Django Unchained

For those who grew up around the times of those independent Westerns of the 70s, or at least have seen them on video, you understand the type of movie experience writer/director Quentin Tarantino is referencing with the 2012’s “Django Unchained.” As with everything Tarantino does, there’s a type of film history/commentary, as if someone is sitting next to you saying, “Remember this movie? Remember this moment in this movie? Wouldn’t it have been cool if this could’ve happened? And then that happened because of this? And then those led to this other thing?” Abbie Bernstein said in her review, “That’s a big part of Tarantino’s aesthetic, and if you remember the movies he’s referencing here – which look to be everything from Sergio Leone’s canon to some infamous exploitation flicks – you can speculate on the jumping-off points. However, you don’t need to know anything about earlier works in the genre to appreciate the part-parody, part quite-serious epic that Tarantino has wrought here.”

A title shares that it’s two years before the U.S. Civil War. A line of chained black men are being forced along by two white slave traders. A white German man, played by Christoph Waltz, driving a dentist’s wagon crosses their path, introducing himself as King Schultz and wanting to know if any of the slaves worked on a plantation where the Brittle brothers were managers. One of the slaves, Django, played by Jamie Foxx, steps forward. Shortly afterwards, the slave traders are killed, their prisoners are unchained and Django and King have agreed on a deal.

He finds out that King is a very sharp bounty hunter, who is desperate to identify his next mine (that is the Brittle brothers) and in the long run, also open to having a right-hand man. Django, now being free, wants to find his wife Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington, who was taken form him and sold to another plantation after they tried to escape together. King believes Django’s story, comparing it to the Siegfried and Brunhilde Germanic legend, and promises to help. The journey takes the men to Candyland, the plantation owned by the especially evil slave owner Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Bernstein noted, “In broad strokes, things work out about the way we’d expect, with righteous rage, blood fountaining up into the air at regular intervals and tons of terrific signature Tarantino dialogue. (Trust him to come up with a whole riff on a drawback to being a Klansman that nobody has mentioned before.)”

The filmmaker also brings in a lot of historically accurate shocks of slavery – there’s no “Gone with the Wind” reference here. These scenes are meant to be uncomfortable to watch, so much so that the psychological hurt of witnessing the evil motivates a main action in the latter half of the movie. They are very powerful. How well one credits “Django Unchained” largely depends on how well a person can take in the fast changes in tone, from smart talk to energetic action to serious violence and back, countless times. There are also a lot of racial slurs, one mainly, in the dialogue. Bernstein said, “Granted, a lot of the characters are overseers, but some of it registers as overkill.”

The actors, including Don Johnson, Walton Goggins, Ato Essendoh, James Remar, Dennis Christopher, Michael Parks, and so many other famous actors, all appear to be enjoying themselves, with the exception of Foxx. Bernstein noted, “Granted, Django has plenty of reason to be intent and unhappy, but while he’s impressive and in fact acts like a ‘70s indie Western hero, he doesn’t seem as fully connected with his costars as he could be – excepting leading lady Washington, with whom convincing sparks are struck.”

Tarantino clearly sees what he had in Waltz back in “Inglorious Scoundrels” (I’m not saying the other word, this blog is swear free) (we all saw why, including the Academy) and has here written him in another role that displays his talents. Bernstein said, “This time, Waltz gets to use all that urbane charm, shrewd observation and modest manner concealing lethal skills in the service of a good-guy character, to such an extent that the movie deflates a little when he’s absent.”

DiCaprio is crafty, polite, self-assured and every piece the villain that a story of this kind asks for. DiCaprio plays Candie with the calm confidence of a man who is sure he’s got everything right. Samuel L. Jackson, almost unrecognizable with white hair and bushy eyebrows, is really good, disappearing into the character of Candie’s very loyal valet.

The musical score is eclectic, which makes sense that there are choices from Foxx and famous Western composer Ennio Morricone. Bernstein noted that “when the Jim Croce folk/pop ballad “I Got a Name” accompanies a traveling montage, it’s clear that not only is Tarantino referencing the ‘70s (the style of the film and the titles emphasize this), but he’s reveling in everything about the era, including its filmic anachronisms.”

“Django Unchained” goes off on so many tangents. A lot of them are entertaining, but a few are just strange (some of them is a sequence with Tarantino as an Australian). Unlike his other films, like “Pulp Fiction” or even “Inglorious Scoundrels,” “Django Unchained” doesn’t have a string of connected plot threads – by the end, there’s a feel that the movie could have been fixed a little and not lost any of the elements that make it work.

Bernstein ended her review by saying, “Still, if you are a Tarantino fan, a ‘70s Western fan, a fan of any or all of the actors involved or even just want a bloody, rousing, disturbing, crazy time at the movies, DJANGO UNCHAINED is here to provide it all.”

This is a highly engaging Tarantino Western. I recently saw this a few months back and I really enjoyed it. If you love Tarantino, then this is one that shouldn’t be overlooked. I would have reviewed this back when I did “Tarantino Month,” but I saved it for now, and hopefully people are happy now. I really enjoyed this and thought it was great, so check it out.

Look out next week to see the other Tarantino Western that I will review in the finale of “Western Month.”