Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

[Jeff]

retribution is note a theme in his work. It's more of a plot device. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown don't have strong elements of retribution in them and if Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained are about the theme of retribution then what about retribution is Tarantino examining?

I think you have to consider the possibility that Tarantino thinks that retribution (or perhaps, more pointedly, vengeance) is a moral good. I think that he examines, to some extent, the ethics of vengeance in most of his films. I think it's something he wrestles with personally, and explores via cinema. We can all cheer for Shosanna and Django when their oppressors get their comeuppance, and he's chosen the most vile villains in history to make that easy for us. In Kill Bill, Budd* says of Beatrix Kiddo, "That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die." That's Tarantino speaking, I think.

It's not so cut-and-dried in his earlier work, but Pulp Fiction deals with revenge at least as explicitly as the later films do. Consider the invented Bible verse and the philosophizing about it that Tarantino gives to his surrogate in that film, Jules:

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you." I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never gave much thought what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass. I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See now I'm thinkin', maybe it means you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

You will recall that normally, both Ringo and Honey Bunny's asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but they happened to pull that shit while Jules was in a transitional period so he didn't wanna kill them, he wanted to help them. I think Tarantino was still tryin' real hard to be a shepherd at that point, though of course chronologically the narrative ends with Marsellus Wallace about to engage some of his colleagues to get medieval on someone's ass. These conflicting ideals of mercy versus revenge weigh on Tarantino's characters, and the latter usually prevails. In the more recent films (Kill Bill, Death Proof, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained) there's not much weighing to be done. The violations committed against he heroes are so egregious, that we can indulge Tarantino his violent revenge fantasies, which seem to be more fun for him, and which are indeed frequently an excuse to pay homage to his vengeance-cinema forebears.


*edited per Matrix's dialogue attribution correction

[oldsheperd]

Our current conception of originality and plagiarism is neurotic and silly, I think. By modern standards stuff like The Aeneid or Chaucer's Troilus and Creseyde would be considered plagiarized, and yet they remain among the greatest pieces of literature--to say nothing of art in general--in the world. And they're much more egregious examples, considering that Tarantino is not trying to hide his influences, he's trying to make you aware of them.

Also, considering the majority of the films Tarantino is alluding to are genre films and exploitation cinema, your Mona Lisa reference makes no sense. But I do have to ask: how do you feel about Godard? He's open to all of these charges, too.

Well like I mentioned before with the Scorsese Taxi Driver reference, with me, it comes down to are you taking it just cause it looks cool or are you doing your own thing with it.
A lot of Tarantino's visual nods are just him nodding for the sake of nodding. It's probably just me because I'm stupid, but I don't see him doing anything significant with those things.
Godard on the other hand borrows a ton, but there's typically a Godardian spin on it whether it be gangster films or Brechtian 4th wall stuff. But Godard also borrows from other forms of art, I haven't seen Tarantino do that.
Tarantino I think does it for kitsch. It's like someone who goes and buys a formica table. You could just buy a regular table, but a formica table in your apartment will make you "hip". I think Tarantino sometimes let's his hipster sensibilities get in the way of his true talent.
When Pulp Fiction came out Tarantino said that he had all kind of Travolta memorabilia and even had a Saturday Night Fever board game. That's hipster before hipster. Very kitschy.
Tarantino has done a great job by, through his popularity, making a lot of these exploitation films available. I'll give him that. I would never have known about Lady Snowblood, The Beyond, Jack Hill, if not for Tarantino.
I think Tarantino and Godard are different in that Godard references his influences and incorporates them while Tarantino just kind of shoves them in their because they're hip.

[knives]

To further that, great examination Jeff, in how it ties with Tarantino's introspection via cinema the bible passage is from another film, but Tarantino's examination of it is entirely original while the chronological end you reference is quoted directly from another film (the fantastic Charley Varrick in this case). Does this mean that Tarantino can only be honest about his feelings via quotation as the self examination is new while the statement is old.

[Mr Sausage]

As an addendum to that great post, Jeff: if you're going to criticize Tarantino for his extensive use of revenge, you're going to have to do the same to a lot of stories all the way back to the revenge-tragedy of the English Renaissance that even Shakespeare made good use of. Revenge in real life may be distasteful and horrid, but for centuries art has been able turn that act into grand, elevated narratives in which the act can come to have almost cosmic significance. There are few narratives capable of more power than that of revenge, and like Jeff rightly says, Tarantino makes sure (at least in most of his films) that his revengers and victims are sufficiently elevated to led the acts that grandeur. A store clerk getting violent revenge on a rude customer is sickening. But raise the stature of the subjects enough and you take something sickening and turn it into high tragedy (among other things).

[oldsheperd]

I think you have to consider the possibility that Tarantino thinks that retribution (or perhaps, more pointedly, vengeance) is a moral good. I think that he examines, to some extent, the ethics of vengeance in most of his films. I think it's something he wrestles with personally, and explores via cinema...

I see where you're coming from I just think the idea of the conflict of retribution from Tarantino is muddled in his films. The PT Barnum side of Tarantino seems to overtake the serious side of Tarantino and wallow in over the top gratuity.
Inglorious Basterds is rife with retribution but there's no examination of it. I've only seen the film once, but if I can remember correctly there are only Good Guys and Bad Germans. There was no introspection of the concept on any of the characters.
In the other films, retribution, and any reflection on it is set as a coda. It's like Tarantino goes, "Oh, I should write something here about my interest in retribution. There we go. Now how does this character get killed?"

To further that, great examination Jeff, in how it ties with Tarantino's introspection via cinema the bible passage is from another film, but Tarantino's examination of it is entirely original while the chronological end you reference is quoted directly from another film (the fantastic Charley Varrick in this case). Does this mean that Tarantino can only be honest about his feelings via quotation as the self examination is new while the statement is old.

I like Charley Varrick.

As an addendum to that great post, Jeff: if you're going to criticize Tarantino for his extensive use of revenge, you're going to have to do the same to a lot of stories all the way back to the revenge-tragedy of the English Renaissance that even Shakespeare made good use of. Revenge in real life may be distasteful and horrid, but for centuries art has been able turn that act into grand, elevated narratives in which the act can come to have almost cosmic significance. There are few narratives capable of more power than that of revenge, and like Jeff rightly says, Tarantino makes sure (at least in most of his films) that his revengers and victims are sufficiently elevated to led the acts that grandeur. A store clerk getting violent revenge on a rude customer is sickening. But raise the stature of the subjects enough and you take something sickening and turn it into high tragedy (among other things).

There's a thin line between revenge and justice. These concepts have evolved in the past 500 plus years.

[Mr Sausage]

There's a thin line between revenge and justice. These concepts have evolved in the past 500 plus years.

What exactly are you trying to say?

[oldsheperd]

I'm trying to say that you're referencing works that are centuries old. The concepts of revenge and justice may be a bit different than what Tarantino has in mind in his works.

[knives]

There's a thin line between revenge and justice. These concepts have evolved in the past 500 plus years.

reservoir dogs

Yes, and with that Tarantino is expressing his own feelings on them via the films. With IB I found it rather sickening and offensive, but for Django Unchained his moral absolutism seems more right. Tarantino seems to feel that retributions for wrongs is always good. The big question then becomes when is it appropriate to use violence. This goes all the way back to Reservoir Dogs where the wait for the murder of Mr. Blonde gets called into question after it is revealed that Mr. Orange is a cop. Why didn't he kill Mr. Blonde earlier and was it morally appropriate to do so. Lately that has shifted towards can a human attain the right level of cathartic retribution for very horrible deeds such as genocide or slavery.

[Mr Sausage]

I'm trying to say that you're referencing works that are centuries old. The concepts of revenge and justice may be a bit different than what Tarantino has in mind in his works.

The concept of revenge hasn't changed all that much. In fact I don't think it's changed at all. Nor have the narratives that use it. And like I said, many of the very greatest works of art have taken revenge as their narrative and their theme, and not under terms much different than Tarantino's later films. In each case a person of elevated evil commits a horrible wrong and is killed by the person he/she has wronged.

This theme/narrative has been a constant from greek tragedy down to the exploitation films Tarantino loves. He likes to work out this theme on film; so what? There's no better place to do it, and it's a fundamental narrative.

[Mr Sausage]

There's a thin line between revenge and justice. These concepts have evolved in the past 500 plus years.

reservoir dogs

Yes, and with that Tarantino is expressing his own feelings on them via the films. With IB I found it rather sickening and offensive, but for Django Unchained his moral absolutism seems more right. Tarantino seems to feel that retributions for wrongs is always good. The big question then becomes when is it appropriate to use violence. This goes all the way back to Reservoir Dogs where the wait for the murder of Mr. Blonde gets called into question after it is revealed that Mr. Orange is a cop. Why didn't he kill Mr. Blonde earlier and was it morally appropriate to do so. Lately that has shifted towards can a human attain the right level of cathartic retribution for very horrible deeds such as genocide or slavery.

The question to ask, tho', is whether Tarantino thinks revenge is right within our current social reality, or whether he thinks it's right within the worlds he has created--or more to the point (since they increasingly amount to the same thing), is it right within the world of film itself?

It seems clear to me that Tarantino gives revenge aesthetic primacy, but it's not at all clear to me that he gives it a social primacy. Hence the films of his where it's the most complicated are the ones that are closest to our social reality, whereas the films where revenge takes on an archetypal role are his most fantastical, most clearly filmic movies (caveat: have not seen Django yet).

[knives]

Django does something interesting in that regard as it Django only gets retribution socially and never for the wrongs committed against him. I think in these past two films the real world has definitely become a serious concern (only compounded by his statements). For me in these last two the question is if he is making a serious call for arms or is simply trying to present a catharsis which is especially important in regards to Inglourious Basterds as the call to arms is for me very morally wrong while if it is simply an act of catharsis I can better appreciate it even as I disagree.

[Mr Sausage]

I'm not convinced that Tarantino is exploring the relation of filmic values to real-world values in the way you see it. In fact, I think he's increasingly leaving real-world values behind and asserting increasingly filmic/archetypal ones in and of themselves, as having a special meaning just for the mere fact of their being a part of film-world. Again, same caveat applies.

That said, he undermines that in sometimes interesting ways. Like the ending of Kill Bill!, where the act of revenge is followed by

Spoiler

a really unexpected bathetic plunge, where the bride weeps on the floor like she were a real person and not the embodiment of the revenger's ideal. It's a good example of his understanding that there is a divide between revenge as an archetypal/filmic virtue and revenge as an act with real personal and social consequences in the real world.

[knives]

I agree with you though I am beginning to suspect that he is literally replacing the real world with that of cinema. Django gives an interesting followup to your Bride example that shows him dropping real world psychology in favour of filmic ones entirely and so my concern is in using real life tragedies instead of fictional ones is he making a moral or a cathartic charge upon these tragedies? I don't, for example, think he was aiming for just a naziploitation film, but instead using that genre's grammar to achieve a real world feeling which I am terribly distraught by I must admit as being a little too close to the material which may cloud my judgement.

[oldsheperd]

In all actuality what do I know? The Avengers was my favorite movie this year.

[Mr Sausage]

I don't know, I get the feeling that Tarantino thinks slavery and the holocaust are large and extreme enough as topics to fit into an archetypal revenge story. With slavery, he's at least approaching it through film by making it a western (a genre which has always had an odd relation to both myth and history); with the holocaust, he's making it so unhistorical that it becomes abstracted from history and therefore more archetypal.

I'm not sure where your comments about a "real-world feeling" fit in because I'm not sure what you mean. You could be right, but I'd need more explanation.

[knives]

Poignancy would have definitely been a better term. I think in his reach for epic romances (something I agree with you on and which Tarantino draws a direct line via the Siegfried story in Django Unchained) he is doing one of two things. I'm not sure if I should say and or or, but both times it seems he is directly speaking to those who suffered injustice and in doing so is speaking for an unreal catharsis via a communal retribution that will never be achieved in real life and/or trying to reignite anger to bring about real world retribution.

With this I suspect I am getting unclear again so I'll go directly to point. He is I feel creating an extreme fantasy removed from the real world to such a degree that it pushes the real world to react in some manner against it.

[Mr Sausage]

Poignancy would have definitely been a better term. I think in his reach for epic romances (something I agree with you on and which Tarantino draws a direct line via the Siegfried story in Django Unchained) he is doing one of two things. I'm not sure if I should say and or or, but both times it seems he is directly speaking to those who suffered injustice and in doing so is speaking for an unreal catharsis via a communal retribution that will never be achieved in real life and/or trying to reignite anger to bring about real world retribution.

With this I suspect I am getting unclear again so I'll go directly to point. He is I feel creating an extreme fantasy removed from the real world to such a degree that it pushes the real world to react in some manner against it.

Now that's really interesting. I'll have to mull it over before giving a response, but my first reaction is to say: could he not be positing the very act of watching a film to be a communal catharsis, and one in which no actual violence or revenge needs to take place?

[knives]

That is my very concern and one I have been deeply thinking over ever since watching Inglourious Basterds since I had such a violent reaction against its diversions from history (no not the ending, but how he connects the Jewish people to those of the Americas and what that changes in us as a community). For me as a Jew I question even a catharsis from these horrors which define me at least in small so what he is doing with the film is a large statement no matter what toward me and I cannot figure out if it is a good or bad one. In so many years I haven't figured out a proper response, but perhaps you'll be luckier.

[oldsheperd]

I don't think there is any catharsis in IB. The Revenge motif that motivates the squad is briefly touched on in Basterds. And as Raine points out the Squads only job is killing Nazis. There is nothing deeper than that. Revenge for the Holocaust got kind of lost in the film after a while with both the girl and the squad. The last 20 minutes, around the time the theater sabotage scene gets moving completely falls apart. After that it was hard for me to recover and get back into a movie that opened with a lot of promise. Admittedly the opening of IB is a glorious bit of Sergio Leone.

[knives]

I think just from a storytelling perspective the film went way beyond the Basterds and I tend to treat them as an artifact with Shosanna as the primary text to work off of with her concluding remarks being that she is the face of Jewish vengeance. The revenge is only one dimensional, but that is all it needs to be in this very specific discussion with a Jewish audience (or anyone else effected directly by the Holocaust though obviously it is primarily a Jewish audience). With the film positing that this genocide against the Nazis (my main problem with the film) is a fitting retribution it doesn't really need to say anything else about revenge since that is already a serious enough point.

[matrixschmatrix]

I just wanted to raise a point with Jeff's post- in Kill Bill, it's not Bill who says the line about deserving revenge, it's Budd. In some ways, that underlines the idea that Tarantino thinks revenge is just- Budd is perhaps the wisest of Beatrix's enemies, and certainly the more clear-sighted one- but I think it's complicated in a couple of different ways, namely Budd's immediately succeeding line ("Of course, she does too") and the earlier internal monologue Beatrix has, "When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other that not only does God exist, you're doing His will." It's ultimately pro-vengeance, but it seems to have an awareness that the vengeance shouldn't be simply a petty and personal matter- in Kill Bill, Beatrix gets her sword because Hanzo is aware of the immensity of evil Bill represents, and obviously in IB and Django Unchained both it is an almost unimaginable evil being fought.

Tarantino's ethic certainly isn't the Christian one, but it's interesting and it's not raw and unthinking bloodlust. Not that anyone here was particularly suggesting that to be the case.

[HistoryProf]

Much to my surprise, I absolutely loved this movie. Even more amazing is that my wife did too. She's usually not happy unless a film is in black and white, but she noted "the violence was so violent it was funny!" as we were leaving the theater. I thought it was gorgeously shot but a bit bloated like many did. The scene with the "masks" felt like something on the cutting room floor from O Brother Where Art Thou? It just didn't fit in the film. Yet the fact that Big Daddy rounds up a posse and goes after them was precisely what I wanted to see after their big score....there's no way in hell anyone would have let a black man get away with shooting a white man - bounty hunter or not - so that was the tipping point for me and I was ecstatic that QT put it back on track.

DiCaprio really impressed me - especially the scene where he confronts them. I had heard that the take in the film involved him actually gashing his palm open when he slammed his hand down on one of the cordial glasses on accident. But he kept going, so everyone else did, and Kerry Washington's horror when he smears it on her face is real. good stuff. I loved Sam Jackson's character...another example of QT avoiding traps that were laying all around. There were plenty of loyal "House Niggers" in the South - indeed most rebellions failed before they could start because of them. The dynamic between Stephen and Candie was great...never mind the glimpses into his standing as the smartest man in the house. had he all of a sudden helped Django or something stupid...which a lot of movies would have done...it would have ruined the entire landscape the film had built. There were and are many levels to a race hierarchy, and I thought Django did an incredible job of showing the complexities involved, which is something I did not expect at all. I thought it would be the usual QT genre fanboy exercise, but could not be happier it is so much more.

Spoiler

As in the scene where Django has to take out the felon plowing with his son. Killing white folks for $ isn't so simple, is it? There are glimpses of that kind of humanism throughout, especially via Schultz, who is one of the great characters of the year.

Frankly, I don't see how anyone could be offended by this film in terms of its race politics...it shows that slavery was a horrifically ugly and awful institution, more so than any of us could ever imagine. God only knows how many were murdered, eaten by dogs, castrated, and otherwise. In all its tongue-in-cheek over the top fun, it's a profoundly honest look into the most ugliest part of our past.

Not sure if i'd put it above Jackie Brown...I have a soft spot for that one, but it's close. And since everyone else did it:

1. Jackie Brown
2. Django Unchained
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Inglorious Basterds
5. Reservoir Dogs
6. Death Proof
7. KB v. 2
8. KB v. 1

[Brad]

Really enjoyed this thread. Is there any need to intellectualize or logic-ize a QT film? But I love all the discussion they create. His films are well-made trash films. I love trash films and am glad QT gets the budget to at least get some good actors and cinematography involved.

Spoiler

The whole Mandingo cover story made NO sense to me IRL. Once they found broomchick Chris should have gone ALONE to whateverland and bought her. If he needed a reason, he could mention the German thing.

And I find the QT rankings interesting as it is mind-boggling to me that anyone found KB to be a good, let alone great, film. But it's funny how "all over the place" the rankings are. His best films offer at least one semi-human character that you can emotionally relate to. Namely my top 3.

1. Jackie Brown
2. Django Unchained
3. Inglorious Basterds (sp)
4. Pulp Fiction
5. Death Proof
6. Reservoir Dogs
7. KB

[matrixschmatrix]

Spoiler

The whole Mandingo cover story made NO sense to me IRL. Once they found broomchick Chris should have gone ALONE to whateverland and bought her. If he needed a reason, he could mention the German thing.

Spoiler

Yeah, the movie Django Unchained would have been way better if Django wasn't in the last third of it, and a white guy did all the important stuff

[FerdinandGriffon]

HistoryProf, if plot devices aren't logical then that's that, regardless of whether correcting them would change the film's politics.