Django Unchained: A Response to an Article from The New Yorker

Django Unchained has just been released on DVD so it is fitting to address a review I came across
about the film.

This particular review has come to us from The New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/01/django-unchained-reviewed-tarantinos-crap-masterpiece.html

A Lesson in Phrenology from Candie

While I agree with s lot of the points Mr. Denby has said like when he said that "'Django Unchained' is [Tarantino's] most entertaining piece of moviemaking since 'Pulp Fiction.'” Django is an incredibly entertaining movie, probably one of the best films to come from Mr. Tarantino.

That being said I would have to disagree with Mr. Denby on some key issues.

Firstly Denby states that the idea of the bounty hunter Dr. Schultz deciding to help Django rescue his wife doesn't fit the character as: 

"The vicious comic cynicism of the first half gives way to vicious unbelievable sentiment of the second half. The murderous bounty hunter has a heart of gold."

Denby argues that this makes the second half of the move "nonsensical", but I feel it fits perfectly with Schultz's character as the rescue attempt did not happen half-cocked or even immediately after Schultz hears about Django's predicament. 

No, Schultz instead offers to form a partnership with Django throughout the winter, then after they take down a few more bounties, then they would form a plan to rescue Django's wife. 

This partnership makes sense for three reasons: 

1. Schultz is a man of money, shown by his speech in the saloon when he equivocates bounty hunting to the slave trade. He holds no emotion toward the people he kills the same way a slave trader feels toward the people he buys and sells. They are simple dollar signs to Schultz, and Django has proved he can get Schultz more of those dollar signs. 

2. As Schultz alluded to with his story about the man who really needed a horse from a farmer who is unwilling to sell, they need a lot of cash to impress the business minded Candie, in order to have a hope of obtaining Django's wife. The 75 dollars originally promised by Schultz will do little to help Django in his efforts, so Schultz promises to help Django, only after Django helps Schultz gain some profits during the winter. 

3. Schultz is not completely heartless as his profession would suggest, he is a man, however, who is very set in his morals. He sees the men he is sent to kill by the courts as the crimes they have committed. A key scene that illustrates this point is when Schultz and Django are taking aim at a bounty who is working on his farm with his son. Django protests at the killing of the man in front of his son, but Schultz never falters saying that if the bounty wanted to be a farmer, he shouldn't have killed anyone. 

A Revisionist Spaghetti Western

Schultz golden heart is shown a second time when the slave d'Artagnan is about to be eaten alive by
dogs, and Schultz offers to buy him off of Candie, but Django flat out refuses in order to get the job done. The guilt that this incident inflicts onto Schultz becomes too much to bear, causing him to become so disgusted with Candie that the thought of shaking the man's hand would drive him to murder.

Another problem I find with Denby's article is his comment on Tarantino's use of the n-word in this film. He states:

"By the end of the movie, the n-word loses its didactic value as a sign of racism. It seems like a word that Tarantino is very comfortable with- it was all over "Pulp Fiction," too. In his own way, Tarantino has restored 'nigger' to common usage in the movies." 

I feel that if Tarantino has become "comfortable" with this word, it is because society has become comfortable with it once again, as they were in the time of slavery. Tarantino did not write the speech as a reflection of pre-Civil War America, he wrote it as a reflection of Modern Day America. 

This intention can be referenced by Tarantino's choice of music throughout the film. He interlaces classic western motifs with songs from artists like Rick Ross or 2pac, a clear intention to unite the past and the present, forcing us to take notice about how often that word gets thrown around in modern day vernacular. 

A third problem I find with Denby's analysis of Django is his comment of the fundamental nature of a Tarantino film. That is Tarantino's use of violence throughout his films. 

Denby states: "Tarantino's nature condemns him to always go over the top...The comic hyping of each speech, each emotion, each act, becomes wearisome...Look at the somberly impressive violence in something like 'Zero Dark Thirty' and you'll realize how cheap the mayhem in 'Django' is." 

This condemnation is as much an apple-to-oranges comparison as an argument can get. A film like Zero Dark Thirty and all aspects of it, including its use of violence, cannot be compared to a film like Django. Django is not as serious of a film as Zero Dark Thirty, so naturally its use of violence will not be as "somberly impressive", nor should it be. 

Overall Django Unchained is not a film for everyone. Even I, a fan of Tarantino, felt the violence went a bit too far, but it was still an excellent example of movie making on multiple levels, and I hope to more films like this from Tarantino in the future.  

1. Denby, David. "Django Unchained" Put-On, Revenge, and the Aesthetics of Trash. The New  Yorker, 22, Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

2. Tarantino, Quentin, dir. Django Unchained. Columbia Pictures, 2012. Film.

Would James Bond work as a American agent?

With the 50th anniversary of James Bond upon us, and Daniel Craig helping to release the new Range Rover Sport in New York:

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/Its-here-the-new-Range-Rover-Sport-2013-03-26

A simple question is posed:

Would Bond's British bravado transfer across the pond?

On the surface it would be a resounding 'No'. There's something about the British accent that seems to give license to Bond's boorish behavior with women and makes the willingness of these women to jump into bed with Bond more believable.

But that is not the main reason that Bond would seemingly not work as an American character, a good writer and a good actor could make these behaviors believable, despite any accent. The main obstacle for Bond's puddle jump is what makes Bond's so legendary.

The latest Bond, Craig (left), and the first Bond, Connery (right)

Bond could be anyone at any time, not only in his service to Queen and country, but as a character. Very little back story is ever given about Bond, making him immortal and immune to the constant changing of the actors. He is a timeless character, able to reincarnate to face any new threat that the world faces.

But as soon as Bond walks on on screen, you know what sort of man he is: a man of privilege, a man of class, a man in high social standing. This is what would fundamentally not transfer over to the States.

America has always been a nation of underdogs. Even from its birth, America has always been against long odds, something we have in common with Mr. Bond, as he has always been one man vs. the world, protecting his country from evils known and unknown. Something that is almost fundamentally American.   

But if fundamentally Bond stands for the same ideals that America does, why couldn't he be an American agent? 

American heroes are not privileged, nor are they born with a sliver spoon. In the latest incarnation of Bond, Skyfall, we learn more of Bond's orphan childhood, but since then he has lived the greatest life of privilege that the British government can afford. This lifestyle is what prevents Bond from being an American hero. He is still an underdog, but he is wrapped under too many layers of tuxedo to be an American agent.
    Over the last 50 years Bond has become too engrained in human culture as England itself, to work for any other country. Bond, like Holmes, Who, or Shakespeare, can only work as a British character. 

A Tale of Two Cities: Hadleyville and Big Whiskey

From real life to the cinematic, violence has permeated our every day. One film genre in particular, the western, has had violence as a staple from the very beginning.   

Evolving over the years from a clinically-clean old west to a nitty-gritty west of modern culture, popular tastes and historical events have dictated how violence is depicted in this genre. 

A look at a classical western and a look at a revisionist western will illustrate this evolution. High Noon, released in 1952, is an example of a classical western, in which violence was as clean as the cowboys’ shirts and the protagonists were noble to a fault. 

In contrast to the classical western we have the revisionist westerns, like Unforgiven, which seek to shed new light on the western and take a fresh look at the genre. With this fresh look, came a new take on violence and a new take on ‘the hero’. 

Eastwood's grittier western 'hero'

Compared to High Noon, Unforgiven, released in 1992, takes a drastically different approach to violence and its depiction.  This polarized shift is not only shown in the films plots and character development, but in their camera work and use of sound.

            

Films, like any art form, do not stand devoid of time and space; they very much exist within a certain time and place, along within the culture they came from.  This frame of mind will help us to better understand High Noon. The era High Noon was released was a time of newly found peace and prosperity. The great depression was behind us, as was WWII, and the baby boom was well on its way. 

They were happy days for our country; looked back fondly on by numerous films and TV shows, showing a content population who knew where they and their country stood in this world. Even during something as horrible as a Second World War, we still had a clear definition of whom the enemy was and why we were fighting. America had a noble cause to go to war.  

This is the very sentiment that is shown in High Noon. The marshal, Will Kane, like America during these times, was the clear cut, quintessential good guy with clear cut bad guys to fight. With little mention of the back story of Frank Miller, the ruthless killer that plagued the city of Hadleyville, there is no way for the audience to relate to him and possibly feel sympathy toward him. Kane is meant to be nothing but noble.

This nobility never falters during the course of the film, even during his acts of violence. The first act of violence we see during the film is Kane punching the man in the bar, with one clean, swift punch. No blood, no mess, nothing but a sore jaw. Kane even has the decency to try to help the guy to his feet. In fact the only use of blood in the film occurs on Kane’s face after he gets in a fight with his former deputy in the barn, knocking him out but still having the decency to help him wake up.

Quick and clean

The deaths in High Noon were extremely clean cut and swift. Frank Miller’s posse fell like metal ducks at the carnival; their deaths being nothing more than an inevitability. Even the death of Frank Miller was quick and clean, only taking a bit longer because he took Kane’s wife as a hostage.

These depictions of violence stand in stark contrast to the much more intense and graphic violence of Unforgiven. As opposed to the deaths in Hadleyville, the deaths in the town of Big Whiskey were much more prolonged, with much more attention given to them.  Death becomes a bigger part of the myth of the west. 

If you look at the death of the first cowboy in Unforgiven, he gets shot in the stomach, and suffers an agonizing death. The depiction of this death is extremely impactful in both its camerawork and use of sound. This spilling of innocent blood was given great attention with the close-ups and medium shots of Davy and his gut wound, along with his cries for help echoing off the canyon walls. The camera was placed on his level as we were not meant to look down on him and feel some detached sense of pity, but instead we were meant to experience his death on his level.   

The deaths in High Noon were mostly shot from far away, leaving us to remain detached from the killings. So much so, that as the gunfight reaches its crescendo, it is hard to keep track of exactly who is getting killed. As for sound, the only sound during the killing is gunshots, no cries for help from the slain.  

As to why the depiction of violence is so much more graphic in a revisionist western we must again look at history for the answer. Like the classical westerns, revisionist westerns came during a time of war, the only difference being that now wars are broadcasted every night into our living rooms. A trend that started with the Vietnam War that continues to this day.  

 This bombardment of death and violence will naturally wind its way into popular culture and our films. I feel that this is the reason why the depiction of violence has gone through such dramatic shift over time. We as a culture have become desensitized to the violence and the changing nature of war has caused our sense of right and wrong to become blurred. 

We went from the no-doubt-about-it Will Kane-esque good guys in the fight, to still doing right but not necessarily in the ‘right’ way, Will Munny-esque character.  On the surface our intentions may seem merely monetary to most, but if you look a little deeper there is still a sense of wanting to bring justice to those that have been wronged. 

It is only natural that the film genre that is so quintessentially American would follow that same evolution that American culture has gone through.

Genre-Bending Soylent Green

As more stories are told in films, more and more often the lines between genres can become blurred. An early example of this is Soylent Green (1973).

Soylent Green, like much of the 70’s, is hard to categorize. The easiest category to place it into would have to be the science fiction genre; if only based on the fact that it takes place in the future and the majority of the plot is rooted deep in science. Another category that it can be placed into would be the fantasy genre; a little harder to rationalize but as Sanders states “the cannibal denouement…is pure fantasy” (Sanders 327). 

Both these points are valid and arguable, but there is a third genre it could be placed in, namely ‘science fantasy’. Now, this may seem like a cop-out, but it is a valid cop-out.

In order to understand this cop-out, there must first be a definition of the two genres. Firstly fantasy is a genre that “violates the conventional norms of possibility” (Malmgren 260). The term fantasy evokes Lord of the Rings-esque images of dragons, wizards, short-guys and flaming eyes. 

Well, where does that leave Soylent Green? Well, as Sanders argues the simple idea of cannibalism does in fact violate these conventional norms, thusly placing this into the fantasy genre.        

But this is not the end of the story, because Soylent Green can also be placed very comfortably into the science fiction genre, a genre that “dictate[s] that the author thereafter adhere to the laws of nature and the laws inherent to the scientific method” (Malmgren 260). 

Soylent Green does in fact adhere to these laws. The film showed many examples of this: the highly processed, highly nutritious, highly efficient, food stuffs to feed a population growing out of control, or how the beginning of the film showed how the scientific advances supposed to make life easier, in fact caused the death of the beauty of the planet. Based on these ideas, Soylent Green can be placed quiet squarely into the science fiction genre.

But where does this leave Soylent Green? It would seem very little has been answered here in respect to the question of which genre to place the film. Have a little faith. For as stated earlier, this film should not be placed in either genre but instead placed into a mash up of the two genres. Genre lines are often blurred and fudged, and Soylent Green is a perfect example of this.

This film has examples of both science fiction and fantasy, which in a sense is contradictory of itself as fantasy films are allowed, if not required, to violate all that science fiction stands for. If a fantasy film wants to introduce a lion, a witch, or a wardrobe, it simply does it. There’s no explanation needed as there is in a science fiction movie (Malmgren 261). 

So based on this, a few conclusions about Soylent Green can be drawn. The film does provide an explanation for the need for the processed food stuffs, as the population was exploding out of control, but the cannibalism, argued by Sanders, is “pure fantasy”, therefore has no, and needs no, explanation.

This leads us to the science fantasy genre, which has the orderly, explainable universe of a science fiction film, but like a fantasy film it contains “at least one violation of the laws that we derive from the current state of science” (261). So by this definition Soylent Green fits perfectly into this definition. The majority of the film is well explained by science but it throws a profound curve with the cannibalism aspect.

               

 The idea and definition of genres are very complicated and often times get blurred and mashed together in all sorts of ways. Some of these can be very strange but others can work so well that they could one day be their own genre. One example of this is the idea of ‘science fantasy’ and a good example of a film that will represent this genre in the future is Soylent Green.   

  

          Work Cited

       1. Malmgren, Carl D. "Towards A Definition Of Science Fantasy." Science Fiction Studies 15.3             (1988): 259-281. Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 13 May 2012.

      

      2. Sanders, John. The Film Genre Book. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur, 2009. Print.

The Pipe Dream

I have one dream in this life and it is quite simple:

Become famous enough so that Microsoft Word doesn't mark down my last name as a misspelling.

That little red squiggle is the bane of my existence. Every header it sits there, taunting me, laughing at me, like a red neon sign saying: 'you aren't there yet.' Well, every rap song tells me to turn the fears and discouragement into motivation, so, that's what I'm going to do. Hopefully, I'll be the last Defrese to struggle with that little red squiggle.

One can hope.

That's all we really got in this world. Now, bear with me, I'll keep my philosophical stuff short, but what did Andy Dufresne tell us about hope in Shawshank Redemption?

"Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

But Billy Joel also said "Only the good die young," so, while I'm still young, I'm going to hope, and besides you can't spell Dufresne without Defrese and failure is a part of success, specifically the 'u' and the 'e'. 

Anyways, this blog is intended to analyze various films and film scripts for your reading pleasures. That's the intention anyways, what actually happens may be something completely different, but feel free to add your thoughts on the various movies I pick, and to suggest your own. 

I'll leave you with something that has helped me in my numerous moments of self doubt, from Mr. Stan Lee:

Face Front.