**1/2
Prior to seeing Django
Unchained I happened to catch Quentin
Tarantino’s appearance on Charlie Rose’s program promoting the picture. I’ve seen all of Tarantino’s previous
appearances on that show, all of which were quite enjoyable, but was quite
taken aback at this latest interview.
It was one hour of shameless self-adoration. Tarantino has always been confident in his abilities, but
what really separated this interview from the ones he had given Rose in the
past was the degree to which he seems to perceive the public cares about his
philosophies on film, his work ethic as both writer and director, and his
personal cinematic tastes. Judging
from his quasi-scripted elucidations, he probably considers his level of influence
to be at the industry’s zenith. I
have no doubt that there is a large assemblage of followers that sincerely do
hang on his every word, but judging further the manner in which he carried
himself on the program, he felt that clique to be all encompassing. Admittedly, I too am a great admirer of
his, but I found him very immodest in that interview, and immodesty is rarely
considered to be an admirable trait.
Charlie Rose was partially to blame for leading him along that
analytical track, in which all minutiae surrounding the production of Django was thoroughly explored ad nauseum. I began to worry that all of this eye
roll-inducing self-indulgence may have rubbed off from the film itself, for I had
high hopes for Django. I decided at that time to suspend
judgment and wait for the film to speak for itself.
Quentin
Tarantino, since abandoning the crime genre, in which his first three masterful
films fell into (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown), has since engulfed himself a genre which may be
entirely his own, that of ‘fantasy revenge’ films. The Kill Bill films were the first of these, followed by 2007’s Death
Proof, and more the recent Inglourious
Basterds. Basterds and Django possess the further distinction of being somewhat
historically based, and I mean that in the loosest possible terminology. To watch both of these films, one is
required to disregard everything one has learned about these eras in history
and to simply accept them as vehicles for entertainment. I found that a reasonable prerequisite,
as long as they were indeed entertaining.
Inglourious Basterds, set
during WWII, is a delightful piece of whimsy that grants a small group of
Jewish mercenaries the opportunity to take revenge upon their Nazi
oppressors. For Django
Unchained, Tarantino has chosen yet another
persecuted group from history; this time African-American slaves in the years
directly preceding the Civil War.
Why Quentin Tarantino, seeing that he is neither Jewish nor Black, felt
compelled to play champion to these two oppressed peoples is beyond me. Given that he is part Cherokee, it
seems more fitting for him to have devised a fantasy revenge picture in which
the native tribes of the Americas expel the European colonists. Perhaps that could be an idea for his
next project.
Django
Unchained opens with a literal bang. Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a
dentist turned bounty hunter, whose self confidence seems to match only
Tarantino himself, frees (through the most theatrical means) a slave named
Django who is his only lead in identifying a group of lawless brothers with a
price on their heads. After doing
away with the brothers and collecting the bounty, Schultz teams up with Django
and agrees, out of a sense of responsibility he says, to help Django track down
his wife, Broomhilda [sic], whom
he was separated when they were sold to new owners. Waltz, who was the scene-stealing Nazi detective in Basterds, again plays a highly capable German polyglot—a role
that Tarantino may end up typecasting for him. Tarantino’s hubris seems to manifest itself within the
character played by Waltz. He’s
highly articulate, with a scripted sense for delivery, and is master of every
sticky situation he finds himself in.
Django on the other hand is soft-spoken and reserved (at least toward the beginning), but despite being
a slave can ride a horse effortlessly and handle a firearm with Billy the
Kid-like accuracy. Together they
make an unlikely team, but an interesting foil for the film’s surly villain:
plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), captor of Broomhilda.
Up
until the arrival of Schultz and Django at ‘Candie Land’ (the name of Candie’s
plantation) the film is quite enjoyable.
Not up to Tarantino’s usual high standard, but a lot of fun in many
ways. However, once the blood bath
of fantasy revenge begins everything falls out of alignment as we are subjected
to some of the most gratuitous massacres most likely ever filmed. It was at this point I was reminded of
a comment Tarantino made on Charlie Rose about the TV mini-series, Roots. He
expressed great disdain at the last episode where Chicken George (a slave)
refuses the opportunity to whip one of the most hatefully racist characters on
the series (played by Lloyd Bridges).
Making the claim that America’s thirst for blood went unquenched, he
added that Django would not have
that problem. Well, he was
right. But to warrant such a
thirst, one would have to conjure up figures far more personal than that of
racial bigots from nearly two centuries ago. A thirst like that would require the combined forces of
sadistic school bullies, abusive stepparents, sexually-predatory clergymen, and
conniving co-workers to justify the utter madness that is the last forty
minutes of this picture.
Quentin
Tarantino has been criticized for the violence in his films going all the way
back to his first film, Reservoir Dogs. Those criticisms were never duly
justified as he himself rightly pointed out that the bulk of the violence
happens off camera. This, I felt
was a much better way to deal with the violent aspects of his films. Implications of violence leave much
more to the imagination of the viewer, in turn allowing them to control the
effectiveness of which. By
subjecting the viewer to explicit, exaggerated violence and gore, one can
distance the viewer from the picture, unless he or she fetishes it. Those with a healthy appetite for blood
and guts will relish this film. I
personally do not shy away from violence when it is presented in a way
contextually congruous to the story.
In Django however, the
level of violence is entirely incongruous, and exaggerated to fulfill a
fetishist’s appetite.
Django
Unchained is an entertaining picture all
right, but by the final act the film begins to suffer from becoming too
entertaining, if that at all makes sense.
There are many funny moments laden throughout. Many people may make reference to the scene with the KKK
members complaining about the poorly slit eyeholes in their masks. True, it was funny, but the gag went on
far too long and began to tug at udders where the milk had already run dry. By far the funniest lines in the film
come from Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen, head servant to Calvin Candie. He’s deliciously foul-mouthed, and has
enjoyed his long-lived status at Candie Land for so long that even he harbors
racist tendencies toward his own people.
It’s Jackson’s best role in years, and he is the true scene-stealer in this
film, not Waltz.
One of the more
surprising, yet disappointing aspects of the film is the lack of biting
dialogue that has become a Tarantino staple. Scenes in this film are often structured in a manner to
place more emphasis on the dialogue, which is neither fresh nor memorable. A particularly annoying convention
Tarantino uses is to have tense confrontations between characters interrupted
to showcase side-dialogue, often with a passive party. It comes off as arrogant as disrupts
the flow of the picture. The
film’s grand monologue, if it can be said to have one, would be Leonardo
DiCaprio’s spiel on the phrenology of African slaves. When compared to Tarantino’s past great monologues, such as
Samuel L. Jackson’s one about the shepherd from Pulp Fiction, and David Carradine’s one about Superman from Kill
Bill, Volume II, this monologue is a more
than a few rungs below those. And
some of his characterizations are inconsistent. Dr. Schultz in particular, who I refuse to believe was as
vain as he was portrayed in the scene that triggered the blood bath at the
end. All prior depictions of his
character suggested him to be too calculating and interested in
self-preservation to be as reckless as he was in that particular scene. As for the character of Django himself, I never found him
endearing enough to generate any sympathy for, or to want to root for him in
the end. The same goes for Broomhilda. Of all of the characters in the film,
shockingly the hero and heroine were the most superficial and cardboard. This of course greatly detracted from
the film’s climax.
After viewing
the film, the fears generated from the Charlie Rose interview were
unfortunately realized. Django Unchained overall
is a fiercely arrogant and self-indulgent
picture. I realize that any film
based on a person’s inner fantasies would have to be self-indulgent at its
core, but what exacerbates the level indulgence is the apparent need to share
it with others with the confidence that that particular fantasy may be
universal. I think all of us, at
one time or another, have fantasized about taking the most extreme and contrived
revenge upon our tormentors, but personally I shudder at the thought of other
people having access to those passing fancies of mine.
Django
Unchained is a small blemish on an
otherwise flawless directing career.
Quentin Tarantino has proved himself in the past two decades to be one
of the most visionary directors working.
I might add that I would have to rank Pulp Fiction as one of top ten best films ever produced. I’ve always felt that with that film,
which occurred so early on in his career, he set the bar too high for
himself. He may never be able to
top it, but I sincerely hope that he regains his footing after Django.
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