Dr. King Schultz: Christoph Waltz
Calvin Candie: Leonardo DiCaprio
Broomhilda: Kerry Washington
Stephen: Samuel L. Jackson
Billy Crash: Walton Goggins
Big Daddy: Don Johnson
The Weintsein Company and
Columbia Pictures present a film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Running time: 165 min. Rated R (for graphic violence throughout, a vicious
fight, language and some nudity).
In many ways, the cinema of
Quentin Tarantino is a cinema of manners. Often he deals in the manners of
criminals. He also deals in the manners of filmmaking. His characters have to
function with the proper manners to survive. They must manipulate the manners
of others, and they must know when manners matter no more. This process also
describes Tarantino’s filmmaking approach. He knows the rules better than anyone.
He studies the rules established by other films. He uses those rules to tell
his stories. He manipulates those rules and he breaks them to make the most
original and entertaining films to be consistently produced by one filmmaker.
Tarantino’s latest film,
“Django Unchained” finds the writer-director moving to yet another genre—the
western. As he so often does, Tarantino steals the foundation of his film from another
source—the popular Spaghetti westerns of the late 60s and 70s. In particular,
he resurrects the character of Django, a name referenced in over thirty
unofficial sequels to the 1966 film “Django”, written and directed by Sergio
Corbucci and starring Franco Nero in the titular role. Like those other films,
the name Django is about the only connection this film has with the original,
although Nero does perform a cameo role here.
Tarantino’s Django is a
black slave who is given his freedom by a former dentist-turned bounty hunter,
Dr. King Schultz. Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz make a good, if unlikely, hero
paring as Django and the good doctor respectively. Schultz needs Django to
identify a bounty for him, and comes to admire Django’s unique fire. Schultz
takes Django on as a partner and promises to help him find and buy the freedom
of his wife, Broomhilda.
Broomhilda has come under
the ownership of a peculiar southern gentleman named Calvin Candie, played with
more charm than tooth gnashing by Leonardo DiCaprio. Candie has a taste for the
particularly nasty sport of Mandingo fighting, a plot point lifted from the
1975 film “Mandingo” where slaves are pitted together in a fight to the death.
Schultz and Django pose as newcomers to the Mandingo fighting ring to gain the
confidence of Candie to purchase Broomhilda her freedom.
The film has come under some
scrutiny for its exploitational qualities. “Django Unchained” shares much with
the blacksploitation cinema of the ‘70s—a genre that has holds its influence
over many of Tarantino’s films. Filmmaker Spike Lee has spoken with his typical
anti-Tarantino vitriol against the film, which he admits he hasn’t seen. His
main complaint seems to be that the movie doesn’t paint an accurate picture of
slavery in the south just before the civil war. I doubt it’s meant to. Like his
previous film “Inglourious Basterds”, Tarantino has made a fantasy with “Django
Unchained” that is meant more as retribution for the acts of evil that were perpetrated
against black people than as an accurate portrait of what really happened.
I like the blunt nature with
which Tarantino and his cast approach this material. Waltz in particular seems
like a western oddity at first—although it has always been a genre that
specializes in oddities. His dentist bounty hunter knows his trade well. He
knows that you can’t just go around announcing yourself as a bounty hunter and
ever expect to collect any bounties. After purchasing Django to identify a
bounty for him, he stops in a small town to collect another bounty. He hasn’t had
time to explain everything to Django, and he explains nothing to anyone in the
town before he shoots their sheriff. Once he does explain himself to a very
upset Marshall, the Marshall is left speechless. His explanation is all very
neat and clean despite the fact that Schultz looks like a psychotic at first.
Giving the audience
characters that they like is one of Tarantino’s gifts. Schultz is one of the
more likable men QT has ever written. He does a nasty business. He describes it
as “dealing in flesh, much like the slave trade.” He just deals in dead flesh. Yet
he retains his civility.
DiCaprio’s Candie also has
likeable qualities, though at he core he’s a scoundrel. He’s also a perfect
Southern gentleman. It’d be tempting to say that he only seems to be a
gentleman, but DiCaprio makes us believe he really is the fair man he claims,
he just has particular tastes and doesn’t like to be crossed.
That brings us back to the
manners. When Schultz decides to take Django under his wing as a bounty hunter,
he speaks to him about the importance of playing his role. “Never break
character,” he tells Django. As the man of vengeance, Django might be the only
one who isn’t really playing a character. Schultz has been playing a character
ever since he left dentistry, or perhaps that was his mask when killing was his
true calling. Candie wants to be so affluent that he insists everyone refer to
him as “Monsieur Candie”, even though he doesn’t speak a word of French. His
head slave, Stephen, is so wrapped up in his role as the perfect house slave,
that he protects Candie like a mother hen. He literally plays a doddering old
man for his master. When he speaks with people who threaten Candie in private
his limp goes away, and he straightens his gait, and he embodies the menace
that only Samuel L. Jackson can at the top of his game.
As usual, Tarantino plays at
a bloody game here. He begins the film with a fit of bloody violence and ends
it in a blood bath. In between are his usual scenes of exquisite dialogue. His
characters are never more intelligent or knowledgeable than they should be.
Even his hero doesn’t understand all the fancy words that escape Schultz’s
eloquent speech, but he is smart. He learns them. It’s those types of details
that make QT’s characters and world so rich.
Tarantino also fills his screen
and soundtrack with stylistic flare. The music of the Spaghetti western has
always been part of the QT soundscape. That stands out in a film set during
World War II. Here it’s the contemporary songs that stand out. Anthony
Hamilton’s “Freedom” and Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name” seem peculiar in a western,
but work as commentary on the action and as subtext. He also fills all the
small roles with some of the greatest character actors you’ve never heard of
and Jonah Hill and Don Johnson. Like the music, some faces might surprise you,
but they bring a certain texture to the characters that lend the story its own
authenticity and humor.
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