Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012)

Director: Quintin Tarantino 

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerri Washington, Samuel L. Jackson

2012 was a bizarre year for movies. On one hand, we had about a dozen films that were highly anticipated because they were the newest works of certain high-profile directors, such as Amour (Michael Heneke), Argo (Ben Affleck), Lincoln (Speilberg), Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow), Life of Pi (Ang Lee), The Master (Anderson), Silver Linings Playbook (Russell)... and of course Tarantino's newest. I suppose last year was largely considered to be this great year of film. On the other hand, in my opinion, very few of these (competently made) movies lived up to their hype. All of them are strangely, almost hypnotically, underwhelming. That doesn't mean several of them aren't great-- Lincoln, The Master, and Django most certainly are-- but the rest weren't, and in any case something very subdued and morally ambiguous pervaded in all of them. 

I saw Django Unchained in theaters last fall when it first came out, and just saw it again last night. After a second viewing, I've decided it's a very peculiar movie indeed, from the pace of its narrative, its three part structure, strange closeups (Shultz pouring pints of beer), and even the wonky music accompanying certain scenes (a montage featuring Django and Shultz "training" in the cold mountainous wilderness).  At times the movie comes off cutesy (a gang of southern slave owners, including an inexplicable Jonah Hill, humorously bickering about their makeshift KKK masks); at other times, the realistic sadism and violence is stomach turning. 

Initially, I theorized that perhaps the movie can be simplified as beginning light-hearted and fun, and then delving into the horrific. The scene where we first meet Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he gruesomely orchestrates a Mandingo fight in his posh quarters perhaps serves as that pivotal scene where the tone of the movie shifts. However, now I doubt this shift in tone is the case. The light-hearted, playful elements extend throughout the film, and the disturbing gruesomeness is abundant in the early portions of the film, such as Django's flashbacks of his wife Broomhilda whipped as he begs for mercy. 

The fact is that the bewildering structure and narrative of Django Unchained refuses interpretation. It's nearly impossible. There are three parts to Django. 

The first part of the movie is about Django assimilating into the business by Shultz, and a "revenge tale" is set up: these two will spend the entire film finding the Brittle Brothers. But this tale is not the central plot. After the two heroes find and kill the Brittle Brothers, the plot shifts to a second part, a second "revenge tale"; however, Django never actually says he plans to kill Candie to get his wife back. In fact, Django and Shultz's plan is to prudently purchase her from Candie by entering the estate disguised as Mandingo enthusiasts. After a second viewing, Shultz's plan comes off as a very, very bad idea. But what was Django's plan going in? Did he foresee that the only way to get his wife back would be through enacting "revenge", the demolition of Candie's entire foundation? This remains unclear.

Once on the plantation, Candie's savage slyness and cunning makes Shultz and Django seem way in over their heads. Candie is not the same plantation owner our heroes cleverly (too easily?) outwitted in the first half of the movie; even worse, Candie has a watchful and keen guard protecting Candyland, a "House Nigger" named Stephen, played by an almost unrecognizable Samuel L. Jackson. We know this will end badly for everyone. We know Django and Shultz aren't just going to walk out of Candie's stronghold without a trail of blood behind them. 

Christoph Waltz's Dr. Shultz is one of the most interestingly moral characters set to screen. In the opening scene, he throws away a handful of money at the slave trader whose leg is broken by the horse, then frees the slaves. Money is important to Shultz, but not at the sake of something so objectively immoral as the institution of slavery. He even says straight up that he "detests" slavery. Moreover, he despises Candie, and certainly deserved the Oscar for the scenes in which he must mask his disgust at Candie's sadistic acts. In the end, Shultz gives his own life (and possibly even Django's!) to watch this epitome of human depravity suffer and die. 

After Shultz's death, the movie enters it's third part, a different movie altogether. With Candie and Shultz dead, Django alone must return to the plantation not just to take his wife back, that would be too simple, but to destroy every fiber of the inhuman structure Candie represented. This includes not only Candie's sister, all his men, and his faithful servant Stephen, but also his entire plantation, an ostentatious mansion filled of horror and pain. 

If Django Unchained is a great movie, it's because it brings to mind an alternative history. How many people suffered like Broomhilda, crying in bed and praying that her husband would come to save her, and yet never being saved? How many ostentatious plantations still stand unaltered  preserved relics built up by the hands of suffering generations of African-Americans? The most horrible part is that Django's alternate history is our real history. By the movie's final explosive scene, Tarentino has given his audience everything they wanted; a moral white man who sacrificed himself for others, a relentless and triumphant hero, and a protected beautiful damsel as they literally ride off in the sunrise. But, exactly like Shultz's German fairy tale, Django Unchained is merely the stuff of fairy tales. None of it was real. There were no happy endings. And if nothing else, this painful remainder of our dark and sordid history makes Django great.

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