, Danish film score composers Cours Lapin, who mix chanson française and twisted fairy tales, tell us about their favourite films. In the blog, we have reviews of the Istanbul Film Festival, the latest Secret Cinema event and the Edinburgh Film Festival.

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Wednesday 11 August, Prince Charles Cinema, 8:45pm: Hero:

Set in the third century BC, Zhang Yimou’s breakthrough martial arts epic stars Jet Li as a nameless swordsman granted a rare audience with his ruthless king after killing three fearsome assassins (played by some of Hong Kong cinema’s greatest actors). As the sly king questions the ‘hero’, we are presented with three different versions of the events, each colour-coded. A sumptuous spectacle combining graceful fight scenes, magnificent décors, dubious truths and questionable politics.

Guest speaker: Zoë Baxter, presenter of Resonance FM’s radio show on East Asian culture.

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Outlandish Westerns: We have articles on Italian Westerns to celebrate the release of a box-set including Django, Keoma and A Bullet for the General, Glauber Rocha’s take on the holy bandit, Antonio das Mortes, and Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo. Our Reel Sounds column looks at Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to Corbucci’s The Great Silence while in Alter Ego, writer Patrick Hargadon imagines what it would be like to be Yul Brynner as The Gunslinger in Futureworld.

alt.cowboy: Alex Fitch talks to BFI programmer Emma Smart about gay themes in Westerns after a screening of Midnight Cowboy and to Ian Rakoff about the crossover between Western-themed comics and movies before a screening of For a Few Dollars More.

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