Django Unchained movie thread! (open spoilers)

[bienville]

Actually, as I continue to think about it I can’t help but be pretty disgusted that DiCaprio would go so far as to smear his blood on her face. I have no idea what kind of relationship DiCaprio and Washington have, maybe the two actors exchange fluids regularly in real life- but if they don’t, Washington would have had every valid reason to be horrified that he would do such a thing. DiCaprio ended up having to go to the hospital anyway. Washington would have been justified to demand a full report of tests of his blood.

Fuck being “in the moment” as an actor. You want to take risks as an actor, don’t force real health risks on your colleagues. He put Washington in a position of either having to throw away what, up to that point, had been a great take or to subject herself (in every worst real sense) to him- she as a person subjecting herself to him as a person- not her character subjecting herself to his character.

[monstro]

What was up with masked woman? Ya’ll know who I’m talking about? She was one of Candi’s goons. I kept waiting for her to reveal herself as someone important, but no. She was killed like the whole lot of 'em.

I enjoyed the movie because of it’s over-the-topness. Samuel L. was the black cherry on top of the over-the-topness.

I liked how Django didn’t know the word “positive”, but he did know “intrigue”. I like how Schultz taught him to read over some unrealistically short period of time. I like how Hilde could speak and understand German despite not haven spoken it in years. I liked, “Say good-bye to Miss Laura”. I liked the randomness of the Aussie slave-handlers and Django nonchalantly setting the slaves free.

I liked how that tooth appeared to be made out of plastic.

[Morbo]

@monstro

I enjoyed the movie because of it’s over-the-I liked the randomness of the Aussie slave-handlers and Django nonchalantly setting the slaves free.

I must admit, Tarantino’s cameo kind of took me out of the movie. He really needs to stop casting himself - his acting is atrocious.

[monstro]

He was also pretty unrecognizable. Dude has gained some ell-bees since the last time I saw him.

[Spoke]

Personally I am losing patience with Tarantino. Looks like he has found a formula and is sticking with it: revenge fantasies. That gets tiresome to me.

He already has another revenge movie simmering.

[bienville]

@monstro

What was up with masked woman? Ya’ll know who I’m talking about? She was one of Candi’s goons. I kept waiting for her to reveal herself as someone important, but no. She was killed like the whole lot of 'em.

That was Zoë Bell. I thought she’d have something cool to do too. As the character didn’t actually do anything, I surmise it was simply a matter of Tarantino saying “Hey, Zoë, I’m doing another movie. You wanna come be in it?” The character was made up to seem badass because there’s no way Tarantino is going to allow his adored Zoë Bell to come off as anything less than badass. I have no doubt that the two of them had a very elaborate backstory for her character- it’s just that it’s a story that didn’t play out on screen during the events of this film.

@monstro

I liked how that tooth appeared to be made out of plastic.

You lost me. I don’t remember the tooth thing. Reminder?

[Taomist]

I think he means the tooth atop the doc’s wagon. Where he hid all his cash.

[Rollo_Tomasi]

@bienville

You lost me. I don’t remember the tooth thing. Reminder?

It was the plastic tooth on a spring on top of Schultz’s wagon. Everytime they cut to that thing bouncing around on the spring, I cracked up.

[bienville]

Ah, yes, I too enjoyed the tooth atop the wagon. I thought I was missing something that was meant to be a real tooth.

[woodstockbirdybird]

Not going to read the thread in case I decide to see it, but for those that have, maybe you can tell me if you think I’ll like it. I’m an intermittent fan; loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction; thought Jackie Brown was decent; liked Kill Bill Vol. 1 but hated Vol. 2; thought Inglorious Basterds was incredibly stupid and plodding.

[Spoke]

@woodstockbirdybird

Not going to read the thread in case I decide to see it, but for those that have, maybe you can tell me if you think I’ll like it. I’m an intermittent fan; loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction; thought Jackie Brown was decent; liked Kill Bill Vol. 1 but hated Vol. 2; thought Inglorious Basterds was incredibly stupid and plodding.

Basterds is the closest analog in the bunch. Historical revenge fantasy.

[bienville]

@Spoke

Basterds is the closest analog in the bunch. Historical revenge fantasy.

Yeah, but it’s a much simpler narrative following a single primary protagonist in a linear fashion. It is probably Tarantino’s most simple narrative ever. Also, the characters are developed as the action keeps moving along- it moves more at a Kill Bill Vol. 1 pace. There’s nothing remotely analogous to the opening French dairy farm scene in Inglorious Basterds.

[Spoke]

@bienville

Yeah, but it’s a much simpler narrative following a single primary protagonist in a linear fashion. It is probably Tarantino’s most simple narrative ever. Also, the characters are developed as the action keeps moving along- it moves more at a Kill Bill Vol. 1 pace. There’s nothing remotely analogous to the opening French dairy farm scene in Inglorious Basterds.

Much more in common than different, IMHO. Revenge fantasy for a put-upon ethic group. Historical, but not really. (Lots of anachronisms, if those bother you, including anachronistic dialogue.)

If anything, I thought it was less interesting than Basterds. More violence, yeah, but less snappy dialogue.

(Interestingly, where Basterds demonizes Germans, Django rehabilitates them. Guess Tarantino felt guilty. Maybe his next revenge movie will feature a Southerner with a heart of gold.)

[Nzinga_Seated]

@Equipoise

<snip>I could be wrong, but I got the impression that Candie was going to kill Schultz because he was angry about being duped, or at least that Schultz thought Candie was going to kill him, since Candie was so insistent that Schultz shake his hand for no reason that he (or I) could see…

Just to add on to this conversation (sorry to rehash but this is my favorite scene) I think Candie was shamed. Schultz had shamed him. Remember, Candie is pretentious and proud. He wants to be called Monsieur, but he doesn’t want anyone to speak French around him and make him feel uncultured. So, Schultz remembers this and shames him by bringing up the fact that he didn’t know his favorite author was black.

Schultz had already decided that he just couldn’t stomach this dude anymore. He was traumatized by the dog incident and it was messing with his head. He knew that it would be risky to fuck with Candie’s head, but he couldn’t resist shaming him. He thought if he could just shame him, it might make him feel a bit better and soothe some of the guilt and trauma he was feeling about the dogs.

Candie needed to relieve his shame. He seeked to do that by forcing Schultz to treat him as an equal…not to walk out of there thinking he was better. Schultz just couldn’t do it…he couldn’t make that compromise. He didn’t have at stake what Django did though. Django could withstand the dog incident, not because he was used to slavery, but because he had so much at stake.

I just got back from watching it. The acting by Schultz cements him as my favorite actor of all time. Tarantino is a god.

I am sorry to hear you didn’t like Les Mis. I haven’t seen it yet, but I was going to.

ETA: monstro, I was almost mad at Samuel for shuckin and jivin’, but then I realized what kind of shuckin he was doing and I instantly forgave him. Great acting there.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Spoke

(Interestingly, where Basterds demonizes Germans, Django rehabilitates them. Guess Tarantino felt guilty. Maybe his next revenge movie will feature a Southerner with a heart of gold.)

You do remember that BASTERDS already featured Brad Pitt as a heroic Tennessean who was “just a man tryin’ to make a livin’ for his family sellin’ moonshine liquor” before coming down from the Smoky Mountains to explain that “you don’t got to be Stonewall Jackson to know you don’t want to fight in a basement,” right?

[Morbo]

@Nzinga_Seated

Just to add on to this conversation (sorry to rehash but this is my favorite scene) I think Candie was shamed. Schultz had shamed him. Remember, Candie is pretentious and proud. He wants to be called Monsieur, but he doesn’t want anyone to speak French around him and make him feel uncultured. So, Schultz remembers this and shames him by bringing up the fact that he didn’t know his favorite author was black.

Holy shit. Almost exactly what I intended to say, except I was going to use “uncivilized” instead of “uncultured,” but yours was better. ::salaam::

[Nzinga_Seated]

@Morbo

Holy shit. Almost exactly what I intended to say, except I was going to use “uncivilized” instead of “uncultured,” but yours was better. ::salaam::

Ha. Don’t you love it when someone ‘gets it’ in the same way you do; and posts it first. I felt that way about a bunch of posts in this thread, including bienville’s. But I thought my take on it was a teensy bit different than his; in my opinon, it wasn’t about winning really…it was actually about being brought up level…he was shamed into feeling lower than Schultz. (and Django!)

Also, I thought the same thing you said here about Tarantino as I watched the film…that cameo was too much…he should quit with the cameos, or at least make them less intrusive from now on.

[JohnT]

My thoughts…

1. This was the least Tarantino-like movie he’s made. Other than the parallels with IB, this film could just as easily been done by the Coen brothers.

2. With the exception of the first chain gang, I don’t think the black actors acted subjugated enough. There was a lot of resentment, but little resignation. These are people who were born into this life, who knew nothing else and had no hope of change. Depression and resignation, not anger and resentment, were the predominant emotion among Southern blacks of this age*. Also, everybody was too healthy.

3. Django’s line, “There ain’t nothing lower than a house (slave)”, was aptly shown to be nothing less than the truth by Samuel L. Jackson, wasn’t it?

*Check out Fanny Kimble’s Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839 for more understanding of what slavery was truly like. Here’s a quote at random:

After my return home, I had my usual evening reception, and, among other pleasant incidents of plantation life, heard the following agreeable anecdote from a woman named Sophy, who came to beg for some rice. In asking her about her husband and children, she said she had never had any husband, that she had had two children by a white man of the name of Walker, who was employed at the mill on the rice island; she was in the hospital after the birth of the second child she bore this man, and at the same time two women, Judy and Sylla, of whose children Mr. K – – was the father, were recovering from their confinements. It was not a month since any of them had been delivered, when Mrs. K – – came to the hospital, had them all three severely flogged, a process which she personally superintended, and then sent them to Five Pound – the swamp Botany Bay of the plantation, of which I have told you – with further orders to the drivers to flog them every day for a week.

Now, E – – , if I make you sick with these disgusting stories, I cannot help it – they are the life itself here; hitherto I have thought these details intolerable enough, but this apparition of a female fiend in the middle of this hell I confess adds an element of cruelty which seems to me to surpass all the rest. Jealousy is not an uncommon quality in the feminine temperament; and just conceive the fate of these unfortunate women between the passions of their masters and mistresses, each alike armed with power to oppress and torture them.

Sophy went on to say that Isaac was her son by driver Morris, who had forced her while she was in her miserable exile at Five Pound. Almost beyond my patience with this string of detestable details, I exclaimed – foolishly enough, heaven knows – ‘Ah, but don’t you know, did nobody ever tell or teach any of you, that it is a sin to live with men who are not your husbands?’ Alas, E – – , what could the poor creature answer but what she did, seizing me at the same time vehemently by the wrist: ‘Oh yes, missis, we know – we know all about dat well enough; but we do anything to get our poor flesh some rest from de whip; when he made me follow him into de bush, what use me tell him no? he have strength to make me.’ I have written down the woman’s words; I wish I could write down the voice and look of abject misery with which they were spoken.

Now, you will observe that the story was not told to me as a complaint; it was a thing long past and over, of which she only spoke in the natural course of accounting for her children to me. I make no comment; what need, or can I add, to such stories? But how is such a state of things to endure? – and again, how is it to end?

These are the conditions which can only be known to one who lives among them; flagrant acts of cruelty may be rare, but this ineffable state of utter degradation, this really beastly existence, is the normal condition of these men and women, and of that no one seems to take heed, nor have I ever heard it described so as to form any adequate conception of it, till I found myself plunged into it; – where and how is one to begin the cleansing of this horrid pestilential immondezzio of an existence?

TL/DR version: Three slaves were impregnated by two men - 1 by a Mr. Walker, 2 by a Mr. K—. After they gave birth, the three of them were whipped and beaten under the direct supervision of Mrs. K, who then banished them to the plantations version of “Botany Bay”. Why? Because it was within Mrs. K’s power to oppress and torture the women for the crime of being raped by her husband.

[Nzinga_Seated]

But John T, you do realize that there were uprisings on plantations, right? Not every slave was walking around completely docile.

[JohnT]

No, I understand that. And all the slaves as portrayed in the film weren’t exactly on the brink of rebellion either - when Django goes all kick-ass on the three slavers, it’s not as if he starts a riot among the slaves to overthrow whitey.

It’s a movie and it has to show the subjugation by means which are visually striking, so it is limited in what it can convey, true.

On the other hand, there weren’t as many slave rebellions as one would imagine would happen in 200+ years: here is Wiki’s list of North American slave rebellions:

1526 San Miguel de Gualdape (Sapelo Island, Georgia, Victorious)
c. 1570 Gaspar Yanga’s Revolt (Veracruz, Victorious)
1712 New York Slave Revolt (New York City, Suppressed)
1733 St. John Slave Revolt (Saint John, Suppressed)
1739 Stono Rebellion (South Carolina, Suppressed)
1741 New York Conspiracy (New York City, Suppressed)
1760 Tacky’s War (Jamaica, Suppressed)
1767 Battle of the Lord Ligonier (Atlantic Ocean, Suppressed)
1791–1804 Haitian Revolution (Saint-Domingue, Victorious)
1800 Gabriel Prosser (Virginia, Suppressed)
1805 Chatham Manor (Virginia, Suppressed)
1811 German Coast Uprising (Territory of Orleans, Suppressed)
1815 George Boxley (Virginia, Suppressed)
1822 Denmark Vesey (South Carolina, Suppressed)
1831 Nat Turner’s rebellion (Virginia, Suppressed)
1831–1832 Baptist War (Jamaica, Suppressed)
1839 Amistad, ship rebellion (Off the Cuban coast, Victorious)
1841 Creole, ship rebellion (Off the Southern U.S. coast, Victorious)
1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation (Southern U.S., Suppressed)
1859 John Brown’s Raid (Virginia, Suppressed)

Not every slave was docile, but not many of them were rebellious, either. Being chronically malnourished and overworked, having been owned your entire life, and living smack dab in the middle of “nowhere to run, nowhere to hide” takes a lot out of people.

Regardless, this is a hijack. Back to the movie discussion…