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.