Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

[LQ]

Teach me how to understand cinema
Show me how to enjoy it a lot
It hurts my little head
When I'm watching this retread
Without approaching it like a snot

Look, eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns on the funniness ....(but you haven't reached it yet )

[Mr Sausage]

I think the Kill Bill! films are more than just wildly entertaining, but they succeed on that latter front pretty well. Although, to be fair, I'm not a big fan of either of them. There's a lot of really great pieces in there, but as a whole I find it unsatisfactory. It's too bloated and overfilled and too, well, baggy. It's a sloppy movie, but I do like its energy and creativity. It might even be Tarantino's best film (leaving aside Django Unchained, which I haven't seen yet) just for the extremely complex way he conceives of and executes cinematic pastiche. It's a formally interesting movie, and a lot less juvenile than its subject matter suggests.

That doesn't mean you have to be an active viewer when you watch this or any movie. It's nice to enjoy easier pleasures, like taking a good action film on a purely surface level. But you can't just have that all the time, and when you want more difficult pleasures, Kill Bill! offers them, too.

Intellectual discussion excites me just as much as any surface level entertainment, tho', so it's pretty rare for me to just take a film as is (unless I find there isn't any other option). That doesn't mean the film needs lofty ideas, or any ideas at all; it just has to give me something to analyse, to read closely, some fascinating element that I can take apart and try to see how it works. It can be a philosophical idea or a way of creating emotional content. Whatever. But I'm not often satisfied with only having had a few hours go pleasantly by. I need something more. The films that mean the most to me always offer me just a bit more than that.

[mfunk9786]

For the record, all kidding aside, I find a lot more than surface enjoyment in the Kill Bill films, I'm just at work and didn't have time to write several paragraphs about them from memory. I didn't expect to be attacked for throwing my opinion on the films in with a sentence or two like everyone else was doing.

[Mr Sausage]

For the record, all kidding aside, I find a lot more than surface enjoyment in the Kill Bill films, I'm just at work and didn't have time to write several paragraphs about them from memory. I didn't expect to be attacked for throwing my opinion on the films in with a sentence or two like everyone else was doing.

You didn't get attacked. No one had any negative intent, knives included. You're getting kind of defensive. Let's just pull back and let everything settle down. No one's actually said anything rude or nasty or condescending in this thread. It's just an exchange of opinion.

[domino harvey]

I often see Jackie Brown being trotted out as an exemplar of Tarantino's rare "maturity" or some close equivalent, which is bewildering to me. I am more receptive of praise of the film as a "hang out movie" (an expression I don't know, but which I presume means the viewer likes hanging out with the characters?), because that at least reveals a tangible level of entertainment and involvement for the viewer. But "maturity"? The film is juvenile to the point of trying patience and goodwill, and just because the central characters are a bit older doesn't make them wiser or more interesting. They may talk a lot, but not one of the characters presented at any time says or does anything to justify the screen time allotted. If you disagree and connect on some level, great, then the presentation and/or characterization of these figures worked for you and no wonder you'd like to spend nearly three hours with them. For me, it was closer a chore than anything else. I'd much rather devote my time to the examples I mentioned earlier: Pulp Fiction is a concise and clever piece of cinema (and its effect on 90s cinema is a special interest of mine), and Kill Bill a glorious mixtape of nothing but "good parts" of a thousand rentals long since forgotten. The pleasures I get from these films are real and easy to explain, and they don't just boil down to "fun," though certainly they are fun to watch, nor are they immature just because they don't make great pains to be "important."

[knives]

The maturity compliment does seem a bit odd and in opposition to the movie at several parts so I just assume they mean no gross out violence which is a silly thing to compliment a film on. I just really love the way he manipulates the source to fit his sort of structure and his genre interest seems a bit more closer to what I find interesting about these genres too (the same can be said of the second half of Kill Bill which I find to be pretty good). It also has some of the best reactions I've seen Tarantino write as if it were his cartoon characters reacting to more 'gritty' violence like Jack Hill characters thrown in a Walter Hill movie.

[Cold Bishop]

The "maturity" comes from the fact that people feel a real heart and soul under the narrative. I've never really felt the moral concerns of Pulp Fiction all that deeply in my bones, even if its what drive the film. There are certainly some striking moments of pathos in Kill Bill (surprisingly, all about maternity), but it's mostly an attempt at creating a monomyth out of late 20th century pop culture, with all the limitations it comes with. Jackie Brown, with its concerns with aging, losing your edge... not to mention the sweet romance that pops up among all the murder and deception... resonates in a way that none of Tarantino's other films do.

[dx23]

Spike Lee on Django Unchained:

American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.It Was A Holocaust.My Ancestors Are Slaves.Stolen From Africa.I Will Honor Them.

That quote is from Twitter and he was asked to elaborate on his comments and he just more or less repeated the same thing. Was he as mad and critical when Tarantino did Inglorious Bastards? I know Lee has criticized Tarantino before when he did Jackie Brown but I always felt Spike overreacts to anything (Spike TV anyone) and even though he is a talented filmmaker his views about blacks and their community always felt somewhat outdated. By the way, he hasn't seen the film yet.

[flyonthewall2983]

Isn't him refusing to see it the whole reason he brought it up? Other than that, he certainly has the right not to see it and to his opinion why. It would be interesting to see if someone like Jamie Foxx or Samuel L. (who Spike is working with again) engages him on this somehow.

[Brian C]

Hasn't Tarantino himself made the Leone comparison? Hardly seems unreasonable for Spike to judge the film unseen on those grounds if that's the case.

[knives]

Isn't him refusing to see it the whole reason he brought it up? Other than that, he certainly has the right not to see it and to his opinion why. It would be interesting to see if someone like Jamie Foxx or Samuel L. (who Spike is working with again) engages him on this somehow.

He was asked some questions he dodged by a reporter before posting that on Twitter.

[Mr Sausage]

Hasn't Tarantino himself made the Leone comparison? Hardly seems unreasonable for Spike to judge the film unseen on those grounds if that's the case.

Well, aside from the fact that Tarantino homages Leone all the time, the film is named after one of the most famous and influential spaghetti westerns, Django.

But Lee's point is silly. Slavery wasn't a spaghetti western? Slavery wasn't a movie, period. There's no regional or temporal film style that's closer to a moment in history than any other. I get the sense that Spike flippantly and erroneously considers the spaghetti western to be trivial, and that Tarantino's use of that style trivializes slavery. But the spaghetti western had been used to explore complex political themes for years in Italy, so that's no more true than any other nonsensical Spike Lee rant.

[JMULL222]

You know, I love Spike, I'm probably one of his most ardent defenders (I love SHE HATE ME, for chrissakes,) but not only is he wrong here, he's being a hypocrite. He had no problem re-appropriating the destruction of Europe during WWII for what is (gloriously, in my opinion) a lowbrow genre film in MIRACLE. And Spike knows enough about genre to know what he's saying is shaky. I honestly think what's pissing him off about DJANGO is that he didn't make it.

[stroszeck]

Spike is becoming a caricature of his former self in the same way that Kevin Smith has become one. NO longer are they producing works of art but shoveling shit out to consumers (Has anyone seen Red Hook Summer? Its on Netflix and unwatchable.) In order for these guys to stay relevant they seem to have to depend on making controversial statements. Wasn't it just last year that Spike made some inappropriate and dangerous comments on the whole Trayvon Martin case? He's no longer a filmmaker and in spite of how much I admired him when I was younger, I can't defend anything he says or does anymore. By the way, it is especially interesting to note that he was good friends with Tarantino and actually had him play a minor supporting role in Girl 6 so I believe the fact that Tarantino left him in the dust may have left a bad taste in Lee's mouth.

[matrixschmatrix]

Lee was making great stuff as recently as 2006 (When the Levees Broke, Inside Man) and I've heard good things about Passing Strange, which was 2009- and Smith was never the filmmaker that Lee was in the first place. Lee's always been prone to saying dickish things and putting himself in the spotlight, and he's been on Tarantino's case since Pulp Fiction, so I don't think anything has changed.

[mfunk9786]

The humorless always end up on the wrong side of history.

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

I honestly think what's pissing him off about DJANGO is that he didn't make it.

This seems credible. A looooong time ago, around 1990, I heard him speak in Iowa, and during his talk he made some noise about another filmmaker (perhaps Norman Jewison) being slated to direct Malcolm X, saying, "I'm hoping he will respectfully step down and let me take over." It was so preemptively and arrogantly uttered, I got the feeling that it wasn't just a race issue (i.e., only a black director should make a film about Malcolm)--in fact, only Spike Lee should direct a film about Malcolm.

[knives]

It was Jewison and you are right since he was developing his Malcolm X since before he made his first feature.

[flyonthewall2983]

He had some similar issues with Michael Mann directing Ali as well.

[Tuco]

He's gonna be really pissed when he finds out that Oliver Stone is doing a version of Amos n' Andy.

[matrixschmatrix]

So, this was fun as hell, and way less morally conflicted than Basterds- not a lot of specifically likable or harmless people getting murdered and getting the audience to cheer for it here. I'm not at all on board with the idea that it's meant to be solely a movie taken as a movie with no historical or sociological meaning, though, and I think a lot of the delight comes out of first dredging up the truly horrific shit that slavery entailed (and making clear that it was part and parcel with the institution and not the fault of a few particularly wicked Simons Legree) and stoking the audience's feeling of moral horror about it- and without feeling like a paean to the noble Enlightened White Man, who generously fixes everything for the poor helpless blacks. I don't think its genre roots conflict at all with the force of the depiction, either- in some ways, they're what let Tarantino put things as horrific as he does into the movie without making it unwatchable.

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.

I strongly disagree with this and with the idea that the last 20 minutes should have been trimmed.

Spoiler

For me, that last scene is the one that the rest of the movie's been preparing you for, where everything in sight gets burned to the goddamn ground and you couldn't be happier about it. Waltz's move didn't have the Greek tragedy feeling that Reservoir Dogs' ending did, but it did have the feeling of the end of The Wild Bunch, a 'fuck it, let's do this' sense where the choice between getting your specific goal and moving on and allowing the structure to stand and acting out doesn't balance the way it normally does, and you can't stand to let whatever it is go on. Moreover, if Waltz doesn't get killed off, then we do have a movie about a white hero and his sidekick fighting slavery, and fuck that. What we get is both Django actually getting to be Siegfried, and a revolutionary sense of going after the institution rather than the individual- though I would have been that much happier if we got to see a full on Spartacus style slave rebellion, with the fieldhands and everyone joining in. If Tarantino's comfortable with killing Hitler, I don't see why we couldn't have gotten this thing taken to its logical Marxist conclusion.

[dad1153]

Saw this at a packed (mostly black) theater in Harlem where the movie absolutely killed. With the original "Django" fresh on my mind (saw it the night before at Film Forum for the first time and loved it) and me not fully liking a Tarantino movie since "Jackie Brown" (mostly because everything since to me have been genre tributes that are too busy paying homage to old movies/styles/scenes/character types rather than be their own stories) I can safely say that "Django Unchained" is an absolute blast from start to finish and, yes, a remake that's far superior to the original. Not only is the Cristoph Waltz show back in town and in full force (easily the best actor in a sea of bad-ass character men like Walton Goggins, James Remar, Don Johnson and James Russo, to name a few) but Tarantino actually makes an honest-to-goodness American spaghetti western. By embracing the slavery storylines (and the inevitable glorification of violence that comes with the subject matter) often ignored by the period Italian westerns and applying the revenge fantasy element from "Inglorious Basterds" to the narrative the violence and grindhouse of "Django Unchanged" have a historical appeal/context that's both compelling and explosive. What "Goodfellas" was to the 'F' word "Django Unchained" is to the 'N' word, and what Patrick Stewart is to the live-action "X-Men" movies Samuel L. Jackson is to any potential live-action movie version of "The Boondocks." Jamie Foxx starts iffy but, as the movie progresses, his take on Django gets better and by the end you're totally cheering for him. It isn't perfect (DiCaprio overacts, Kerry Washington is given nothing to do and, predictably, the movie stops cold when Quentin shows up on-screen) but damn if "Django Unchanged" is not one of the most violent and entertaining movies of the year, which aren't mutually exclusive.

[Cold Bishop]

Lucky you; everything was sold out hours in advance over here.

It's not really a remake though, is it? The use of "Django" is, I'd argue, more of a reference to the various knock-offs, the way the name became a short-hand for a particular kind of violent revenge-driven Western, more so than the original film (the Nero cameo not withstanding). This is the sort of film overzealous distributors would have slapped the name on three decades ago (well, probably not... but that's part of the point as well, I wager).

[rwaits]

You know, I love Spike, I'm probably one of his most ardent defenders (I love SHE HATE ME, for chrissakes,) but not only is he wrong here, he's being a hypocrite. He had no problem re-appropriating the destruction of Europe during WWII for what is (gloriously, in my opinion) a lowbrow genre film in MIRACLE. And Spike knows enough about genre to know what he's saying is shaky. I honestly think what's pissing him off about DJANGO is that he didn't make it.

Everything said here is so very true. Wonderful comparison to Miracle. I actually wish someone would call him out on it. There was a (brief) time when Spike had something interesting to say but he has become the worst kind of race baiter.

[matrixschmatrix]

he has become the worst kind of race baiter.

Haha, I think there are worse kinds of race baiters, in that there are some that actually incite lynchings or whatever. Lee's just kind of a jackass.