Django Unchained

[Frederico Fellini]

 



      

[ElPandaRoyal]

What the fuck was that??!!

[Reelist]

I think a reporter pissed in his champagne

[Frederico Fellini]

QT talks about Django, choking a bitch and eating pineapple to make his semen taste better. James McAvoy is also there.

British TV is fucking awesome.

[Pubrick]

guys. i don't know what the fuck just happened.

i think i sorta kinda like a tarantino movie. i haven't felt this way in 15 years.

i must be getting old/stupid.

[ElPandaRoyal]

SPOILERS MAYBE! Definitely!!

Apart from a few moments where it seemed to drag a little bit, especially after the big shootout (including the first ever Tarantino role that actually bothered me), it was as enjoyable as expected.

What I think it's great about this, just as I thought about Inglourious Basterds, is that it's all very entertaining and even silly, but at the same time it tackles very interesting subjects. It's about slavery, but it's also about friendship, class struggle, justice and, of course, just like Inglourious Basterds, about communication. About creating a character to save your life and get what you want. It's all about how you present yourself to others, with words and appearances being the key.

As for the violence, I think its attitude towards it is fantastic. It's funny and over the top when it needs to, but it's also very hard sometimes. And contrary to what some of you thought, it has to be hard. Why? Because one thing is our heroes killing those racist sons of bitches (the most basic level of entertainment: terrible villains who need to go done outrageously) and other thing is the violence the slave owners inflict on the slaves. If you think about it, the toughest scenes to watch are the Mandingo fights and the dogs, and those have our characters not as participants of the action, but merely as observers. That's what enrages them, those disturbing moments are what makes Schultz throw away his plan for killing that villain. He, a very rational man, prefers to die than to shake the hand of a man who treats people like that. That's why, I think, those scenes needed to be almost unbearable to watch.

I just don't think the movie gives you a great deal of substance after that big shootout apart from what was mentioned by someone a few pages ago: that Django absorbes Schultz, and just like him, he gets away of torture by talking - again, communication as a way to save your ass. Now that I'm thinking about it more clearly, I'm almost positive that after I rewatch this, I'll have no problem whatsoever with that last part.

[Jeremy Blackman]

^ A few responses...

Where you're saying the movie drags, I think it needs to. We need to feel the despair in that passage. I certainly did.

Concerning the violence, I pretty much agree. Tarantino says in interviews that the movie very intentionally has two different types of violence... (1) violence against the villains, which is cartoonish and fun... (2) violence against the slaves and protagonists, which is more realistic and disturbing. It's fascinating how he pulls that off. Can anyone name other movies that do this? I'm curious.

[ElPandaRoyal]

^ A few responses...

Where you're saying the movie drags, I think it needs to. We need to feel the despair in that passage. I certainly did.

I don't know. I kind of didn't. It just got to a point where, after that shootout, I thought: "OK, we're done, end of story, bad guys are gonna die here". After that, and knowing almost for sure that our hero is gonna be reunited with his lady, I was just thinking he was gonna go through the exact same thing, there's gonna be another shootout and this time he'll come out on top. But Tarantino does that. His climaxes are never what you expect exactly. I may not loved the final 20 minutes as much as the rest of the movie, but I can see why they're there. Now when I think about what I really didn't like in those final minutes was Tarantino's cameo. His character was really off: the accent was really weird (let me remind you guys that English is not my main language and even to my ears that sounded terrible), and his clothes were way too clean compared to the other two guys. Something just felt very odd. And I'm a dude who even enjoyed his performances in From Dusk Till Dawn and Death Proof. Maybe it's not so much that it dragged as it was that this time his cameo really rubbed me the wrong way...

Concerning the violence, I pretty much agree. Tarantino says in interviews that the movie very intentionally has two different types of violence... (1) violence against the villains, which is cartoonish and fun... (2) violence against the slaves and protagonists, which is more realistic and disturbing. It's fascinating how he pulls that off. Can anyone name other movies that do this? I'm curious.

Didn't read many interviews before I saw it, but having watched the movie now, that's what I took from it. And it's one of the best things about it.

[Neil]

Qt also mentioned that the character, in these types of films at least, will typically get caught and find himself in in such a predicament as to make the audience wonder, "how will our hero escape?"  I find that this is good enough reasoning alone for why the film plays out the way it does.
 Staying true to the genre.


But don't mind me, continue you on with the adult conversation.

[squints]

Does anybody see that this film has more in common with Blazing Saddles than it does any spaghetti western?? At least the ones I've seen. 

It may just be the white guilt talking, but i was kind of astonished that one of the first scenes in the movie is a big nigger joke. They roll in to town and the main point and the main "joke" of the scene is "Gasp! Look at that nigger on a horse!" People are laughing at it the same way they're laughing at Blazing Saddles and it unsettles me.

I still can't believe the sheer volume of people I know who are just in love with this movie. I still don't get it, how is this any different from anything he's ever done? How is this even the slightest bit better than anything he's ever done?

I had so much more fun with "gleeful violence" in a film like Dredd than i did with this.

[jenkins]

excellent dredd bomb!

[socketlevel]

ah man, really?

Most people are not laughing at the racism cuz they're thinking "fuck ya what's a nigger doing on a horse?!" they're laughing because A - it's a very different world down south, and that long ago (should be mentioned independently yet not always exclusively) B - The audacity of the statement which is said so nonchalantly, and C - The utter ignorance of this old white dude.

sure sure, some are laughing cuz of some form of mild passive aggressive racism, and sadly it makes the laughter all sound like one voice. But really what's the alternative? Political Correctness in a time when people just didn't think that way? should we be revisionist? or maybe you'd like a didactic approach? I agree its sad that it'll get some real racist laughter, but I don't think by making a point less sophisticated and appealing to a broad audience will help. It'll just skirt the issue and pretend like it never existed.

Blazzing saddles was pointing out this same irony.

[jenkins]

seems ok to be repulsed by repulsive behavior. your alt interpretations are based on a flawed perspective (not yours, theirs), which you find humerous, but like while acknowledging its imperfectness. i don't think the rejection of any punch line that requires that kind of perspective should be met with shock. both sides could relax?

[Pozer]

guys. i don't know what the fuck just happened.

i think i sorta kinda like a tarantino movie. i haven't felt this way in 15 years.

i must be getting old/stupid.

just wait till your married status like polka and me. youll find yourself enjoying crap like premium rush.

[ElPandaRoyal]

Qt also mentioned that the character, in these types of films at least, will typically get caught and find himself in in such a predicament as to make the audience wonder, "how will our hero escape?"  I find that this is good enough reasoning alone for why the film plays out the way it does.
 Staying true to the genre.


But don't mind me, continue you on with the adult conversation.

It makes sense, it's just that I don't really love the way he does it. He actually made me think that right after he seemed to be trapped and out of bullets in that shootout. "What will Django do now? How will he escape?" And then he didn't escape, just to be captured, and escape later. Tarantino could have found a way for him to talk his way out of that situation right there, thus avoiding the scene with his cameo. It would have had the same effect and be 20 minutes shorter.

EDIT: A few points about squints's comment. First, I still don't understand the "how is this any different from anything he's ever done?" comments as reasons for not liking a movie. If I like chocolate, why would I expect to eat a chocolate hoping it tastes like pizza and be disappointed to find out it tastes like a chocolate. I like Django Unchained because it feels like a Tarantino movie. The stories and themes are way different from other movies of his, the setting is different, so are the actors, but it is Tarantino and that's enough for me.

Then, about the racist jokes, what socketlevel said. I much prefer to watch a movie about controversial issues that's actually controversial, than something like The Help, that treats such things ever so carefully, passes as very serious, but in the end what they do is treating a subject as terrible as racism in such a way that makes white people feel good about it. Racism makes me sick, yet I laughed at that scene. Why? Well, because stupidity can be funny, and because for someone like me, the mere idea that a person seems so shocked that a black man is riding a horse is so removed from my ideals it makes it funny. You said you had lots of fun with the violence in Dredd (which was great, I liked that movie), well, don't you have living person guilt to have fun at a movie where people are dying? Some of the deaths in both movies are hilarious, and yet I despise guns and violence in real life.