Django Unchained (2012)

 

Quit yankin’ our chain, Tarantino!  Director Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained - a modern revival of the Spaghetti Western mixed with pre-civil war American slavery (a genre Tarantino has coined the “Southern”) was released Christmas Day 2012 to American theatres.  The film stars Jaimee Foxx in the leading roll, Christopher Waltz, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio as the antagonist.

                The movie details the happenings of Django, a slave freed by the bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Waltz) when attempting to locate his current bounties.  The two establish a companionship, with Schultz training Django in the ways of bounty hunting as a means of economic prosperity and locating Django’s enslaved wife.

                Many of Tarantino’s tell-tale directorial elements are present in this movie – the slight off topic humor (in this case surrounding an early instantiation of the KKK contemplating the decision to wear bags during a raid) to the long scenes of seemingly irrelevant dialogue (polite dinner conversation stretching over 20 minutes of footage).  These same directorial choices are what give the movie a slightly disingenuous feel considering the lengthy run-time.  At 2 hours and 45 minutes perhaps some of the meandering could be amended – or rescinded.

                Acting wise, Tarantino has again employed a full Hollywood cast with many blockbuster actors taking leading rolls.  To this effect the acting is good – of the caliber you would expect from Hollywood, but seeing DiCaprio (The same man we saw sinking in 1997’s Titanic) play a particularly brutal slave owner seems like another familiar, recycled face jammed into yet another role. The suspension of disbelief doesn’t come naturally given the casts’ tabloid-headline notoriety.

                Stylistically, Tarantino uses cinematographic elements common to the Spaghetti Western – the panorama (wide sweeping shots of the surrounding southern environment) and the tight close-up (inspecting the follicles of Leonardo DiCaprio’s manicured chin-coiffure).  Both could be expected of Spaghetti godfather Sergio Corbucci – The director of the original Django (1966) from which Tarantino draws heavy inspiration.

Speaking of inspiration, Tarantino includes many iconoclastic throw-backs to previous films.  In one such example he infers that a slave trader is the great grandfather of character Captain Koons from his previous Pulp Fiction (1994).  Additionally, Django’s wife, Broomhilda Von Shaft is a reference to the infamous Blaxploitation flick Shaft (1971) – later played in the year 2000 recreation by resident cast member Samuel L. Jackson.

Ultimately, the movie pulls many of the same tricks we’ve come to expect from Tarantino and to that effect its a familiar outing with an unfamiliar genre.
-Tom McIntosh