Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

[colinr0380]

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.

And don't forget Takashi Miike's recent film Sukiyaki Western Django, which itself features another one of Tarantino's characteristic hard-to-watch acting performances!

[Thomas Dukenfield]

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.

And don't forget Takashi Miike's recent film Sukiyaki Western Django, which itself features another one of Tarantino's characteristic hard-to-watch acting performances!

I was thinking about an Italian one specifically, but there you go; no Django in that one.

[Mr Sausage]

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.

And don't forget Takashi Miike's recent film Sukiyaki Western Django, which itself features another one of Tarantino's characteristic hard-to-watch acting performances!

I was thinking about an Italian one specifically, but there you go; no Django in that one.

Yeah, Giulio Questi's 1968 If You Live...Shoot! was renamed Django, Kill! despite having no character named Django!

[cdnchris]

I loved this one, a lot and I'd probably place it right behind Jackie Brown. And even though it really works on a completely superficial level I was surprised by the complexity of many of the characters. There's of course Django's willingness to go as far as he needs to to get his wife back, but the biggest surprise for me was Jackson's character. At first I thought he was playing a simple stereotype, which I wasn't sure what to make of

Spoiler

but then of course he's a character playing a sterotype to keep what power he actually has in that household. I found the conflict between him and Django one of the more fascinating elements in the film.

I enjoyed DiCaprio's performance even if it was outlandish. He's playing the film's key villain and a film like this calls for an over-the-top one. I found the scene with the hoods with poorly cut eye holes an unneccessary addition that's probably one of Tarantino's weaker moments of banter, but I was still able to enjoy it simply because the audience in the packed theater I saw it in were all laughing rather hard. This was actually one of the more fun audience experiences I've had in a long while. This film also contains the least annoying Tarantino performance, despite the fact he decided he needed an Aussie accent. Plus how he leaves the film is pretty amazing.

My wife and I admittedly found it maybe 15-minutes too long, but as I think about it I'm not sure what could be cut. The last 10-15-minutes are awkwardly added in and it feels like the film has that one-too-many-endings feeling, so that may have contributed to it.

Spoiler

• the horse's touchdown dance at the end

When I saw this I thought it was possibly a tribute of sorts to the B-western cowboys like Gene Autry, even though I'm sure his horse(s) never did such a trick.

[Mr. Ned]

My wife and I admittedly found it maybe 15-minutes too long, but as I think about it I'm not sure what could be cut. The last 10-15-minutes are awkwardly added in and it feels like the film has that one-too-many-endings feeling, so that may have contributed to it.

I felt the same way. The intermission period with Tarantino was five minutes too long for me, and ironically how long did it last --five minutes? Seven? There needed to be something cut because there's a severe dissipation of energy between the big shootout and the final scenes, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. I admit I was ready to leave with about fifteen minutes to go because I knew how things would end up. I can't imagine what was in the 20-25 minutes QT cut out at the last minute to get under the three hour mark, but I wish he had cut out a little bit more; what they may have been, however, I can't quite pinpoint.

[cdnchris]

Like you I find it difficult to pinpoint what could/should be cut and I think the reason is up until that Tarantino scene the film moves by briskly and every scene before that is enjoyable and works, even if its just on its own merits. Maybe the hood scene could be cut but ultimately it's harmless fun with the added bonus of making a mockery of the Klan (or pre-Klan.)

But the film does come to a halt at the Tarantino scene, sadly right at the end, so this is where the issue is and something probably should have been done differently. But I'm not sure what could have been done differently.

Spoiler

Maybe a different type of sequence altogether, or maybe the film could have just gone to its final showdown right away? I'm guessing he added in this bit to drag out the final showdown between Foxx and Jackson, which we're all waiting for by this point.

It's ultimately a minor issue for me, but as you pointed out, this 5-minute sequence manages to make the film's length become very obvious.

[swo17]

Spoiler

I don't know how you could cut out the Tarantino scene. It directly follows an incredibly tense shootout/near castration that by all rights could have ended with Django being executed. Instead, his enemies decide that an even worse fate will be to rob him once again of his freedom. Django now has to outsmart his new captors to escape, and so comes up with a clever story supported by the handbill from his first bounty. This is an important moment to allow for Django to once again have the upper hand. I believe it's also the only time that Django actually outwits an opponent as opposed to simply taking them by surprise and being fast with a gun (though he of course does that in the scene as well).

[Kellen]

It wouldn't be a happy ending but I thought the film was going to end

Spoiler

After Jamie Foxx shot up everyone and was forced to surrender when his wife was captured by Walton Goggins character with Anthony Hamilton's Freedom playing.

Maybe it's just me personally but the film felt like it jumped around a bit and some of the music placement was off. I agree with the poster who said it was around 10-15 min too long. Obviously this is qt's first film since the unfortunate death of Sally Menke.

[cdnchris]

Spoiler

I don't know how you could cut out the Tarantino scene. It directly follows an incredibly tense shootout/near castration that by all rights could have ended with Django being executed. Instead, his enemies decide that an even worse fate will be to rob him once again of his freedom. Django now has to outsmart his new captors to escape, and so comes up with a clever story supported by the handbill from his first bounty. This is an important moment to allow for Django to once again have the upper hand. I believe it's also the only time that Django actually outwits an opponent as opposed to simply taking them by surprise and being fast with a gun (though he of course does that in the scene as well).

Spoiler

Okay, you're probably right. It also closes on that bit where Waltz tells him that he needs to keep the wanted sheet for his first bounty for good luck, since it got him out of the predicament. But I still feel the scene hurts the pacing and makes the length of the film more apparent. Maybe it could have been trimmed a bit or edited a little more tightly, I don't know. I admittedly can't quite pinpoint why it didn't work entirely for me. The sequence ends great, though, with Tarantino exploding.

In the grand scheme of things the sequence is really just a minor quibble since I still came out having greatly enjoyed the film. It was really just the only problematic moment for me, and again just seemed awkwardly placed.

[JMULL222]

Spoiler

For whatever it's worth, that's one of the most heavily cut sequences compared to the script. It originally started with a long portion where Stephen or Billy Crash (I forget) has to talk the Aussies into taking Django in the first place, then had more on the road before we cut in as we do now.

[criterion10]

Saw this last night and have to say I was disappointed. I fall somewhere in the middle on QT as a director. Inglourious Basterds is my favorite of his, and one of my favorite films. I really like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, though I find it hard not to acknowledge how much he has stolen from other films. Jackie Brown is his most mature work and an all around great film. The Kill Bill films are pure style over substance and incredibly ridiculous, but still entertaining. Death Proof is garbage, IMHO.

With Django, I thought the film started off great. The first hour was wonderful, and I actually didn't mind the frequent references to the old 70s spaghetti westerns (i.e. music choices, camera whip pans, even the opening credits, etc.). Once Leo's character became involved, Tarantino become smart in simply focusing his film on the characters and the dialogue between them. Sure, there are moments where violence erupts, but it felt relevant to the plot and showed something about the characters. I know many have criticized the film, claiming that it is too talky. But, I quite liked the dialogue especially since it felt relevant to the story. Overall, I was really into the film and quite liking it.

And then came the final half hour.

Spoiler

That ridiculous bloodbath felt so incredibly unnecessary to me. It was as if Quentin didn't know how he wanted to end his film, and so decided to kill the main characters off. And it bothered me, because Django's character wasn't the real focus of the story to me, but rather it was Waltz's character. And so, to give him such an anti-climactic, sudden death felt as if Tarantino was just abandoning his wonderful character, a character that felt much more human and real than the typical characters in the Tarantino. And once QT showed up acting on screen, I just gave up.

I personally would've preferred to see Waltz shake Leo's hand, take the girl, and go riding off into the sunset with Django. Now, of course, that's a happy ending and not all that original nor interesting. But, there is something sweet and simple about it. It's still better to me though than the unnecessary violence that the film resorted to.

Oh, well. Still an enjoyable film, though it could've been better. Performances were great all around. Waltz deserves an Oscar nomination. Maybe DiCaprio too, although his role did feel just like your standard Tarantino villain, although a very well done one.

[mfunk9786]

Do you have any idea how awful the ending you proposed really would be?

[criterion10]

I still think it would've been better than the ending QT did. It's not that I didn't like the ending, it's that I hated it. I'm not trying to sound dramatic or over the top, I really just thought it was a terrible ending. And it wasn't just me, because the people I went with all hated the ending as well. To me, it represented all of the bad qualities about QT, where he just allowed his indulgence to shine through.

[mfunk9786]

Look, after hours of build-up, if you just have a big shoulder-shrug at the slavery complex in Mississippi, the entire violent and brutal film that came before it becomes offensively worth it. There is a lot of sheer horror building up to the ending of this film, and to duck out then in order to assure a polite, tidy conclusion would be ludicrous.

Spoiler

Let's say you're an African American, and you go to see this film. You watch the first two hours of brutality, your blood is boiling (as mine was), and then the film ends with a handshake between two white men over the sale of a slave, and then he and Django riding away. Really? That's what would make a good ending to you? I'd throw my popcorn at the screen. Tarantino has to release the tension and conclude that fable. Django can't be in a position of weakness at the end of the film, and he can't win with the doctor's help anymore.

[criterion10]

Okay, let me state my position more clearly.

Spoiler

To me, the ending Tarantino currently has is total nonsense in my opinion. It simply becomes a bloodbath, killing two very important characters in a manner to me that was rather anti-climactic. Then, the film stretches on far too long for 15 minutes, incorporating sequences that need not be there. So, as far as I'm concerned, the ending needs to completely be re-worked.

Now, I wasn't necessarily saying that my proposed ending was good, just that I would've preferred it to the one Tarantino chose. Personally, I think there's a lot of different routes he could have gone. Maybe after a handshake, the heroes could have rode away, then returned to kill Leo and destroy Candyland. That's a possibility that certainly would've have plenty of action.

Or, maybe there could have a climactic final shootout that would have occurred right then and there between Django, Waltz, and Leo, similar to what does happen but without the unnecessary final 15 minutes.

What bothered me so much was that I thought Waltz and Leo were two great characters, especially Waltz since Tarantino developed him in a realistic way that I think he normally fails to bring to his other characters. He gave him a human side, and that to me was the thematic crux of the story, not the romance surrounding Django and his wife. Therefore, to simply kill off one of the most important characters of the film without any emotional pay off, and then focus the remaining 25 minutes on a character who was more underdeveloped and felt almost secondary felt like a rip-off.

[matrixschmatrix]

Are you genuinely proposing that this movie would be better if it stayed 100% with the white dude as the hero

[criterion10]

Spoiler

Django's character felt very underdeveloped to me, whereas I felt the opposite about Waltz. Now, I don't consider that a problem, but again when you kill off the one character (Waltz) that the audience is able to sympathize and connect with in a very anti-climactic manner, and then shift focus to the more underdeveloped character (Django), it provides for a very uneven storytelling shift. And that was one of my problems with the ending.

[matrixschmatrix]

Spoiler

Killing Waltz off is like, the thing that lets Django take center stage and become a more fully developed character (and also to fulfill the whole Siegfried thing.) Didn't you say Basterds was a favorite of yours? Tarantino used the same move in the cafe scene there- it's abrupt, sure, but that's what gives it the punch it has- and MFunk's absolutely right, this is a move that needed to explode, and I absolutely love that the guy who makes his living by shooting people he doesn't know triggers that ending with a move predicated on absolute moral horror with the system of slavery. Don't fucking shake hands with slavers is a pretty great message, honestly.

[criterion10]

Spoiler

Yes, Basterds is a favorite of mine, and something very similar is definitely done there in the bar scene. But in the bar scene, the characters that are killed are supporting characters. Take for instance, when Shoshanna and Frederick Zoller kill each other towards the end of the film, they are given a very dramatic exit that causes you to think about their characters. This is what Waltz needed, especially for such an important character. My problem wasn't with his death and Django taking off with his wife, but rather in the way it was handled. Sure, allow violence to erupt and the whole thing to explode, maybe with a big shoot out at the house where Leo's death is the climax or something. But, with Waltz being such an important character and all, he really left the film in a manner that made is character seem less important than he truly was.

I personally just feel the ending was poorly handled. It felt overlong, uneven, and just not quite right. But, then again, I didn't like Basterds when I first saw it for similar problems about the pacing of the film, so maybe I'll feel differently towards Django on a second viewing.

[mfunk9786]

You thinking Django was an underdeveloped character is your first problem among many with your analysis of this film

[criterion10]

Maybe underdeveloped was a bad word, so instead I'll say that he was one of the least interesting/utilized characters in the film. And I'm not the only person who has said that. I've read many different reviews, some even that have praised the film, that have said this. It's a quiet character, one that is much less showy than Waltz, DiCaprio, and Jackson. Now, again, this wasn't a problem for me, until the ending.

[Jeff]

Spoiler

I guess I can kind of see where criterion10 is coming from, but the problem is not really with what happens to Waltz. As mfunk said, he has to die, and Django has to take the reins in order for the story to work from a narrative or emotional standpoint. And yes, it would be wildly inappropriate to conclude the film with a handshake to the enslaver.

To the extent that there is a problem, I think it might be more that Tarantino didn't develop Django's character in the first act to quite the extent that he does Dr. Schultz. It hurts to lose Schultz because we're so emotionally invested in him. We like his sly humor, the way he deals with people, his skill at his job, and his strong moral character that runs counter to most of the other white characters in the film. He's a swell guy. It is indeed one of Tarantino's more complete characterizations.

Django, on the other hand, is something of a cypher until they arrive at Candie Land and he begins to "break character" as the atrocities that he and the other slaves have had to endure become too much to bear. We sympathize with Django of course, but we haven't really got to know him yet. There may be a legitimate narrative and thematic reason for that, in that he has been treated like an animal his whole life. He is quiet, timid, almost reserved. He's learned to suppress his personality to save himself from punishment. When it comes time for him to rise up, that characterization has to happen very quickly. I'd agree that it feels somewhat rushed, and that at first it feels like a secondary character that we don't really know all that well is taking the lead. For me it ended up working though, because Django's stoicism in the face of the torture that he endures after being captured and his quick-wittedness with Australians begin to define who he is just before the film ends. He has earned the role as the hero of the story.

It sounds like there is damn near a whole other film laying on the cutting room floor with a series of other adventures that Django and Schultz go on. I can't help but wonder if we don't get to know Django better in those. It's a minor complaint for me, but I do think the heavy focus on Schultz in the first two acts is something of a narrative flaw. If anything though, it leaves me aching for a sequel detailing Django's adventures as a solo bounty hunter and his life with Brünnhilde. Now that I've gotten to know him in the closing minutes, I want to be able to watch him work with as much pleasure as I watched his mentor. Just don't make the damn horse dance anymore.

[hearthesilence]

Saw this yesterday and wasn't that crazy about it - I read Glenn Kenny's review today to see why he was so disappointed, and I think he's right about the cut, it's flabby and sloppy in a way that trips up the film's momentum. (Some bits seem pretty thin too, particularly in the transition between both 'halves' of the film - I wonder if this is where Tarantino cut out most of that material to get it below 3 hours?)

Regardless, I mentioned before that he gives terrible interviews - he's rarely given one that fails to diminish my appreciation for him as a filmmaker - and I finally saw his anti-Ford argument this morning. Would like to see Bogdanovich surprise everyone and roast Tarantino for this one.

[criterion10]

Spoiler

To the extent that there is a problem, I think it might be more that Tarantino didn't develop Django's character in the first act to quite the extent that he does Dr. Schultz. It hurts to lose Schultz because we're so emotionally invested in him. We like his sly humor, the way he deals with people, his skill at his job, and his strong moral character that runs counter to most of the other white characters in the film. He's a swell guy. It is indeed one of Tarantino's more complete characterizations.

Django, on the other hand, is something of a cypher until they arrive at Candie Land and he begins to "break character" as the atrocities that he and the other slaves have had to endure become too much to bear. We sympathize with Django of course, but we haven't really got to know him yet. There may be a legitimate narrative and thematic reason for that, in that he has been treated like an animal his whole life. He is quiet, timid, almost reserved. He's learned to suppress his personality to save himself from punishment. When it comes time for him to rise up, that characterization has to happen very quickly. I'd agree that it feels somewhat rushed, and that at first it feels like a secondary character that we don't really know all that well is taking the lead.

This is exactly how I feel. And your mention of a narrative flaw with Django's character is something that I would say Inglourious Basterds has a problem with as well, that being that the Basterds are largely absent throughout the middle of the film, and there are many members of the group that we never even get to meet nor find out their fate.

[matrixschmatrix]

Spoiler

I think it's fair enough to say that Schultz overshadows Django throughout a lot of the movie- though once Django was in character at Candie Land, I was paying more attention to him than to Schultz, as this was effectively his home turf -and he was playing his character more effectively than Schultz was, regardless of the pain it brought him. That was a facet of the ending I really liked, that however much Schultz may think himself a hardened man, he hasn't seen the kind of brutality that happens on a big plantation. Django has. He can take it, though it obviously enrages him.

Up until Candie Land, we never see Django taking charge of the pair, even on the Don Johnson plantation- there, he looks ridiculous, and he acts impulsively (though not incorrectly.) Candie Land completes the arc, first seeing him turn back Schultz's advice, then seeing him check Schultz's kindly impulse towards saving D'Artagnan, and finally finishing the action that Schultz started in destroying the whole god damn facility. It worked very well, for me.

I would definitely like more of everything, though. More adventures with Schultz, more Django and Broomhilda, more slaveowners getting murdered, it's all good. I was even ok with the little horse dance- I'm assuming that it's Schultz's horse Django was riding at that point, and Schultz mentioned a background in the circus (and his horse had been doing a little trick throughout the movie.) There's a sort of line of succession thing going on there.