DJANGO UNCHAINED (Quentin Tarantino 2012)

[cinemabon]

Further, why are you wanting to compare the violence in any movie with Tarantino? If you want to compare other movies to the level of graphic violence in a Tarantino film, you'd have to compare his movies with horror movies that show very graphic violence, not the kind shown in "Jack Reacher." I mean, really, Chris. This isn't about me. It's about that movie you love and can't admit it is chock full of the kind of graphic images you've come to accept as being acceptable levels of violence to tell a story. What is it inside you that allows that to happen? At what point in your life did you to come to the realization that graphic violence is entertainment? Weren't you ever frightened by it? If you saw that on the street, would you stand by and stare at it, unfeeling? Because that is what is happening right now in places like India and Pakistan where violence is carried out every day and the populace stands by and watches as if that is the norm. I find it deplorable and will continue to speak out about it. The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves.

[Chris Knipp]

jJACK REACHER begins with a sniper's merciless killing of five victims whom we see hit and who fall dead before our eyes. It continues with a brutal (yes, unseen) beating that lands a man in the hospital in a coma and continues through a series of brutal hand-to-hand encounters in which men are maimed or killed, and winds up with a shootout in which a bunch of people are killed. And that's okay, and we dare not compare it with the "graphic violence" of friend Tarantino.

Obviously you don't "get" Tarantino; you think his movies too full of "graphic violence," and so now you condemn them from a distance. But to judge a movie you have not seen is a palty, pointless business. And so we can't have this discussion.

Nor are my or your views about "violence" in the world relevant here. More to the point is not the violence in DJANGO UNCHAINED but the "noble" pursuit Johann alludes to, its angry denunciation of slavery in the Anti-Bellum American South. Peter Bradshaw, of the Guardian, writes an enthusiastic review of DJANGO. HE says, among other things, "Slavery is a subject on which Hollywood is traditionally nervous and reticent. Perhaps it takes a film unencumbered with good taste to tackle it. Lars Von Trier's Manderlay was one. Here is another." "Just to make liberals everywhere uneasy," Bradshaw says, "Tarantino and [Samuel L.] Jackson make Stephen the biggest, nastiest "Uncle Tom" ever: utterly loyal to his white master, and severe in his management of the below-stairs race in the Big House." Stephan/Jackson "and Tarantino drop the satirical N-bomb, targeted with sadistic tactlessness and muscular bad taste at the white man's Vichyite collaborators in the Old South." That's how DJANGO operates, as Tarantino always has, by shocking and provoking. But this time there is a new seriousness. QT was angry at the Nazis in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS," but he is much more angry at the white southern slave owners. This isn't India or Pakistan, or one of America's school or movie theater massacres: it's our American history. And as always, Tarantino has brilliant fun with his material as well.

Read Roger Ebert's Journal entry, "Faster, Quentin! Thrill! Thrill!" He observes: "What Tarantino has is an appreciation for gut-level exploitation film appeal, combined with an artist's desire to transform that gut element with something higher, better, more daring. His films challenge taboos in our society in the most direct possible way, and at the same time add an element of parody or satire." This is what you don't get, I guess. But how could you get anything, without seeing the movie? We can't have this discussion.

You admire Ebert, cinembon, don't you? You just with justification praised his critical acumen in reviewing the 1982 PENNIES FROM HEAVEN. His original review of DJANGO UNCHAINED was a Metacritic 100. How could your admired Chicago critic be so wrong?

But you can't find out, because you won't see the film, and so we can't have this discussion.

I note as you point out that Anthony Lane, whose witty demolition of LES MISERABLES the film, which I quoted on the "Les Miz" thread, is the first half of the review you linked to above (thanks) in which he condemns the last part of DJANGO. And he has a point there. I would have done the last part of DJANGO differently. But I'm not Quentin Tarantino, and I could never be. He's a genius, who makes his own rules. I'm sorry Lane didn't wind up likeing DJANGO (though he admires the first part of it quite a lot), but I might point out that The New Yorker reviewer, I think perhaps Lane then too, dismissed Tarantino's PULP FICTION when it came out too, so as far as I can see, they don't have a good record on Tarantino.

[Chris Knipp]

From the concluding paragraphs of Roger Ebert's rather long article in his Journal, "Faster, Quentin! Thrill! Thrill!" ( I couldn't resist reproducing the piece's illustration.)

"Django" has been criticized for its overuse of the n-word, a long-standing charge against Tarantino. In this case, although the total comes to over 100, I understood it as a word in common daily use through the antebellum South. In context, there was a reason for it. The film has also been attacked for its incredible level of violence, and that's what I was responding to in composing my imaginary letter to Tarantino. Yes, it deserves its R rating and in an earlier day might have drawn the X. But it's not what a film does but how it does it, and in one sense the violence here reflects Tarantino's desire to break through audience's comfort level for exploitation films and insist, yes, this was a society and culture that was inhuman.

Tarantino attacks at all levels. One of his most inspired scenes involves the Klan members bitching and moaning that they can't see through the eye-holes on the hoods over their heads. In everything but subject, that could be from a Looney Tunes movie. QT is grandiose and pragmatic, he plays freely with implausibility, he gets his customers inside the tent and then gives them a carny show they're hardly prepared for. He is a consummate filmmaker.
--Roger Ebert, January 7, 2013.

[cinemabon]

The discussion on guns will continue as I know you see it expressed in film one way and I see it differently. I respect your right to an opinion not simply because it is part of our constitution, but also because you are an artist gifted both in verbosity and graphically. However, this society in which we are both a part has a cancer (aka John Dean) that is growing, a sickness, a malady that is tearing this country apart... and it has nothing to do with freedom of expression or the second amendment. It has to do with fear, that some how if we have a restriction on this right to bear arms it will give rise to another Adolf Hitler or a Stalin. The problem with that logic is this nation never had a Hitler or Stalin because this country has been true to its constitution since its inception. The only time we ever battled over any internal uprising, the Civil War, we did so out of fear of having "our slaves" taken away. This battle with our fears... of having things taken away... must end, and so must our blood lust. It is one thing to show a person fall after being shot. It is another to show how a bullet rips through flesh in slow motion repeatedly to the sound of dramatic music... and that difference is what lies at the heart of the matter. How far does art have to go to violate the expression of which we hold so dear? Are there no limits?

[Chris Knipp]

I know where you're coming from and I thoroughly agree with you on gun control and the need to reduce violence in this country. The rule of the gun lobby needs to be broken. Moreover this is the chief military nation in the world . . . but I feel it is out of place to discuss this. Yes, go on talking about it. Go into the streets about it. Write your congressman and your local officials about it. But this particular place is a thread ab out Quentin Tarantinio's new movie, DJANGO UNCHAINED. You don't seem to have seen it.

Try the LOUNGE section. You've been there, haven't you? Johann and I have spent a lot of time there, and that's where I put my political commentary, rather in the General Film Forum. I've always pushed for this, keeping to the topic of each thread. It has nothing to do with this particular movie or guns and violence or the NRA, etc.

The Lounge section: http://www.filmleaf.net/forumdisplay.php?13-Lounge.

[cinemabon]

The discussion of violence in media, especially in the films of Tarantino, is relevent here. I would agree that further discussion on gun control in another forum is also preferable.

[Johann]

Ebert reads Quentin Tarantino in a good way I think.

Gun control is also not really relevant here. This is an Angry Man race film, and the angry man is Tarantino, a white man.
I think that is what is upsetting Spike Lee about Django. That a white man made it, just like he said no white man could make Malcolm X.
A white man could, but would it ever match what Spike and Denzel did? Hell no.
Spike says that Django insults his ancestors and will not see it.
Spike! I sat in a theatre in Toronto on Boxing Day with many blacks in the audience, and guess what, they LOVED that movie. People were stoked.
To see real emotional revenge dished out in such outrageous and CINEMATIC style (OSCAR for Robert Richardson please.) was awesome.

If you love movies, how can you not love Django Unchained?

[Chris Knipp]

Is that so, Johann? I didn't know that, because I don't follow Ebert that closely. He does brag of meeting and talking with QT at Cannes when he came there with PULP FICTION. Ebert includes PULP FICTION in a series of discussions of "Great Movies." Ebert's original 1994 review of PULP FICTION has nothing unfavorable in it, except for his initial remark that when he saw it at Cannes he "knew it was one of the year's best films, or one of the worst." He clearly doesn't conclude that it's one of the worst.

The screenplay, by Tarantino and Roger Avary, is so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it - the noses of those zombie writers who take "screenwriting" classes that teach them the formulas for "hit films." Like "Citizen Kane," "Pulp Fiction" is constructed in such a nonlinear way that you could see it a dozen times and not be able to remember what comes next. It doubles back on itself, telling several interlocking stories about characters who inhabit a world of crime and intrigue, triple-crosses and loud desperation. The title is perfect. Like those old pulp mags named "Thrilling Wonder Stories" and "Official Detective," the movie creates a world where there are no normal people and no ordinary days - where breathless prose clatters down fire escapes and leaps into the dumpster of doom.
--Ebert, 1994.

He seems to think that QT's working in a video store may be more "folklore" than fact. I'd like to check into that. Ebert doesn't always get his own facts completely right. On the other hand he has seen everything and met everybody, and that helps. I think Ebert "gets" Tarantino very well, and has done for a long time.

But it isn't the structure that makes ``Pulp Fiction'' a great film. Its greatness comes from its marriage of vividly original characters with a series of vivid and half-fanciful events_and from the dialogue. The dialogue is the foundation of everything else.
11
-- Ebert, 2001.

Ebert recognizes that Tarantino can make a great movie or a bad movie, because he is so in love with every shot, he can't edit himself very well. But he heaps praise on him.

Sure, cinembon, the issue of violence in DJANGO is relevant to a discussion of the film. However cinemabon we can't discuss it till you've seen the film. And you have not seen it. I don't think I'll have much more to say about this till I watch the original Italian DJANGO. (There are a number of DJANGOs and related movies....) I partly want to examine it in terms of the violence in spaghetti westerns, which is where the framework of the new movie largely comes from.

In the same way I do not want to discuss the issue of torture in ZERO DARK THIRTY with somebody who has not seen ZERO DARK THIRTY. We have to be on the same page. YOu have to experience the movie and see if your theory holds up in practice or you are simply mouthing a set of principles that might break down when you see a brilliant and thoughtful movie.

[Johann]

Ebert's a passionate movie lover, and I relate to that. I don't always get the facts right either. I paraphrase more than ever. :)

I disagree with Ebert on some reviews, but a lot more I disagreed with on Pauline Kael.
Ebert won a Pulitizer Prize for film criticism. I tip my hat to a man who's good enough to win that. I think he was the first.

[Chris Knipp]

Pauline was far more provocative -- and original. Her reviews when they came out were exciting reads. I subscribed to The New Yorker and I opened it eagerly and went right to her review -- or Penelope Gilliatt's, which weren't as exciting, but at least were completely different. I find Ebert better when he goes back and I go back to see his reconsideration of a film and I say: Oh yeah, he got that right. I cited a lengthy reexamination of DJANGO UNCHAINED by Ebert right above where there is the read picture silhouetting Waltz and Foxx.

Here's more about QT from Ebert from Ebert's original review of PULP FICTION:

The screenplay, by Tarantino and Roger Avary, is so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it - the noses of those zombie writers who take "screenwriting" classes that teach them the formulas for "hit films." Like "Citizen Kane," "Pulp Fiction" is constructed in such a nonlinear way that you could see it a dozen times and not be able to remember what comes next. It doubles back on itself, telling several interlocking stories about characters who inhabit a world of crime and intrigue, triple-crosses and loud desperation. The title is perfect. Like those old pulp mags named "Thrilling Wonder Stories" and "Official Detective," the movie creates a world where there are no normal people and no ordinary days - where breathless prose clatters down fire escapes and leaps into the dumpster of doom.

[Johann]

Good writing on movies is harder to find for me than others. Ebert cuts to the chase. He gives you something to work with.
Pauline Kael will always be referred to and she should be. She had a very real love of movies too, but saw them in a much more provocative way, agreed. Ebert isn't trying to provoke. He's just giving a barometer, with his own tastes, like Leonard Maltin.

Tarantino says he likes to read film writing in bed, get right into it.

Norman Mailer was a writer with a lot to say about film, and even made his own. So did William S. Burroughs and his cut-ups.
And Truffaut. And Godard....and others.

[Johann]

Getting back to Django Unchained, (nice photos by the way Chris- they add a nice bit of style to the page) the story isn't so much about slavery as it is about a man who wants to get his woman back at any cost. This is a LOVE STORY, actually, and it just happens to have the emotions ratcheted up to a very high notch. Tarantino does not fuck around or mince words here. No he does not. He opens it up with a wacky scene of Dentist Dr. Shultz (an amazing Cristof Waltz- Oscar winner too? He earned it again...) taking Django violently off a chain gang, and the humour of it is also a stunner for a viewer. I'm supposed to feel what, here? humour? And Horror? at the same time?

People do not like this kind of grab-you-by-the-goo-goo. LOL

[Chris Knipp]

You are absolutely right: many (or other critics anyway) have emphasized this is a love story. It is that. But it also (as a follow-up to Inglorious Basterds) a revenge flick reflecting QT's anger about the ugly truth of slavery in America. So it's general in that way and specific in the other way. But you're right to point this out emphatically. And it's good to have you back here, now.

[Every page needs livening up, visually as well as verbally.]

[cinemabon]

I'm with Spike Lee on this one, but for different reasons. And I'll take advice from my daughter, "Dad, this movie is so violent, I know you wouldn't like it." I trust her judgment and her level of intelligence.

However, keeping an open mind, I researched what others had to say about Tarantino and the history of violence in his films, coming across this article in Mother Jones magazine that is both insightful and powerful in its argument, which I find difficult to despute as it is articulated well.

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-med...acism-violence

As a further note, read some of the comments associated with the article. There are many black people offended by the subject matter of the film and have stayed away as to what they've heard in rumor (as did Spike Lee). This should not reflect on the content of the film as, and in my case, it is difficult to judge that which you have not seen or experienced.

[cinemabon]

The original with Franco Nero (who also happened to play Lancelot in that terrible movie, "Camelot")

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060315/combined

The trailer actually looked pretty cool