Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

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dda1996a
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Re: Rules Don't Apply (Warren Beatty, 2016)

#551 Post by dda1996a » Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:25 am

Well Tarantino has been rehashing the same point for quite a while. Doing it really well, but I would like something else except revenge themed westerns

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mfunk9786
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Re: Rules Don't Apply (Warren Beatty, 2016)

#552 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 9:58 am

That's some clever revision on Smith's part (he's nothing if not a careful marketer of his own image), because both he and Tarantino said at the time that he didn't feel like it was the lead role due to the presence of Waltz's character
"Django wasn't the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead," Smith told Entertainment Weekly while promoting his new science fiction film After Earth. "The other character was the lead! I was like, 'No, Quentin, please, I need to kill the bad guy!'"
Wanted love to be the answer indeed!

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#553 Post by matrixschmatrix » Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:25 am

Ha, I think that's better than the implicit dishwatery resolution of slavery resolved with love and not with violence. I have some issue with the latter day Tarantino's politics and filmmaking (though I am certainly overall a fan) but the sheer visceral thrill of seeing the aristocracy of a plantation gleefully blown apart is one I wouldn't give up.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#554 Post by bearcuborg » Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:02 pm

Don't get me wrong, I think Tarantino is a colossal talent, and everything he's made has been a must see.

I wasn't aware of the earlier comment by Smith that mfunk9786 pointed out, as I was going by his answer to Sam L Jackson on a recent episode of The Hollywood Reporter.

Still, I don't think matrixschmatrix's comment that love is a "dishwatery resolution" to North American slavery. Will's point was that, if Quentin was telling the black love story of love stories, that he wanted love to be the answer, not violence. I would have liked to see that more complicated ending, because for me, the lasting memory of the film was the moment Django embraced his dead friend in the barn. It was the most tender scene in a QT film since the end of Jackie Brown.

For me, the fingers to the ears, blow up of the plantation house (along with the burning of the movie theater in Basterds) undermines what came before it...
Last edited by bearcuborg on Fri Sep 30, 2016 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#555 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 12:45 pm

I would contend that the entire reason that both of those movies were made was to assert that perhaps it's time that reasonable people be willing to leave behind the capital-s Sins of the past and treat them with the admonishment and humiliation that they deserve. We're at an interesting cultural moment, where Nazism and white supremacy have flared back up in this country the more marginalized and threatened some conservative whites feel, but the hope of these films, to me, is that it's one last dying gasp instead of the beginnings of a repetition of our shameful history.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#556 Post by Mr Sausage » Fri Sep 30, 2016 4:00 pm

Am I alone in thinking that Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds have quite a bit less to do with history than with how history has been represented in the movies? Django especially seems less about slavery as a social institution than how slavery hasn't been addressed in genre, and what addressing slavery would look like within the genre of the spaghetti western, how the demands of either side would play on each other. Whatever resolution you get there is not the resolution you'd want within actual social history; it's the resolution demanded by the tradition of the genre, in this case bloody revenge. That's not to say the movies are unconnected from history or society, that you cannot discuss the problems raised in real terms; just that you cannot extricate the issues from what Tarantino is trying to say about film representation. And, ultimately, it's not a strong criticism to say of a pastiche of spaghetti westerns--and therefore a movie about spaghetti westerns--that it ended too much like a spaghetti western. Well, what else is it going to do? Juvenile machismo is part of the design. You can lament the design, but you can't simultaneously buy into it and reject it and hope that'll form a coherent criticism. You can, however, decide that a form is inadequate to handle the material, and Django Unchained may in fact be fundamentally inadequate for all its virtues (no idea where my opinion lies on that question, but it's a legitimate question, one that applies to Tarantino's previous film as well).

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#557 Post by bearcuborg » Fri Sep 30, 2016 6:57 pm

Well, I can't say I ever expected Tarantino to say anything thought provoking about slavery or the holocaust, but I certainly don't see anything hopeful or inspiring in the treatment of either subject to be some some kind of refute, or termination of their existence from the past, present or future.

Though Mr Sausage, you did navigate an argument as to what each film might say about a particular cinema genre/history, I am in the camp that the form used was inadequate to handle the material. With such horrific reality only formulating from other movies, I can't imagine either inspired admonishment of their capital sins from anyone.

With that said, I did seek out the experience of both pictures, but have little to no desire to see them again. Which is why I found Will Smith's refusal to do Django so intriguing, as told on The Hollywood Reporter. Though I have been made aware that his answer contradicts what he has said in the past.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#558 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Sep 30, 2016 7:54 pm

It strikes me that this was really a trilogy of 'sensitive issues' tackled in exploitation fashion as much as by any particular genre. In Death Proof we have the gang of women besting and taking their revenge on the macho killer who survives not because he has any athletic stunt skill but purely because of the equipment he uses, which I assume is meant to suggest a kind of 'cheating' on his part. In Inglourious Basterds we get Jews vs Nazis, with all the more interesting chattily duplicitous secondary characters ending up compromised and/or dead in the face of blunt purity of purpose ideologies clashing together. And In Django Unchained we get 'the end of slavery' with both the skilled character hidden behind the chatty secondary character for the longest time (in that sense Will Smith was right that Django isn't exactly occupying the centre of the film for the longest time, though that's only looking superficially at it. The film itself is always more interested in Django's story, even in passive or imprisoned mode, than the seemingly more dominant at first Schultz, or Candie in the mid-section) and a more understandably motivated goal of saving the girl than pure vengeance, though it all ends in the same bloodbath. I guess at least in Django Unchained the main character is not the one who actively instigates the carnage, though he does finish it off in a similarly problematic 'end of an era' sense!

And in all three films the main 'good guy' characters willingly put themselves into perilous situations to claim their revenge when they might have been able to escape sooner without such bloodshed, or even have avoided it altogether without going directly into the lion's den to face it down. But then that lack of a violent climax that the audience might demand would defeat the 'grindhouse' purpose I suppose! And it might be interesting to debate the way that these films can only reach a kind of manufactured or revisionist happy ending flying in the face of intractable social issues and historical records. Even Death Proof has the 'all the girls die' downer first ending and 'all the girls survive and kick the crap out of the killer' happy ending!

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#559 Post by knives » Sat Oct 01, 2016 6:51 pm

Mr Sausage wrote:Am I alone in thinking that Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds have quite a bit less to do with history than with how history has been represented in the movies? Django especially seems less about slavery as a social institution than how slavery hasn't been addressed in genre, and what addressing slavery would look like within the genre of the spaghetti western, how the demands of either side would play on each other. Whatever resolution you get there is not the resolution you'd want within actual social history; it's the resolution demanded by the tradition of the genre, in this case bloody revenge. That's not to say the movies are unconnected from history or society, that you cannot discuss the problems raised in real terms; just that you cannot extricate the issues from what Tarantino is trying to say about film representation. And, ultimately, it's not a strong criticism to say of a pastiche of spaghetti westerns--and therefore a movie about spaghetti westerns--that it ended too much like a spaghetti western. Well, what else is it going to do? Juvenile machismo is part of the design. You can lament the design, but you can't simultaneously buy into it and reject it and hope that'll form a coherent criticism. You can, however, decide that a form is inadequate to handle the material, and Django Unchained may in fact be fundamentally inadequate for all its virtues (no idea where my opinion lies on that question, but it's a legitimate question, one that applies to Tarantino's previous film as well).
I fully agree with you, though that highlights one of the things I don't like about IB as Tarantino seems clueless in the portrayal of Jews, both done by Jews and racists, here as he clearly hasn't eaten up thousands upon thousands of hours of film dealing with African Americans in ll sorts of contexts.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#560 Post by mfunk9786 » Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:31 am

Heading into this viewing of this film, I considered it one of the best films of the decade. A dubious honor that any decent person in 2019 would look back upon with skepticism - surely I missed something here. Surely I got far too worked up by my initial viewing(s) to see this for what it really is - a slapdash effort to put together a project after the loss of a key collaborator. A badly edited film. A racist film. Almost universally accepted things that I'm supposed to think about Django Unchained.

Turns out, I underestimated how great it is.

I can't overstate how much the Tarantino concept of taking a historic blemish and picking at it until it might never heal correctly is something that jives with me... there is no moment in Django Unchained from the very beginning that wastes time on the outdated and misguided idea that we, in modern times, might understand or forgive the motivations or concerns that led to and extended the duration of American slavery.

These ideas, insofar as their dying breaths still exist, are addressed at the same moment that they're ridiculed, with an essential lack of respect and lack of patience. The degree to which Foxx and Waltz manage to be committed to this mission (from believable horse riding, weapon work... just generalized involvement in this thankless job) is important in drawing out the sort of audience response that is required for the kind of laaaaaate third act bend that this story takes. Tarantino decides it's wise, surely against any of the best interests of anyone involved in the production of this film, to take literal hours from the moment of instinctual audience investment (the blue suit...) to flip the story around into something the viewer would like to see. And boy, it is sort of incredible to see a film that relies so much upon set design stain said sets with horrendous amounts of kneecap and ankle and neck blood - ghoulishly vengeful blood - without, again, any moment taken for mourning the loss of any sort of societal landmark.

Who cares about the antebellum south without the pretty plants? Without the iced tea? Tarantino sees all of this as absolutely useless window dressing for telling a story that's meant to shamelessly cuckold any misguided notion of preserving some way of life when and where life itself was not respected in the slightest.

Not only is this one of the best films of the decade, it is easily the best Quentin Tarantino film - which would be the sort of declaration met with a yawn were he not the motherfucker responsible for the Kill Bill films (or, if we're pulling LQ's favorite films into this, Death Proof). A filmmaker dedicated to obliterating the expectations that come with wherever his story may be going; he manages to abandon any idea that anyone comes out of this story getting what they morally or historically deserve. Instead, incineration of the iconic quality of the clean blank plantation house is the victim.

There is no time for fun, no time for games. It cannot be easy to put this sort of production together, and Quentin Tarantino is too busy devising scenes during which hideous white actors are whipped, beaten, shot - and most importantly, outsmarted - to waste any time considering whether this film is entertaining you enough. Or is perfect. Or is anything other than what it is - a radical provocation wrapped up in a movie by a white director who scripts the "n" word too much. It is easily one of the best films of this decade, scars and all.


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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#562 Post by HitchcockLang » Wed May 01, 2019 8:44 am

While I'll be intrigued to see what he alters, I feel like this would be more accurately described as an extended cut than a director's cut (I recognize "director's cut" were Tarantino's choice of words, not yours Big Ben). Didn't he have final cut privilege on Django the first time around?

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#563 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed May 01, 2019 10:45 am

Yes, the initial cut was 3 hours and 12 minutes long, and Weinstein kicked and screamed about getting it down to the length that Tarantino was contractually obligated to deliver it at. Not sure exactly what that length was, but the film checks in at exactly 2 hours and 45 minutes as it stands now, and when I saw an early test screening in 2012, it was literally during the same week that editing was reported to have wrapped up. So it's pretty clear that Tarantino wanted the film to be longer every step of the way, even though the final product plays just fine (it remains my favorite of his, I think).

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#564 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Aug 05, 2020 8:07 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:31 am
there is no moment in Django Unchained from the very beginning that wastes time on the outdated and misguided idea that we, in modern times, might understand or forgive the motivations or concerns that led to and extended the duration of American slavery.

These ideas, insofar as their dying breaths still exist, are addressed at the same moment that they're ridiculed, with an essential lack of respect and lack of patience. The degree to which Foxx and Waltz manage to be committed to this mission (from believable horse riding, weapon work... just generalized involvement in this thankless job) is important in drawing out the sort of audience response that is required for the kind of laaaaaate third act bend that this story takes. Tarantino decides it's wise, surely against any of the best interests of anyone involved in the production of this film, to take literal hours from the moment of instinctual audience investment (the blue suit...) to flip the story around into something the viewer would like to see. And boy, it is sort of incredible to see a film that relies so much upon set design stain said sets with horrendous amounts of kneecap and ankle and neck blood - ghoulishly vengeful blood - without, again, any moment taken for mourning the loss of any sort of societal landmark.

Who cares about the antebellum south without the pretty plants? Without the iced tea? Tarantino sees all of this as absolutely useless window dressing for telling a story that's meant to shamelessly cuckold any misguided notion of preserving some way of life when and where life itself was not respected in the slightest.

Not only is this one of the best films of the decade, it is easily the best Quentin Tarantino film - which would be the sort of declaration met with a yawn were he not the motherfucker responsible for the Kill Bill films (or, if we're pulling LQ's favorite films into this, Death Proof). A filmmaker dedicated to obliterating the expectations that come with wherever his story may be going; he manages to abandon any idea that anyone comes out of this story getting what they morally or historically deserve. Instead, incineration of the iconic quality of the clean blank plantation house is the victim.

There is no time for fun, no time for games. It cannot be easy to put this sort of production together, and Quentin Tarantino is too busy devising scenes during which hideous white actors are whipped, beaten, shot - and most importantly, outsmarted - to waste any time considering whether this film is entertaining you enough.
I'm late to comment on this, but what a great post, mfunk. I think there's time for fun and games only insofar as Tarantino uses his skills at dialogue to render all white supremacists impotent, weaponizing the english language to objectively reduce their worth to pathetic. At the same time, he doesn't negate their power or harmful history, and the cartoonish jabs are immediately equaled with tense, sincere trauma flashbacks and wide angles that show multiple characters reacting at once to sober anyone watching to the objective horrors of enslavement. Simply the nature of a black man acting in the role of a white gunslinger cannot be believed by this film, thus making itself so obviously a fantasy. Tarantino slips Django into western tropes but never displaces the history, constantly disallowing our awareness to move into broad fantasy- it must exist as specific fantasy (using multiple sources of art to do so: the blue suit, haircut, possibilities of the medium's scope, a modern rap song, etc.)

Django interrupting Dr. King's juicy monologues to ask what a word means is Tarantino undercutting his own default to indulge in unrestrained exaggeration. He inhibits himself even in the momentum of a scene, to meditate on the oppressive systems that didn't only enslave black people, but destroyed their chances to excel in all areas. This feels like a sly (dare I say humble?) way for Tarantino to check his own privilege in what he himself would declare to be his greatest asset: His linguistic skills. He can't even afford himself the pure gratification of flaunting catharsis in verbage or violence. You're right that the majority of the violence, until the finale, is uncharacteristically jarring and painful. I had thought after seeing his latest film, that he had portrayed the most unsettling violence of his career, but I had clearly forgotten this. Another contrast comes just before the meeting with Candie: Django calls a white man the "n" word (cathartic fantasy), and then we witness a mandingo fight that inserts no brand from Tarantino's violence, other than the refusal to look away- it's just sickening.

Tarantino doesn't offer the same embellished structure of Inglorious Basterds where he decorated each long scene with drunken luxuries exploiting, hell boasting, his talents and unapologetic perversities - not a knock, it's still my favorite [Landa, an intriguing and captivating villain is replaced by one who isn't interesting in the least, and DiCaprio exists solely for the spectacle of awe at how banal and disgusting white evil is]. Instead he constructs a narrative that is much more self-conscious, disguised as one that isn't. What he brings to the table here is that lack of apology and a willingness to go for broke where no one else will. All else is up for self-reflection, though it's a strength that Tarantino stops himself from adding or unpacking his own position in past history, present-day racism, etc. The film isn't about him, but he subtly checks his own power and ideas of microaggressions subtly throughout- perhaps imperfectly, for better or worse.
SpoilerShow
I think it's an interesting reading to see Waltz as a Tarantino, and generally white, surrogate- as he feels compelled to get revenge on Candie, allowing his emotions to destroy logic and put everyone at risk for that "vengeance" he has a stake in, partly in favor of humanism but also for selfish repentance. The flashbacks to the horrors of the slave being eaten by dogs consume Waltz with a flood of guilt for his race that he doesn't know how to cope with. There's no doubt that Django is just as horrified but doesn't sacrifice safety for pride and an opportunity for unleashing anger to achieve a tangible solution to the malady.

There's something very clearly inherently fallible about Waltz' position here. "I couldn't resist." Tarantino can't either, he needs to do something and will be first to admit, right here, that this is partly sourced in a discomfort and shame that he thankfully doesn't take the time to empathize with- instead using it as an opportunity to give Django his violent explosion through sublimation. There's something very self-reflexive, and satisfying in about that discretion, that ironically manifests as one of Tarantino's most relentless bloodbaths.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#565 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:20 pm

I like Django Unchained quite a bit. The idea of using movie violence (often filmed cartoonishly, over-the-top) to combat the real, historical violence of slavery (presented more appropriately as a real horror) is interesting and exciting. I also like that it's a legitimate action movie. How many long, epic action movies have been made without CGI in the last two decades? None like this, that I can think of.

But I've always been deeply troubled by Samuel L. Jackson's character. Though the movie is clearly a send-up of slavery and white supremacy, it seems to present Jackson's house slave character (the race-traitor who appeases his white master in order to survive) as the "real" villain. His cowardly obsequiousness is presented as the flip side to Django's heroism. The movie (and, by extension, its white writer/director) seems to have more contempt for Stephen than for Candy. This makes me uncomfortable. It distracts from not only the movie's (supposedly) antiracist message but also its entertainment value. The brutal, cartoonish murder of white slavers may be cathartic, but why did QT think we'd enjoy that same movie-justice directed at Stephen, a man who made questionable moral choices to survive a brutally unfair system?

I never expected it to be like a Toni Morrison novel, but I do think the race politics of Django Unchained raise serious, uncomfortable questions. QT is a great film-maker, but he IS problematic. I think any appreciation of his work as an artist that ignores that fact does not do justice to his complicated legacy.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#566 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:41 pm

Does “raise serious, uncomfortable questions” = “problematic”?

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#567 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:46 pm

Tarantino is about the most authentically "woke" white filmmaker working in Hollywood right now, gimme a break on him being "problematic" because the Twitter Left can't put him into a comfortable and reassuring box

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#568 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:52 pm

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:20 pm
I like Django Unchained quite a bit. The idea of using movie violence (often filmed cartoonishly, over-the-top) to combat the real, historical violence of slavery (presented more appropriately as a real horror) is interesting and exciting. I also like that it's a legitimate action movie. How many long, epic action movies have been made without CGI in the last two decades? None like this, that I can think of.

But I've always been deeply troubled by Samuel L. Jackson's character. Though the movie is clearly a send-up of slavery and white supremacy, it seems to present Jackson's house slave character (the race-traitor who appeases his white master in order to survive) as the "real" villain. His cowardly obsequiousness is presented as the flip side to Django's heroism. The movie (and, by extension, its white writer/director) seems to have more contempt for Stephen than for Candy. This makes me uncomfortable. It distracts from not only the movie's (supposedly) antiracist message but also its entertainment value. The brutal, cartoonish murder of white slavers may be cathartic, but why did QT think we'd enjoy that same movie-justice directed at Stephen, a man who made questionable moral choices to survive a brutally unfair system?

I never expected it to be like a Toni Morrison novel, but I do think the race politics of Django Unchained raise serious, uncomfortable questions. QT is a great film-maker, but he IS problematic. I think any appreciation of his work as an artist that ignores that fact does not do justice to his complicated legacy.
I don't think that Tarantino is saying that Jackson's character is worse than Candie... he is more intelligent than Candie, does all the thinking for him, including all that results in Django's oppression in the third act, and is more deserving of being a villain. As I said, Tarantino doesn't think Candie and the other slaveowners are wholly cartoons- they're vessels of harm- but since he views being an arch-villain as a role that is one of honor, requiring some dark qualities to admire, he robs Candie of this by giving that villain role to his head house slave who is actually intelligent (completely reducing the skull scene not just to an obvious lie but brutal irony).

I'm interested in exactly what you find specifically problematic about Tarantino, besides saying broadly that ignoring that is unjust. Neither my post, nor mfunk's that I was responding to, ignore his race and how it fits into making this film- quite the opposite, which makes me wonder if you read those comments before posting.. (and if so, what do you think about two different perspectives on how this film works with an inherently perverse idea to channel that source in positive ways?) The very act of making the film is going to raise discomfort, but isn't a film like this supposed to make white viewers uncomfortable? Would it have been preferable for Tarantino to make the movie more about him, or wouldn't that have been more "problematic?" Do you notice him acknowledging his bias in this work, and if not, how do you interpret the points that have just been put forth that argue that he does? I'm not saying that you can't have a different opinion, but it's strange to follow up a few posts that break down specifics into how Tarantino is working with a fundamentally provocative and challenging vehicle by responding with a general statement that we shouldn't ignore that it could be problematic, because nobody is doing that.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#569 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:08 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:41 pm
Does “raise serious, uncomfortable questions” = “problematic”?
In this instance, yes.

I appreciate a movie raising uncomfortable questions about the world and/or my ideas about the world. But Tarantino often raises uncomfortable questions about himself as an artist, his stylized violence, the N-word, jokes about violence against women, etc.
domino harvey wrote:Tarantino is about the most authentically "woke" white filmmaker working in Hollywood right now, gimme a break on him being "problematic" because the Twitter Left can't put him into a comfortable and reassuring box
Mainly the violence. I mean, Jesus, the violence. I know QT's scabrous interviews with hand-wringing journos has become an entire Youtube subgenre, with our expected role being to laugh at the moralistic plebs who DARE ask QT about stylized violence in his movies. But there's simply no ignoring that the violence in QT movies, though often exciting and interesting, is (to use, again, an admittedly overused and vague word) problematic.
therewillbeblus wrote:Do you notice him acknowledging his bias in this work, and if not, how do you interpret the points that have just been put forth that argue that he does?
To be honest? No. Though your "Shultz-as-QT-surrogate" theory is one I agree with, I do not see how this would soften the problem with Stephen. It bothers me that Tarantino seems to have such contempt for a black character whose survival mechanism in the face of oppression is cowardice. And it bothers me that Tarantino seems to expect me, the viewer, to enjoy and revel in this black coward's demise.

Overall, I do not see QT as someone whose art shows much self-reflection about his own whiteness (not that it must, mind you). And for the record, I did read both posts. I do not know to what part of mfunk's you are referring.

Whatever bias-acknowledgement you read into his work is pretty effectively undercut by QT the person. In response to Spike Lee's (valid) criticism about QT's use of the N-word, QT replied "As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. And to say that I can’t do that because I’m white … that is racist." Playing the "I'm not racist; you're racist!" routine with black people who call out racism is (God help me) some problematic shit.

And yet Django Unchained is largely antiracist and great, and Jackie Brown is a feminist masterpiece. The guy's complicated, is all I'm saying.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#570 Post by domino harvey » Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:22 pm

You may want to Google the ADL’s response to Mo’ Better Blues before you hold Lee up as an arbiter of racism

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#571 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:29 pm

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:08 pm
Though your "Shultz-as-QT-surrogate" theory is one I agree with, I do not see how this would soften the problem with Stephen. It bothers me that Tarantino seems to have such contempt for a black character whose survival mechanism in the face of oppression is cowardice. And it bothers me that Tarantino seems to expect me, the viewer, to enjoy and revel in this black coward's demise.
What? How did you connect a previous post's theory about Shultz as Tarantino's surrogate to my later response about Stephen? I don't see how that would "soften" your problem with Stephen either... since they were not linked, not even in the same post. Also, since you said you read these posts, you also read multiple arguments that he isn't expecting the viewer to "enjoy" or "revel" in this. You can disagree but a revisit of the film tonight made mfunk's insights ring true as I hadn't noticed the first few times I watched the film. Further, I don't see how Tarantino is responsible for giving Stephen a complex arc. He's using Western tropes for a story, and isn't obligated to make his circumstance complex. Some people believe in judging a person entirely by their actions (I'm not necessarily one of them) and it's a reasonable argument to say that Stephen harmed black people, was calculative and invested in harming them (not just making the best of his situation, since Candie didn't know he was about to get fooled, and Stephen deliberately dug and exploited his theory on their intentions to his master for pleasure) and therefore, is deserving of being this story's villain. Sure we could go into the traumatic responses of Stolkholm Syndrome and the deep psychology at play in 'reality' but this is so obviously a 'fantasy' as I got into in depth above, and you can't have it both ways just to skewer Tarantino. Those expectations are asking him to make two different movies in one.

It sounds like you're unable to move past your impression of Tarantino "the person" from interviews (which of course is a better indication of who this man "is" than his art, I feel like I know him inside out from how he fields goading questions and attacks! I have certainly NEVER been reactive when caught off guard, what a complicated person for having kneejerk defensiveness!) I'm sorry for continuing to press, but when you continue to use vague, yet incredibly loaded, terms like "problematic" specifically pertaining to his positions on race, and then just say that he's "complicated" after declaring that his two films that feature primarily black protagonists are satisfactory to your criteria, it begs further explanation.

(For the record, I've seen my fair share of tv spots with Tarantino, a few that made me feel embarrassed, so I'm not blind or even against someone raising eyebrows to some of his public appearances, though I don't think it's fair to assess all of someone's feelings on a subject based on a response to Spike Lee. I truly believe that art is a space where people can unpack what cannot be expressed in other places -like an interview- and if one cannot separate a laborious, lengthy, complex piece of art from a judgment made from a limited vantage point quoting a defensive response, then why even bother to post when your mind's made up?)

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#572 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:02 am

therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:29 pm
What? How did you connect a previous post's theory about Shultz as Tarantino's surrogate to my later response about Stephen? I don't see how that would "soften" your problem with Stephen either... since they were not linked, not even in the same post.
I interpreted that the "points put forth that argue he does (acknowledge his bias)" were your points about Shultz being a kind of surrogate for him. I do not see another instance of you talking about QT acknowledging his bias.

Suggestion: Write in active voice. Your use of passive voice is a bit confusing.
It sounds like you're unable to move past your impression of Tarantino "the person" from interviews.
Just not true. I love plenty of artists who are likely bad people (and I do not think QT is bad).
domino harvey wrote:You may want to Google the ADL’s response to Mo’ Better Blues before you hold Lee up as an arbiter of racism
I think Spike Lee often has a valuable perspective, which is not to say he is an "arbiter of racism." I think he's right that Tarantino uses the N-word too often.

I don't want to go down a rabbit hole here, and I just can't respond to everything (google "spreading in debate"). Before bedtime I'll restate my concise main point:

It bothers me that Tarantino seems to have such contempt for a black character whose survival mechanism in the face of oppression is cowardice.

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domino harvey
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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#573 Post by domino harvey » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:09 am

Collaborators are rarely offered sympathy, both in fiction and real life

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#574 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:20 am

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Thu Aug 06, 2020 12:02 am
therewillbeblus wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:29 pm
What? How did you connect a previous post's theory about Shultz as Tarantino's surrogate to my later response about Stephen? I don't see how that would "soften" your problem with Stephen either... since they were not linked, not even in the same post.
I interpreted that the "points put forth that argue he does (acknowledge his bias)" were your points about Shultz being a kind of surrogate for him. I do not see another instance of you talking about QT acknowledging his bias.

Suggestion: Write in active voice. Your use of passive voice is a bit confusing.
Suggestion: Engage in a discussion on a discussion board, when asked to expand on your incredibly vague statements. You seem to be deeply uncomfortable with the idea of Tarantino tackling a film about race, so much so that you don't want to talk about it yourself, and wish to just leave it as "problematic" (is that what an active voice is supposed to look like?) Which, I'd argue, is a problematic position to take. You continuously declare Stephen's primary characteristic to be a sympathetic one like "cowardice," but won't even respond to other impressions for the motives of the character or filmmaker. Your mind is made up, and you seem to have no interest in flexing your perspective on this issue, or engaging in a conversation about how else he could be perceived after putting the idea forth yourself to the forum. I don't see how you read my spoilerbox and linked that to Stephen at all. Looking back, it's pretty specific and you keep parroting the same blog post, as if in a vacuum outside of this thread. I actually did discuss other ways in which I read Tarantino to be self-aware of his position, by interrupting his own dialogue and de-glamorizing his violence pre-third-act, in other paragraphs- but nevermind, the concrete examples were probably too passive. Next time I'll just say "not problematic" and it'll be clear. Have a good night.

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Re: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

#575 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Thu Aug 06, 2020 2:18 am

Yeah, I can't sleep.

Therewillbeblus, it's hard to address all of your questions/points because A: there are a lot of them, B: you're going back and editing your posts, and C: (just being honest) they're sometimes confusing. If there's a specific thing you or another poster brought up that you think I should address, quote it.

I engage in discussions in total good faith. I point out points of agreement, I am not sarcastic, I do not mock, and I do not assume someone's opinion is due to some personal hang-up or defect that person has. If I, an English teacher, give a writing suggestion, it's for clarity.

I'll try to expand on my statement that Stephen is a problematic character. The movie is ostensibly anti white supremacy, but it gives its final, most triumphant snuffing-out to a black, enslaved villain. Not only this, but QT clearly means for this to be a heroic moment. There were cheers in the theater when I saw it. Frankly, I don't think Tarantino (white guy) has earned the moral right to make a black, enslaved collaborator an object of our scorn and schadenfreude. It just doesn't sit right with me, this unwillingness to grapple with the psychological complexity of his characters and this history.

Some may say that the movie is allegorical pastiche, and one dimensional characters are the name of the game. Fair enough. But QT has had it both ways in other movies. Inglorious Basterds is morally complex and self-reflective and a genre pastiche. Shoshana's final revenge I find appropriately horrifying as well as kind of exciting, with the literally explosive film an obvious metaphor for the danger and power of what QT has built his whole career on: Violent Movies. It's interesting stuff; it speaks to a complex engagement with his own art.

You may say that this complexity is also present in Django Unchained (self-awareness, deglamorizing violence, interrupting his own dialogue, etc.). I agree with you, and those are some insightful catches. But I do not see that complexity in his creation of Stephen. A movie can have complexity, be largely antiracist, and also have some problems. In Stephen I see, at best, a one-dimensional villain whose death is cheer fodder. At worst, he is a 21st century white man's idea of a bad slave, a black person who, unlike Django, did not respond to his enslavement with proper heroism. That, to me, felt problematic.

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