Tarantino’s Dreary Django Unchained
What’s So Funny About Slavery
By: Charles Giuliano - Jan 16, 2013
Django Unchained
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino; director of photography, Robert Richardson; edited by Fred Raskin; “Django” theme by Luis Enriquez Bacalov; production design by J. Michael Riva; costumes by Sharen Davis; produced by Stacey Sher, Reginald Hudlin and Pilar Savone; released by the Weinstein Company. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes.
WITH: Jamie Foxx (Django), Christoph Waltz (Dr. King Schultz), Leonardo DiCaprio (Calvin Candie), Kerry Washington (Broomhilda), Samuel L. Jackson (Stephen), Don Johnson (Big Daddy), Walton Goggins (Billy Crash), Jonah Hill (Bag Head No. 2), Quentin Tarantino (Mine Company Employee) and Franco Nero (Bar Patron).
In this ultra violent, comedic romp through the Old South on the cusp of the Civil War, Peck’s Bad Boy, Quentin Tarantino, yet again, serves raw meat, hamburger rather than steak tartare, in a rollickingly irreverent send up of slavery in the Oscar nominated Django Unchained.
For this cartoonish, often ludicrously lurid project, Tarantino has assembled a stunning cast with some truly unpredictable and astonishing performances. Playing the race card like a royal flush, renowned African American actors, including the iconic Jamie Foxx (Django), Samuel L. Jackson (major domo Stephen), the gifted newbie Kerry Washington (of TV’s hit series Scandal) as Django’s enslaved wife Broomhilda, and numerous cowering, scruffy extras, like lemmings, appear willing to jump over the cliff of Tarantino’s arch, gonzo, sicko, artistic vision.
Given the zeal with which the actors throw themselves into off the wall roles you get the feeling that Tarantino is a fun guy to work with. Perhaps the most deranged, out there, director of mainstream, money making, awards garnering Hollywood.
Arguably, he is a Sam Peckinpah wannabe, washing the screen with buckets of spattering blood and piles of corpses, with, here’s the twist, a sense of humor. It's more Kill Bill this time with carnage delivered by pistols rather than swords. Yet again, heads roll, with witty dialogue.
Playing the holocaust for laughs, or upending the classic genre of Spaghetti Westerns, is nothing new. Consider Blazing Saddles, The Producers or even Tarantino’s prior Inglorious Bastards as films evoking the guilty pleasures of comedy.
Spike Lee, who has not seen Tarantino’s film but heard enough about it, condemns it as racist. Tarantino counters, precisely, and refuses to soft pedal the unspeakable. Django is no Nat Turner. This big pill which is so hard to swallow, in his view, makes us think, debate, and therefore equates to an “important” film with the friendly fire of collateral damage to the psyche as the end justifying the means.
Well, yes and no.
Demonstrating the excesses of slavery when owners like the viciously smarmy, oddly charming, Leonardo DiCaprio (Calvin Candie) dispatches a black man murdered by ravenous hounds, torn to shreds, to make the point that he can. It’s not cold blooded murder when a slave owner horse whips or disposes of his property.
That sets up the vengeance cycle when, after predictable adversity, Candie is dispatched by the brilliantly amusing bounty hunter, Dr. Schultz (Christoph Waltz). After a choreographed blood bath the plantation is blown to smithereens by Django.
The buddy couple of Dr. Schultz and Django channeled The Lone Ranger and Tonto. Here without the concealed identity but cleverly morphed into the mask of comedy.
They form an implausible and historically inaccurate partnership. In setting up his fantasy film Tarantino tramples over the facts with impunity.
His character Dr. Schultz, an immigrant from Germany, has transformed from pioneer dentist to bounty hunter. In pursuit of three renegades he purchases Django because of his ability to identify them. Having paid for this slave, with the proper documents, he then slaughters the slave traders and liberates their goods.
As an enlightened European, given to florid prose and grand manners, he abhors the institution of slavery. This ersatz Robinson Crusoe insists that his “Friday” join him for a beer. When the owner of the saloon runs off for the Sheriff we have the exposition of their relationship which evolves into a partnership.
When the Sheriff arrives, and demands that they leave the premises, Dr. Schultz summarily guns him down. Soon the Marshal arrives with a huge posse of deputies. Dr. Schultz surrenders but cleverly argues that the deceased lawman is in fact a wanted “dead or alive” criminal. Producing the proper court documents they gather the corpse, proof of the contract, and move on.
Django is impressed to learn that the dentist turned bounty hunter makes a fine living killing bad white guys. In a flash we see Django cleaned up and trained in gunslinger skills to sign on as a partner earning a third of the rewards.
Come on Mr. Tarantino. This is a bit of a stretch.
We first encounter Django, as a chained, scruffy, nappy headed, half naked, uneducated slave. Yet, as fast as you can say Rumpelstiltskin, he cleans up, speaks fluently, can read a wanted poster (slowly and stumbling), and quick as a flash evolves as the “fastest gun in the South.” One hardly becomes a sharpshooter with a few days of practice.
Under the tutelage of his partner Django is now a Freeman, mean ass slaver, bounty hunter, and natural born killer. Oh really! Just like that?
Only in the movies.
So off they go killing white guys for fun and profit.
Riding through dirt poor towns the locals are astonished to see a pistol packing, black man on a horse wearing shades, which is more bop hipster than 19th century chic. As is the mixed bag sound track of soul music. No Stephen Foster to strings which was the more authentic music of the period.
You will hardly recognize Don Johnson (Big Daddy) as a Col. Sanders plantation owner. With a gift for gab Dr. Schultz visits the property under seemingly benign circumstances. Django quickly horse whips and guns down two of the three fugitives. Dr. Shultz takes a long shot to bag the fleeing third desperado.
Although convinced by the documents Big Daddy does not take kindly to having his help slaughtered by strangers, particularly a black man.
In the dead of night a gang of outraged slave owners intend to attack and make an example of the bounty hunters. Since the film is set in the 1850s, a few years before the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan does not yet exist. To disguise their identity, however, the vigilantes wear flour sacks as hoods. Much comedy is made of the fact that they can’t see through the crudely cut eye holes. Is this spoof of the KKK, as the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, really all that funny?
Tarantino, improbably, exploits the German twist. It seems that Django is married, such as it is, to the lovely Broomhilda. She was so named by the German born woman who raised her and taught her basic Deutsch. That becomes a plot point, as by the campfire, Dr. Schultz relates the traditional fairy tale of Broomhilda.
Having made a lot of cash in their trade Dr. Schultz offers to help Django “purchase” his wife from Candie deep in the belly of slave infested Mississippi.
We get to visit Candyland which, based on the playful name, seems more like a Michael Jackson mansion than a Greek Revival, ante bellum plantation.
It gets complicated and we won’t spoil the “fun” if that’s what it is.
Clocking in at two and a half hours Django Unchained is being discussed as Tarantino’s most ambitious and successful film. It is selling tickets to enthusiastic audiences.
Just count me out.
Frankly, I prefer Peckinpah. His films are grim and violent but, unlike Tarantino’s, credible and brutally honest. He doesn’t even stack up well to the master of the Spaghetti Western, Sergio Leone, compared to which, Tarantino is more Chef Boy-Ar-Dee.
Oscars?
Fuggeddahboutit.
Then again, it's at least as awful as Dances with Wolves.
Only now and then do Oscars get it right.