Django Unchained left me in stitches.
Yes, there was the side-splitting, fall-out-of-your-chair comedy delivered masterfully by Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz. But there was something else that cut at me. It wasn't deep enough to hinder my enjoyment of a truly excellent film by Quentin Tarantino, but there was a scar I couldn't help picking at in the hours after I left the theater.
It all started with one scene. Django, played by Jamie Foxx, is sitting with Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) in a cave after having killed the three brothers they were looking for. Django is a slave that Schultz rescued so that he could assist Schultz in the capture of the aforementioned brothers. During their time together, Django shares with bounty hunter Schultz that he is married to a fellow slave who happens to speak German. Schultz is German, and explains that her name, Broomhilda, comes from a well-known German tale. The camera shots during the telling of this tale frames Django below Schultz, looking on with wide-eyed wonder as the man who secured his freedom tells the story. Even those not well-versed in film theory could see the underlying power dynamic established in that scene alone.
The film is titled Django Unchained, but there were times when I questioned how much the film was about that character. It seemed as if the film belonged as much to Christoph Waltz as it did to Jamie Foxx. It could be the issue of acting, but still, something about that didn't seem right, not to take away from any of the performances, of course.
I'll reiterate that Django Unchained is an excellent film that has enough gore and humor to make the two and a half hours worth it. I commend Quentin Tarantino for telling an excellent story and not pulling any punches regarding its source of inspiration.
However, I still found myself troubled by how inconsequential Django was in his own story. The majority of his agency stems from a white man, from his release from bondage to his brand-new career as a bounty hunter. Even the film's resolution, which I won't ruin for those who haven't seen it yet, owes a considerable amount to Dr. Schultz. Although Dr. Schultz is a "good guy", a foil to the evil Mr. Candie, he is still white, which means that he still benefits from the institution of slavery, and admits as much to Django in their first conversation. This also means that Django is still indebted to a white man, although the terms are a lot less severe. This debt is resolved in the film's third act, in typical bloody Tarantino fashion, but it remains that it existed in the first place. As a young black man watching this film, about a slave exacting his revenge against the institution that caused irreparable harm to him and countless others, it bothered me how much of that revenge was made possible by a white man.
I completely understand that Django, like other Tarantino films, is an extension of his wonderfully twisted fantasies and maybe shouldn't be delved in too deeply or taken too seriously. Unlike Spike Lee, I also wasn't bothered by the liberal use of the N-word because that was a reality of slavery back then, as were the whippings and the scars that were also present in the film. I just would've liked to see Django being more responsible for his agency throughout the film, serving a more equal and powerful role to Dr. Schultz.
Then again, maybe it would have been too beyond the scope of reality. Much of the film is beyond that scope, but it is an undeniable and harsh truth that the agency of blacks, especially in comparison to whites, was nonexistent during slavery, sans an infinitesimal few. Yes, Django Unchained is blood-soaked, hilarious, and excessive in every possible way, but it is surprising because of the indelible scars that it has and will uncover in the collective African-American consciousness, the same scar I was picking at watching that cave scene. In an era where the relevance of our complicated, heartbreaking past within our present seems to fade, Django Unchained is an excellent film to bring it all into perspective.
2 comments:
I completely and disagree with your reception of the film as belonging more to Schultz, played by Christoph Waltz, than to Jamie's character Django.
It's completely true that Django's agency is is indebted to Schultz for freeing him from the shackles of slavery, but the obvious center-piece of the film is Django. Sure, one could read the story as one that could not have unfolded if not for the self-interested Schultz's quest for securing the bounty of the fugitives he was after. The reality, though, is that the the story became all about Django after the first act, after having killed the three brothers Django and Schultz were after.
Schultz even admits in the second act of the film that he will help Django rescue his wife because he feels "somehow responsible" for Django's well-being despite having no contractual obligation to him.
The story then goes on and unfolds and becomes all about Django's quest to rescue his wife, a quest in which he is the star-player. Schultz procures the arrangements to infiltrate Candyland, but the success of the operation almost entirely rests on Django's ability to maintain his cover as the Mandingo fighting expert, as emphasized by the scenes for he first sees his wife, and his conversations with Candy.
What you fail to mention and dare I say realize is the time in which this movie is being portrayed. I can follow your logic to your conclusion, but your overall premise is flawed. It is true that Django's freedom came from the hands of white man, in this time period show me another avenue Tarantino could have used to make the story plausible, if not believable, but it is merely by agency of Django that the agency of Dr. Schultz exist. Without the centerpiece of Django and his quest to save his love the agency of Schultz has no meaning and thus no story. The dear doctor would have fulfilled the obligation of his contract, given Django his money and freedom and been on his merry way.
That scar that you vehemently wanted to scratch may have something to do with the unresolved emotion connected to that time period or possible the ambiguous nature of being black in America now. But you associate being the star of a movie as having the power and control and yes in that scene Dr. Shultz has the power, but that had been the dynamic of the relationship to that point. And after the story of Broomhilda has been reveal, the dear Dr. Schultz becomes the Robin to Django's Batman. And if you can't tell that from watching the entirety of the movie with the same intensity as you watched that one particular scene, I implore you to do so.
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