Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

[rs98762001]

Without wishing to spoil anything, I will merely say that his role is pretty small but happens to occur during the weakest part of the film, and thus becomes even more annoying.

[willoneill]

So is everyone choosing to forget Destiny Turns on the Radio?

[mfunk9786]

Pretty great interview with Tarantino on Howard Stern today:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Without wishing to spoil anything, I will merely say that his role is pretty small but happens to occur during the weakest part of the film, and thus becomes even more annoying.

Is it the same character (or "character") he played in Sukiyaki Western Django? Because otherwise that's a missed opportunity.

[Niale]

Pretty great interview with Tarantino on Howard Stern today

I did not make it very far in to that. Howard Stern is a very tired man. He will barf up things he read on the internet, the same things I have read, and coax whoever he is talking to into repeating basically something they have already said before. Then Howard will cut them off mid sentence to ask them something they would ordinarily refuse to respond to. Drugs, dick size, "who did you fuck"... And that stuff I could care less about. Its the same stupid bait and switch. Its all dead air to Howard, unless something naughty is said, its 2012 who cares about something naughty on the radio? Its the RADIO! Worse than being repetitive, the man is just disingenuous to the bone. Like, not knowing if Tarintino's father had been on the show before, then magically recalling it. Using flattery to rewind the conversation so that Tarintino can try again, and this time say what he wants him to say. I gave up after, for like the fifth time, Howard tried to get him to say something negative about Will Smith. Its not an interview its a gimmick.

In regards to the film itself, I have high hopes for it.
Especially considering the fact that I see Inglorious Basterds as his best movie. I think he is on a role. I read a little bit of the script and put it down after the first set piece, which was fantastic. As far as the debate concerning his performance, I think Tarintino is in the trailer. I hear his voice when the guy says: "No, nobody brought an extra bag".

[mfunk9786]

Yeah, I think you missed the point. Howard isn't Film Comment - he tries to make a guest interesting to a general audience and tries to get a new angle on the same stuff that someone who's doing a litany of other press already has had to talk about a zillion times. He's conducted interviews in the same loose, fast style for decades, so I don't know what makes him tired now because he didn't ask Tarantino exactly the correct questions for a Tarantino aficionado like yourself. Just thought I'd post the interview for people who'd enjoy it, wasn't opening it to lengthy discussion from a psychopath about whether or not it appealed to them. Tarantino has been promoting every new film on the show for years and is a daily listener, he knows what he's getting into.

[Highway 61]

Just thought I'd post the interview for people who'd enjoy it, wasn't opening it to lengthy discussion from a psychopath about whether or not it appealed to them.

For whatever it's worth, I appreciate the heads up. Living in France, I'm basically cut off from American media, save YouTube. Plus, I love Howard's interviews.

[Yojimbo]

Pretty great interview with Tarantino on Howard Stern today:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Just listened to Part One; will listen to the rest, later.
Didn't know anything about his father, never mind his collaboration with Pacino's dad, - of whom I knew nothing, either.
So far the interview was refreshingly unscripted, and untypical of the usual film reviewer ingratiating geekdom

[Jeff]

At a Museum of Modern Art benefit on Monday night honoring Mr. Tarantino, Peter Bogdanovich introduced the filmmaker as “the single most influential director of his generation,” adding that “Django” “may be his best picture so far.”

It’s “the shortest long western since ‘Rio Bravo,’” he continued. “’Django’ runs two hours and 44 minutes and seems to last only half that length.”

Mr. Bogdanovich, the director of “Paper Moon” and “The Last Picture Show,” had seen it the night before, at a screening where he sat next to Mr. Tarantino. “I’m still shaking,” he said.

“His pictures,” he added, “grab you by your shirt front and never let you go.”

[knives]

I, for one, think this has the potential to be his best film. He may finally be forced away from the (admittedly entertaining) navel-gazing that mark his usual films, which are mostly about his own love of movies.

And you are right. While as mesmerizing and focused on the usage of language as usual the dialogue here is completely unlike previous films focused on bringing together the story. The film is a bit awkwardly built essentially being two films of two very different tones and the climax has all the worst elements of IB. That said for most of the film's runtime Tarantino is very complexly dealing with audience reactions to shock particularly as it relates to humour versus drama. In a lot of ways the Birth of a Nation scene complete with cameo from the fat Superbad guy is the funniest most Tarantino-ey thing ever. That it is about forty minutes later followed by one of the ugliest bits of violence to recently come out of a mainstream film is really fascinating. The movie's not perfect, but it is intelligently daring.

[Niale]

Yeah, I think you missed the point. Howard isn't Film Comment - he tries to make a guest interesting to a general audience and tries to get a new angle on the same stuff that someone who's doing a litany of other press already has had to talk about a zillion times. He's conducted interviews in the same loose, fast style for decades, so I don't know what makes him tired now because he didn't ask Tarantino exactly the correct questions for a Tarantino aficionado like yourself. Just thought I'd post the interview for people who'd enjoy it, wasn't opening it to lengthy discussion from a psychopath about whether or not it appealed to them. Tarantino has been promoting every new film on the show for years and is a daily listener, he knows what he's getting into.

I have never heard of Film Comment.

[mfunk9786]

Okay.

[mfunk9786]

There's something to be said for the soothing effects of rewriting history. For the second film in a row, Quentin Tarantino, a once-wunderkind filmmaker who was once obsessed with making crime films about criminals engaging in criminal activity has decided to turn his eye upon making grandiose historical fiction. I understand the straight-faced moral quandary of this, I really do. These were awful times in recent history that Tarantino is using as his sandbox, but what I can't get past after seeing the astonishingly great Django Unchained (his best film by a previously undiscovered mile) is the idea that this sort of revision is exactly what American culture needs to bury the horror of slavery once and for all. Slavery was such a nasty bit of business - it's taught in schools (kind of, and to varying degrees depending on where you grow up) and everyone just sort of shrugs, acknowledges it as horrible, and moves along. But this was still a very recent part of our history, the horrors of which are rarely charted in even the most well-meaning films. We live in a country (particularly down south) where one race walks around as very recently unshackled victims of the most inhuman sort of objectification, and many members of another race walk around with a sadness for their increasing loss of control of what they perceived as their region's rich history. Both of these realities are always simmering under the surface... sometimes bubbling up, sometimes lying flat, but they're always there. These absolute horrors aren't discussed enough, aren't revisited enough, aren't completely obliterated by our collective scorn enough. Then here's Django Unchained, an unapologetically unflinching magnification of just a fraction of the ugliness of the mid-19th century in America, a film that depicts such horrors, looks down at them from upon a perch of "how the fuck could we have let this happen?!" re-evaluation, and it does something about this strange and heavy cloud that hangs over our lack of acceptance of this abhorrent history. Tarantino then proceeds to piss all over any glory that anyone will ever ever try to wring from their confederate legacy, douse it in gasoline, and blow it to pieces. Only Tarantino would have the gall to make something this definitively unambiguous and blunt out of such an uncomfortable topic and come out on the other side with one of the most entertaining and deeply cathartic films of all time - no other filmmaker would have touched this with a ten foot pole (or would have the clout to be allowed to). The fact that Tarantino just simply does not care about white guilt, hand-wringing, moral stickiness... we're lucky that the guy who doesn't care is also an exceptionally talented filmmaker who isn't afraid to make fiction out of reality by magnifying its horrors in order to wrap those horrors in dynamite, light the fuse, and invite us all to watch it go up in flames.

[warren oates]

As usual with Tarantino there's a lot to admire here, including some wonderful performances from Foxx, Jackson, Waltz and even DiCaprio. There's also, for the first time since Jackie Brown, a genuine, mature complexity to the way he draws the various relationships between men and women, black and white. But - also as usual - he ultimately gets in the way of his own story. All the typical indulgences are here, including an excessive running time (the last half hour is some of the sloppiest filmmaking of his career), his gratuitous self-casting (although there's an amusing kicker to this that suggests it may be the last time he does this...or maybe I'm just being optimistic), and, worst of all, his overreliance on cartoonish violence and cheap laughs when it's unnecessary and only serves to take you out of the story he's carefully created. If only he wasn't so fucking hellbent on proving to everyone that he's the Tarantino they know and love (and that he himself knows and loves), he might actually make a unreservedly great film one day.

I'm closer to rs98762001 than mfunk on this. Mfunk accurately captures the best of Tarantino's intentions and my hopes for the film during the first 90ish minutes. In many ways this is his most mature and accomplished storytelling since Jackie Brown, certainly his deepest commitment to character since then. And it goes places with both its humor and its seriousness that you won't see coming. Though some of the unflinching and incendiary presentation of slavery's violence is drowned out by the less resonant, more cartoonish revenge set pieces in the film's last reel. Most of which is also surprisingly anti-climactic and seems to play out more from genre obligation or even the sheer glee of homage. It makes me wonder how much of this final cut was rushed. And if it would play better and seem less superficial with some of the connective tissue put back in. I suspect not, though, because the editing that the film cries out for has more to do with a bloated script. Django certainly has its moments and there are more of them than you'd see in the course of most other films. Even if it isn't the film it could have been, a less than masterpiece Tarantino is still a pretty great afternoon at the movies. Fans should be satisfied if they manage their expectations.

[HistoryProf]

where are you fellas seeing this?

[warren oates]

where are you fellas seeing this?

Seems like they are trying to build word of mouth with aggressive preview screening in large cities around the country. I caught one in Los Angeles.

[mfunk9786]

I saw it in Philadelphia, at a botched word of mouth screening where about 500 people showed up and there were about 50 seats. I was really lucky to get in.

[rs98762001]

Though some of the unflinching and incendiary presentation of slavery's violence is drowned out by the less resonant, more cartoonish revenge set pieces in the film's last reel. Most of which is also surprisingly anti-climactic and seems to play out more from genre obligation or even the sheer glee of homage. It makes me wonder how much of this final cut was rushed. And if it would play better and seem less superficial with some of the connective tissue put back in. I suspect not, though, because the editing that the film cries out for has more to do with a bloated script.

I never read the script, but let's be honest, other than Reservoir Dogs, every single thing Tarantino has made would benefit from being shorter. Self-indulgence has always been one of his most obvious flaws, along with an inability to trust his own more mature instincts. Perhaps because Jackie Brown was a commercial failure, he's never seemed subsequently at ease with anything that could be construed as having meaning or emotional realism. Django comes close, but as you say the last half hour just feels tired, like he's going through the motions of coming up with the necessary climax for what might have started as an exploitation genre homage/ripoff yet became something much more interesting along the way. It's a shame he didn't follow that through to its logical conclusion.

[knives]

Actually Reservoir Dogs is choice numero uno for his films that I feel need to be cut down (the Orange flashback goes on way too long). What ever problems I have with his films tend to be entirely on the structure not the pacing which he has improved on over the years.

[warren oates]

Can't agree with you, knives, about Reservoir Dogs which remains his most tightly written film. Jackie Brown has always felt long to me in a good way. If Pulp Fiction needs trimming it's kind of hard to do it without bringing down the whole structure. Kill Bill is too long.

But I would be interested to hear a defense of the last 20-25 minutes of Django from knives. For me the big dramatic dilemma is over the moment

Spoiler

Django gets his bride back legally. Everything else -- including all the gun battles, Django's captivity scene complete with ball-sparing deus ex Jackson, the boring and badly photographed side trip with the mining company guys, and the explosive finale that, if it had to be in at all should have come 20 minutes earlier -- seems pretty superfluous to me.

[knives]

I agree with you, but I think that is a problem of structure rather than pacing. Those last thirty minutes are bad for story reasons, but they play very entertainingly.

[rs98762001]

I disagree. I thought the movie stopped dead in its tracks once

Spoiler

Waltz and DiCaprio die.

[knives]

Spoiler

Perhaps my more positive reaction is due to my never seeing DiCaprio as the main villain. The film is more interesting to me with Sam Jackson as the main villain as it works well with this (perhaps poor) thought of personal activity in one's own enslavement. I really disliked the revisionist tone this line of thinking was shown in IB, but here especially with DiCaprio as just a fop with the question of the modern man versus the uncle Tom being a more difficult point of discussion.

[warren oates]

I disagree. I thought the movie stopped dead in its tracks once

Spoiler

Waltz and DiCaprio die.

For me it was maybe the moment just before this one

Spoiler

where I realized what was going to happen and why. That Waltz would shoot him, but not out of the organic tragic inevitability Tarantino earns in the Rathskeller scene of Inglorious Basterds or the end of Reservoir Dogs, but because the writer needed a way to start some shooting and it was extra cute that DiCaprio demanded a handshake because we all knew what Waltz had waiting up his sleeve.

[rs98762001]

Spoiler

Perhaps my more positive reaction is due to my never seeing DiCaprio as the main villain. The film is more interesting to me with Sam Jackson as the main villain as it works well with this (perhaps poor) thought of personal activity in one's own enslavement. I really disliked the revisionist tone this line of thinking was shown in IB, but here especially with DiCaprio as just a fop with the question of the modern man versus the uncle Tom being a more difficult point of discussion.

Spoiler

I agree with you that Jackson is the ultimate antagonist and I thought that was a really surprising and astute development from Tarantino, one which made the film far more interesting and daring. However well-developed their conflict is, though, the actual execution of their final stand-off is disappointingly limp and timid. Again, rather than finding a novel way to resolve the dynamic between them, he just goes for the mindless splatter showdown, the easiest bait possible for his fanboy audience.