P.S. - Fistful of Dollars has a similar finale to Django in that Eastwood tries to confront the bad guys, but fails and almost dies the first time, only to make a comeback and kill all the bad guys the second time.
Isn't this the trajectory in pretty much every spaghetti western?
P.S. - Fistful of Dollars has a similar finale to Django in that Eastwood tries to confront the bad guys, but fails and almost dies the first time, only to make a comeback and kill all the bad guys the second time.
Isn't this the trajectory in pretty much every spaghetti western?
yeah i got no problem with the classic western shootout ending or failure/practice/vengeance trope that horseleech mentioned. just wasnt an ending that felt epic. good bad and the ugly shootout in the graveyard, or harmonica facing off with the bad dude in once upon a time...those were climactic and epic. fistfull and for a few dollars more definitely werent silly at the end. i agree with what batmon just wrote...the pacing went from carefully constructed into a muddled blur. maybe they blew their chance at an epic ending by killing calvin candie early on. but the move on the germans part was so retarded...oh im really shook up by the image in my head of dude getting ripped apart by dogs so i'll feel better by shooting this guy while his henchman has a gun to my potna's lovely wife. silly. i can forgive wanted posters in the pocket more than that poor writing.
the over trusting australians was a crap deus ex machina scene, but the one captive had such an intense face it almost made up for it. the dude who smiles as django rides away.
motown, all in all, i liked the movie. just really disappointed that the end wasnt tighter cause it could have been epic.
Dick Gregory speaks his mind. The most interesting thing to me was the historical precedent of the Django character, Dangerfield Newby, one of John Brown's raiders. Haven't seen that connection mentioned anywhere.
Just caught a late night screening. Shit is fucking corny. shit is way outta line. Way too long. More proof that QT cannot direct action sequences. And should never act in movies. I thought the hitler assasination schtick was bad in IB - this joint takes it to a whole nuther level. A big nah son from me. The one thing I did enjoy throughout the flick were the schultz and candy characters - and broomhilda is smoking.
Soundtrack was extremely spotty.
To be the dissenter I saw the movie for the third time last night and still loved it. They did some foreshadowing about the wanted poster about 1/3 of the way through the movie. I also didn't think Schultz shooting Candy was a dramatic change in his character. He was obviously becoming more and more uncomfortable with slavery and Candy as the movie progressed, and it appeared like he was looking for an excuse to kill him rather than somehow losing it before his end.
It's funny how dramatic he is about this topic. I love seeing films in 35mm, but to me, it doesn't matter either way. I remember him saying that he would burn down his theater if they project in digital (which I think they actually do now) and that he will retire when digital becomes the norm as "it's not what he signed up for". haha...what?!?
were there other leone or corbucci films that had such silly endings?
The end of Fistfull of Dollars has Eastwood wear a big metal plate underneath his poncho, get shot a bunch of times before he kills the bad guy and rides out of town.
For a Few Dollars More Eastwood and his partner shoot down the gang before there is a finale duel between Eastwood and the bad guy.
Point being, there's a big shoot out before some kind of final confrontation between the two biggies, which is again, a shooting.
Im sorry but there's no way in hell that django unchained can stand comparison to either fist full of dollars, for a few dollars more, the good the bad and the ugly or once upon a time in the west, or even the corbucci or tonino valerii flicks. It does more than pale in comparison - its a juvenile, inept caricature of any of those movies. Its a huge campfest - it has none of the intensity or excitement of those films - none. There's no tension or satisfying action or excitement at all in django - just a string of extremely tired and heavy handed jokes. The only saving grace being the waltz and dicaprio performances - both of which are also very campy.
More so - being a spoof and having been made in hindsight - with a whole genre to copy and/or reference all there for the picking - its even more painful to see how incredibly immature and corny django is compared to any of those flicks. even just from a photography standpoint - the way a lot of the interiors were shot - especially the final shoot out - is really flat and uninspired.
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained or The Help.
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that fusk with it and some that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained
'black folk' is not a monolithic entity with one opinion to be disconnected with or not
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained or The Help.
I think your disconnected.
You might know folks who gave it a miss - as do I - i saw it with 5 friends who all rejected it -still it seems on the whole its been embraced by the majority - both black and white.
The film has grossed $132,309,000 so far, and thats just domestically.
Production Budget: $100 million.
Spike Lee spoke out against the movie but since he hasnt seen it its hardly a critique or attack on the work itself. In fact in the reviews i found online there has been very little overall objection to how the film handles its subject matter. Which i find baffling. Similarly - Inglorious basterds only received some backlash for its stupid and grossly puerile jews vs nazis, violent retribution fantasies - authored by a gentile! - or its extremely offensive offing of hitler like some chest thumping gesture by tarantino- the sardonic rebel who gloats about setting fire to the school. A trivialised and debilitated approach to the holocaust/ww2 imo.
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained or The Help.
I think your disconnected.
You might know folks who gave it a miss - as do I - i saw it with 5 friends who all rejected it -still it seems on the whole its been embraced by the majority - both black and white.
The film has grossed $132,309,000 so far, and thats just domestically.
Production Budget: $100 million.
The have Race scanners on tickets?
How can u prove "embraced by the black & white majority"?
And if a teenage Black couple checks out the film(cause its just another movie to see) and doesnt like it, are they embracing the film?
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained or The Help.
I think your disconnected.
You might know folks who gave it a miss - as do I - i saw it with 5 friends who all rejected it -still it seems on the whole its been embraced by the majority - both black and white.
The film has grossed $132,309,000 so far, and thats just domestically.
Production Budget: $100 million.
The have Race scanners on tickets?
How can u prove "embraced by the black & white majority"?
And if a teenage Black couple checks out the film(cause its just another movie to see) and doesnt like it, are they embracing the film?
Dude - semantics. People have been going to see the movie in droves - its number 8 in the US - its safe assumption. There has been surprisingly little backlash or discussion on the films actual content and treatment of the subject- especially coming from the black community - as far as I can tell. And obviously the black cast members gave it a pass. Whats your opinion on the slavery exploitation comedy schtick in Django?
I'm not sure why this matters. Only Spielberg could make that film?
Personally I think some people give QT way too much credit for good or bad (Maybe credit isn't the best word).
Most of us should be debating the actors roles and how well they played them. That's what's making you feel or not feel anything about the film for the most part.
I thought most of the characters of the smaller parts did a decent job (Except QT. He should not act. Tho I didn't mind him in RD).
Leonardo, Jackson & Waltz nailed it.
There was something in Kerry Washington and Foxx's performance I found a bit lacking. In Washington's case, I don't feel like it was her interpretation of Broomhilda. More to do with the writing and how they used her.
I can't quite place my issue with Foxx's portrayal of Django. I don't think he bombed it by any means. I thought he did a decent job. But that part was really screaming for an amazing performance. Over all the other characters IMO.
But then, maybe this is only my issue. Since I heard Michael Kenneth Williams was up for the film before I saw it and I can't get it outta my mind how well he would have played that part.
I'm not sure why this matters. Only Spielberg could make that film?
Personally I think some people give QT way too much credit for good or bad (Maybe credit isn't the best word).
Most of us should be debating the actors roles and how well they played them. That's what's making you feel or not feel anything about the film for the most part.
It matters imo, it concerns his attachment to the subject and the - suspect - way he approached it. It seems all the more disingenuous. Spielberg has nothing to do with it. I disagree with your point about sticking to the actors and their roles - especially when it comes to Django unchained.
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained or The Help.
I think your disconnected.
You might know folks who gave it a miss - as do I - i saw it with 5 friends who all rejected it -still it seems on the whole its been embraced by the majority - both black and white.
The film has grossed $132,309,000 so far, and thats just domestically.
Production Budget: $100 million.
The have Race scanners on tickets?
How can u prove "embraced by the black & white majority"?
And if a teenage Black couple checks out the film(cause its just another movie to see) and doesnt like it, are they embracing the film?
Dude - semantics. People have been going to see the movie in droves - its number 8 in the US - its safe assumption. There has been surprisingly little backlash or discussion on the films actual content and treatment of the subject- especially coming from the black community - as far as I can tell. And obviously the black cast members gave it a pass. Whats your opinion on the slavery exploitation comedy schtick in Django?
I dont have an opinion on the "slavery exploitation comedy shtick" because I didnt perceive it like that.
There has been surprisingly little backlash or discussion on the films actual content and treatment of the subject- especially coming from the black community - as far as I can tell.
I guess it depends on where one is at - my Inbox and FB feed have been jammed with article after opinion piece after personal posts after 70+ comment debates tearing this movie apart.
The majority of reviews in magazine and newspapers have given Django positive comments. There are negative reviews of course, some of which focus upon the violence (I think the New Yorker gave it a negative review in part because of that), the use of the N word, and one reviewer who said that QT doesn't make movies anymore, just movie trailers.
As for popular response, Soulstrut is the only place where I've heard people not like it outside of the negative reviews that I read. I'm a high school teacher, and every kid that I've talked to liked it. I went to church on New Year's eve and the minister even asked the congregation if they'd seen the movie as part of his sermon, my family and my girlfriend's family have both liked it as well.
I dont have an opinion on the "slavery exploitation comedy shtick" because I didnt perceive it like that.
And "embraced" it on bootleg at a friends house.
cough - cop out - cough
how did you perceive it?
bassie said:
staxwax said:
There has been surprisingly little backlash or discussion on the films actual content and treatment of the subject- especially coming from the black community - as far as I can tell.
I guess it depends on where one is at - my Inbox and FB feed have been jammed with article after opinion piece after personal posts after 70+ comment debates tearing this movie apart.
Im talking mainstream media - ive had several discussions - with blacks, whites and other races about this flick, where 'im at'. I would like to see more critical dissection of the movie or tearing apart of it. Do you have any recommendations? I found one article that i can mostly cosign on its reading of the film:
Django Unchained
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino
As we have noted before in regard to Quentin Tarantino, even an unserious act (or film) can have serious consequences. The writer-director???s new work, Django Unchained, treats the truth with contempt in its depiction of America???s past. In presenting slavery, at least by implication, as the nation???s original sin and racism as somehow bound up with the character of its people, Tarantino also aligns himself with numerous ???left??? cultural critics who have been made extremely uncomfortable and unhappy by Steven Spielberg???s-Tony Kushner???s Lincoln.
The overall concern for historical fact at work in Django Unchained can be gauged by its initial title, which explains that the film opens in 1858, ???Two years before the Civil War,??? a conflict that began in 1861.
Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave being transported across Texas, is freed from his owners by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waitz), a German-born bounty hunter. Schultz has need of Django because the latter can recognize three brothers, for whom the authorities are offering a large reward. In exchange for the slave???s partnership in tracking down additional wanted men, Schultz will help Django rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from a Mississippi plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
After initial unease about shooting a man down in cold blood (the pursued individuals are ???Wanted dead or alive???), Django takes to the work with relish. The pair eventually make their way to Candieland, the plantation in question, presided over by its monstrous master, who stages fights to the death between slaves as a form of entertainment and orders one runaway to be torn to pieces by dogs in front of his visitors.
Schultz and Django pretend to be interested in buying one of the prized black gladiators, with Broomhilda merely thrown in as an afterthought, but Candie???s head slave and henchman, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), soon awakes to the fact that the woman is Django???s wife. An outraged Candie thereupon vastly increases the amount demanded for her and, moreover, insists that Schultz shake hands with him to seal the deal.
Pushed to the limit by this final act of humiliation, the bounty hunter shoots Candie, and is killed, in turn, by one of the latter???s thugs. Wholesale slaughter ensues, which ends only with Django wreaking revenge on all the surviving inhabitants of Candieland, including Candie???s unarmed sister.
Django Unchained is a miserable work, implausible and unconvincing from beginning to end (unlike the best ???spaghetti Westerns??? Tarantino claims to admire). The scenes at Candieland are especially preposterous. Schultz??? and Django???s flimsy pretext for coming to the plantation (and their sudden interest in the female slave), which endangers Django???s life at every instant, would not fool an infant. The reaction of the plantation owner, who presumably now knows that he has in Django an escaped slave on his hands and only asks for a larger sum in payment for Broomhilda (in addition to the ridiculous handshake), has no psychological or social logic. The four lead performers (Foxx, Waitz, DiCaprio, Jackson), all talented individuals, work strenuously to make some sense out of the sequence of events.
The violence in the film is stupid and pointless, not too far removed from???or perhaps a sub-category of???the porno-sadism genre. The critics, by and large, have responded with enthusiasm to the brutality on display. In Django Unchained, writes the Washington Post, ???Tarantino resorts to his usual fall-back position, which is to bathe everything and everyone in sight in gunfire, gore and geysers of blood. ??? There???s an infectious, unfettered fearlessness to Django Unchained that makes it enormous fun to watch.??? The Los Angeles Times reviewer gushed, ???In Django, Tarantino is a man unchained, creating his most articulate, intriguing, provoking, appalling, hilarious, exhilarating, scathing and downright entertaining film yet.??? People who are entertained by such material ??? ?
I found Django Unchained at two and three quarter hours nearly unendurable. (I confess that I slipped out of the theater for eight to ten minutes somewhere in the middle, as a form of self-protection.) Anecdotally, I did not sense that the audience members at the showing I attended, mostly college aged, were especially thrilled with the time spent. No doubt they have been led to believe, and may believe it themselves, that Tarantino is ???anti-establishment??? and his films are not to be missed, but the actual experience may be something else again.
As a seriously unskilled artist, Tarantino has the story pivot on inconsequential or contrived incidents, which do not in themselves concentrate any of the film???s supposed concerns. The various incidents are nothing more than the clumsy preparation for the final bloodbath, the film???s actual raison d?????tre, toward which everything is inevitably gravitating. So any possible meaningful drama in the various moments is lost. Similarly, the characters are cartoons and stereotypes (all of the Southerners simply subhuman), which a decent, journeyman Hollywood studio director of another day would hardly have dared to bring to the screen.
When Django Unchained is not preposterous, it is simply mean-spirited. Almost everyone is filthy, even leaving aside the psychotics and racist maniacs who dominate the goings-on. Schultz kills people for money, although he does admit to despising slavery. When Django, new to bounty hunting, hesitates at the prospect of shooting his first victim, Schultz urges him on, reminding him that the man in his sights, harmlessly plowing a field with his son, has robbed stagecoaches and killed in the past???and is therefore a legitimate subject for execution. Tarantino thus projects ???targeted assassination??? back into the antebellum period.
Django later reminds Schultz of that moment, at a critical juncture in the film (which Tarantino underlines with rare close-ups), arguing that the world is a dirty place and no one can keep his hands clean. Where have we heard this kind of thing before in the US in recent years? Is Tarantino aware of what he???s saying and doing, and to whose agenda he is lending credence?
If the filmmaker was primarily self-conscious and irritating in Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), and even demonstrated a vague interest in actual human life in Jackie Brown (1997, thanks mostly to the presence of Pam Grier and Robert Forster), his post-September 11, 2001 output has been unspeakable.
Tarantino is something of a cultural huckster, with a minor talent for pastiche, reworking genres and creating blackly comic moments. Under healthier circumstances, no one would have paid much notice. The flippant tone and cynicism of his crude efforts, however, accorded with a developing mood in sections of the upper middle class, who, in response to threatening global affairs and the social situation in the US, felt less and less sympathy for democratic niceties. Tarantino???s characters, in their amused, nonchalant, punishment-free lurching from one sadistic act to another, increasingly represented a fantasized version of how such people wished they (and the interests of the American elite generally) could navigate the world.
For this crowd now, anything goes, as former ???avant-garde artist??? Kathryn Bigelow???s case for torture and assassination in Zero Dark Thirty reminds us. This is simply being ???dirty in a dirty world.??? Such people will justify any crime.
No fool, Tarantino, after the failure of Death Proof (2007, and its double-bill pairing in Grindhouse), clearly recognized that the barebones glorification of violent lowlifes had run its course. In Inglourious Basterds (2009), he latched on to the struggle against the Nazis, fighting fascism with fascism. Now he has done the same for the anti-slavery cause.
Taken at face value, Django Unchained treats slavery in an entirely false and ahistorical fashion. The slave system in the US and elsewhere was bound up with the global development of capitalism. As Marx noted, with bitter irony, ???the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins??? was one feature of ???the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.???
In Tarantino???s version of things, on the other hand, chattel slavery and its cruelties seem to emerge from the bottomless racism of the Southern (or perhaps American) white population. Since the director has stacked the deck in this fashion, eradicating the offending populace in a hail of gunfire appears the only solution. This ignorant, misanthropic view even passes for ???radical??? today.
In fact, Django Unchained, with its racial-mythic approach to American history, intersects with the outlook of various ???left??? cultural critics at a number of points. And some of the latter have not been shy to acknowledge it, especially in the wake of Lincoln ???s release. (Of course, for his part, Tarantino has no particular use for the ???identity politics??? crowd. He has far bigger fish to fry in the global film and entertainment industry.)
In the Nation, one of American left liberalism???s chief organs, Jon Wiener contrasts the two films in ??? Django Unchained: Quentin Tarantino???s Answer to Spielberg???s Lincoln.??? He comes down on the side of Tarantino, writing, for example:
???In Spielberg???s film, old white men make history, and black people thank them for giving them their freedom.
???In Tarantino???s, a black gunslinger goes after the white slavemaster with homicidal vengeance. ???
???Spielberg says the history in Lincoln is true. Tarantino says the history in Django Unchained is ???very right on. In fact, if anything, I???m actually holding back somewhat from some of the more extreme stuff.???
???Spielberg???s film displays the director???s ???integrity and seriousness of purpose.??? (Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker)
???Tarantino???s displays the director???s ???signature rococo verbal theatrics, outlandish humor and flair for both embracing and subverting genre conventions.??? (Christopher Wallenberg, Boston Globe )???
In passing, it should be noted, that the recurring identification of vigilantism and individual vengeance with the struggle against slavery in nearly all the positive reviews of Django Unchained is itself a hallmark of a reactionary, petty bourgeois standpoint. The social revolution is not an act of revenge.
Stephen Marche speaks even more forthrightly in ???Django Unchained Is a Better Movie About Slavery Than Lincoln ??? in Esquire magazine. He observes, ???Its physicality is why Django Unchained is so necessary. If you watch Lincoln, you might imagine that American slavery was a matter of debate and policy, that it was a matter of law, and that all white people needed to do was correct their intellectual error of categorizing personas as property. ??? Django
Unchained knows that America???s relationship to slavery was not merely through legal institutions; it was a physical reaction to black flesh???a potently horrific mixture of abjection fused with desire.???
Racialism consumes these layers. Even as the chasm in America between the handful at the top and the working population grows malignantly larger and larger, the petty bourgeois left can only see black and white, in the past or present.
It galls this element no end that between 15 and 20 million people in the US have seen Lincoln and, by all accounts, watched it with considerable interest.
The latter film has distinct artistic and historical limitations, but this is not why the semi-anarchistic, egoistical ???left??? media attacks it as, for example, ???Steven Spielberg???s White Men of Democracy,??? along the way deriding the sacrifice of the 300,000 to 400,000 white soldiers from the North who died in the Civil War (the equivalent of three to four million Americans today).
Well-heeled, conservative, self-satisfied, these people despise and fear the ???great unwashed??? in America, of every color. Part of the project of forestalling social upheaval in the US is to slander the population and deny its revolutionary traditions. Proving that the American people have always been bigoted, violent???if not homicidal???and certainly incapable of responding to a rational, progressive social appeal is one of the shameful tasks that the ???left??? in the US has currently set itself.
Tarantino???s Django Unchained gives off a foul and sinister odor, as does the social layer attracted to it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Walsh serves as arts, culture and cinema critic for wsws.org.
How can u prove "embraced by the black & white majority"?
This is from the wikipedia page for the movie.
The film received acclaim from critics and is nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Waltz) and Best Original Screenplay (Tarantino). At the 70th Golden Globe Awards, Christoph Waltz won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and Quentin Tarantino won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay.
Broad critical acclaim - oscar nods and golden globe awards, four NAACP Image Award nominations, sweeping box office success, batmon & motown67 cosigning on soulstrut = embraced by the (black & white) majority
Tarantino has said in promoting "Django" that America has never dealt honestly with its history of slavery ??? true, but general enough to be almost entirely uncontroversial. In a recent interview with The Times, however, he assigned meaning to his new film in a way that he typically resists. "Even for the movie's biggest black detractors, I think their children will grow up and love this movie," he said. "I think it could become a rite of passage for young black males."
The presumptuousness of that sentiment is striking to some ??? passage from what to what, exactly? Watching somebody getting blown away in nearly every frame hardly seems like indoctrination young black men need, if they haven't been indoctrinated into such violence already.
Thanks for those. Hardly evidence of broad debate and or controversy - I would classify these and the ones i posted as notes from the margin - with the exception of the LA Times piece I suppose.
Amazingly Spike Lee is the only black voice- within the mainstream- who has called out QT for Django, and although I think he should see it - he should be also commended for that. Instead hes been derided and attacked by sam jackson and jamie foxx and others.
In the end - although i think Django is a must see movie - a pop culture fenom - i also think it sucks as a western, and it sucks as an action movie. Its uncalled for, extreme, lecherously outrageous, overlong, and disturbing - a ham fisted slavesploitation revenge spoof - in the guise of a righteous revenge movie. Its a moneymaking vehicle designed for QT and his cast to grandstand and attract attention, at which it completely succeeds.
The fact that Django - the black slave era superhero - is freed, clothed, armed, taught how to shoot, inspired to violence - 'mentally liberated', then led to save his wife, by a white german doctor called Schultz King - who masterminds and bankrolls the whole rescue, and then sacrifices himself, killing the ultimate bad guy, Candie, so Django can enact his revenge on all the left over lackies, the uncle tom character and a defenseless white woman - is hardly an empowering statement of black power. Just what is QT implying there?
Also the siegfried references are bananas. The wagnerian siegfried myth was Hitlers favorite parable for Teutonic racial superiority and Germanic self determination. why is that in there? Django is the black siegfried? An inspirational nazi myth acting as a black supremacy metaphor ? WTF people.
Comments
The magic had disappeared somewhere in there. Whether its film length, superfluous writing or masterbatory editing, shit fell off.
Super Fuzz was pretty damn stupid
Isn't this the trajectory in pretty much every spaghetti western?
Brutal beatdown/left for dead, slow recuperation/revenge prep >>>>>> victorious showdown finale.
That was my point. It's a western, it followed the genre.
watch butch cassidy & the sundance kid and report back to me.
vs.
QT on BET
notice anything?
the over trusting australians was a crap deus ex machina scene, but the one captive had such an intense face it almost made up for it. the dude who smiles as django rides away.
motown, all in all, i liked the movie. just really disappointed that the end wasnt tighter cause it could have been epic.
Soundtrack was extremely spotty.
Jamie fox' prosthetic dilznick
It's funny how dramatic he is about this topic. I love seeing films in 35mm, but to me, it doesn't matter either way. I remember him saying that he would burn down his theater if they project in digital (which I think they actually do now) and that he will retire when digital becomes the norm as "it's not what he signed up for". haha...what?!?
Im sorry but there's no way in hell that django unchained can stand comparison to either fist full of dollars, for a few dollars more, the good the bad and the ugly or once upon a time in the west, or even the corbucci or tonino valerii flicks. It does more than pale in comparison - its a juvenile, inept caricature of any of those movies. Its a huge campfest - it has none of the intensity or excitement of those films - none. There's no tension or satisfying action or excitement at all in django - just a string of extremely tired and heavy handed jokes. The only saving grace being the waltz and dicaprio performances - both of which are also very campy.
More so - being a spoof and having been made in hindsight - with a whole genre to copy and/or reference all there for the picking - its even more painful to see how incredibly immature and corny django is compared to any of those flicks. even just from a photography standpoint - the way a lot of the interiors were shot - especially the final shoot out - is really flat and uninspired.
And content-wise, what the film is saying, and the way the subject matter is handled. Oh. my. god. Oooffff to the tenth degree. If anything the flick is damning proof that black people in america will readily accept any gross caricature of themselves served up in media as long as it makes money or achieves notoriety. Its really unbelievable. Whats next?
I know Black folk that dont fusk w/ Django Unchained or The Help.
I think your disconnected.
You might know folks who gave it a miss - as do I - i saw it with 5 friends who all rejected it -still it seems on the whole its been embraced by the majority - both black and white.
The film has grossed $132,309,000 so far, and thats just domestically.
Production Budget: $100 million.
Spike Lee spoke out against the movie but since he hasnt seen it its hardly a critique or attack on the work itself. In fact in the reviews i found online there has been very little overall objection to how the film handles its subject matter. Which i find baffling. Similarly - Inglorious basterds only received some backlash for its stupid and grossly puerile jews vs nazis, violent retribution fantasies - authored by a gentile! - or its extremely offensive offing of hitler like some chest thumping gesture by tarantino- the sardonic rebel who gloats about setting fire to the school. A trivialised and debilitated approach to the holocaust/ww2 imo.
The have Race scanners on tickets?
How can u prove "embraced by the black & white majority"?
And if a teenage Black couple checks out the film(cause its just another movie to see) and doesnt like it, are they embracing the film?
Dude - semantics. People have been going to see the movie in droves - its number 8 in the US - its safe assumption. There has been surprisingly little backlash or discussion on the films actual content and treatment of the subject- especially coming from the black community - as far as I can tell. And obviously the black cast members gave it a pass. Whats your opinion on the slavery exploitation comedy schtick in Django?
I'm not sure why this matters. Only Spielberg could make that film?
Personally I think some people give QT way too much credit for good or bad (Maybe credit isn't the best word).
Most of us should be debating the actors roles and how well they played them. That's what's making you feel or not feel anything about the film for the most part.
I thought most of the characters of the smaller parts did a decent job (Except QT. He should not act. Tho I didn't mind him in RD).
Leonardo, Jackson & Waltz nailed it.
There was something in Kerry Washington and Foxx's performance I found a bit lacking. In Washington's case, I don't feel like it was her interpretation of Broomhilda. More to do with the writing and how they used her.
I can't quite place my issue with Foxx's portrayal of Django. I don't think he bombed it by any means. I thought he did a decent job. But that part was really screaming for an amazing performance. Over all the other characters IMO.
But then, maybe this is only my issue. Since I heard Michael Kenneth Williams was up for the film before I saw it and I can't get it outta my mind how well he would have played that part.
It matters imo, it concerns his attachment to the subject and the - suspect - way he approached it. It seems all the more disingenuous. Spielberg has nothing to do with it. I disagree with your point about sticking to the actors and their roles - especially when it comes to Django unchained.
I dont have an opinion on the "slavery exploitation comedy shtick" because I didnt perceive it like that.
And "embraced" it on bootleg at a friends house.
I guess it depends on where one is at - my Inbox and FB feed have been jammed with article after opinion piece after personal posts after 70+ comment debates tearing this movie apart.
As for popular response, Soulstrut is the only place where I've heard people not like it outside of the negative reviews that I read. I'm a high school teacher, and every kid that I've talked to liked it. I went to church on New Year's eve and the minister even asked the congregation if they'd seen the movie as part of his sermon, my family and my girlfriend's family have both liked it as well.
cough - cop out - cough
how did you perceive it?
Im talking mainstream media - ive had several discussions - with blacks, whites and other races about this flick, where 'im at'. I would like to see more critical dissection of the movie or tearing apart of it. Do you have any recommendations? I found one article that i can mostly cosign on its reading of the film:
Greanville post - Controversial : django unchained
Broad critical acclaim - oscar nods and golden globe awards, four NAACP Image Award nominations, sweeping box office success, batmon & motown67 cosigning on soulstrut = embraced by the (black & white) majority
I found another article critical of the films 'politics'- from the LA Times, no less - which, incidentally, gave the film a rave review in another piece.
'Django' an unsettling experience for many blacks. Quentin Tarantino's slave-era spaghetti western has some questioning the propriety of using a still-festering period of U.S. history as a platform for a bloody, profanely comic pop entertainment.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/tarantinos-candy-slavery-in-the-white-male-imagination
http://www.alternet.org/culture/how-black-power-won-american-west-and-why-tarantino-doesnt-get-it
http://www.orchestratedpulse.com/2012/12/django-tarantino-pass
Thanks for those. Hardly evidence of broad debate and or controversy - I would classify these and the ones i posted as notes from the margin - with the exception of the LA Times piece I suppose.
Amazingly Spike Lee is the only black voice- within the mainstream- who has called out QT for Django, and although I think he should see it - he should be also commended for that. Instead hes been derided and attacked by sam jackson and jamie foxx and others.
In the end - although i think Django is a must see movie - a pop culture fenom - i also think it sucks as a western, and it sucks as an action movie. Its uncalled for, extreme, lecherously outrageous, overlong, and disturbing - a ham fisted slavesploitation revenge spoof - in the guise of a righteous revenge movie. Its a moneymaking vehicle designed for QT and his cast to grandstand and attract attention, at which it completely succeeds.
The fact that Django - the black slave era superhero - is freed, clothed, armed, taught how to shoot, inspired to violence - 'mentally liberated', then led to save his wife, by a white german doctor called Schultz King - who masterminds and bankrolls the whole rescue, and then sacrifices himself, killing the ultimate bad guy, Candie, so Django can enact his revenge on all the left over lackies, the uncle tom character and a defenseless white woman - is hardly an empowering statement of black power. Just what is QT implying there?
Also the siegfried references are bananas. The wagnerian siegfried myth was Hitlers favorite parable for Teutonic racial superiority and Germanic self determination. why is that in there? Django is the black siegfried? An inspirational nazi myth acting as a black supremacy metaphor ? WTF people.
LOL @ people looking for socially redeeming values and historical accuracies in a EXPLOITATION FILM!
It's supposed to be sensational & out there.