Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, now with Trailer

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

It was a blast--similar thematic ground as Inglorious Basterds, though not as challenging. I certainly made it an odd double-feature with Wreck-It Ralph.

It has a much better soundtrack, though. The soundtrack (I bought it) reminds me somewhat of the ground that was covered in Pulp Fiction. Along with new music by Morriconne.

Saw this on New Year's Day and loved it. The juxtaposition of revenge fantasy, humor, and hard subject matter was very audacious.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

It was a blast--similar thematic ground as Inglorious Basterds, though not as challenging. I certainly made it an odd double-feature with Wreck-It Ralph.

Interesting, as I thought it was a much more challenging film than IB. It's certainly cut from the same cloth, but IB would be more like DU if it showed glimpses of the camps. Minor nit pick, and certainly could be due more to my personal background.

The soundtrack is amazing as well. I've had a lot of fun going back through that.

Well, all I will have to say is that the cowboy buddy music when Waltz and Foxx set off on their destiny was Jim Croce's "Down the Highway". I admit, I shed a tear or two. Tarantino is a genius putting music to his scenes!

I think he may have outdone himself with the brutality in this one. It was more uncomfortable in several scenes than anything he has created before. But I don't think it can be argued that those moments were not especially poignant to the story.

Lastly:

Spoiler:

d'Artangan mother f*cker!

Stilgar Black wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

It was a blast--similar thematic ground as Inglorious Basterds, though not as challenging. I certainly made it an odd double-feature with Wreck-It Ralph.

Interesting, as I thought it was a much more challenging film than IB. It's certainly cut from the same cloth, but IB would be more like DU if it showed glimpses of the camps. Minor nit pick, and certainly could be due more to my personal background.

I think the atrocities in DU (the prize fight and the dogs in particular) make it a much harder film to watch, but also make it much more clear where the film stands on its villains throughout--they richly deserve everything that's coming. Without getting into my full dissertation, IB feels the same way, but has the Zoller character, the kid soldier who seems like he's just a nice guy, but is ultimately revealed as another vicious, cruel Nazi who meets a just end. IB keeps the atrocities at arms length in a way that I don't think DU could for a lot of reasons. So, if any of that makes sense, that's what I meant by challenging. Though, I have read many, many more fascinating columns about DU this past week than I ever have about IB, which has been great.

I think I understand you now, especially with regards as the some of the Nazi's (initial) moral ambiguity, and that's a good point. One might argue that Stephen was this film's Zoller, but that would lead to several pages of text I don't have the luxury of writing at the moment.

Stephen and Zoller being connected, I hadn't thought of that, but, yeah, they're almost inversions of each other.

Heh, this is helping me shrug off the QT talk that was happening in the blasphemies thread.

My local radio station was playing the Django Unchained soundtrack on the air during rush hour. I loved it.

A week after seeing this, I saw IB for the first time. I really enjoyed Django, but damn was IB so much better. Loved it.

I watched Django the other day and I thought it was superior in every aspect to Inglorious Basterds. From a historical concept (and accuracy), visual aspects and effects, soundtrack and, most importantly, the ability of the actors to portray a role. Only, IMO, did the girl, the black guy and the german commander (it's been a while so I forgot their names) in IB acquit themselves well. In Django I don't remember a single performance falling flat.

Having watched so many World War films and westerns I felt that Inglorious Basterds was just a circlejerk of whatifs.... whereas Django was a fantastic* realisation of what happened.

*As in fantasy, not "great" as it can also mean.

[edit] Not to mention that I felt that a lot of IB was overtly distasteful for the sake of it, whereas all the uncomfortable scenes in DU were bearable because they made sense and had a point beyond shocking the audience.

Duoae wrote:

all the uncomfortable scenes in DU were bearable because they made sense and had a point beyond shocking the audience.

This.

Stephen is a quintessential Uncle Tom. He was willing to sell out his fellow slaves in order to maintain the good grace of Monsieur Candie.

Zoller is not selling anyone out, he is trying to bank on his newfound celebrity to get with Shoshanna.

I'm not very far into the movie, but just saw the part

Spoiler:

about the bags with the holes

and laughed my ass off. Worth it for that alone.

Loved this movie. Like most Tarantino films you tend to wait in anticipation for the bloodbath, and it of course delivers, but it's a well told story even without the violence.

Why did Tarantino and the other mining company guy have the terrible Aussie accents though? That was weird. Music was excellent though, of course.

nel e nel wrote:

Stephen is a quintessential Uncle Tom. He was willing to sell out his fellow slaves in order to maintain the good grace of Monsieur Candie.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. In any system where people are downtrodden there's often an element of those very people who can still be resistant to change because they fear possible consequences. For some people the possibility of an uncertain future is worse than a definite life of drudgery.

The name of the mining company was Australian IIRC. Since the slave trade involved countries all over the world, it would not be out of place to have Australians involved.

Looked it up: LeQuint Dickey Mining Co.

Australian accents: Tarantino’s Australian accent as an employee of the LeQuint-Dickey Mining Company is probably meant as a shout-out to the Ozploitation films the writer-director likes so much, but we also have a crazy alternate theory: It might also be a nod to James Mason’s famously awful southern accent in the infamous Mandingo (see under: Mandingo Circuit) — an accent so bad it actually sounds Australian.

From here.

garion333 wrote:
Australian accents: Tarantino’s Australian accent as an employee of the LeQuint-Dickey Mining Company is probably meant as a shout-out to the Ozploitation films the writer-director likes so much, but we also have a crazy alternate theory: It might also be a nod to James Mason’s famously awful southern accent in the infamous Mandingo (see under: Mandingo Circuit) — an accent so bad it actually sounds Australian.

From here.

That's a great source. I want to see some of those Sergio Corbucci movies now.

Oh god. The accent....

I'd entertain the point about it being an intentionally bad accent if anyone could point me towards a single time anyone's convincingly portrayed an Australian accent on screen without it being their own accent to start with.