Summer Project - Django Unchained

Research

Django Unchained first got media attention when someone leaked the script at a party which Quentin Tarantino held after it's completion. This article by the Guardian was made on the 5th of May 2011, the film was released on the 25th of December 2012, so in fairness, the script was leaked very prematurely and Tarantino almost pulled out from it's production because he was very upset by the leakage. At first he refused to comment or confirm any speculations on the film so in the article, there is a sentence which says "this should all be taken with a fairly large dose of salt" which shows that at the time, there was no confirmation of any plans for it to be produced. Interestingly, there was no mention of Jamie Foxx who is the main actor in Django Unchained but there is a paragraph about Christopher Waltz who worked with Tarantino before on Inglorious Basterds. To sum this whole article, it's basically just a speculation after the script of Django Unchained got leaked. 

This is the first article which reported the release of the Django Unchained trailer. They summed up that Tarantino is daring to tackle the roots of American racial turbulence by producing and directing this film. At this point, there was still confusion over who the main character is. This article highlights that its Jamie Foxx playing the role of a freed slave turned into a bounty hunter and Christopher Waltz as the supporting actor who plays the role of a bounty hunter. Whereas Leonardo DiCaprio plays the role of a villainous plantation owner. This all came to truth. The article ends with a question asking if everyone is ready for another Tarantino masterclass or would this be a disaster.

The most popular film critique website Rotten Tomato's had a rating of 88% for Django Unchained which is very high. There are three different levels on the website, the first being 'Fresh' which is that a film is rated 60% or higher. 'Rotten is rated when a film is 59% or less. 'Certified Fresh' is when a film gets a rating higher than 75% after a set amount of reviews including at least 5 reviews from top critics. It also received a 91% score rating from the audience which can be rated by anyone. The critics comments are: Bold, bloody, stylistically daring and is another Tarantino masterpiece. 

 This article was made after the film released so it's an extensive review. The 2nd of January 2013. Also worth noting that the editor is a black American so he had strong views on this film. He says "From its opening scene, “Django” inverts this scenario. Here is the spaghetti Western about an ex-slave turned bounty hunter who takes the bloody business of emancipation into his own hands." He also mentions the fact that "There are moments where this convex history works brilliantly, like when Tarantino depicts the K.K.K. a decade prior to its actual formation in order to thoroughly ridicule its members’ (literally) veiled racism." In “Django,” the director creates an audacious black hero who shoots white slavers with impunity and lives to tell about it. In the Harlem theatre where I saw the film, the largely black audience cheered each time an overseer met his end. There is a noble undertaking at the heart of all this gunplay.

Despite some very good ratings and a lot of good comments, it also received many criticisms. This is an article from The Hollywood Report The most iconic would be from Spike Lee who's had a long term feud with Tarantino. He specifically said that he wouldn't watch Django Unchained because it's too disrespectful. He said that the slavery is not a spaghetti Western and that it was a holocaust. I disagree with him as Tarantino is merely taking the theme of slavery and producing it for Hollywood, it's not a documentary to show cast slavery. Tarantino used his genius brain and creativity to mix slavery with romance and drama. He also said that the film is disrespectful to his ancestors.  

This article from CinemaBlend was mainly about the soundtrack that Rick Ross and Jamie Foxx produced '100 Black Coffins'. I’m not sure that Tarantino has had an official movie soundtrack invade the pop culture landscape as deeply as Pulp, but Foxx was constantly reminding us of the musical influences that drove the Django collaboration on set, and so this one could end up being a special, must-own collection as well. Tarantino’s movies often are defined by their soundtracks. Think back to the Pulp Fiction CD, which relied on surf, pop and R&B tracks culled from a lifetime of music history to set the tone of key scenes. Tarantino cares a lot about the music and sounds in his films, he values it very highly. As seen previously with Pulp Fiction when he used the song Misirlou by Dick Dale which later on became a top hit in pop. 
 Narrative:

In 1858, a bounty hunter named Schultz seeks out a slave named Django and buys him because he needs him to find some men he is looking for. After finding them, Django wants to find his wife, Broomhilda who along with him were sold separately by his former owner for trying to escape. Schultz offers to help him if he chooses to stay with him and be his partner. Eventually they learn that she was sold to a plantation in Mississipi. Knowing they can't just go in and say they want her, they come up with a plan so that the owner will welcome them into his home and they can find a way. The film was directed and written by Quentin Tarantino who is also known for Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, The Hateful Eight and many more. He's won 2 Oscars, with another 122 award wins. He is often critiqued for using a lot of violence but he says in return that audiences love violence and that it brings them closer to the film and its very easy to control the audience with violence. In particular, Django Unchained there are a lot of gruesome scenes of slaves getting whipped and later on a very bloody shootout at the mansion. Tarantino actually makes an appearance in Django as an employee to the plantation.

Genre:

The genre for Django Unchained is a Spaghetti western and drama. Usually within Spaghetti westerns the main protagonist is a white American male such as Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; because at the time slavery was a big part of American life but it is a controversial subject to touch on in films. Meaning white people, as a convention, would take the role in such movies.This break of convention means that the audience can relate with the main protagonist because of his humanity and weaknesses. This creates support for Django on his quest to find his wife.

Media Representation: 

Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained both entertains and unnerves the audience by placing America’s complex history with slavery at the centre of attention in the intense setting of the pre-civil war West. Tarantino juxtaposes his unique mix of humour and irony with the horrific contextual violence of the film in such a way that allows the viewer to not be overwhelmed by the film’s violence, or to be lead to a state of denial of the seriousness of the subject matter due to its comical tone. By using characters that pursue their desires ruthlessly, Tarantino aims to make the viewers feel almost morally violated in order to convey the gravity of the subject of the film as it pertains to a particularly painful part of American history. Sadism is a prevalent theme in this film and represents an ongoing feature of human nature. Therefore, Tarantino implies that no matter how far away from the present his characters may seem, their drives to succeed are ours as well, at least in an unconscious, repressed sense.Tarantino also depicts society as trapped in a Darwinian state; human nature showing humans as only as capable of succeeding in life as their genetic makeup allows. An example of this can be seen in a rather disturbing scene of the film in which the cruel plantation owner, Calvin Candie, claims that all blacks are inherently submissive due to three depressed marks that somehow characterise the structure of their brainstem. I will plan to explore how Quentin Tarantino’s style in the cinema represents the African American race. What we mean by this is how does Quentin Tarantino display the African American race in all his films and whether it is in a positive or negative way. Clearly this question is politically, culturally, and industrially significant in many ways. There are many different influential film industry stars who have varying opinions about how Tarantino represented race in some of his films; especially his more recent endeavor with Django Unchained. One reason Tarantino feels that his depictions of the African American race in his projects is understandable is because of the fact that he went to and all black school and it is the culture that he identifies with. Since Tarantino feels so close to the African American race, he gets this subconscious feeling of race privilege which made him feel that it was reasonable to depict the race in the way he did. Race privilege is the ability to say and do things that are offensive, even racist without threat or fear of social reprisal. So, Tarantino, being white, feels that he can say and show anything he wants to in order to represent another race without being threatened in any way shape or form. With this feeling or idea in his head, Tarantino then made the movie Django Unchained brutally vulgar and racist towards African Americans. He did so by making it one of the goriest movies he has ever created and using vulgar words such as the “N” word repeatedly to the point that makes some uncomfortable. In my opinion,Django Unchained is a love-it-or-hate-it movie-going experience. Tarantino’s decision to make a spaghetti western/slave revenge fantasy seemed like a cynical move to generate controversy from the get-go. Now it’s in theaters everyone has an opinion, especially when it comes to the provocative depictions of race. There are those who celebrate the bold representation of Django, the freed slave who fights back against a particularly sadistic slaveowner, claiming what is rightfully his (Hildy, his wife), burning the pristine white columns of the mansion to the ground in the process, and riding off into the middle distance. There are others, notably Spike Lee, who have questioned the oversimplification of these images and the apparent trivialization of genocide.

Media Language/Forms:

The film starts with about twenty black men walking across a deserted valley bare feet whilst their owner is on a horse with a carriage behind him. The title 'Django' comes as soon as the camera pans down to Django. We can see brutal whip marks on his back and the back of another fellow slave. This is a very strong opening to a film and it sets off the scene for more to come. Tarantino wants the audience knowing that he is serious and this film is not going to be a joke. 

This scene is where we are introduced to Dr. Shultz who is the bounty hunter. Here he is looking to purchase Django. It's a very dark scene, the only sources of lights are the lamps that the three white men are holding. This could signify that the white men are the only hope for the slaves for survival in this 1800's America. He then legitimately purchases Django but then kills off the two other men as they are wanted by the law for a reward and Dr. Shultz is a bounty hunter so it was a win-win situation for him. That was Django's first encounter with him and it sets him off for more things to come. 

 This is another screenshot from the same scene. The look on the slave's faces says it all, they are shocked by whats happened as it's unusual and goes against their conventions. Dr. Shultz tells them to run away and hide and directs them to where to go. This is significant as it shows the audience that Dr. Shultz actually cares from very early on the film.

This is the next scene in which Django is riding a horse with Dr. Shultz to this nearby town. It's now daylight which signifies that this is a new start for Django as a free man. This screenshot shows two very important features. First, the onlookers who are staring at this shocking scene of a black man riding a horse as back in the 1800s America, only white people would be seen riding a horse. Second important feature is that Django is staring straight at the noose which was used back then to lynch black people. From early on, we as the audience can see what Django fears the most. Also in this scene, the soundtrack "The Braying Mule" by Ennio Morricone is played who worked with Tarantino in many previous films before. 

In this scene, they enter a bar in this town and the innkeeper straight away freaks out and runs away from it to call the sheriff because he doesn't want a black man in his bar. So far there has been 8 accounts of the N word being said in the film which is quite hefty seeing as this was only 20 mins into the film. 

  After they murder the sheriff infront of bypassers and onlookers, the marshall of the town comes by with a lot of armed guards looking to end this madness. However, Dr. Shultz cleverly tells them how this sheriff is not actually who he is and is actually wanted by the government of Texas. This again signifies how cunning and smart Dr. Shultz is and the way in which he kills people for a reward. He easily manages to manipulate the whole town and let him walk away free with the body of the sheriff. 

Here is the first time we see Django and Dr. Shultz get more personal and wanting to know each other. He tells Dr. Shultz how Django wants to find his wife who goes by the name of Broomhilda. We then see a flashback of an villainous slave trader who wants to split them and sell them separately and orders his men to sell Django for cheap. We also see Django wearing some sort of metal mask on his face, he's being treated like a dog more or less. This again signifies how badly black people used to be treated in 1800 America. 

This scene we truly see Django's colours. The previous screenshot shows how badly he is dressed and looks rough but in this scene he is given freedom to wear what he likes by Dr. Shultz, he cuts his hair and beard and dresses in very bright blue suit and is riding the horse in a very confident way. The body language is very different to previous scenes. He is also riding his horse in front of Dr. Shultz whereas in earlier scenes, he was always following him and his shoulders weren't as high as they are now. 

This is the same scene however this plantation owner is not happy whatsoever with a black man riding a horse on his property. Dr. Shultz then calms his down and gets Django to take a tour. This again signifies that white people especially with high positions of power, despised black people. 

 Here is the first introduction to the KKK who were plotting to murder Dr. Shultz and Django later at night. Tarantino adds a lot of humour in this as the members complain about the masks and say that they can't see through the holes. This humour can be interpreted that this KKK gang are very stupid and lack common knowledge. This supports Tarantino's claims that he is very sympathetic with black people and their rough background. 

 This is one of the most, if not the most gruesome scenes in this film. It's the part where two black men are participating in Mandingo fighting which is a fight until death. Candie's fighter arises to be the winner in this fight however this shows how black people were treated almost like dogs and they were being made to fight against one an other to survive, very sad reality.

We are then introduced to Candie's vast plantation and we see slaves being made to walk as he is being dragged on a carriage with horses. Both Dr. Shultz and Django are on horses too. That shows a deep contrast between a freed black man and the rest who are slaves. 


 Here I have is a significant screenshot of Candie in total position of power as he is on both legs but the slave who tried to run away is on his knees begging for mercy. They are at the same level but there is a deep contrast between the position of powers just knowing by their body language. 

Ideology: 

In the film Django Unchained, the biggest value in society is based off of how many slaves and how much money someone owns because it is set in the South. Dr. King Schultz, the bounty hunter and one of the main characters of the movie, puts Django by his side to help assist him with killing three men who have committed illegal acts. However, having a black man as his partner makes many people question him and his own personal values, because he must be crazy if he lets a black man ride a horse and treats him as his equal. Meaning white people, as a convention, would take the role in such movies.This break of convention means that the audience can relate with the main protagonist because of his humanity and weaknesses. This creates support for Django on his quest to find his wife. There are those who celebrate the bold representation of Django, the freed slave who fights back against a particularly sadistic slaveowner, claiming what is rightfully his (Hildy, his wife), burning the pristine white columns of the mansion to the ground in the process, and riding off into the middle distance. There are others, notably Spike Lee, who have questioned the oversimplification of these images and the apparent trivialization of genocide.

Audience: 

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is proving hugely popular amongst African American cinemagoers despite controversy over the film's depiction of slavery and its liberal use of the "N" word. The Target audience for western films is a wide age category due to a lot of violence being in the films and also because older generations are most intrigued into westerns due to westerns being on TV a lot throughout their childhoods, but the main group they are aimed at is males due to the violence within them. Tarantino’s decision to make a spaghetti western/slave revenge fantasy seemed like a cynical move to generate controversy from the get-go. Now it’s in theaters everyone has an opinion, especially when it comes to the provocative depictions of race. There are those who celebrate the bold representation of Django, the freed slave who fights back against a particularly sadistic slaveowner, claiming what is rightfully his (Hildy, his wife), burning the pristine white columns of the mansion to the ground in the process, and riding off into the middle distance.