Is Django Unchained racist?

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Good article. But Tarantino (having not seen this film yet, as above) has never suggested he has anything particularly non-normative or insightful to say about anything (and I speak as a fan of his films insofar as they're good entertainment) - which of course is one reason he's wildly popular. Tarantino recognise structural oppression? It wasn't very likely, to say the least. Nuance isn't his thing.

Spike Lee should have seen DU before commenting (as should I perhaps!), but as a filmmaker (and as an intelligent human being, for that matter - judging from interviews) he's in a different universe. Quentin just ain't that smart.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
"Haven't seen it yet. Did you not see it last week - what did you think?"
Well, I definitely enjoyed it. Sometimes (as my friend said on facebook) feeling uncomfortable as I did so.
I do think that Tarantino is a great film-maker, it seemed so refreshing after your normal hollywood fare, none of that "there must be an action point on forty-five minutes" kinda bollocks and that is really noticeable. There are bits when something happens (or doesn't) and this is completely unexpected because it doesn't conform to the normal rules of the films you see most of the time. You realise how formulaic most films are when you see something like this that isn't afraid to suck the pace out and have nothing but talking for ages and which still manages to keep you interested.
All that said, I'm not convinced that this kind of exciting, caffeinated cartoon is really the medium through which to deal with slavery. It makes a kind of counterpart for me to Inglourious Basterds in which a super hero is wishfully projected on to a period of history in which we all know who the bad guys are and love to see them getting wasted by some wise-cracking goodies. But what does it mean beyond that? Quentin doesn't like Nazis/Slavery? Maybe it doesn't have to mean anything.
I bumped into a friend in the foyer afterwards and he said "I hope Spike Lee never sees that because he really will be enraged".
For what it's worth I watched it with three other people and two of them absolutely hated it. One said that one of the problems was that there was all this violence and nastiness you were being made to suffer and there wasn't enough depth in anything you gained in payment to make it worth your while. For me, I found the violence too silly to pay much heed to that argument but I mention it here anyway.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I do think that Tarantino is a great film-maker

i agree with this on a technical level, absolutely - he's extremely gifted, and in terms of structure brought something new. Where he brings next to nothing is in terms of content or ideas beyond the form of film. Which is totally fine in and of itself, the world needs inventive entertainment.

With the disclaimer that I haven't seen it, maybe he just shouldn't touch serious subjects that require a nuanced perspective he has shown no evidence of having? His comment(s) to Krishnan Guru-Murphy alone in the interview were embarrassing enough.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
In terms of the imagery, the explosions, the dialogue, the music etc etc this film kept me absolutely entertained for hours. It's just that, if I were him and had his gifts, I'm not sure that that's the topic I'd have picked. Does it do any good? Not really, then why do it? But I loved the film... it's a headscratcher.
 
If it does anything it portrays how disgustingly, industrially racist the antebellum South must have been. Up there with the Third Reich. If it's racist, so is Schindler's List.

Christopher Waltz and Samuel L Jackson, both excellent, but I don't find Jamie Foxx very engaging at all.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Inglorious Bastards was not really about Nazis, though, or even war or violence, it was a film about film. The thing I really like about QT is his taste in movies, which is unorthodox, exciting, refreshing. I remember him plugging Michael Winner (RIP) and John Milius films (I appreciated his robust defense of Big Wednesday) and there's a series of Spaghetti Westerns he has selected for release by Koch Media on the back of this film which is worth its existence alone.

But, then again, the way he assembles and stuffs all this paraphernalia into his movies is one of the least impressive aspects of his film-making. I have a strong internal resistance to the way he uses music (for example: Bacalov and Meiko Kaji in Kill Bill) which is purely irrational but probably comes from the fact that I live with the sources every day as they are my favorite films and scores, too.

His films are enjoyable, like eating fast food. QT is a bit like Ronald McDonald now I come to think of it. The films I've seen are quite rubbery. They remind me a bit of the animated sections of that Michael Jackson masterpiece Moonwalker.

Apparently, he had the idea for this film in the middle of writing a book about Sergio Corbucci. I think I would rather have read that book. I hope he finishes it now. I think QT would make an excellent, iconoclastic film critic.
 
D

droid

Guest
Id probably go for this over Lincoln in terms of entertainment. Lincoln is (as you'd imagine) worthy and well made - but dull.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
If it does anything it portrays how disgustingly, industrially racist the antebellum South must have been. Up there with the Third Reich. If it's racist, so is Schindler's List.

Playing devil's advocate (cos haven't seen DU and can't recall Schindler's List much): one of the main critiques of SL was similar to the one levelled against DU in the Open Democracy article, that it concentrates upon an atypical, exceptional situation within the context of a holocaust. Which isn't saying either film is racist; rather critiquing them as being misleading (i.e. fitting events into a cliched hero-type narrative) in the way in which they portray complex events that are hugely underrepresented in mainstream (read: big-name director) cinema history.

@craner - are Corbucci's films any good? They sound interesting from the little I've read about them in connection with Django Unchained.

Tarantino films are definitely like fast food, good comparison.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Corbucci is weird, he made some of the greatest Westerns of all time and then veered off into Terence Hill and Bud Spencer comedy vehicles for the rest of the 70s and 80s. Inexplicable, although Italians loved them (and people in South Africa, apparently).

His most famous Westerns are Django, The Great Silence, The Mercenary and Compañeros. These are all superb. The Great Silence in particular; I have forced many long-suffering friends to watch it, and they have all (so far) been blown away. It is an (almost) perfect film (when watched in Italian).
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"Inglorious Bastards was not really about Nazis, though, or even war or violence, it was a film about film."
That's true up to a point but he still chose the second world war period to tell his story of a film about film.

"Which isn't saying either film is racist; rather critiquing them as being misleading in the way in which they portray events that are hugely underrepresented in mainstream (read: big-name director) cinema history."
I thought Eastern Promises was bad for this - undercover cop busts Russian woman-trafficking mafia gang. Problem solved! Thanks David.

"@Craner - are Corbucci's films any good?"
Django is my favourite western. Probably.
The Great Silence is fantastic as well - Trintignant as Silence and Kinski as the baddie. Watch it as a double-feature with Django, the ending is almost the same set-up but totally different.
Although I've just remembered that there may be an alternative ending for GS which might not be.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
That's true up to a point but he still chose the second world war period to tell his story of a film about film

But isn't that because he wanted to make The Gestapo's Last Orgy?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Corbucci was much better at dealing with women than Leone or any of the others (or Tarantino, come to that), and that is one of the ways he stands apart.
 
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