Death melody

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Movie
German title Death melody
Original title Giù la testa
Country of production Italy
original language English
Publishing year 1971
length 157 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Sergio Leone
script Luciano Vincenzoni
Sergio Donati
Sergio Leone
production Fulvio Morsella
music Ennio Morricone
camera Giuseppe Ruzzolini
cut Nino Baragli
occupation
chronology

Previous story 
Play me a song of death

Successor  →
Once upon a time in America

Death melody (original title: Giù la testa ) is an Italo-Western by the director Sergio Leone from 1971 . The leading roles are played by Rod Steiger and James Coburn .

It is the second part of Sergio Leone's America trilogy , which begins with Spiel mir das Lied von Tod and ends with Once Upon a Time in America . The film is set against the background of the Mexican revolutionary turmoil from 1910. Although there is no contextual connection between these three films and the real events, parallels are clearly recognizable. All three films are about friendship, betrayal, revenge and - in the last two films - also about forgiveness. It is also noticeable how explicitly money and political questions (revolution, class struggle, workers' movement, corrupt politicians) are at the center of the last two parts.

action

The film is set during the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s. The shabby, barefoot bandit Juan allows himself to be taken away by a Mexican upper class carriage under the pretext. In view of the obviously poor peasant booby, these passengers express themselves extremely disrespectful of the rural population and curse Madero's social reforms , which benefit the lower class. A priest also joins in. And even the coachmen, who ask young people lying around on an incline to push, only consider them lazy and good-for-nothing. The scene turns quickly - the young people belong to a gang, Juan is the leader, they are his sons. They cleverly ambush the carriage and rob the occupants, strip them naked and push them into a pig pen. Before that, Juan raped the “lady” who was traveling with him, who seemed only half reluctant.

Soon after, in the captured carriage, Juan meets the Irish explosives expert Seán "John" Mallory, who is wanted as a terrorist, who drives past him and his gang on his motorcycle, ignoring him and his gang. To prevent John from continuing, Juan shoots the rear tire of his motorcycle, whereupon John, in order to be "even", blows a hole in the roof of Juan's carriage. John claims to be looking for silver for the mine owner Aschenbacher. But Juan sees him as the ideal partner for his old dream: to steal the gold reserves of the Mesa Verde bank. Have John blow open the bank door and the safe.

The intellectual arrogant John (he reads the anarchist Mikhail Alexandrowitsch Bakunin ) does not want to participate in this plan and prepares to blow up the instinctual Juan and his gang together with a church. In fact, Aschenbacher, a captain and three soldiers go to church, and Juan, who tricked John and Aschenbacher, sets off the demolition. On the way to Mesa Verde, John can jump on a train and so hang out Juan.

The gang follows John; On the train they happened to meet one of the leaders of the Mexican Revolution , the well-read doctor Dr. Villega, who covers Juan's murder of two police officers on the train, even helps him. When they arrive in Mesa Verde, they realize that the city is full of soldiers - revolution and counterrevolution have arrived before them. John is there too, and he is ready to take part in the robbery on the bank.

However, to Juan's disappointment, the bank turns out to be a political prison. Instead of finding gold, they free many prisoners, and Juan involuntarily becomes a revolutionary hero. He is hailed as Miranda. Juan has a very pessimistic view of revolutions and emphasizes their failures: Book-reading desk revolutionaries wasted the time on discussions, so that nothing changes for the poor - until the cycle starts all over again. Juan's next attempt to break away from the revolutionaries also goes wrong: John and Juan alone hold up an entire detachment of government soldiers by blowing up a bridge. Only Colonel Gutierez survived with his armored car. Juan's sons, who, like all other fighters, sent Villega ahead to a cave shelter believed to be safe, are meanwhile being murdered by government troops. Juan and John find the dead, only the body of Dr. Villega is missing in the cave. Juan has no more family and runs blindly outside, shooting around, into the hands of the soldiers. John stays in the cave until the gunshots stop.

John has gone into hiding and watches the apparently tortured Dr. Villega betrays rebels to Colonel Gutierez. John has already experienced such a betrayal by his best friend in Ireland, from which he escaped at the time. He managed to shoot the traitor (inserted as a flashback in the film). Juan is already in front of the firing squad, but John saves him with his motorcycle and a targeted load of dynamite.

The two flee from the city, which has been shaken by mass executions, in a cattle wagon that is soon to go to “America”. Shortly before departure, the governor Don Jaime boarded the train: he escaped from the city with only a bag of valuables. John comments on this like this: It’s about to start, you’ve just invited the last bit of dirt. When the rebels attack the train - before the border - Juan shoots Don Jaime with a pistol that John gives him. They want to leave the train unobserved to flee across the border, but once again both are enthusiastically celebrated as heroes of the revolution and driven back inland. The governor's treasures go to the revolutionaries.

Towards the end of the film there is a showdown with Colonel Gutierez, who comes towards them with an army platoon. To stop this train in the middle of the desert, John does not choose Juan as his companion, but rather Dr. Villega, who has reappeared in the ranks of the revolutionaries. In addition, John loads his own locomotive with dynamite and races towards the army train together with Villega as a stoker. The other comrades in arms take position next to the route. During the journey, John confronts Villega with his betrayal, but does not judge him as he once did (in the flashback) about a traitor in Ireland. After John's jump, Dr. Villega on the locomotive and voluntarily races to death with her.

The attack on the army platoon that was stopped in this way succeeds, but Colonel Gutierez shoots John three times in the back, just as John greets his friend Juan. Gutierez then dies in Juan's hail of bullets. The fatally wounded John can no longer be saved and says to Juan: “I often led you by the nose.” Then after a last cigarette - and a look back at the stupidities of childhood love - he blows himself up with the remaining dynamite . Looking at this ball of fire, Juan wonders: What will become of me? The melody of death sounds over the film credits.

Reviews

Unlike Play Me a Song of Death, there is no all-encompassing storyline. Death Melody consists of many small highlights, time and place jump surprisingly and it can never be said how the story will develop further. The camera work, the images and the characters are very reminiscent of his predecessor. Again Leone works with flashbacks and revenge is again a central theme, but here it is contrasted with forgiveness:

“[…] A very present comedic element […] Overall, however , Death Melody is a rather grim, violent flick. [… Steiger and Coburn] deliver excellent representations as fundamentally different characters […] Of course, the adventurous elements of the plot, which the director packaged in an action- packed, rousing spectacle, which above all optically bears his stamp, are predominant. Ennio Morricone composed one of his characteristic pieces of music again. "

- Arne Laser : The great film lexicon. All top films from A – Z

An unnamed author in the news magazine Der Spiegel also briefly fed the film in 1972: "Unmotivated wear and tear on powder, lead, music and extras, plus many mannerist camera faxes make Leone's simple revolutionary parable, after all, a brutal spectacle that one looks at, that it cost $ 3.5 million. "

title

The film title caused some confusion. The working title of the script was: "C'era una volta la rivoluzione" ("Once upon a time there was the revolution"). Leone himself finally chose the title “Giù la testa” (“Head down!” In the sense of “Pull your head in”), which for the American version was translated as “Duck, You Sucker” (“Duck dich, idiot”) . While “Giù la testa” was a common phrase in Italy, the American title evoked the impression of a western comedy in the potential audience, which is why it was based on the title of Leone's first western in “A Fistful of Dynamite” (“A handful Dynamite ”). In Great Britain it was published under this title from the beginning.

In France, the film came out under the translated working title "Il était une fois la révolution", which was intended to tie in with the success of " Once Upon a Time in the West ". The German title “Todesmelodie” has absolutely no relation to the film, but was chosen because of the similarities of the film melodies to “ Play me the song of death ”.

In the English-speaking world, "Once Upon a Time ... the Revolution" is sometimes used. Other titles in other languages ​​are:

  • Spain: ¡Agáchate, maldito! (German: "Ducken, Damn!")
  • Poland: Za garść dynamitu (German: "For a handful of dynamite")
  • Brazil: Quando Explode a Vingança (German: "When the revenge explodes")

Because of the similar film titles, the "Once Upon a Time" trilogy is often referred to, even if, like the dollar trilogy , it was not planned as such:

However, only in the French-speaking area do all three film titles really begin with “Il était une fois…”.

Prices

  • In 1972 Sergio Leone received the David di Donatello award for best director. This award is the national Italian film award and was comparable to the Oscar in the USA.

additional

The film begins with a quote from Mao Tse-Tung from his research report on the peasant movement in Hunan in 1927: “The revolution is not a feast, no literary festival, no embroidery. It cannot be done with elegance or politeness. The revolution is an act of violence. "

Historical references and inaccuracies

The role names of the participants clearly refer to those involved in the real revolution that lasted from 1910 to 1920 to overthrow the dictator Porfirio Díaz . For example, Joaquín Miranda and Figueroa Mata were revolutionary generals at the time.

As with many spaghetti westerns, there are certain inaccuracies regarding the equipment of the fighters. Some of the weapons used by the protagonists did not even exist at the time the film was set. So John u. a. with an MG42 , which was only produced from the middle of the Second World War .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for Death Melody . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2005 (PDF; test number: 44 425-a V / DVD).
  2. Duck You Sucker. alternatively: Günther Reza. Retrieved July 14, 2020 .
  3. Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf, Willy Loderhose (eds.): The large film lexicon. All top films from A-Z . Second edition, revised and expanded new edition. Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89324-126-4 , p. 2771 .
  4. Patriots in the safe . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 1972, p. 151 f . ( online ).