Black Girl (1966 film)

Lore & Background

The film’s narrative structure moves constantly between Diouana’s present confinement in France and flashbacks to her earlier life in Senegal. In the past, she is a young woman from a poor village near Dakar, where most of her peers are illiterate. She searches for work in the city and is chosen by a Frenchwoman, Madame, not because she demands a job but because she remains passive while other women crowd forward. Diouana is initially hired to care for Madame’s children in Dakar. As a gift, she gives the family a traditional mask she bought from a small boy for 50 guineas, which they hang in their home. When not working, she walks with her boyfriend. The couple then offers her a job in France, and she eagerly imagines a cosmopolitan life there. Upon arrival in Antibes, however, she is overwhelmed with cooking and cleaning for the couple and their friends. Madame treats her harshly, forbidding her from wearing a fancy dress and heels, saying, “Don’t forget that you are a maid.” Diouana never leaves the apartment, a stark contrast to her outdoor life in Senegal. At a dinner party, a guest kisses her on the cheeks, explaining, “I’ve never kissed a black girl before!” She receives a letter from her mother, which Monsieur reads to her; her mother asks for money and wonders why she has not written. Diouana tears the letter up. Madame does not let her sleep past breakfast and yells at her to work. Diouana tries to take back the mask, and a struggle follows. Madame tells her that if she does not work, she cannot eat. Diouana refuses to work and rejects Monsieur’s attempt to pay her. She then commits suicide by slitting her throat in the bathtub. Monsieur travels to Senegal to return her suitcase, mask, and money to her family. He offers Diouana’s mother money, but she refuses. As he leaves the village, the little boy who sold the mask runs after him.

Reader's Guide

Black Girl is often considered the first Sub-Saharan African film by an African filmmaker to receive international attention. Although it was poorly received by Western film critics upon its initial release, by the 2010s it came to be seen as a classic of world cinema. The film addresses the effects of colonialism and racism in Africa and Europe, highlighted through the recurring appearance of an African mask that Diouana gives to her employers. The mask represents Diouana, the diaspora of Africans to Europe, and the uncertain future of Africa. The film also explores the concept of literacy and the damage colonialism can cause an individual, as seen when Madame and Monsieur write Diouana's response to her mother's letter, creating a false narrative of her life in France.

Did You Know?

• The film was shot in France (Antibes) and Senegal, with the Antibes sequences being crucial to the story.
• Mbissine Thérèse Diop's family and neighborhood actively scorned her for accepting the role.
• The term 'mégotage' (cigarette-butt cinema) is associated with Sembène's resourceful filmmaking, but it was coined by critics or film discourse, not by Sembène himself.
• The screenplay was rejected by the then-head of the Ministry of Cooperation’s Cinema Bureau, likely because of the film's subject matter.

Conceived as a Rival

When Sergio Corbucci was in the midst of producing Ringo and his Golden Pistol, a young and ambitious producer named Manolo Bolognini came knocking. Bolognini, who had previously served as production manager for Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew, needed a hit to recover from the losses of his first project as a producer, The Possessed. Corbucci accepted the offer almost immediately, driven by a specific creative vision. Two years earlier, his regular cinematographer Enzo Barboni had recommended Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, and the director wanted to build a Western around that spirit. The result was also a deliberate commercial play: Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars had just shattered box-office expectations, and Corbucci aimed to match its momentum. He directed, produced, and co-wrote the project, casting the relatively unknown Franco Nero in the title role—a decision that would become Nero's breakthrough. The film is widely described as a loose, unofficial adaptation of Yojimbo, much like Leone's own take on the Kurosawa source material.

A Drifter, a Coffin, and a Border War

Set along the Mexico–United States border, the film follows Django, a Union soldier turned wandering drifter who travels with a coffin he drags behind him. His path crosses that of María, a mixed-race prostitute he rescues from bandits and then from the henchmen of Major Jackson, a racist ex-Confederate officer who intends to crucify her on a burning cross. The town they reach is a neutral zone caught between Jackson's gang of Confederate Red Shirts and General Hugo Rodríguez's Mexican revolutionary band. Django's coffin conceals a machine gun, which he unleashes in a brutal saloon shootout that establishes his lethality. The narrative escalates through a heist at Fort Charriba, a betrayal by Hugo who refuses to pay Django his share of stolen gold, and a series of escalating atrocities—including Hugo's men forcing a captured spy to eat his own severed ear. The climax at Tombstone Cemetery, where Django, his hands crushed by Miguel, rigs his revolver against a cross and kills Jackson's entire gang in a single fanning motion, remains one of the most iconic Western endings ever filmed.

Shocking Violence and a Long Censorship Battle

Its graphic brutality—crucifixion, mutilation, mass gunfights—provoked a fierce censorship response in the United Kingdom, where the British Board of Film Censors refused to grant the film a certificate for over two decades. Despite this prolonged ban in one of its potential major markets, Django cultivated a massive cult following well beyond Italy's borders. Retrospective critics and genre scholars consistently rank it among the finest achievements of the Spaghetti Western movement. The elements most frequently singled out for praise are Corbucci's taut, visceral direction, Franco Nero's stoic and physically imposing performance as the title character, and composer Luis Bacalov's driving, minimalist score, which became inseparable from the film's identity in the public imagination.

The Django Franchise and Lasting Influence

The enormous popularity of the original spawned a wave of imitators: over thirty films referencing the Django name appeared between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, most of them unofficial productions that included neither Corbucci nor Nero. The character's cultural footprint continued to grow when Quentin Tarantino included a cameo by Nero in his 2012 film Django Unchained, a deliberate homage to Corbucci's original.

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