Jango Unchained Official Site
A
Movie Review by Michael L. Johnson
Much has been heatedly discussed,
particularly in black intellectual circles, about Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino's latest film, in the week that
it has been out. In fact, before the movie came out, Director Spike Lee said of
the film that ““I can’t speak on it ‘cause I'm not gonna see it…All I’m going
to say is that it’s disrespectful to my ancestors. That’s just me...I’m not
speaking on behalf of anybody else” (Afro,
par. 3). Arguably,
no other film released in 2012 has generated so much passionate debate about
racism in Hollywood in general and the racism embedded one film in
particular. That dialog is a good thing. Django
Unchained is essentially an ex-slave/black cowboy/revenge flick. It
features Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, as
well as Samuel L. Jackson, and tracks the story of the protagonist (Django,
played by Jamie Foxx) on a quest to rescue his wife (played by Kerry
Washington) from a sadistic, narcissistic, slave owner (played with panache by
Leonardo DiCaprio). The Majestic Theater
in Silver Spring filled my popcorn box this week and that was also a very good
thing.
The
Good: To some extent,
the horrors of slavery are depicted in the film. And in the course of Django's quest, he kills
a boat load of white racists, slavers, and night riders. Wonderful. The witness
of a black hero killing off white domestic terrorists (even if they happened to
be female) was welcome, entertaining and something rarely seen in Hollywood
movies. The cinematography and overall homage-to-Westerns-feel of the film is also
good.
The acting in Django Unchained is, for the most part,
outstanding, which is true of all of Quentin Tarantino's films. Christoph Waltz, who many will remember as
the sociopathic Nazi detective in Inglorious
Bastards, gives a stunning performance as “Dr. King Schultz,” a German
bounty hunter, and Django's mentor. As
I mentioned, Leonardo DiCaprio, cast as Mississippi slave owner “Calvin
Candie,” plays his role with riveting screen presence. He is utterly
cold-hearted and despicable. However, that said, Samuel L. Jackson, who plays “Stephen"
(the king of Uncle Tom, house Negroes in the film), absolutely steals the show
of most hated characters in Django
Unchained. He is phenomenally charismatic in his role as Django's foil.
Samuel L. Jackson makes us hate this character almost as much as the character
hates himself. Whether you love or hate Tarantino's film, the fact that it
features some of the best actors alive is irrefutable.
What is also
irrefutable is that the “N-word” is ever-present in Django Unchained. Although
it may surprise some folks to hear me say that its deployment in this film is a “good” thing, that is exactly what I
am going to do. (Bear with me here, there is method to the madness of my
argument.)
The film is set in
America during a time of slavery, and the use of the word “nigger is, to some
extent, historically appropriate. Although,
to be honest, even in that context, I think Tarantino overuses the hateful term
(perhaps for shock value). However, in spite of that fact, I believe it is good to be reminded (through the pain of
Tarantino’s overuse of the word “nigger”) that no one should be
spreading the word’s dehumanizing venom.
Ironically, Tarantino's film achieves that goal.
All too often, I have
noticed that many black folks only get upset about the use of the word “nigger”
when they hear white people say it. In fact, some black people have accused
Tarantino of exercising “white privilege” by using the word in his films. I wouldn’t disagree, but I would also add that
to a significant degree many black people are hypocritical when it comes to our
indignation about the N-word’s use. In
fact, millions of African Americans believe it is okay for black folks to use
the word “nigger” just as long as we apply the term to ourselves. If African Americans find the use of the word
“nigger” in Django Unchained
distracting, wonderful. We should be disturbed by it. But I hope our anger at Tarantino’s overuse
of the word “nigger” also translates into a rebuke we level at our own overuse
of the word. If that does not happen, we will continue to exercise the sad “black
privilege” of self-hatred. I hope that all people who see Django Unchained are so bothered by the N-word that they will
boycott from their tongues forever.
The
Bad:
Slavery wasn't funny. It wasn’t a cartoon.
Night riders weren't funny. Violence isn’t funny. Any film that engages the subject of slavery
becomes too heavy to be made light.
Tarantino is a funny guy. However, there are sections of his film where
he attempts to incorporate a Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles-like, humor into a
fairly intense revenge flick, and it doesn’t work.
Let Mel Brooks be Mel Brooks. He is much better at it. Also the film is far from historically
accurate. The film features some Mandingo/MMA
style slave fights (for the entertainment of the slaver owners) that have little
basis in fact. In a recent blog post on Next Movie, journalist Max Evry shared
reflections on Django Unchained’s
historical inaccuracies via the reflections of Dr. Edna Greene Medford,
Professor and chair of the history department at Howard University. Medford’s writes,
“My area of expertise is slavery, Civil War, and reconstruction and I have
never encountered something like
[Mandingo Fighting]…I've never seen any evidence of it” (Next Movie, Par. 5).
On the subject of
acting, although both Kerry Washington and Jamie Foxx are deeply gifted actors,
their work in Django Unchained is not
stellar. Foxx is competent in his role
as the heroic black cowboy, but he isn’t great.
Kerry Washington is also a supremely talented actress; however, her
voice in Django Unchained is
supremely absent. Her character screams and cries and looks beautiful, but that’s
about it. I would have like to have heard
more of her voice, or her story. Black
women, during slavery, and even now, have never been just ornamental in African
American culture. One more thing:
Quentin Tarantino should not act in his own films. Acting is not his strength,
to put it kindly. It is frequently an
exhibition of vanity when directors make cameos in the movies they make. His brief appearance in the movie was
excruciatingly bad.
Lastly, the idea that
guns and violence equates to power and freedom is a dangerous one in America,
and similarly, in Django Unchained. While this is true of all great Westerns,
like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven and
many other films, I cannot endorse this theme. In light of the recent school
shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and the countless numbers of young black
people who continue to be shot down in many of our cities, the timing of
Quentin Tarantino's film release is troubling.
Furthermore, all of the days of the year to release a film with as much
violence as there is in this movie, to release it on Christmas Day is
incredibly distasteful. (As an aside, let me say that Django Unchained deserves every inch of its R rating for the
graphic violence, vicious fight scenes, language, and nudity it contains. Please do not allow children to see this
movie.)
The
most important question: is it a good film?
Before I answer that
question, I'll ask and answer some other, perhaps more pertinent,
questions. Is Django Unchained a black movie? No.
Does Django Unchained address the
subject of slavery with the reverence it deserves? No. Would I expect to see a
white filmmaker make a big budget Hollywood movie that addresses the subject of
slavery with the reverence it deserves? Again, no. If African Americans want to
see those kinds of movies made, will we have to make them ourselves? Absolutely. It is in our hands.
Django
Unchained is not a great film, but it is worth seeing (if for
no other reason than to be able to decide for yourself its merit). On a scale of 1 to 5 where 5 is best,
yes, I'd rate it a 3.5.
--MLJ
Works
Cited
Evry,
Max. “'Django' Unexplained: Was Mandingo Fighting a Real Thing?” Nextmovie.com.
Next
Movie, 26 Dec. 2012. Web. 30 Dec. 2012.
Prince,
Zenitha. “Spike Lee: “Django Unchained”
Disrespectful to Black Heritage.” Afro.com.
Afro.
28 Dec. 2012. Web. 30 Dec. 2012.
