Django: Unchained - More like Django: Enabled

SPOILERS ABOUND!

Quentin Tarantino's essay on slave revenge, Django Unchained opened to blockbuster business, critical acclaim and won 2 Academy Awards. After seeing it I must say that instead of calling it Django Unchained, it should have been titled Django Chains Transferred or Django Enabled.

I've given my retrospective on QT's filmography and have became increasingly less enchanted with his style and technique over the years. And the trend continues. Let's just say I wasn't impressed. If you're going to give me a black hero then give me one from the beginning. Yeah yeah , I've seen the interviews where Tarantino says that he wanted to show the journey and development of the character from born in slavery to full on action hero. To that I say...meh. Its not necessary since his quest, the purpose of the film is to find his wife Broomhilda (played by Kerry Washington), escape slavery and exact some payback in the process. It isn't necessary to show Django (Jamie Foxx) getting acclimated to freedom. But because Tarantino made the choices he did in writing the story what we end up with is movie that diverts itself from its primary goal (purportedly a love story and rescue mission) to show how the titular character develops into the fastest gunslinger in the south.

Will Smith gave an interview where he said he was offered the role and turned it down: “Django wasn’t the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead. The other character was the lead!” Smith was a big fan of the final product. “I thought it was brilliant,” he says. “Just not for me.” Smith was correct in his assessment.

Through out the run up, premier and theatrical run of the movie, there were countless interviews and reviews that stated repeatedly that Django was a hero. The problem was he really didn't act like much of one for most of the film. The hallmark of the hero is one who initiates action. Someone who is doing something because they have the most to gain or lose in the situation. The hero is always playing the angles and looking for opportunity even if he or she isn't sure of the outcome. For most of the film that's NOT how Django himself acts. The movie is about two and half hours long and for the first hour or so what do we see of the titular character who has the most to gain or lose in this flick:

Do we see Django the escaped slave (because his successfully escaping would illustrate him taking control of his life)? No. We see Django very much in slavery being bought by another white man. Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a kindly dentist turned bounty hunter.

Do we see Django striking a deal with Dr. King Schultz? No. We see Schultz make a deal with Django that includes GIVING him his freedom eventually even though Schultz says he hates slavery himself.

After Django is free does he strike a deal to continue to work with Schultz in exchange for help in getting his wife back? No. We see Schultz offer to help Django and provide the plan to do it.

And what's the good Doctor's motivation for risking his life needlessly? It's because Django's life happens to be similar to the quest of a character in a German fairy tale about Siegfried and Brunhilde. A story he heard as a kid...no, seriously, that's his motivation.

All of this renders the title character, the person who's journey we're following, a passenger in his own life. The first part of the film is more about Schultz's treatment of Django more than the slave's growth. Tarantino likes to use chapter titles for his films well the first half of the film could be titled: When King met Django. If that sounds like the title of a romantic comedy that's because the first half of Django Unchained plays more like a bromance than anything else.

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I love this movie. All the hoopla over the use of the "N" word which is spoken openly in conversations everyday with endearment by many decendants of african ancestry is silly. I hope for a series to come.

 

the issue of the article isn't about the n-word its about the observation that django isn't the lead of the movie. Which he really isn't.

 

Regardless, I hope for a series.

 

Apparently the writer of this article didn't watch the last half hour of this movie where it was Django taking matters into his own hands and doing things HIS way.

 

This was the first QT movie I've seen, so I wasn't prepared for his style. At any rate, I didn't like the movie. Hated the part SLJ played.

 

apparently you didn't read the whole article:smt037

 

I didn't feel like I had to, because judging from what was already written, I could guess as to where the rest of the article went.

And I was correct. The rest of the article is more of the same.

I could pick apart the article to explain and give examples as to why the author is unfortunately wrong in his take on the movie, but there's no point.

Why? Because you can't please everyone and this movie is no exception.

 

Then he played the role correctly. You weren't supposed to like him.

 

well its mentioned that django doesn't become the hero until late in the film so clearly I watched the whole film...but please show me where its wrong I'm interested to see...

 

I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino's work. I haven't seen Django :Unchained yet. The thing to understand is that his films are not Hollywood; these are His films. His stories. He will research everything about a subject and does what every writer would do by asking himself,"What if...?" That is all a writer needs to getting started. Robert Rodriguez, Takashi Miike, Samuel Fuller, Seijun Suzuki, Akira Kurosawa, Henri Georges Clouzot and others have done similar approaches in their films.

 

but the difference is Tarantino doesn't make movies about subjects he makes movies about movies.. a good portion of his films are copied directly or indirectly from other films..he's admitted to that and calls it a "hip hop aesthetic".

You haven't seen the film yet but this is no spoiler... Django Unchained shows a scene where slaves are forced to fight, Mandingo fighting, well in history there is no recorded instance of Mandingo fighting in antebellum south slavery...but there is in the film Mandingo and its sequel Drum.

 

There was a man named Nat Turner who led, fought and killed whites in the South. Turner was no joke. Quentin Tarantino does research the genre. He comes as close to existing films and genres as he could. For a first time viewer, it seems a bit disturbing because he uses language as the action as opposed to the action itself. The dialogue is there to illicit an emotional response from the characters and it is seen by the audience. There is nothing new under the sun. And there is more than one way to make and view film.

 

Nat Turner thought up and organized a revolt with other slaves. That was done with no assistance from any white people. Django is bought, freed, mentored and has tacit permission by a white man to kill other whites for much of the film. The film goes out of its way to show the auspices of kind white man on the slave before Django does anything for himself. Thats not in the spirit of Nat Turner.

 

I want to see it. I especially want to see actor Christoph Waltz's Oscar winning performance. I loved him in Inglourious Basterds as SS Colonel Hans Landa.

 

feel free...

 

I like the flick myself and the wording is just like in the 1850's. No doubt it is more raw than Terantino would ever write. If a brother would go back in time no question his retaliation towards a "Candyland" type plantation would be very deadly.

 

Dialogue is, in my opinion, Quentin Tarantino's greatest strength. The action is in the dialogue. Look at his first film Reservoir Dogs and True Romance(his first screenplay). This is proof-positive that if the dialogue is well written, it can carry a film.

 

I'm not sure if it's the website or my work, but the article won't show up for me now, so I can't only quote from the OP and from what I remember from when I read it yesterday:

"Through out the run up, premier and theatrical run of the movie, there were countless interviews and reviews that stated repeatedly that Django was a hero. The problem was he really didn't act like much of one for most of the film. The hallmark of the hero is one who initiates action. Someone who is doing something because they have the most to gain or lose in the situation. The hero is always playing the angles and looking for opportunity even if he or she isn't sure of the outcome. For most of the film that's NOT how Django himself acts."

Django took action (on his own when specifically told not to) against the Brittle brothers. He shot (and in one instance whipped before shooting) 2 of the 3 before Dr. King Shultz could even get to where they were.

Later in the article, the author mentions that no one has a backstory. I would beg to differ. Because we don't see images of a backstory for Calvin Candie, doesn't mean we didn't know his backstory: he inherited the plantation from his family who had owned it for generations. He was a plantation owner. Not sure what else you need to know about him. He was also a Francophile, though he doesn't speak French and you shouldn't speak French around him. That's basically all you need to know about him.

The backstory on Dr. Shultz is fuzzier, but he's an opportunist, so likely he saw the opportunity of better money to be had by being a bounty hunter and he clearly doesn't have qualms about killing people. He also said he had no intention of dying in the US, so he likely was doing that job long enough to retire and move back to Germany.

You don't need a backstory on the love between Django and Broomhilda. It was very apparent by Django's motivations throughout the movie. Every action he took was to bringing him closer to finding Broomhilda.

The author said Broomhilda was in the hotbox for 3 days. She was not: she was in there for 10-12 hours I believe, as Stephen told Calvin Candie that she had run away the night before and that she had "10 days left" in that hotbox. Also, her reaction of her screaming when they took her out was proof enough of how it affected her. And when she was brought to Dr. Shultz's room (to speak German), Laura (Calvin's sister) had to prod her repeatedly to speak.

There was a lot of subtlety in that movie that you really had to pay attention.

There is other stuff I could debate about the article but these are some of what stood out for me.

 

The Film

The film was honestly a work of art. I was so glad to see it in the theaters and to hear everyone laugh, and have fun with that picture. There was a lot of garbage coming out for months to the theaters from the Hollywood system, Django Unchained was very entertaining when it was released. Although the character Django in the beginning had sparse dialog (done on purpose to have somewhat of a silent hero), when it got rolling it just didn't stop.

If you think this was an arthouse picture that needs a theoretical class in order to understand it, then you need to check your ego at the door. The movie had some abstractness, but was pretty linear.

Was it tasteless? Yes. Was it racist? Yes. Was it historically accurate? No. Was it funny? Yes. Was it fun? Yes it was. It was a Spagetti Western Blacksploitation film done exceptionally well. Yes Quintin did some research for filming, but it is truly influenced by grindhouse pictures, and spagetti westerns. I remember when I watched it, I thought; "Wow this reminds me of that movie Boss Nigger!", and sure enough it was influenced by that film too.

So don't take this movie seriously at all, just have fun with it!