Quentin Tarantino's Western movie "Django Unchained"

xp I figured he didn't like being tricked or the idea of making Django happy.

why should he care if Django's happy or not? as far as Candie's concerned, Django isn't even a person

Dumas was one quarter black, but that is not really the point. His novels are quite clearly a part of the western, white canon...

you seem to have missed the point of King pointing out that Dumas was black to Candie

But I don't remember scenes preparing us for Schultz's moral illumination.

This. I mean, obviously the slave getting torn apart did not, er, sit well with Schultz, but surely he had seen - or even perpetrated - evils of that nature over the course of his many months traversing the United States killing bad or bad enough people with extreme prejudice. In other words, fooey on this:

Also:

But then he develops this genuine friendship with Django

Does he? Why the fuck would he? Django is dull as dirt and one-dimensional. It's simply a contrivance of the film. Again, you can infer and assume your way through this mess, but what's on the screen barely supports your butt for 2 and a half hours.

It's not lazy filmmaking, it's asking you to think for yourself a bit, instead of being spoonfed everything.

Because thinking is the last thing this movie is asking you to do. It's forcing you to think for it.

you seem to have missed the point of King pointing out that Dumas was black to Candie

This was just a pale (so to speak) echo of Dennis Hopper insultingly delving into the racial background of Italians in "True Romance."

x-post

Another time where we get to the limits of Schultz tolerance. He thinks a quarter of black blood contaminates, apparantly. And it only means (to Schultz) that white culture is so much better, since it is able to absorb all this problematic blackness. Like, no one thought The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Christo wasn't canonical parts of the western canon anyway...

You could say that Candie with his rage shows the limits of the southern slaver mentality: ie he is actually not able to just consider Django a non-person, he has to hate him to defend to himself the system he has built up.

If people work WITH the film instead of against it, we can actually get somewhere with what it is about, instead of just finding imaginary 'flaws'.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound angry, but I am quite tired of that whole thing where everyone is pointing out 'mistakes' and 'flaws' in films, instead of what they did right. I love that old marvel no-prize thing, where people actually was trying to find interesting solutions for things, instead of just pointing fingers. Sorry, and of ranting.

And it only means (to Schultz) that white culture is so much better, since it is able to absorb all this problematic blackness.

this is so not supported by what's shown on-screen

Schultz has no problem conflating Django with Siegried for ex. where are you getting that he thinks blackness is a "problem". And pretty much nobody in the world would have considered Dumas white at the time, the "one drop" bullshit having been very well established at that point. Django would have called Dumas a black man if he saw him.

There are a thousand ways to justify this and that in the film, but the film itself makes very little effort to support such theories and motivations, which I think is a failure of storytelling, a pretty major "flaw." And the only reason I at least have a bee in my bonnet is that I am sure Tarantino knows better, because he can certainly do better, and has done so, repeatedly. He's too pervasive for me to consider a favorite director, per se, but I've really loved everything he did before this. There is so much downright dumb, distracting stuff in here - the klan rally, the Aussies - that it makes the important stuff that's missing - motivations, character development - seem all the more glaring in its absence.

he is actually not able to just consider Django a non-person, he has to hate him to defend to himself the system he has built up.

defend it against what? a white guy trying to buy a slave for his black freedman? in what way does Django represent a threat at all, prior to Schulz shooting Candie?

like JinC, I felt kinda let down. especially after his previous run of films, all of which were way smarter and better constructed than this one.

A good chunk of the film (arguably too much, but eh) is devoted to showing how Schultz is feeling and tracking his unease, basically building up to shooting Candie. Claiming that motivation and characterisation for him is absent is frankly crazypants.

Also apart from the white guilt angle,

It made less sense for Candie to needle him about the handshake tbh

This makes perfect sense because Candie is a ridiculous Europhile, and here, finally, in his own office, is an actual European! Sure, one who tried to swindle him, but Candie has seen through that, and with the handshake he's trying to say "See, we are on the same level, I am a cultured gentleman like yourself". And one of the reasons this really gets to Schultz is that he believes this too - he can handle all these asshole Americans, but the slavery starts getting under his skin when it's dressed up as the work of sophisticated Europeans. Which is also a meta joke because of Waltz's last role.

Hah, I meant his last role with Tarantino, but since his last role before Django was Cardinal Richelieu in the Three Musketeers, let it ride.

Taking someone's money and having them sign something at gunpoint is sort of the antithesis of being "on the same level", as you put it, but point taken.

and like I said I get Schultz's motivations and wasn't complaining about that ftr, I was just quibbling with Frederik about the Dumas ref.

Here's that phone call about the Candieland deal:
Quentin Tarantino, 'Django Unchained' Director, Challenged Us To A Debate On A 'Harebrained' Plot Point

god you people dont know how to watch movies

lol that phone call is ridic

Hah, I meant his last role with Tarantino, but since his last role before Django was Cardinal Richelieu in the Three Musketeers, let it ride.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, March 14, 2013 10:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(couldn't help but think of leo's role as louis xiv in 'the man in the iron mask' when schultz had the line about dumas)

god you people dont know how to watch movies

Drunk and with low expectations?

Good storytelling means explaining all characters actions from first principles. If someone eats a toblerone, I require a flashback to the trader joe's checkout line. The toblerone must be earned.

Tarantino admitting that Schultz's scheme is stupid/unnecessary = "I meant to do that!" uh okay

also - is this his first film since Reservoir Dogs to not feature a female foot fetish scene?

Good storytelling means explaining all characters actions from first principles. If someone eats a toblerone, I require a flashback to the trader joe's checkout line. The toblerone must be earned.

I require all films to transpire in real time, meals, trips to the bathroom and all.

Seriously though, if a film hinges on certain actions or moral conversions, it'd be nice to see that grounded in the narrative a bit more. For example, Tarantino has said there was a lot of Django and his wife left on the cutting room floor. That seems just the sort of character stuff that should have been left in. Schultz poses his own particular problem, because he is introduced in the film as a fast-drawing, cold-blood killing bounty hunter, stays that way for most of the first half of the film, even convinces Django (his sudden bud) to shoot a father in front of his child, and then sees a slave torn apart by dogs and suddenly grows a conscience. Like I wrote earlier, having spent years travelling near lawless America, killing (mostly) bad people, you'd think he would have already seen that bad or worse on a regular basis. What made Candie's transgressions particularly bad, other than as a contrivance that suited this film? Etc.

Just to be clear, you are not accepting "his friendship with Django" as an answer, as that was apparently missing from the cut of the film that you saw?

I think it was, yes. Because I'm not sure at what point they became capital F friends rather than cohorts or companions of convenience. I'm not sure they ever quite comport themselves as equals, let alone friends. One of the scenes that made me most uneasy was actually the campfire scene, where Schultz tells the story of Broomhilda and Django eagerly sits at his feat like a child. Schultz carries himself in a patronizing manner to everyone, but here his archness was weirder, more explicitly paternal. Like, "Oh, all, right, one more story before bed..." But his relationship with Django is hardly father/son, either. It's never quite fleshed out, or at least not to my satisfaction.

Here's another example of what I mean about the absence or poorly conveyed motivation, from a different perspective. When the slave is torn apart by dogs, Schultz almost breaks character and says something, because he is so disgusted by what he sees, and righty so. Yet Django is able to keep cool despite the horrible sight. Why? Because his mind is set on rescuing his wife, we assume. But we see so little of them - Django and his wife - interacting that there is very little sense as to why this woman in particular is worth all the effort, what makes her special, what makes her worth enduring what Schultz can barely endure.

More motivation than that given to princes rescuing princesses in fairy tales?

it's possible Django's seen more of that kind of shit than Schultz has. And he is more grimly committed to their task. I thought that scene worked very well, one of the two most effective in the movie tbh.

xp

We need a scene with broomhilda talking to the animals of the forest

Yet Django is able to keep cool despite the horrible sight. Why?

because he's used to it. white lib schultz is appalled and shocked, but it's just everyday shit for Django

yeah that's made explicit w some line about "he's just not as used to americans as i am"

w/r/t the harebrained plot to rescue broomhilda upthread, I thought Candie wasn't just a cold-blooded capitalist a la a rockefeller or morgan; he was also an embodiment of southern genteelness that needed to be 'tricked,' shulz and django had to work within the structure of his worldview, hence the plot

like schulz has to prove that he's of the same high-bred class with high bred tastes to get into candie's circle in the first place. if he had marched straight up to candie's door and said "i'm gonna give you 12k for this slave" suspicions would definitely have been raised

suspicions about what?

look Tarantino admits in that interview that Schultz' plan is stupid and his assumptions are wrong

the specificity of the purchase - like if schulz just wanted any old comfort girl, why broomhilda?

i don't care a whit about author's intent

the specificity of the purchase - like if schulz just wanted any old comfort girl, why broomhilda?

because she speaks German!

how would he know beforehand that she did?

or just because he wants to purchase her for his buddy freedman Django. why would Candie give a shit or object to either of those reasons?

xp

he heard about it from his freedman buddy Django.

really the fact that all this speculation is required to make sense of the plot is indicative of the failings of the film.

whatever.. it was a pretty sweet film and I'm glad I watched it and I think you can suck it!!

lol

I'm glad I watched it too I just think pretty much every other film he's made is better. Prior to this I would have said Pulp Fiction was his weakest, but this had considerably less to offer in terms of inventiveness.

Dude, it's not speculation, they have Schultz explicitly give his reasons for not just walking up and buying her. Like you might not agree and you might not (according to Tarantino) be expected to agree, but it's not not in the film.

Schultz' reasoning is totally arbitrary. he just tells a parable about buying a horse from a farmer and the farmer says "no". He does not go into WHY the farmer would say no.

idk I think we are given enough hints about candie, in the way he acts + his background (legacy kid who inherited his plantation) to figure out why a simple cash transaction wouldn't have passed muster for him

Red Letter Media aspirations have ruined film conversation for us all

xp Yes! But that's not a problem with the film, it's characterisation of Schultz.

I have never watched any of those fwiw

xp

it's characterisation of Schultz.

this is what Tarantino argues in that interview, but it seems weird that up to then in the film all of Schultz' carefully controlled, theatrical plans have been wildly successful and then oh this one (and final) time his plan turns out to be completely unnecessary, stupid, dangerous, etc.