Django Unchained
The best thing people can probably do before watching Quentin Tarantino’s latest film is to watch his last one, 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds.” That’s especially true if you didn’t see “Basterds,” or you didn’t like it. Not only does the film improve on repeat viewings, but it acts as a good companion piece for “Django Unchained,” which also uses the tone and narrative of exploitation cinema to look at a great tragedy in modern history…in this case, America’s acceptance of slavery before the Civil War.
Tarantino isn’t looking to impart a history lesson, though, but deliver a blast of cinematic energy that gives history a swirly before letting it out of the toilet bowl that is Tarantino’s mind. (That is not intended as a dig at Tarantino, regardless of how it reads.) The results don’t match up to the highs of “Pulp Fiction” or “Jackie Brown,” but damn, is this film entertaining.
It’s curious that Tarantino chose this time in American history to make an outrageous action epic centered around slavery. Despite the re-election of our first African-American president, the issue of race is still complicated, and deeply divisive, especially in the South. I’m wondering whether, after his great “Fiction” follow-up, “Jackie Brown” (with blaxploitation star Pam Grier in the lead), failed at the box-office, Tarantino decided to do a film that looked at racism directly, and uncompromisingly. Of course, QT is also the biggest film nerd auteur since Martin Scorsese, so it could be that he just wanted to do his own riff on the spaghetti westerns he grew up watching, especially the “Django” films with Franco Nero, who cameos in this film. But look at his “Basterds” again, and how it deals with the Holocaust, and you’ll see that Tarantino has more than just film homage on the brain. (Even “Brown” has some profoundly sad truths about race to say.)
Now that all of that is out of the way, I guess it’s time to discuss the film itself. The movie stars Jamie Foxx (in his best performance since he won an Oscar for “Ray”) as Django, a slave in the Deep South in 1858 who is unshackled by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, the Oscar winner for “Inglourious Basterds”), and is taught the ways of bounty hunting as a way of gaining his freedom. They continue their partnership for a while, and Django sees a way for him to possibly free his wife, Brunhilda (Kerry Washington), who was sold to a vicious plantation owner named Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) after her and Django tried to escape. Whether they can pull that off, however, is another story.
Once again, Tarantino is painting on a broad, epic canvas. Maybe too epic, however, in this case. Though I have no doubt that “Django Unchained” will be easily rewatchable over the years, its 165-minute running time felt a bit taxing on first viewing. Thankfully, QT has a damn good yarn to tell, filled to the brim with his typically off-kilter humor and quirky dialogue that defines character. The opening scene, where King comes along and takes Django away from his captors, is another great Tarantino curtain raiser that sets the tone of the film perfectly. And wait until you see a group of Klansmen (including Don Johnson as Big Daddy, and Jonah Hill as “Bag Head #2”) come up to attack Django and King, but get sidetracked in the single funniest predicament in any Tarantino movie since John Travolta’s hitman accidentally shot a guy in the backseat of a car in “Pulp Fiction.” Foxx and Waltz make a delicious, demented pair as Django tries to get used to freedom, and Waltz (in another triumphant turn for QT) shows King’s affection for the slave in campfire scenes that would feel right at home in the westerns of old, whether made by John Ford (“The Searchers”) or Sergio Leone (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”).
It’s when Django and King turn their attentions to Candie where the film really hits its subversive, sensational stride. DiCaprio hasn’t been this unhinged on-screen since his turn in Baz Luhrmann’s “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet,” and even THAT doesn’t even begin to prepare you for the charming, wicked sociopath Calvin Candie is. Trading in Mandingo wrestling, while running a plantation well-known among slaves for its brutality, Candie isn’t as easily put-over as some of King’s previous marks, especially with his house slave, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), who overlooks the grounds. If his role in “Pulp Fiction” helped define Jackson’s on-screen persona in films from “The Negotiator” and “Jackie Brown” to the “Star Wars” prequels and “The Avengers,” his complicated role in “Django”– which mirrors Candie’s disdain and brutality towards slaves –reminds us of the versatile actor of “Eve’s Bayou,” “Unbreakable,” “Black Snake Moan,” and “187” in its blend of heartbreaking morals and gut-busting laughs that ooze with venom. More than any other character in the film, Stephen gets to the dark, difficult heart of slavery, which challenged the morality of our nation, and continues to lurk just under the surface of much of what still divides us as a nation.
Quentin Tarantino has had a fascinating journey these 20 years since “Reservoir Dogs” galvanized the Sundance Film Festival. After that and “Pulp Fiction,” he was an up-and-coming firebrand, and the most influential filmmaker of his generation. However, now he feels so well established as an official “master,” in part BECAUSE of how influential he was on the filmmakers that came after him, that it’s amazing to realize that not only is he still in his 40s, but that he’s only made eight films as a director. What’s even more remarkable is how Tarantino continues to shatter audience expectations as a storyteller, both visually and on the page. “Django Unchained”– with another great, ambitious soundtrack of classic cues, and even a couple of original songs this time, complimenting Robert Richardson’s excellent cinematography –is, arguably, his most ambitious film to date, not only because of the story he’s telling, but also in the way he’s telling it. This is another wild cinematic ride from one of America’s most probing, intelligent filmmakers. Unless you’re squeamish about violence and confronting the sins of the past, I suggest you accept the challenge.
