{"id":4913,"date":"2013-02-04T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T21:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=4913"},"modified":"2013-03-11T15:47:58","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T22:47:58","slug":"django-unchained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/django-unchained\/","title":{"rendered":"Django Unchained"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Django Unchained<\/em>, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.<\/p>\n

Tarantino’s latest film takes place in 1858, two years before the Civil War-\u00a0 the year that William Wells Brown published the first Black drama, Leap to Freedom<\/em>; John Brown held an anti-slavery convention; Abraham Lincoln said \u00a0“A house divided against itself cannot stand;”\u00a0 The \u00a0Richmond Daily Dispatch<\/em> reported that 90 blacks were arrested for learning.\u00a0 Early that year a series of events hostile to Blacks happened in San Francisco. \u00a0The case of the escaped slave, Archy Lee, heightened conflicts between pro- and anti-slavery contingents in town. \u00a0Black children were excluded from public schools and legislation was introduced to ban black immigration into California.<\/p>\n

Tarantino made his engaging, well-acted and directed film in the true spaghetti-western style, with Ennio Marricone adding to the soundtrack as he had \u00a0for Sergio Leone\u2019s films which featured Clint Eastwood.\u00a0 However, he tackled a more serious issue than that of the typical pulp western of revenge, show-downs, and gun-battle one-upmanship.\u00a0 Django Unchained <\/em>is a seriously nutty \u201ccomedy\u201d that elicits a sober discussion on enslavement, and its portrayal over the years by slaves to Hollywood.\u00a0 Put bluntly, he does not employ mushy sentimental platitudes a la Spielberg in Amistad<\/em> or The Color Purple.<\/em>\u00a0 It is about the deadly craziness of racism and slavery’s particular horrors.<\/p>\n

\u201cDjango\u201d stars Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the incredible German actor, Christopher Waltz, for whom Tarantino wrote delightful, erudite, highfalutin exchanges (as he did for Waltz in Inglourious Bastards<\/em>).\u00a0\u00a0 He also wrote a lot of inflammatory dialogue for the white guys and some \u201cdomesticated\u201d Blacks, including generous use of the \u201cn\u201d word.\u00a0 Tarantino\u2019s love for Japanese samurai films is evident in lots blood splattering, gushing, and spraying.<\/p>\n

Dr. King Shultz (Waltz), a meticulous record keeper, is a bounty hunter who tracks wanted men: Dead or Alive.\u00a0 He\u2019s masquerading as a traveling dentist, evidenced by the oversize spring-mounted molar that jounces and wiggles on top of his horse cart as it rumbles along .\u00a0 During a chance meeting in the woods at night, he comes across Django, an escaped slave in a chain gang.\u00a0 Shultz frees him because\u00a0 he knows where the bad guys are and elicits his help.\u00a0 Django agrees only if Shultz helps find his wife, Broomhilda (an obvious play on the name Brunhilda of Wagnerian lore), played by Kerry Washington. \u00a0She is a slave at Calvin Candie\u2019s Mississippi plantation.\u00a0 When they ride into a town, the townsfolk are shocked:\u00a0 \u201cLooka there!\u00a0 A n- – – – – on a horse!\u201d\u00a0 and dumbstruck.\u00a0 \u00a0A tavern owner shouts, \u201cGet that n – – – – outta here!\u201d\u00a0 Over beers, Shultz tells Django that bounty hunting\u00a0 is \u201clike slavery, a flesh-for-cash business.”\u00a0 He convinces Django to play his valet so as to come off more a business man than bounty hunter, and sends him off to a costume shop.\u00a0 Django emerges dressed as Gainsborough\u2019s\u00a0 The Blue Boy\u00a0 (Tarantino does have a wicked sense of cultural reference).\u00a0\u00a0 To his credit, Tarantino uses flashbacks sparingly; showing them only to flesh out character, such as Django and his wife and his early days as a slave.<\/p>\n

Many scenes are shot through with gory brutality wreaked on blacks that are difficult to stomach, one of whipping a half-naked woman for breaking a few eggs.\u00a0 Shultz and Django rile up white slave owners who resort to forming a hooded posse (precursors to the Klan?) who complain about the hand-made hoods- the eye holes, especially, which is hilarious; much needed levity in this bloody, violent film. \u00a0In one scene, Shultz asks Django about Broomhilda\u2019s name, then tells him the German myth, how the hero, Siegfried rescues Brunhilda.\u00a0 He then convinces Django to act like a slaver himself, to ingratiate themselves with Candie,\u00a0 outfitting him in fine, well-to-do cowboy attire and a beautiful, hi-steppin\u2019 horse, on which he cuts quite a figure.<\/p>\n

By now, almost half-way into the near three hour film, I was getting impatient- when would meet we Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio)?\u00a0 After witnessing a gruesome contest between slaves egged on by white plantation hands, involving a slave, d\u2019Artagnan (Eto Assando), they arrive at \u00a0Candie\u2019s plantation, CandiLand.\u00a0\u00a0 Candie is handsome, rich, smooth-talking, corrupt, and evil.\u00a0 He stages a bloody wres\"\"<\/a><\/em>tling-to\u2013the-death matches between slaves in a gorgeously appointed room while guests drink and dine, oohing and ahhhing as they shrink from blood spatters.\u00a0\u00a0 Broomhilda is there, severely punished for trying to escape.\u00a0 Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson, made up like, as one critic said, Uncle Ben), is Candie\u2019s kowtowing, simpering house slave with his own agenda, who literally hangs over Candie\u2019s chair at the head of the table.\u00a0 He bows and nods as Candie explains to his guests why slaves don\u2019t revolt, using a skull to illustrate.\u00a0 At one point, Shultz is visibly appalled; Stephen asks Django why it doesn\u2019t bother him, being Black himself.\u00a0 Django answers that Shultz is German, \u201cI\u2019m more used to Americans than he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

One scene in particular: Shultz gets Candie\u2019s goat by mentioning the slave d\u2019Artagnan, telling him that the man who wrote The Three Musketeers<\/em>, Alexander Dumas, was Black.\u00a0 Candie loses it spectacularly, in a mad rage.\u00a0 It\u2019s fair to say that Christopher Waltz carries the film.\u00a0 When both Candie and Shultz\u00a0 are literally no longer in the picture (Shultz had a trick up his sleeve) near the end, the film becomes predictable.\u00a0 Django turns himself in to spare his wife.\u00a0 But he has an out: money- lots of it.\u00a0 The ending is, of course, an absolute blood-bath, no one is spared, not even Candie\u2019s toady, incestuous sister, Lara Lee (Laura Cayouette).\u00a0 Django gives Stephen his comeuppance, too.\u00a0 There are horrific explosions and a happy ending.\u00a0 \u00a0Django impresses Broomhilda with his horse\u2019s dressage, then the couple ride off into a Gone with the Wind<\/em>-like sunset.\u00a0 Django becomes a legend for Blacks, almost like Toussaint L\u2019Ouverture.<\/p>\n

Tarantino is known to tap “has been” actors for his films.\u00a0 In Django<\/em>, the TV actor Don Johnson plays a sheriff, and film star Franco Nero who was in the original Django<\/em>\u00a0 a decade or so ago, is seen as one of Candie’s guests at the wrestling match.\u00a0 The film is up for several Academy Awards.\u00a0 See it now!<\/p>\n

This review can also be read in an abbreviated version at www.socialistaction.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Django Unchained, written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino’s latest film takes place in 1858, two years before the Civil War-\u00a0 the year that William Wells Brown published the first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[837],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-joe-cillo"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"