Five Academy Award Nominees in Five Days

[cinemabon]

Five Academy Award Nominees in Five Days

First of all, I have been writing on this website for more than a decade and in that time have written on the art of cinema many times. Those who know me, also know my history – admirer of film since the 1950’s, studied film at college in the 1970’s, worked in commercial film industry, acted, edited, and directed “filmed” commercials; went to Hollywood, met a lot of people in the film industry, managed a movie theater in LA, and have continued my love of the art form to this day. Therefore, I consider this post not just about one film, but about five important films released in the year 2012.

Monday, January 14, 2013 – Day one

“Django Unchained” – directed by Quentin Tarantino

Let me say right from the start that I like this movie – no, I love this movie – and anyone who admires filmmakers and who has studied the art of filmmaking the way Tarantino has will like the film as well, despite the “overt” violent images scattered around in certain scenes. I shall discuss those at the end of this critique.

This film is a love letter to Sergio Leone and John Ford, starting with the use of the floating “red” lettered credits. It was Kurosawa who once said that part of his preparation before he started a film project was to watch a few John Ford pictures, and there is a good reason why. Ford had perfected a distinct quality of looking at film in a way that expresses the near epitome of motion pictures as an art form. Ford loved the horizontal line and no one could film a wide “western” expanse the way he did, not even my personal hero in film, William Wyler (who probably picked up some of Ford’s technics to shoot his western epic, “A Big Country.”). Tarantino does and uses the technique liberally, a fitting tribute to a man who helped establish the art of the western.

Now to put everything into historical perspective, Sergio Leone was an admirer of Ford, and Tarantino loved/loves Leone’s westerns. Now to be fair, Leone wasn’t the only Italian director who admired and tried to emulate the American western for European audiences. The original “Django,” directed by Sergio Corbucci, was part of a series of films that Corbucci made that competed with Leone. Italian actor Franco Nero starred in the original film as Django and makes a cameo appearance here as a slave owner who loses in a fight (“Do you know how to spell it [your name]” he asks Jamie Fox. Fox spells it and adds, “The D is silent.” Franco does a beat and finishes, “I know,”) His appearance is largely thanks in part or probably mostly due to Tarantino’s tip-of-the-hat to both the actor who originated the part and the film’s director. In fact, the musical soundtrack is also an homage to Leone as Tarantino used variations of composer Ennio Morricone’s themes for the soundtrack cues and those were woven in at crucial moments, heightening the emotion of certain scenes. Even the opening song, “Django” is a takeoff on Tom Jones from the 1960’s, whose breathy booming ballads graced the opening of “Thunderball.” The other uses, such as Jim Croce’s “I got a name” are part of the many humorous touches Tarantino makes throughout the film and what endeared this movie to me.

Tarantino knows his craft and this film is beautifully filmed, staged, and laid out in linear fashion with just a few flashbacks briefly thrown in for background. Cinematography by Oscar winner Robert Richardson is both intimate and breathtaking in its grasp of the western horizon. The sudden use of zoom, as Leone often did for effect, is added by Tarantino as another nod to that style of filmmaking. “Django Unchained” isn’t just pretty pictures and lovely music. Instead, Tarantino relies on his Oscar-winning cast of actors to help drive the narrative, which turns out to be a classic German story – the pursuit of perfection and realization of that ideal in the form of eternal love. The story of Brünnhilde is, as the Christoph Waltz (pronounced Vaults) character, bounty-hunter Dr. Schultz, states over a campfire, one known to most German boys from the time they were small and the subject of numerous plays and one of the greatest operas ever written. Waltz is the perfect “side-kick” to the real star of the picture, Jamie Fox. Waltz is witty and fun, but Fox is both charismatic and intense, the kind of qualities you want in a hero – the ideal Sigurðr (Siegfried). Waltz tells him that even after Siegfried climbs the mountain (“What mountain?” Django asks. “Who knows?” Schultz says, “There is always a mountain!”), the hero must go through hell fire to reach the beautiful maiden. So the true plot of the story is revealed in the first few minutes of “Django Unchained” but the story is one that unfolds at Tarantino’s pace, as he must tell this “western” his way.

Like directors before him who have tackled this genre, Tarantino must put his own stamp on the story, so that we might say, this is how Tarantino made a western. With the same kind of grittiness that Leone brought and the same kind of violence Sam Peckinpah brought (it really isn’t so bad), Tarantino does not glorify what it was like to be a slave or how to die by the gun, rather through the use of humor and some brilliant camera work (along with editing), Tarantino belittles the idea of any difference between whites and blacks by making nearly every white man (or woman) in the film full of superficiality, lack of remorse, and completely uncaring for the human condition ( they do deserve what’s comin to them). They are but uneducated oafs compared to the compassionate Dr. Schultz, the only person besides Django with a shred of decency. “Django Unlimited” is truly a salute to past filmmakers and to the idea that a white director can make a great hero out of a black man without making him look silly (as Mel Brooks did in “Blazing Saddles”). Near the end (spoiler) when Django rides off to save his love, Tarantino goes for a close-up shot on a black prisoner. Slowly, the man’s expression changes from one of fear to one of admiration for liberator, as if he were saying that in expression – go get ‘em (a great job for a bit actor or a great director who pulled out that performance out)! This one shot lets us know that everything will be alright and we can almost breathe a sigh of relief at this point. The score is lopsided and only formality of the hero carrying out justice remains.

As to my earlier objection to the level of violence, I was wrong and I will be the first to admit it. Tarantino does have a big “shoot ‘em-up” near the end that uses quite a bit of stunt blood. However, he intermingles the scene with a hilarious (and it was funny) predicament of one character being repeatedly shot in the leg, in the same spot, crying out each time he is hit. Now this is funny and a mark of pure Tarantino. I loved it. While not recommended for anyone under the age of seventeen, and you can understand why, this film is a must for those who love the western and are admirers of Ford and Leone.