Django Unchained - Avant-Garde Or Just Antebellum All The Way To The Bank?
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| Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen in Tarantino's Django Unchained |
I went to a few galleries this week and I’ve decided that
one thing I like about art is that it prompts great writing, sometimes mind
expanding writing. Curators and
directors across the globe engross us in imaginative hyperbole and
mind-expanding text that many times is not supported by what is on the wall in
front of you, but that’s ok the writing is to support the art. Such is the world of movies and
reviews.
One can read some very insightful commentary on the problem
with Django and its merit. I like
that Django will incite conversation however to me the commentaries on race and
stereotype are all but wasted because they should not be offered up to such a
poor movie.
The movie has garnered best picture nomination from the
Producers Guild Award (PGA) proving I guess that I no nothing about film.
What made Spike Lee think Django Unchained would be that bad and was it?
Spike Lee say...
"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors to see that film. That's the only thing I'm gonna say," he explained. "I can't disrespect my ancestors. I can't do it. Now, that's me. I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody but myself. I can't do it."
The problem with Spike Lee is that he speaks out on so much so when people “see him coming” they start rolling their eyes, or in the case of this movie, buckin their eyes before he opens his mouth. I think Mr. Lee was spot on. Yes it was that bad.
But wait Spike you haven't seen the action figure... Yall think I'm kidding. To be fair many of his movies, like Kill Bill and Reservoir Dog have action figures.
But wait Spike you haven't seen the action figure... Yall think I'm kidding. To be fair many of his movies, like Kill Bill and Reservoir Dog have action figures.
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| Community activist Najee Ali holds a picture an action figure depicting Calvin Candie, Leonardo DiCaprio's character from the Quentin Tarantino film "Django Unchained," during a news conference Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2013, in Los Angeles. The slavery-era figures are raising questions about whether they're appropriate. Ali, director of the advocacy group Project Islamic Hope, plans to call for the removal of the toys from the market. (AP Photo/Nick Ut) (The Daily Republic) |
This movie could be jumping the shark for Tarantino, if he is not careful, with his
characteristic over the top violence like watching Elvis after he had become a
caricature of himself; it was still Elvis but... It is still Tarantino but he seems to have forgotten
how to tell a story in this django.
It was difficult to suspend reality enough to enjoy the
movie on so many levels, on one level because the absolute horrors of slavery
and its aftermath seem to have eluded Tarantino and no one should be surprised. His first written and directed movie,
not counting My Best Friends Birthday, 1987 that he did on $5000, is Reservoir
Dogs. It is bloody, quirky, well
written, violent and of course very well directed. In "Dogs" Tarantino
spins a good tale.
What is distasteful is that Django is not about any of the
issues raised or socio-racial dynamics captured in the movie by any stretch of
the imagination. They are tools;
they are all a backdrop for Tarantino’s Spaghetti Western period. Again the movie has all the blood we
now expect from good Massa Quentin but the only palpable violence in the movie
is exacted against black folk, he didn’t understand the impact of the
historical context on our American psyche and this eluded most of the movie
goers I spoke to. In a Terry Gross
interview he says a few things that show he didn’t have a clue; one of them
being the fact that what happened to Black folks on the real, was a 1,000 times
worst than what happens in his movie. He does not understand that his over the
top violence was compared to a reality of Black life up through the 70s, the
1970s in this country and paled by comparison.
The movie isn’t even a morality tale even though the good
guy literally wins and gets the girl. Nobody dies as a blow to systemic racism they all die within
it except for maybe Stephen. That payoff was not worth watching a Black man
being ripped to sheds by dogs that real history is not behind us those wounds
are not healed in Black consciousness.
It was not worth watching two Black men fighting to the death for the
sport and the entertainment of White folks with one bludgeoning another to
death with a claw hammer in a plantation parlor his reward, time off from
fighting and a beer. During this scene a beautiful female house nigger,
wonderfully dressed smiles aloofly in the background seated sipping
brandy.
Which one of you says this dynamic sans
brandy slurping Black woman is not alive and well in these here United States? Unfortunately many would say that
irrespective of the pageant of step and fetch it rapper buffoons and video
vixens in front of the camera with until recently non Blacks behind the camera. As an aside it is very telling that Jay
Z was all right with “bitches and hoes” for your daughter but his child was too
good for it; that’s what it took?
Incidentally,
throughout the movie King (I wonder why he picked this name?) Schultz, a bounty
hunter who, during this time period had to have seen unmitigated violence
against Black folk before is shaken by the violence several times … but oh no
not the Black folk who could be subject to it at anytime on a whim.
I know there comes a time when what is sacred joins the
ranks of the profane you see it in stand up comedy and advertising frequently
where something that was once taboo transitions into fair game territory. That is quickly happening with the
legacy and life of Dr. Martin Luther King as in this
example from the Colbert Report; though the joke is about the usurping of
Dr. King’s image you will notice the co-opting of the I Have A Dream Speech to
make the point and the irreverent co-opting of his image. None of the co-opting of Dr. King’s
image for cash would have been anticipated in the immediate wake of Dr. King’s
death.
If there will ever be a time for this transition concern the
violence from which we still suffer that time is not now.
As
of the 1990s it is estimated that trans Atlantic slave trade involve around 12
million Blacks that estimate down from an earlier estimate of 15million. 1.2 to 2.4 million lost their lives on
slave ships. Total lives lost are
estimated at 10 million, that includes African slaver raids and deaths in the
U.S.
“I get to kill White men and get paid for it,
what’s not to like?”
Every moviegoer of color I spoke to loved Django. Their ages ranged from late twenties to
mid fifties. Django had it’s funny
moments and its smart moments and even great Tarantino moments like the silhouette
of Django and Broomhilda “Hildie,” Django’s love interest played by Kerry
Washington in a loving moment juxtaposed against house nigger Stephen aptly
played by Samuel L. Jackson and mourners returning from the funeral of
Plantation owner Calvin Candy play by Leonardo DiCaprio. “I get to kill White men and get paid
for it, what’s not to like,” quips Django and apparent this is where many
folks’ heads were.
As a story so many things didn’t make sense like why was Django
so hateful and dismissive of Black folk more so than Candy and King Shultz
played by Christopher Waltz? It
doesn’t make sense he’d be dismissive and then kill Stephen for being an uncle
tom; there were several issues like this that are due to poor character
development. Whites seemingly had
more empathy for Blacks than did Django.
How did Django go from a tentative slave to looking white
men in the eye and “talking back” seemingly overnight?
There
is one scene in which uncle Tom house nigger Stephen has just called Candy into the
library and when Candy arrives Stephen is sitting in a chair legs crossed
swirling brand in a snifter; this along with several other moments in the film make
it easy to believe Stephen just might be part owner of the plantation! A buddy of mine who is a 75 year old
redneck from the South has a truism about Northern and Southern racism, that
goes like this; “in South you (meaning Blacks) can get as close as you want
just don’t get too high, in the North you can get as high as you want just
don’t get too close.” In this
movie we are high and close and I just couldn't suspend reality that much along with all of the other concessions the movie asks me to make.
I’ve
given this movie way more type than it deserves, it does not push the envelop
in any way creatively. The story
is boring the manipulations obvious.
Leading into the final act of the movie Dr. Schultz, Django and Hildie,
mission accomplished, that of saving Hildie are a handshake away from freedom
and good health. Inconceivably Dr. Shultz cannot bring
himself to shake hands with Candy which leads to both their deaths in a
shootout. Inconceivable except
Tarantino needed a reason to get to the final bloodbath and like many things in
this movie the failed handshake was fast and easy.
Why
do people like this movie so much?
The number one reason is our national desensitized appetite for
violence. Secondly Black folk need
to keep their history, their stories and their collective memories, hold them
dear they make us who we are. I’d
like to see Tarantino try this with instead of the 400 year Black holocaust as
a backdrop, using the Jewish holocaust of approximately 8 years in which 6-10
million Jews died, as a backdrop for his vehicles and contrivances. If this would occur I’d like to also see Spike Lee make a statement on how disrespectful it is to humankind.
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