Django Unchained

Django Unchained was my streaming selection last night. It had been available on Amazon for over a week but only in the HD format and only to purchase. But last night for $4.99 I was able to see what all the fuss was about.

Quentin Tarantino has been pilloried in the media for the movie's violence; his interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy went viral:

Tarantino also tangled with the media and Spike Lee over his abundant use of the word "nigger" throughout the film. Samuel L. Jackson's refusal to answer a reporter's question on the use of the word unless the reporter say it himself also went viral:

Before sharing my thoughts on Django Unchained I should say that I am Tarantino man. Reservoir Dogs (1992) was the Easy Rider (1969) of my generation. Prior to that I hadn't seen a movie that accurately portrayed the way young men really talk to and deal with each other. The way the film's narrative is radically scrambled between past and present captures the way we actually encounter the world; after Reservoir Dogs this becomes a common storytelling practice in mainstream movies. But most of all I identified with Tim Roth's character, Mr. Orange. Most of my buddies liked Mr. Blonde or Mr. White. Having just divorced my wife, I kept my wedding ring in a bowl of pennies; I had a picture of the Silver Surfer on my wall. So when I saw that Mr. Orange kept his wedding ring in a spare change container and had a picture of the Silver Surfer on his wall I was amazed. I knew exactly who he was. He was me.

For all the hubbub about the violence in Django Unchained, I found it less extreme than Inglourious Basterds. But as Thomas Frank pointed out, that movie was about Jews killing Nazis and therefore acceptable. The only thing distinctive about the violence in Django is the amount of blood which flows profusely like so many burst jars of spaghetti sauce.

The power of the movie is not in its pulpy gore but in its timely depiction of the slavocracy. We are all niggers now, governed by a Dixiecrat Congress at the behest of bankers and corporate captains of industry. That's why Django is a perfect accompaniment to Lincoln. The performances of Christoph Waltz and Leonardio DiCaprio are inspired, as is Samuel L. Jackson's. My only criticism of the movie is that at two hours and 45 minutes it's too long. Once Waltz and DiCaprio disappear from the screen in the last half hour, Django really starts to fall apart; that, and the film descends into outright farce.

But all in all it's rollicking entertainment which accomplishes the amazing feat of capturing the perverse brutality of slavery (in particular with the mandingo fighting sub-plot) while plucking an intuitive chord of connection with our contemporary social-political predicament (UFC entertainment for the underemployed masses; plantation-owner-type wealth for the 1%).