Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

[rwaits]

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.

Touche.. but you know what I mean.

[Thomas Dukenfield]

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).

I think that's pretty clearly the case. He did the same thing with Inglourious Basterds, and Unchained has no real resemblance to the original as far as plot. Spaghetti westerns were titled and retitled Django just for commercial purposes, and there were cases where a distributor would just take a non-Django western and redub the movie so that the main character's name was Django, and I think there's an even a case of a "Django" movie having no character named Django! Quentin is just making a gag out of that, like the "Shawscope" intro on Kill Bill.

[JMULL222]

A quick addendum, better or worse, to my point: can you imagine the vitriolic media reactions if Spike Lee had made such a film? I mean, obviously only Quentin Tarantino could make DJANGO UNCHAINED. But I'm pretty sure I can also say only a white man could get away with directing a film about a black slave wrecking bloody vengeance against white southerners - for three hours. At least right now.

[kingofthejungle]

Tarantino's picture certainly isn't a remake of the earlier Django. In fact, other than the appropriation of the name and the style of the theme music, it owes little stylistically to the Spaghetti. When one considers the main character's motivation (an obsessive love for a wronged wife), the use of the iconic stone formations in Lone Pine, the charismatic villain who admires the hero, the font used for the title, and even the late 50's era Columbia logo, it would seem that this is a deranged offspring of the Boetticher/Scott Ranown cycle.

As a fan of westerns, I enjoyed the hell out of Django Unchained. It's not only Tarantino's best film since Kill Bill, it's the best western anyone has made since Dominik's Assassination of Jesse James.

However, when I left the theater I was filled with conflicting emotions about the experience. As a quintessiential Tarantino experience and exciting action film, it never failed to satisfy, but as moral filmmaking it seemed jaw-droppingly irresponsible (in a way that none of Tarantino's previous works have). I think Tarantino's overt sexualization of the system of slavery is what makes me uncomfortable. In any number of ways, he transforms a social order built on the oppression of human beings into the epitome of laissez-faire permissiveness, a playground for the perverse (so long as they possess the brutality to enforce their will). This minimizes the human misery that slavery produced, because it recasts the victims of the system as mere losers - those that don't possess the will to fight back, and in doing so comes uncomfortably close to endorsing Calvin Candie's views on phrenology.

The one thing that separates Tarantino's film and the worldview of Calvin Candie is the badass black hero at the film's center, and I think that provides enough separation for me to be comfortable liking this film. But absent an African-American hero, would anyone find this depiction of slavery acceptable?

[matrixschmatrix]

However, when I left the theater I was filled with conflicting emotions about the experience. As a quintessiential Tarantino experience and exciting action film, it never failed to satisfy, but as moral filmmaking it seemed jaw-droppingly irresponsible (in a way that none of Tarantino's previous works have). I think Tarantino's overt sexualization of the system of slavery is what makes me uncomfortable. In any number of ways, he transforms a social order built on the oppression of human beings into the epitome of laissez-faire permissiveness, a playground for the perverse (so long as they possess the brutality to enforce their will). This minimizes the human misery that slavery produced, because it recasts the victims of the system as mere losers - those that don't possess the will to fight back, and in doing so comes uncomfortably close to endorsing Calvin Candie's views on phrenology.

The one thing that separates Tarantino's film and the worldview of Calvin Candie is the badass black hero at the film's center, and I think that provides enough separation for me to be comfortable liking this film. But absent an African-American hero, would anyone find this depiction of slavery acceptable?

Hmm, I do think the exceptionalism of Django is probably the single most problematic aspect of the film, which is why I was hoping for a fuller revolution at the end, but I think that was in part to heighten the confrontation between him and Sam Jackson's character- who is self evidently also far smarter than most of those around him, and unquestionably far smarter than the white people whom he serves- and also in some ways to avoid victim-blaming implications that just anyone could have done what Django did all along (as Django is explicitly superhuman.) I'm not at all sure I see the sexual implications of the most vivid memories I have of brutality from the movie:

Spoiler

namely a man being torn apart by dogs for being unable or unwilling to continue murdering his fellow black men for Candie's pleasure, the horrific death in the fight itself, and the description of the living death of being worked to death in a mine. Where there were sexual implications- the gleeful desire to castrate Django, for instance- it seemed to be part of the psychosexual character of being a slave owner rather than that part of the movie itself, a fetishized expression of the fear of the immense power of humanity upon whose strength one's economic system relied but which strength also meant an eternal fear of being murdered in one's bed. The movie is quite clear about the sheer, horrific pragmatism of much of the evils of slavery, I think.

[knives]

I agree with Matrix fully and to add to that I must say I was relieved at how few problems the film has at least compared with Tarantino's previous 'social' effort which I found to be a failure in every way (though I will admit I am closer to that incident than this one). Django may be seen within the film as at least slightly unique (he is Siegfried after all), but the film does not hide away real world rebellions by slaves in its fantasy which I think is the most important thing to consider. We don't get a full history of slave (and freeman) rebellions, but we do get an insight into the slave culture alongside a wide variety of personal reactions to slavery (such as the one Matrix noted) which leaves us with a reasonably complex of the issue from the point of view of the oppressed. I think Tarantino does do a good job of showing the reality alongside his fantasy.

[mfunk9786]

The one thing that separates Tarantino's film and the worldview of Calvin Candie is the badass black hero at the film's center

Good on matrix for even dignifying that with a response

[Jeff]

It's an incredibly entertaining movie, and Robert Richardson's cinematography is up there with any western. It didn't feel overlong to me at all (as Bogdanovich said, it's the "shortest long Western since Rio Bravo"). The only trims I would have made were bits of silliness that I thought just slowed things down or didn't quite fit the tone:

Spoiler

• the bit about not being able to see through the holes in the hoods
• Candie Land pun
• Django's goofy shades
• the horse's touchdown dance at the end
• Tarantino acting

I suppose those are pretty minor quibbles in exchange for such cinematic fun, and they come with the territory for Tarantino.

Looking back at the previous pages, it seems that just about everyone has at least one Tarantino joint that they can't stand. Perhaps I'm alone in thinking that all of them are pretty damned good, with some more marred by his idiosyncrasies than others. There may not be a lot of substance to his cinematic confections (though I think that there's a fair bit here), but for such an annoying human being, I think he's a hell of a filmmaker. For me: Jackie Brown>Pulp Fiction>Django Unchained>Inglorious Basterds>Kill Bill>Death Proof>Reservoir Dogs

[Jeff]

As soon as I say nice things about him, he says some incredibly stupid stuff. Again though, goes with the territory for Tarantino.

[knives]

Honestly this just reminds me of Lindsay Anderson occasionally saying shit about Zero for Conduct to hide the influence.

[matrixschmatrix]

As usual with Tarantino, he mixes jackassery with making kind of a good point, though I don't see how Ford's any more a white supremacist than Hawks or whoever else Tarantino does admire.

[Jeff]

Surely Sergeant Rutledge and The Searchers suggest that Ford's attitudes regarding race were, at the very least, complex. Certainly they're more complex than Tarantino is portraying here.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, Ford certainly didn't think he was racist- though I think most of the problems Tarantino's bringing up are largely unconscious at any rate. But yeah, it's difficult to imagine him not having some affinity for The Searchers in particular, if only via the transitive property through Scorsese (who's obviously an enormous influence in a couple of different ways.)

[swo17]

I doubt Tarantino would have had such a modern attitude toward slavery if he had been born 100 years earlier.

[Kellen]

Anyone have walkouts? A group of four friends left the theater with about twenty five minutes remaining....

[knives]

As usual with Tarantino, he mixes jackassery with making kind of a good point, though I don't see how Ford's any more a white supremacist than Hawks or whoever else Tarantino does admire.

I'm more curious about Walsh who seems like the sort of director Tarantino has modeled himself on and has a very big role in Birth of a Nation that's actually verifiable rather than just a piece of self promotion.

[willoneill]

Anyone have walkouts? A group of four friends left the theater with about twenty five minutes remaining....

Yep, I saw 3 walkouts at pretty much the same point.

[mfunk9786]

Can anyone spoilertag when that was in the story?

[knives]

Spoiler

I want to say that is roughly at the point when Candy finds out.

[mfunk9786]

Spoiler

• the horse's touchdown dance at the end

Love you Jeff but this bit is amazing and I would be sad to see it go. It was the perfect accompaniment to my maniacal giggling.

Spoiler

I want to say that is roughly at the point when Candy finds out.

Why leave, though? Did people think it was going to end with the good guys losing and get uncomfortable? It's not like the film is remotely dull at that point.

[knives]

Spoiler

I assume many could become squeamish as to what Candy does in retaliation with the hammer (though for me the grossest part was earlier with the guy getting ripped to shreds). It is a very intense scene that is more than a little disturbing.

[mfunk9786]

Maybe I overestimate people's tolerance for such things. I can't imagine putting over two hours into a film and then walking out over momentary discomfort, however substantial.

[knives]

I know someone who sat through the whole of Casino, but during Pesci's final scene walked out. Discomfort is one thing guaranteed to cause walkouts at any moment.

[Mr Sausage]

No doubt a straw that broke the camel's back deal going on as well.

[mfunk9786]

Up until then, they thought it was Lincoln