“I can’t believe he did or said that!”
Django Unchained is definitely a Quentin Taratino movie with his mix-and-match stylistic genre. He never cease to amaze us by fostering within us all who watch his films a love-hate relationship. His movie making style always seems to push the envelope with his storylines that surprise and challenge the viewers’ expectations Most of the time we leave out of his films saying, “I can’t believe he did or said that!” Especially we see that in his newest work in the movie Django, where we hear the use of the “N…. word” used more than we probably wanted to hear it. I’m quite sure I lost count somewhere, but at minimal I counted at least 50 instances.
If you don’t know, now you will know that Spike Lee and Quentin Taratino have never been on the same side of the spectrum with making films. In fact, it is said to be one of the oldest Hollywood war-on-words with these two filmmakers. Moreover it was reported that Spike Lee tweeted, “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust.” Lee, whose films include Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing, told Vibe magazine he would not watch Tarantino’s work as: “It’s disrespectful to my ancestors.” Ouch! Well for all of those who love Quentin Taratino’s movies or may be interested in seeing it here’s a short backdrop:
The movie is set in the South two years before the Civil War. Django (The D is silent- played by Jamie Foxx) is a slave that brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with a German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz. The relationship is fostered through a deal that Dr. King Schultz makes with Django. Dr. King Schultz is interested in capturing and killing The Brittle brothers, and Django is interested in rescuing his wife Broom Hilda (Played by the lovely Kerry Washington).
The movie is multi-layered and at times difficult to unravel, but it takes its cues on one level from the kicking and screaming against social injustices, and on another level of the overarching theme that it seems as though Quentin Taratino is driving home, and that is the old ideas of inferiority must die off. However if the viewer is paying close attention he seems as though he is addressing a twenty-first century issue, which is human trafficking, but is packaged in a western deep in the South, two years before the Civil War which could make it difficult for his audience to interpret. —-Huh? Exactly my point!
The advocate of revision, especially of some revenge-fantasy story in history (The saving of the damsel-in-distress) that by the way is a black woman – (Typical Taratino move), but the simple concept of the inhumanity of slavery and revenge for some of the slaves made the audience clap, and when I say some is because Samuel L. Jackson is the head slave at Leonardo DiCaprio’s plantation, but he is playing a literal variation of the Uncle Tom and his fate is the same as DiCaprio’s fate….. I’ll put it this way, Taratino does not hesitate to allow race nor gender get in his way of making sure injustice is checked.
Django Unchained a Must See! What Say You?
