3.5 stars. Rating: R, for relentless violence and gore, profanity, nudity and considerable ghastly behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.28.12
Since Jews were given the
vicarious opportunity to blow up Hitler and his high-ranking Nazi goons in
2009’s alternate-history Inglourious Basterds, we shouldn’t be surprised that
cinematic bad boy Quentin Tarantino would grant African Americans similar cheap
thrills, by scolding the pre-Civil War, slave-holding South in the same cheeky
manner.
If Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles made you wince, by milking broad comedy from racism, this one will freeze your
blood.
But make no mistake: Although Django Unchained definitely scores points in the ongoing debate about American
race relations, at its heart this film is gleefully exploitative trash: giddily
violent, gratuitously blood-soaked and unapologetically self-indulgent.
And yet ... undoubtedly a guilty
pleasure. You just can’t help admiring Tarantino’s chutzpah.
He remains a walking film
encyclopedia, with a particular fondness for the campy, low-budget sleaze of
the late 1960s and ’70s, which ranged from the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone
spaghetti westerns, to the blaxploitation flicks that made minor-league stars
of Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Tamara Dobson and others.
Tarantino evokes them all in Django Unchained, a revisionist western that takes its title from a 1966
Sergio Corbucci rip-off of Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars — which, in turn,
ripped off Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo — and starred Franco Nero as a
coffin-carrying pistolero who blows into a town-turned-battle zone by feuding
Mexican bandits and (you gotta love it) KKK members.
No surprise, then, that Nero
himself pops up in a small part here; Tarantino loves to honor his
predecessors. He also gets a kick out of “rescuing” familiar film and TV
B-actors, and so you’ll spot the likes of Don Johnson, Tom Wopat, Don Stroud,
Bruce Dern, Lee Horsley and Michael Parks.
And you’ve gotta love the parts
assigned other visiting day players: Russ Tamblyn pops up as Son of a
Gunfighter — a nod to the title of his own 1966 Spanish oater — which allows
Amber Tamblyn an eyeblink appearance as “Daughter of a Son of a Gunfighter.”
And speaking of the KKK, Jonah Hill is cast as “Bag Head #2” in a sequence
played for high comedy, which mercilessly depicts clan members as the dim-bulb
morons they undoubtedly were.
But all this comes later. As was
the case with Leone’s similarly sprawling 1966 epic, The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly, Tarantino — both writer and director here — takes his time setting up
this narrative. It’s two years prior to the opening shot of the Civil War, and
the story begins as Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a traveling dentist of
questionable repute, encounters a couple of horse-riding toughs leading a small
line of chained slaves, one of them Django (Jamie Foxx).
Except that Schultz isn’t really
a dentist; he’s actually a U.S. court-appointed bounty hunter who earns his
rewards whether the targets are dead or alive. (Usually dead, then, because
that’s easier.) Schultz has long been tracking the notorious Brittle brothers,
whom Django can recognize by sight, from a previous encounter. Schultz knows
this, and “acquires” Django with the promise of freeing him after the Brittles
have been nailed.
As it happens, though, Django
rather enjoys the idea of killing nasty white folks; he and Schultz become
uneasy allies, then partners and finally genuine friends. Meanwhile, Django has
shared his own mission: to be re-united with the wife — Kerry Washington, as
Broomhilda — who was sold to another slaveholder after the married couple
fumbled an escape attempt.
Schultz is completely sympathetic
to this quest, particularly since it evokes the Brünnhilde legend that is so
essential to his German heritage. And so, while gut-shooting many of the
South’s most wanted criminals, he and Django eventually make their way to
“Candyland,” the notorious estate run by the bestial Calvin Candie (Leonardo
DiCaprio), the current owner of Broomhilda.
Candie’s idea of a good time is
watching two slaves fight, no holds barred, until one literally beats the other
to death. With a hammer.
Django, meanwhile, has remade
himself into a tight-lipped, bad-ass bounty hunter, complete with snappy duds
and ’tude-enhancing shades. We can’t help laughing at our first glimpse of this
transformation, but there’s also no doubt that Foxx successfully sells the
part.
And so we merrily await what’s to
come, knowing it’ll be insanely violent, and secure in the knowledge that while
the Deep South’s slave-holding history may not have gone down this way ... it
probably should have.
Waltz, who won a well-deserved
Academy Award for his chillingly nasty role in Inglourious Basterds, sets an
entirely different tone here. His Dr. Schultz is polite, intelligent, clever
and quick to condescend; much of this film’s joy comes from the way this
character talks down to stupid Americans who lack the wit to realize how badly
they’ve just been insulted.
Waltz makes us like Schultz, and
not just because this German observer of the human condition takes such a dim
view of those who traffic in slavery. He’s also kind, resourceful and loyal,
with a pragmatic streak that makes the cold-blooded killing of criminal scum
seem, well, like a purely practical necessity. In short, he’s an outrageous
archetype, but that’s all right; we need a few positive characters to offset
the heinous behavior of this saga’s various villains.
Top of the heap, in the latter
camp, is DiCaprio’s Calvin Candie, whose “punishment” for a disobedient slave
is to watch the poor wretch torn apart by the plantation dogs: a fate that also
meets the full approval of Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), Candie’s trusted house
slave. Stephen, it turns out, is a far nastier piece of work than Candie, who
at least falls back on perceived racial superiority to justify his behavior;
Stephen doesn’t give his fellow slaves a second thought, as long as his own
comfort and security are assured.
Along with, we eventually
discover, the ability to influence all aspects of his master’s plantation
activities. Truth be told, Candie probably couldn’t get along without Stephen,
and that’s a match genuinely made in hell.
Although much of the so-called
acting in this film is more overstated camp than actual art, the performances
delivered by DiCaprio and Jackson are genuinely scary. Candie initially comes
off as a privileged, smiling aristocrat who defends his racist beliefs with the
dubious application of phrenology; but when DiCaprio’s smile becomes hard, and
his eyes compress into flinty, blue-green chips of diamond, the man appears
capable of anything.
Jackson, as well, is introduced deceptively
as a figure of ridicule: an aging Uncle Tom who bows, shuffles and yassirs to a
degree that draws taunts from white crackers and grim expressions of disgust
from fellow slaves. But Stephen, as well, is holding back; when the veil parts
and his true colors are revealed, he’s a similar nightmare.
Washington, game for anything,
makes Broomhilda a woman worth fighting for. We spend the entire film in agony,
waiting for the next act of cruelty to be heaped upon her, knowing full well
that if Candie has no limits, the same can be said of Tarantino.
Unlike DiCaprio and Jackson, who
initially conceal their characters’ inner selves until sudden, climactic
reveals, Foxx’s Django evolves slowly. The transition is tantalizing, with
Django initially wary and suspicious, then profoundly amused, as he realizes
that Schultz truly does mean to take him on as a gun-toting partner.
Eventually, as Django grows into this new dynamic, thoroughly enjoying the
double-takes of white folks who’ve (for example) never seen a black man on
horseback before, Foxx’s bearing blossoms into grim satisfaction.
A feeling we share, it must be
mentioned. And that, of course, is the subversive nature of Tarantino’s
approach. It’s hard not to feel glibly superior to the racist idiots
deliberately censured by this story, but we must be careful not to get too full
of ourselves. Much of this film is uncomfortable because we also recognize, all
too well, that considerable work remains to be done when it comes to American
race relations.
At 165 minutes, though,
Tarantino’s film definitely outweighs its welcome, despite a riveting climax of
absurdly gory, jaw-dropping excess. As befits Tarantino’s approach, he
choreographs such carnage to familiar music quotes lifted from 1960s
exploitation flicks; you’ll recognize themes by Ennio Morricone and Jerry
Goldsmith, and you’ve never heard Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name” used to such
ironic effect.
I can’t casually recommend this
film to the general public, and I shudder to think of unsuspecting patrons who
wandered in on Christmas Day — when it opened (!) — without any notion of what
was about to smack them senseless.
That said, Tarantino’s fans and
folks with a snarky sense of barbed dark humor are apt to have a wonderful
time.
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