Kamau Bell explains that Django Unchained released the n-bomb 109 times. This is a new record. Do you know what was the last record holder? Watch the two and a half minute video and find out!
I find myself in the odd middle ground of defending "Django" on some counts and decrying it on others.
The author of this site, I suspect, would not be a Tarantino fan. He is not a real groundbreaker in any sense, except how he mashes pop-culture references together.
I do like his movies. I enjoy the garbled sensibility they have. However, his mixes do bother me at times.
I’m perhaps alone in disliking "Pulp Fiction." The acting and editing were dynamic, but I was bothered by the use of violence. That was a very believable, run-down modern LA, and the movie seemed ambivalent (if not somewhat tickled) by the violence. Anyone who’s ever been involved in real-life robberies doesn’t find them amusing.
I loved "Jackie Brown." Same run-down LA, but there the violence was meant to stun and disturb you (which it did by mostly taking place just outside of camera range; what the characters were capable of became intense even if you didn’t see close-ups.)
I enjoyed, as genre silliness, "Kill Bill" and "Basterds." Both had sheer goofiness in them, and both had scenes where the violence was not intended as realistic yet made us aware of how we respond to violence in movies.
I didn’t care for "Django" — but not for any huge moralistic reason. I just thought it was an incredibly disappointing movie. It’s one thing to treat Nazi Germany in an action/revenge fashion when QT did so; many more realistic films had recently been released. But slavery is not a subject often touched on in Hollywood. While I didn’t find the movie offensive or trivializing about slavery, I think a brighter filmmaker might have been aware that he had an opportunity to do something more with the subject. Maybe give us a slaveowner character who is charming, intelligent, and makes the same excuses for slavery that modern "free-market" types make for their abuses. Show the difference between the lifestyle of wealthy slaveowners and poor Southern farmers (who switched sides a lot during the war, BTW.)
In short, challenge the audience a little. Instead, the slaveowners are all laughably gross idiots (Leo DeCaprio gives a speech justifying slavery through phrenology, which no-one now believes in, unlike free-market dogma.) Of course, the justifications for slavery were idiotic. But many slaveowners were the best and brightest, most respected high-society types of their day.
The movie sets up slavery as a "Blazing Saddles" joke and gives Jamie Foxx the opportunity to shoot-em-up. I don’t have a problem with anyone who enjoyed that cheeky revenge. Nor do I mind anyone who’s bothered by the gore and historical silliness (I doubt it was accidental.)
I think it would have been better, however, either as a sly attack on the mores of slavery, or if QT had turned it into a pure revenge/silliness flick (that would have been a commentary on how movies trivialize history by turning real issues into exciting action.) As it is, I think the movie fails on both fronts. It’s not very serious, and it’s construction is far too flawed for it to be a really enjoyable action film. I suspect QT wanted it both ways here, to get crowds roaring and get people "thinking."
Like I said — I just didn’t care for the blandness, and poor structure, of the mix which resulted. I’m not on the side of the lovers or the haters, this time.
@JMF – It isn’t that I don’t like Tarantino. I think he an extremely gifted dialog writer. As a director, he doesn’t have much in terms of style. I don’t require this, but his movies don’t have a consistent look to them. This is particularly clear in [i]Jackie Brown[/i]. It hurts the film. But I rather like it, because it has his most believable characters. That is its own indictment, though: Elmore Leonard created Tarantino’s most complex characters? Yikes!
You are right about the slave owners. And all the justifications of slavery were in defense of profits–nothing more or less. But I too have no problem with Tarantino doing his thing wherever he wants. I’m just not interested anymore.
It’s interesting to see some comments about the movie that no one believes in phreonology. However, modern MRI imaging shows a correlation between brain size and cognitive ability and there are group differences. Although they are only on average – there’s overlap. So they don’t imply much about individuals. Also, whether there are aveerage group differences or not it doesn’t imply anything about human rights.
@Josh – I would go further: I don’t believe in cognitive scales. But let’s reduce the IQ test to what it is: a test of the things it tests. There is still no good explanation of generational drift.
Traditionally, cognitive ability testing has been used for the very worst things. Murray has used it to push his social Darwinist libertarian view that inequality is just the way things ought to be. I will spare you my extensive arguments against both his philosophy and his science.
But what does any of this have to do with Tarantino? Perhaps it is because he is kind of a savant?
I find myself in the odd middle ground of defending "Django" on some counts and decrying it on others.
The author of this site, I suspect, would not be a Tarantino fan. He is not a real groundbreaker in any sense, except how he mashes pop-culture references together.
I do like his movies. I enjoy the garbled sensibility they have. However, his mixes do bother me at times.
I’m perhaps alone in disliking "Pulp Fiction." The acting and editing were dynamic, but I was bothered by the use of violence. That was a very believable, run-down modern LA, and the movie seemed ambivalent (if not somewhat tickled) by the violence. Anyone who’s ever been involved in real-life robberies doesn’t find them amusing.
I loved "Jackie Brown." Same run-down LA, but there the violence was meant to stun and disturb you (which it did by mostly taking place just outside of camera range; what the characters were capable of became intense even if you didn’t see close-ups.)
I enjoyed, as genre silliness, "Kill Bill" and "Basterds." Both had sheer goofiness in them, and both had scenes where the violence was not intended as realistic yet made us aware of how we respond to violence in movies.
I didn’t care for "Django" — but not for any huge moralistic reason. I just thought it was an incredibly disappointing movie. It’s one thing to treat Nazi Germany in an action/revenge fashion when QT did so; many more realistic films had recently been released. But slavery is not a subject often touched on in Hollywood. While I didn’t find the movie offensive or trivializing about slavery, I think a brighter filmmaker might have been aware that he had an opportunity to do something more with the subject. Maybe give us a slaveowner character who is charming, intelligent, and makes the same excuses for slavery that modern "free-market" types make for their abuses. Show the difference between the lifestyle of wealthy slaveowners and poor Southern farmers (who switched sides a lot during the war, BTW.)
In short, challenge the audience a little. Instead, the slaveowners are all laughably gross idiots (Leo DeCaprio gives a speech justifying slavery through phrenology, which no-one now believes in, unlike free-market dogma.) Of course, the justifications for slavery were idiotic. But many slaveowners were the best and brightest, most respected high-society types of their day.
The movie sets up slavery as a "Blazing Saddles" joke and gives Jamie Foxx the opportunity to shoot-em-up. I don’t have a problem with anyone who enjoyed that cheeky revenge. Nor do I mind anyone who’s bothered by the gore and historical silliness (I doubt it was accidental.)
I think it would have been better, however, either as a sly attack on the mores of slavery, or if QT had turned it into a pure revenge/silliness flick (that would have been a commentary on how movies trivialize history by turning real issues into exciting action.) As it is, I think the movie fails on both fronts. It’s not very serious, and it’s construction is far too flawed for it to be a really enjoyable action film. I suspect QT wanted it both ways here, to get crowds roaring and get people "thinking."
Like I said — I just didn’t care for the blandness, and poor structure, of the mix which resulted. I’m not on the side of the lovers or the haters, this time.
@JMF – It isn’t that I don’t like Tarantino. I think he an extremely gifted dialog writer. As a director, he doesn’t have much in terms of style. I don’t require this, but his movies don’t have a consistent look to them. This is particularly clear in [i]Jackie Brown[/i]. It hurts the film. But I rather like it, because it has his most believable characters. That is its own indictment, though: Elmore Leonard created Tarantino’s most complex characters? Yikes!
You are right about the slave owners. And all the justifications of slavery were in defense of profits–nothing more or less. But I too have no problem with Tarantino doing his thing wherever he wants. I’m just not interested anymore.
It’s interesting to see some comments about the movie that no one believes in phreonology. However, modern MRI imaging shows a correlation between brain size and cognitive ability and there are group differences. Although they are only on average – there’s overlap. So they don’t imply much about individuals. Also, whether there are aveerage group differences or not it doesn’t imply anything about human rights.
@Josh – I would go further: I don’t believe in cognitive scales. But let’s reduce the IQ test to what it is: a test of the things it tests. There is still no good explanation of generational drift.
Traditionally, cognitive ability testing has been used for the very worst things. Murray has used it to push his social Darwinist libertarian view that inequality is just the way things ought to be. I will spare you my extensive arguments against both his philosophy and his science.
But what does any of this have to do with Tarantino? Perhaps it is because he is kind of a savant?