The world is not ready for a movie like Django Unchained. I’m not entirely sure it will ever be ready. But
here it is, in all its spur-jangling glory.
Quentino Tarantino, first a director of realistic crime dramas, has
been making the rounds on all the other genres in recent years. He dabbled in
kung-fu and martial arts movies with Kill
Bill, sleazy exploitation films in Death
Proof, and then World War II with Inglourious
Basterds. Now here is Tarantino’s first western and, like his other jaunts
through Hollywood ’s
varied genres, this one is a one-of-a-kind, see-it-to-believe-it kind of
experience. I saw it, but I’m not entirely sure I believed it — I think my jaw
hung open for most of it.
Just, just … wow! It really is a force that can’t be reckoned
with. Scholars may analyze it, film professors may pick it apart, movie critics
may diagnose it, but I really think it defies even the most basic scrutiny. It
involves slavery, but it doesn’t make any grand statements about that scourge on
American history, other than it is bad and woe unto the white man who keeps a
black man in chains. Django is not an
analogy, or metaphor, or a parable. It simply is. Take it at face value and
just leave it alone.
Django (Jamie Foxx) is a southern slave sometime around the Civil
War. He’s propositioned by dentist and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz
(Christoph Waltz), a wily German killer with a knack for long conversations
that wind back around to startling conclusions. Schultz wants to purchase then hire
Django to track down three killers, and in return Schultz will help Django —
“The D is silent” — rescue his wife from vile slave owner Calvin
Candie, who lives on a plantation aptly named Candie Land
Like Kill Bill, much of
the plot is a revenge fantasy set within an anachronism of hip-hop, ’70s-era
exploitation cinema, Spaghetti Westerns and singer-songwriters. Django and
Schultz are often seen riding through beautifully photographed plains and
deserts while RZA, Ennio Morricone or Jim Croce are pumping from the speakers.
Tarantino has no interest in playing fair with his history. Recall that in Iglourious Basterds he had two Americans
fill Adolf Hitler with enough lead to contain a nuclear reactor in your kitchen
with no radiation leakage, so yeah, there’s that. I imagine history books are
more like coasters at the Tarantino casa. He does seem to take great interest
in the look and feel of the Deep South , with
period-appropriate costumes and interiors. There’s a funny bit with Schultz
buying Django a suit, “any suit you want,” and he picks out an ensemble that
Napoleon would call pajamas.
Foxx and Waltz are the right performers for these roles. Foxx is
cold and calculated, downplaying his character’s brutality. And Waltz is
electric as the moral and professional killer. He is given pages and pages of
dialogue, all of it slithery and pliable, which gives Waltz plenty to work with
to shape his devious dentist. By the time DiCaprio’s Candie makes an appearance
I wasn’t sure if the script could hold him, but his dialogue rises to the
occasion, giving Waltz material to weave around. I could listen to them talk
circles around each other all day.
Django and Schultz wander through the Old West killing bounties
until they finally find a way into Candie’s heart: they plan to pose as fight
promoters of a specific kind of spectacle, black “Mandingo” fighters. This is a
meta-reference to Richard Fleischer’s controversial 1975 Mandingo, and Tarantino drops the reference as if everyone has
already seen it. Schultz and Django infiltrate Candie’s sprawling plantation,
where they meet lots of champion fighters, Django’s whipped and broken wife
(Kerry Washington), and Calvin Candie and his head servant/slave (Samuel L.
Jackson), who might have forgotten what color his skin is in Candie’s
intoxicating presence. They also meet
the always-funny Walton Goggins, who can’t seem to wrap his brain around that D
and J pairing: “I will you kill you Dee-Jango!”
The movie is full of slave imagery (including whippings and a dog
mauling), brutal dialogue and roughly 100 or so utterances of the dreaded N
word. It’s used by white and black characters, but the white characters use it in
a snarly cadence that makes it sound much worse. In a historical context, the
word was probably said a lot back then, but this is no Huck Finn and there is no deep lesson in its overuse. Tarantino
uses it first to shock and then, after it’s been said a couple dozen times, to
lull us into a numb daze. If saying the word takes its power away, then it is
almost powerless by the end. Almost.
I’m trying to be sensitive
in writing this review, though the film has no such worries: it is painfully blunt
and so politically incorrect that it rates off the charts. Much of the humor is
race-related juxtaposition: A black man on a horse!? A black man in a bar?! A
black man in white peoples’ clothes?! Of course, no one says “black man,”
though. As harsh as the dialogue is, Tarantino writes his black characters with
warmth and affection. He’s also one of the few white people in American culture
who can get away with this many N words (or even one), though I won’t entirely
believe that until after the film’s been in general release for a couple of
weeks. And though it can be lowbrow and cheap, Django Unchained also has a clever and slippery streak, like when
Schultz wraps German folklore around Django’s wife and her experience as a
slave in
Quentin Tarantino is fond to admit that he makes movies for
himself — “Movies I would want to see,” he would say. Django Unchained might be Exhibit A in a case to prove that point.
It’s filled with vile characters, horribly inappropriate dialogue and savage
imagery, but it is pure Tarantino through and through. And though it may run a
little long at nearly three hours, and Tarantino foolishly casts himself in a
role, Django is an endlessly stylish
adventure film that just so happens to take place at the same time as slavery.
And it just so happens to be totally ridiculous, in a good way.
