Django: Unchained - More like Django: Enabled

Its weird

I think when some people are analyzing this film, they seem to think Django should be capable of doing everything on his own. Which honestly he could, but that could be an entirely different film.

Look at it from another perspective too, what the story is also trying to convey is that not all white men are purely evil. There were quite a few slave owners that not only freed their slaves in their wills, but also gave them the land.

We cannot forget the abolitionist movement either! The person on our $100 dollar bill was a huge abolitionist as well as an early innovator, and framer.

 

I love QT! He does his homework. My favorite QT movie is True Romance. The scene where Clifford schooled Vincenzo about his Sicilian/black heritage...CLASSIC QT

 

youre right in that QT pulls in more money than Spike ever has..but name 3 black directors who would get the green light to make that kind of movie and it be universally appreciated in the same way?

I think Django Unchained under a black filmmaker would be perceived in a different way.

Goerge Lucas has certainly made a fuck-ton of cast for hollywood and the studios wouldn't back Red Tails at all...he had to pay for that out of his own deep pockets.

 

The bolded is the NITTY GRITTY of the issue with this movie!! Given the time and circumstances of the era I don't believe that Django could do everything on his own but that doesn't mean he couldn't have thought or schemed to get things done and if that means using Schultz as a means to get his wife back then so be it. As it stands Schultz proactivley OFFERS to do things for him. Django never asks or proposes anything to Schultz.

But like you said thats a different film thats a film where Django and Broomhilda play more prominent roles and Schultz in pushed further into the background. In that film Schultz is still a good guy but to Django he's just a pawn to be used to get his woman back.

Now does anyone HONESTLY think THAT film would do the same kind of box office business as what QT made? Would it make 400 million? Have big overseas distribution? Have a large portion of white people in general lined up to see it?

which brings us to the second bold and the real reason why Django Unchained plays the way it does. And the article points out that in an effort to show that not all white men are evil dr schultz character is inflated to compensate for all the evil white man in the flick. Which is why Django is more of a passenger in his own life for the first hour or so. Which is why Christoph Waltz won so many awards for his performance because he had all the plum lines and meatier role than Jamie Foxx had. Which is why Will Smith and Jeffrey Wright said that the Schultz character was more the lead than title character.

 

I am calm. The same can't be said for you obviously if you misread a simple statement. Too focused on & excited about trying to school all the rest of us ignorant dummies on what's up on this movie, huh?

 

naw..just discussing my opinion and POV..its a message board isn't that the point or should we all just stop discussing things because we don't agree?

 

No ones disagreeing....everyone is expressing their opinions.....so where's the problem....:smt102 We were both being smart asses. No harm, no foul.

 

Spike Lee has always been angry. Anger is what drove him to be a filmmaker in the first place. He doesn't care what anyone thinks. He just wants to make his point in films and critics don't really like him for it. Malcolm X was a journey for him and he was committed to that project. Quentin Tarantino used a lot of nostalgia. And he is a good storyteller. Like I had mentioned before, dialogue is Tarantino's greatest strength. He may not really show the action but it is the dialogue that enhances it. The character speaks and feels what he/she is saying. We, the audience feel it, too.

 

Given the time the movie was set. It us unchained. Unchained to day and back then, isn't really the same thing really. Back then, that is probably as unchained as you could get as a free slave. Who cares about the title tho.
Hellified has a point in funding to black movie makers, or real black storytelling, outside what's his face, Medea dude.
But that is a deeper issue w Hollywood at large being run by the old, white boys club and the comparison to spike doesn't work as he is not in the mainstream and doesn't want to be.

Red tails was a movie that blew me away, great storytelling and great cast, insane he didn't get the funding he wanted, but how much did it pull in? I have no clue.

 

BO wise youre right Lee doesn't do the same level of business as QT..but name me a black filmmaker that would have been given the green light to make that kind of film and how do think it would have been received/perceived by the american public?

I and the article never states that Django should have done it alone only that he should have initiated the things that pertain to him. you said Their partnership was a relationship of necessity for Django but Django doesn't seek out Schultz, he doesn't ask to continue to work with Schultz. He doesn't ask or scheme anything from Schultz..the white guy OFFERS to give Django his freedom, a job and a better plan to get his wife. Thats why Will Smith and Jeffrey Wright said he wasn't the hero because there isn't one thing Django does that Schultz doesn't allow either directly or tacitly.

And don't think that QT isn't entitled to explore some sensitive subject matter but as a black man if youre going to present me with a black hero then give me one from the beginning..give me one in the same way white filmmakers make their heroes..thinking ahead, planning, scheming, angling for the edge. Django doesn't do that fully until the last 20 minutes of the film but only after its been well established that a good white man has enabled and prepared him to be able to do that. As a black man watching it thats not heroic to me thats the same old same old.

Another example: Jackie Brown. QT has said in interviews that he made that film as an homage to blaxploitation and for his black fans. But Jackie Brown ISN'T a blaxploitation film at all...why...because a white man plays not only a pivotal role in the film but a love interest to the black heroine. Thats NEVER happened in a true blaxploitation film. And theres a reason for that..those films are about black heroes being heroes and doing for themselves totally if theres a white man in it then he's a villain or a small character than has no affect on the hero. Also Pam Grier made actual blaxploitation films and never had a white love interest or relied on a white man as the key figure in her plans to do whatever.

So who was Qt making an appeal to really in making Jackie Brown? Certainly not black audiences alone.

thats the same point made in the article.
translation: the average movie goer (white people) would have been turned off

 

if by the bold you mean he rips off cool scenes and lines from old movies then yeah..

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Scenes from Ringo Lam's City Of Fire as described by a character in Reservoir Dogs. youre right about the language being used for action. RD was on a small budget so there wasn't much money for stunts and FX so tarantino just has his characters describe the things the Asian director showed in his film.

As QT has more money for budgets now you'll notice his films get more elaborate with the stunts and FX.

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the famous bible quote speech from pulp fiction "homaged" nearly word for word from a sonny chiba film the bodyguard.

 

Red Tails
Production Budget: $58 million
Domestic Total Gross: $49,876,377
no overseas distribution


Lucas, who is one of Hollywood’s biggest names, says that even he (despite his influence) had a difficult time trying to get this film made. Lucas has been working on the project for over 23 years trying to convince studios to give it a chance; however, many have been hesitant to back an action film because of its black cast.

Instead, Lucas poured $93 million of his own money into the film and forced the the studios to reconsider.

During the interview, Lucas explained why it’s so difficult for black films to find their way to box offices. As most of us already know, it boils down to one thing: money.

Studios do not want to invest the resources into high-quality films with black casts because they don’t think their investments will be returned in the form of large box office numbers, here or abroad. With Red Tails, Lucas hopes to prove them wrong.

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012...ty-of-getting-a-black-film-made-in-hollywood/

 

That was Viva, Chiba, The Bodyguard. Not just old movies, but memories(using a clip from Clutch Cargo and a box of Fruit Brute cereal in Pulp Fiction). In RD, he is even talking about the song The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia and gives and an interesting observation on Madonna's Like A Virgin. He used a lot of classic rock, country and oldies(The line from The Statler Brothers' Flowers On The Wall, "Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo" was used and spoken by Samuel L. Jackson in Die Hard With A Vengeance).

 

Another factor as to why the studios wouldn't back it up was that the story of the 332 Squadron, The Red Tails, was swept aside because white people do not believe that there was a squadron of black pilots in WW2. There were other minorities who served. There were Japanese-Americans who fought in Europe(The film Go For Broke told their story)and they were a highly decorated battalion of soldiers who were fighting for the US, too. There Mexican-Americans who also had a squadron in Asia. Then there is the story of Guy Gabaldin, a boy raised by a Japanese family. He enlists in the Marines(Gabaldin had to ask his adoptive mother for her blessing). He captured a platoon of Japanese soldiers in Okinawa. He still lives there to this day (I think). Money and what an audience the studios want to see are the two uncertainties when making a movie.

 

At one point the Hughes Brothers, John Singleton, Mario Van Peebles and Spike Lee all got love from Hollywood. But their movies collectively didn't bank. That's when the production money dries up.

If any of these directors had made Django Unchained, you know it would have been some serious depressing shit for most(White) moviegoers.

Quentin has a talent for never letting shit get too heavy in his movies, and he always uses humor and irony to tell his stories.

IMO as a Black director you can still 'keep it real' and true, but he also has to be entertaining as well.

 

The Hughes Brothers said during their commentary of the film From Hell that they were not very fond of Hollywood because of some of the sleazebags they had to work with. But, filming in Europe, they felt a good sense of freedom. Wesley Snipes' production company Amen Ra, now, always makes a movie outside of the US. Tyler Perry is the only black director who is doing real well(except for the film Alex Cross, which was a box office bomb) because he has full authorship and control of his movies. That is how he does it. And a loyal following doesn't hurt, either. He is pigeonholed with Madea, the Browns and the Payne's. He isn't Hollywood, either.

 

I'm not saying he doesn't have talent he clearly does but Tarantino is CLEVER at BEST in his style and film aesthetic which he calls his "hip-hop aesthetic". The man has no voice he doesn't make movies about subjects he makes movies about MOVIES.

He's a clever in the way Dr Dre is a clever...taking whole chunks of other peoples finished works and putting your own slight spin on it. This is the main issue for people who don't like rap music to gripe about. Its like giving credit to Dre for the "beat" on Nuthin But A G Thang... All he did was use the intro to Leon Haywoods I Wanta Do Something Freaky To You..looped it added some accents to it and the most original thing was the actual lyrics over it. You mentioned QT using memories and pop trivia..those are his accents like Dre's bells, whistles, and violins snippets are his.

The difference between genius and clever is if Dre had created that bass groove and music originally himself he'd be a genius but his using it in the manner he did makes him very clever. Tarantino's the same way.

Of course his films are cool and popular you can't go too wrong using the coolest and best scenes, shots and lines of other movies people already like.

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1. LOL

2, I know when my daughter forced me to watch Titanic, I was so glad when he sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic,

 

I thought it was one of the best movies I have seen in a while. Loved it.

 

A very enlightening and discouraging post, hellified.
I wish reviewers of his work would point this out when they write up his movies.
The problem is when Tarantino released RD and Pulp Fiction, most movie reviewers probably had no idea what he was doing.

As I get older, this quote from Pablo Picasso makes more and more sense;

'Good artists copy. Great artists steal.'

Don't copy the entirety of someone else's work or style. Make others think that someone else's inspiration is originally your own.

I still think Tarantino has a great ear for dialogue, but his plotting and narrative inspiration seems to be very transparent in most of his movies, in hindsight, if you know what to look for.

To find out the iconic lines recited by Sam Jackson in Pulp Fiction were a complete RIPOFF from another movie is shocking.