By Marc S. Sanders
Quentin Tarantino’s scripts have never been shy with using the N-word or any other colorful terminology. He turns harsh and biting vocabulary into rhythmic stanzas of dialogue. When he films these scripts, he’s not bashful with the buckets of blood splashed all over the set either. His interpretation of violence works in a kind of slapstick fashion among his seedy one-dimensional characters. Normally, I never get uneasy with his approach. I know what to expect of the guy. Yet, as well cast, written and formulated his Oscar winning film Django Unchained may be, I wince at both his word play and physical carnage. I think Tarantino gets a little too comfortable with his slave era storylines and the African American actors he stages in his set ups. A good portion of this Western may be thrilling, but it’s also cringy like watching a drunk uncle at a three-year old’s birthday party, and I defy viewers not to squint at the movie if they so much as live day to day with even the smallest shred of kindness in their hearts.
Django Freeman (Jamie Foxx) is released from slavery by the former dentist now bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, in his second Oscar winning performance cast by Tarantino). Django is a good man, though uneducated and mostly illiterate. Once he assists the doctor with locating and collecting a bounty, the two make an arrangement to stick together through the winter collecting further ransoms. In return for the former slave’s help, Dr. Schultz will assist in rescuing Django’s wife, the German speaking Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). She is believed to be held at the infamous Mississippi slave plantation known as Candyland, owned by the ruthless Calvin Candie. He is played by Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best roles while also delivering one of his most unforgiving portrayals. Calvin Candie is a mean son of a bitch slave owner who has too much fun with investing in slaves for brutal Mandingo wrestling matches that don’t finish until the loser is dead in bloody, bone cracking fashion.
All of these figures belong at the top of Quentin Tarantino’s list of sensational character inventions, particularly Django. He has more depth than most of the writer’s other creations. This guy goes from an unkempt, nearly naked, tortured and chained slave to a free man proudly wearing a bright blue court jester costume on horseback. His third iteration places him in a gunslinger wardrobe comparable to a Clint Eastwood cowboy and when the conclusion arrives, Django is meaner, more confident and instinctively wiser, glamorously dressed (purple vest with gold inlay designer seems) like a graphic novel superhero ready to take on an endless army of redneck slave abusing outlaws. Django is taught everything he needs to know from Doc Schultz. Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx stand as an impressionable mentor/student pair. They are the spine of Django Unchained.
The villainy of the piece belongs to DiCaprio and his head slave in charge, known as Steven, played by the director’s go to player for happy street slang and N-word droppings, Samuel L Jackson. Steven is Jackson’s best career role because as an old, decrepit and frightening individual it’s this portrayal which looks like no other part the actor has ever played. Both actors are funny, and you can’t take your eyes off of their unlimited grandstanding, but they will leave you feeling terribly uncomfortable.
I think what is most unsettling about Django Unchained is that the cruelty persists for nearly the whole three hour run time, and it is more so at a shameless attempt of comedic, pulpy entertainment, rather than just insight and education. A Schindler’s List finds no glee in the torment that kept the Holocaust alive. Tarantino didn’t even go to great heights with Inglourious Basterds because that film featured ongoing grisly heroics with his assortment of vengeful protagonists. The Nazis were never celebrated in that film at the cost of innocent Jewish lives that faced peril and threat.
In Django Unchained, it’s hard to watch the Negro characters and extras getting brutally whipped while bound by inescapable chains. Kerry Washington’s nude character is yanked out of a sweat box on the Candyland plantation and while I’m watching it, I ask myself if I’m too much of a prude. No. I don’t think I am. This teeters on torture porn. The N-word is now being used way too freely to stab at the slaves for gleeful poetry. It grows tiring and, yeah even for a Quentin Tarantino picture downright ugly and offensive. I imagine Tarantino grinning behind the camera every time DiCaprio or Jackson happily drop another N-bomb.
Quentin Tarantino has been applauded time and again for his excessive abuse and tortuous murders committed by his characters. Because he’s courageously gone so far before, the line of acceptance is either pushed out farther or maybe in the case of Django Unchained it is entirely erased.
My compliments to a well-known humanitarian like Leonardo DiCaprio for energetically acting through this bastard of a role that requires a twisted pleasure in watching two husky black bruisers beat the bloody tar out of each other in a formal drinking parlor. Later in the picture, a weeping slave is shredded to pieces by ravaged, bloodthirsty dogs. These fictional scenes staged by Tarantino and his filmmakers come off a little too real and even by the director’s standards much too over the top for the temperature of this film’s narrative.
What could these extras cast to play these slave and Mandingo roles have really been thinking while shooting this picture? Did these men recognize the racially poetic humor in Tarantino’s verbiage? Did they find a commitment to demonstrate a once historic atrocity for a lesson learned? I doubt it. Did these actors simply succumb because they needed the work? Believe me. I empathize. Yet, Tarantino took this film to a very uncomfortable extreme for a movie intended on following his reputable and always admired lurid material. Here, despite my reverence for his work, I think Quentin Tarantino goes unnecessarily over the line. The whippings and dog torture are quite uneven from what The Bride commits in Kill Bill when a Crazy 88 henchman gets spanked with a sword and there’s nothing to compare to whatever sick, graphic novel atrocities occur in his later western, The Hateful Eight – both are PG rated compared to what is offered in Django Unchained.
Much of Tarantino’s signature comedy works. The Ku Klux Klan of the late 1850s are represented with brilliant stupidity by a cameo appearing Jonah Hill and a racist, foul speaking, plantation owning charmer played by Don Johnson, known by what else but Big Daddy. The filmmaker turns these guys into bumbling stooges who can’t even wear their hoods properly. And yes, they also freely drop the N-word in cruel like fashion. I get it, Mississippi and Southern Plantation owners were not the Mickey Mouse sort, and I’m not asking for whitewashing what the real-life despicable characters stood for or how they carried themselves. Still, when all of this compounded together, it goes too far. In a drama like 12 Years A Slave, I see an authenticity to an ugly slave era. In Tarantino’s world, I see a kid who learned a bad word and dad said go ahead son, play with the machine gun but make sure the vocabulary ammo will riddle the entire script to pieces.
Django Unchained is a gorgeous looking picture. Tarantino goes to the outdoor plains following the interiors of Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz’ cowboy antics look marvelous riding on horseback or even simply camping by the fire as well written exposition is revealed on cold moonlight evenings.
I can watch this western on repeat and feel a free-spirited energy when Django steps out in his cowboy outfit with boots, spurs, the hat, and a brand-new saddle to ride off on his steed while Jim Croce’s uplifting “I Got A Name” cues into the picture. I love how Jamie Foxx appears as a super heroic action star, especially in the final act of the movie. I can absorb the sadism of DiCaprio’s downright mischievous evil, particularly when he uses a bone saw and skull prop to make a point. I feel like I’ve gained a comforting friend in Christop Waltz’ kindly sensible Doc Schultz, and I welcome a very funny and altogether different Samuel L Jackson that finally arrives.
It’s the filling within these strong moments and characterizations that is very hard to swallow. Django Unchained is that great picture that still should have been made but with a modicum of caution. Perhaps one of the Weinsteins, or maybe even these powerhouse, marquee actors who led this piece should have shared some constructive input with the writer/director.
Django Unchained is fun, but it’s not entirely fun.
2 UNPAID MOVIE CRITICS!!!! 