Hello Friends,
The first thing you should do is YouTube the song “Flower”, by Moby, and press “play” while reading this review. It’s the very first song I thought of when I sat down to write this piece. It captures the vibe of Jamie Foxx walking across a god-forsaken piece of land holding a rifle and wearing a cowboy hat. The second thing you should do is remind yourself that Quentin Tarantino wrote Django Unchained.
I’ll see you all on Oscar night! (drops the mic…)
So I’m actually going to review this film, but I do think that my first two points sum up all of my feelings about this flick. It’s a typical Quentin Tarantino film, with Jamie Foxx, about slavery. Which is why it’s been nominated for an Oscar.
Django is the story of a slave-turned-bounty hunter who likes making money killin’ white folks, and who sets out to find his wife (Kerry Washington). This “epic Western” (a more violent version of a John Wayne movie) has turned a number of heads and has received a total of four Oscar nominations. My Facebook newsfeed, for a long time, was alight with conversation about Django, and when you see it you’ll understand why. It’s controversial. It’s bloody, and it’s about slavery and the modern subversion of white supremacy via a historical retelling. Many people have either promoted it to all of their acquaintances, or slammed it viciously. I imagine much of that has to do with the historical inaccuracies, and the extensive use of the word “nigger.” “Dropping the N bomb” made a lot of sense to me, given the time and place of the film, but apparently that still didn’t’ feel good to everyone. Also, anytime a white person makes a movie about a topic that feels prescient to people of color, it’s a big deal. White people, according to some, aren’t allowed to have opinions about oppression, merely apologies. I applaud Tarantino for tackling this issue. I don’t know that there were any deep or profound moments, which I usually look for in a Best Picture nominee, but at least he had the nerve to talk about it in a film.
What are some of the really fantastic things about this movie? Leonardo DiCaprio. What else? Leonardo DiCaprio. Also, the Austin Powers suit that Jamie Foxx picks out for himself somewhere within the first 30 minutes. And did I mention Leonardo DiCaprio? He was unbelievable. Leo plays Calvin Candie, the owner of the biggest plantation ever in Alabama, or Louisiana, or Georgia, or Virginia…you see my point. He’s a foppish Francophone who is known for having the best Mandingos anywhere, and he’s brutal, disgusting, and equally charming and Southern. I couldn’t have loved DiCaprio more in this film. I think it’s one of the most interesting roles he has ever taken on, and I applaud this former Titanic star for taking so many opportunities in his career to transcend typecasting. I haven’t labeled him as just a heartthrob since the 90’s.
Samuel L. Jackson was ridiculous, although I can’t really remember his acting, since I spent the entire film amazed at the gumption of his character, an old black slave living on a plantation two years before the Civil War, speaking to any white person the way SLJ spoke to everyone in the film. Kerry Washington was beautiful, and uninteresting, although there’s not much to be expected from a damsel in distress, regardless of color, class, or status. Jamie Foxx was entertaining, although again I don’t recall him being particularly phenomenal, but considering he spent so much time in a room with Leo DiCaprio, I’m sure he did his best. Everyone else was memorable enough, unless of course they weren’t, but they did lots of dazzling things with blood spray so you felt you got your money’s worth for the cost of the tickets and the popcorn.
In my opinion, what’s great about Django isn’t the acting, and it certainly isn’t the Kill Bill-style dramatics. For me, it’s the entertaining and perhaps therapeutic experience that comes from getting to rewrite an unsavory bit of history. Everyone in the audience, (I hope) knows that there’s no way this could have ever happened, and if it did, it would only have ended in tragedy for the poor black soul who attempted such carnage. But it still feels good, watching the underdog stick it to the man. Sure, the movie could have and should have ended 30 minutes before it did, and sure, none of the plan to get Django’s wife out made any sense, and obviously everyone behaved in the most irrational manner possible.
In the end, it was entertaining to let the oppressed become the (fictional) oppressor. The film only worked because Tarantino used a subject that is generally thought to be completely deplorable, despicable, and the worst thing ever, and he wrote an alternate, choose-your-own-ending in a style that is practically theatre of the absurd. It’s not Roots, and it’s not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Django Unchained, Oscar-worthy or not, gives us a slavery movie…ahem I mean western, with an ending we can smile about.
Live, Love, Learn,
Rebecca &