Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (a Spaghetti Western) scheduled for release Christmas 2012

[dmvisrnb]

I thought this movie was awesome...

In fact, I'm planning on goin back to see it again

 

[suge510212]

Another thing I found odd...

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

Django didn't know what "positive" meant when Shultz was taking aim on the final Brittle brother, but on the way to Candyland he said that he was "intriguing" Calvin Candie. I supposed he could have improved his vocabulary during the winter, but it was a little weird to me.

That's just me trying to nitpick though.
I also had no idea that Walton Goggins was in this. It made me happy to see that Tarantino has taken notice of his talent and seeing him play such a despicable character makes me want to see him become more of a villain and less of an anti-hero in the new season of Justified.

its simply to show the character's uniqueness for the times. based on what we know about american history and slavery the character shouldn't be able to read at all. that's why the scene where he not only spells his name, but knows the D is silent carries a lot of weight.

 

[thenewjs23]

Has anybody's parents seen this movie? I'm wondering how the older than 35 crowd has or will like this film.

My pops is 55+. He loved it.

 

[100proof]

I loved it, easily my favorite QT movie. When that 2pac dropped....

 

[deleted]

its simply to show the character's uniqueness for the times. based on what we know about american history and slavery the character shouldn't be able to read at all. that's why the scene where he not only spells his name, but knows the D is silent carries a lot of weight.

Hmmm...fair enough.

The scene where he spells his name also holds significance because the guy he's talking to was Django in the film from '66...hence the "I know..." line

 

[powerballin]

its simply to show the character's uniqueness for the times. based on what we know about american history and slavery the character shouldn't be able to read at all. that's why the scene where he not only spells his name, but knows the D is silent carries a lot of weight.

Hmmm...fair enough.

The scene where he spells his name also holds significance because the guy he's talking to was Django in the film from '66...hence the "I know..." line

good info.

 

[Ube]

Just saw it.....

I honestly already wrote off the film before I watched it. However by the end it had me clapping.
also the music chosen was too
2PAC x infiniti

 

[powerballin]

http://www.bet.com/shows/dont-sleep.html

Don't sleep episode with Jamie and QT

Interesting Jamie said during the scene where Kerry got whipped on set people cried and QT teared up and then he said "I had no idea".  How does a guy write this type of content and not think it would be this emotional and powerful.  Honestly after this interview its clear QT had no idea or care to be held responsible for what he put on screen. Also QT says " If you don't like it don't watch it, its just a movie"  He also didn't admit that the he used the N word too much.  He says "I did my thang"  I can't rock with this dude.  Sorry.  I actually went into the movie excited and with an open mind.  But after seeing the movie and his interviews I can't rock with him. 

 

[trilluminated]

the LOST fan in me was so damn happy when Django killed the first brittle brother..

i will forever hate MC Gainey.

 

[ninjahood]

Django has a shape up, must've been a clause in Jamie Fox's contract.

 

[thunderchunk69]

Django has a shape up, must've been a clause in Jamie Fox's contract.

as an NTer, it's the first thing I noticed

 

[KingParappa]

Django has a shape up, must've been a clause in Jamie Fox's contract.

as an NTer, it's the first thing I noticed

From Fredrick Douglass fro to shape up... In the trailers I was like what?! So by time the movie dropped I ignored it

 

[venom lyrix]

I actually wanted him to keep the fro for the film, It felt more fit for the part.

 

[ccastro02]

I enjoyed the film very much. I wish they woulda had more suspenseful intense scenes.

 

[checks mcgee]

Few things:


Leos swag was on 9 hundred trillion once again
Lots of funny parts, can't believe Jonah Hill made an appearance
Violence was a bit over the top but expected since its QT

Amazing movie experience overall, had a bit of everything.

 

[antonlavey]

as an NTer, it's the first thing I noticed

I turned to my brother and was like, where were slaves getting crisp T-Outliner 2 lineups back then.

 

[SneakerProSr.]

It's sad that this movie is the best representation of black love in a major motion picture.

 

[retro23j]

The KKK scene with the masks was the funniest scene in the movie by far.

Had me

 

[big j 33]

http://www.bet.com/shows/dont-sleep.html

Don't sleep episode with Jamie and QT

Interesting Jamie said during the scene where Kerry got whipped on set people cried and QT teared up and then he said "I had no idea".  How does a guy write this type of content and not think it would be this emotional and powerful.  Honestly after this interview its clear QT had no idea or care to be held responsible for what he put on screen. Also QT says " If you don't like it don't watch it, its just a movie"  He also didn't admit that the he used the N word too much.  He says "I did my thang"  I can't rock with this dude.  Sorry.  I actually went into the movie excited and with an open mind.  But after seeing the movie and his interviews I can't rock with him. 

Did he say, "I had no idea it would be emotional or powerful"?... or was it just "I had no idea it would be THAT emotional and powerful"? Out of context it sounds odd, but it seems like you're just jumping to conclusions.

How can you assume he didn't care about what he put on screen? The "if you don't like it.." line isn't untrue or disingenuous, it is just a movie at the end of the day, but that doesn't mean it can't be an important movie that prompts discussion and debate on serious issues. 

I can find interviews that show a better side of Tarantino, just as you can pick out one you dislike..

On his writing process..

QT: I never, ever relate or touch base with Quentin when I'm writing my pieces -- people can say to a fault. I follow the characters wherever they want to go.

The most I have anything to say in the matter maybe happens in the first half of the story, because I have to plan it out a little bit, build the road a touch, but I don't try to figure out much more as far as the story is concerned from the second half on. Because I know by that time -- and you're trying to predetermine something before you're actually writing -- by the time I'm actually writing, I've gotten to half of the story.

Now everything's different. I'm now those people. I've learned more about them. I am them. They are going their own way. And I might have some places I want them to go. Usually they take their time about getting there. But sometimes they get there. And if they don't want to go there, if they want to go their own way, that's them telling me it's bulls--t. So I follow their way. For better or for worse. 

So the characters really dictate and really decide. All my characters are coming from me. I don't think twice about my female characters or my male characters, my black characters or my white characters. And when I come into it, it really is to clean up plotting.

On why a slavery movie now..

QT:  Gosh, I don't know. Look, when I was doing this, I didn't know anything else was coming out. Frankly, nothing could have me more excited, from an American storytelling perspective and an American healing perspective, that maybe there is something in the air.

But eight years ago -- one of the producers on the film is Reggie Hudlin -- we got into a conversation about a movie about slavery, and he didn't like it. I actually hadn't seen the movie, and I was interested to hear why he didn't like it. And he was dissecting it -- why he didn't think, ultimately, it was as empowering as the film hoped to be.

And so he's talking, and I'm, hmm, he's making a kind of interesting case. And then he had kind of a, almost a closing Johnnie Cochran-finishing-up-the-summation line that knocked me out -- absolutely knocked me out. He goes, "Look, this is a movie obviously made with the best intentions, yet at the end of the day for black folks watching it, it's not half as empowering as The Legend of ****** Charley."

HLG:  And what did you say when he said that?

QT: I said, I have nothing to say to that. It was 100 percent right. I got exactly what he meant. It was a diamond bullet of reality. I understood exactly what he meant. I took it in, and then I said, I have to make that movie one day.

HLG: So you're riffing on The Legend of ****** Charley. You're signifying on it.

QT: Yes, exactly ... The thing is, that actually is an empowering movie. And it wants to be a good movie, but they had no money. Nevertheless, it stands alone.

on Birth of a Nation

QT:  I think it gave rebirth to the Klan and all the blood that that was spilled throughout -- until the early '60s, practically. I think that both Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr. and D.W. Griffith, if they were held by Nuremberg Laws, they would be guilty of war crimes for making that movie because of what they created there.

I've read about its making. I've read the book that just got published on Rev. Dixon a little bit ago, American Racist[/i],  which was a very disturbing book -- more disturbing because I hated him forever, and the book made me actually understand him a little bit, when it is much easier to think of him as a monster. That's not pleasant -- things aren't as easy, unfortunately, when you dive into things with a microscope.

on the N-word

Personally, I find [the criticism] ridiculous. Because it would be one thing if people are out there saying, "You use it much more excessively in this movie than it was used in 1858 in Mississippi." Well, nobody's saying that. And if you're not saying that, you're simply saying I should be lying. I should be watering it down. I should be making it more easy to digest.

No, I don't want it to be easy to digest. I want it to be a big, gigantic boulder, a jagged pill and you have no water.

I think America is one of the only countries that has not been forced, sometimes by the rest of the world, to look their own past sins completely in the face. And it's only by looking them in the face that you can possibly work past them. And it's not a case where the Turks don't want to acknowledge the Armenian holocaust, but the Armenians do. Nobody wants to acknowledge it here.

HLG: Well, however you want to depict the horrors of slavery, slavery itself was 10,000 times worse.

QT: That almost became our slogan. It's like, look, the stuff that we show is really harsh, and it's supposed to be harsh, but it was [actually] a lot worse.

on the difference between being historically accurate and the style of the genre

It was interesting, because on one hand I'm telling a historical story, and when it comes to nuts and bolts of the slave trade, I had to be real and had to tell it the right way. But when it comes to more thematic things and operatic view, I could actually have fun with stylization -- because it is taking parts from a spaghetti Western. And I am taking the story of a slave narrative and blowing it up to folkloric proportions and to operatic proportions that are worthy of high opera.

on the white savior narrative

QT:  I'll buy that. But you know, one of the tropes of Westerns and telling a story like this is you have an experienced gunfighter who meets the young cowpoke who has some mission that he has to accomplish, and it's the old, experienced gunfighter who teaches him the tricks of the trade: teaches him how to draw his gun, teaches him how to kill.

QT:  It's the only time in the movie [that] a white man has addressed him, aside from Schultz, who has not even mentioned his color and treats him with respect. Not even just respect -- he treats him as a professional. It's obvious they have become a true team. They are both invited to come inside and partake of the man's birthday cake.

HLG:  You did that, not to say something about the sheriff, but to say something about Django's maturity.

QT:  Three months were wrapped into one exchange. And you see now that he's a professional. And he's invited inside. He doesn't wait outside with the horses. And that's one of those really important things.

on Schultz's death

QT:  Right. Well, you know, there are a few different reasons, and I don't want to spill it all out because I'm hoping that the audience will come up with some of their own of why Schultz does what he does. I actually think one of the definite reasons, though, is he had to put on this facade in dealing with this inhuman depravity that he's witnessing. Now that he's on the other side of it, it's all raining down on him.

on editing and different versions of scenes

QT:  Nothing that was too graphic. But there were versions of the movie, getting to the version that we have now, where both the Mandingo fighting [male slaves fighting to the death for sport] and the dog scene [were] even worse ... even more violent. I can handle rougher stuff than most people. I can handle more viscera than most. So to me it was OK.

But you know, you make your movie and you get it to a certain point where we've seen it ourselves enough -- now we have to see it with an audience. And this movie has to work -- all my movies have to work this way -- but this one kind of even more so had to work on a bunch of different levels.

The comedy had to be able to work, the horrific serious scenes have to work, I have to be able to get you to laugh a sequence after that to bring you back from [the horrific scene]. We have to be at the right place in the story where the big suspense scene at the dinner table happens so that will pay off.

The entire interview is excellent and can be found here

http://www.theroot.com/views/tarantino-unchained-part-1-django-trilogy

http://www.theroot.com/views/tarantino-unchained-part-2-n-word?wpisrc=root_more_news

http://www.theroot.com/views/tarantino-unchained-part-3-white-saviors?page=0,0

From that interview, Tarantino doesn't strike me as a director who doesn't care or who is unaware.. not at all. If you don't like Tarantino's attitude or how he presents himself, that's fine. But I don't see how you can say he doesn't care. If he didn't care about it he wouldn't make this movie. 

This movie... a spaghetti western about a slave seeking vengeance and to find his wife. I tend to believe you critique something for what it is, not what it isn't. Could it have been interesting if he went with a historically accurate slave film? Possibly if someone else did it.. but few people (if any) could have been able to write, film, and distribute a spaghetti western where a slave kills dozens of white people. He did a genre film, with genre conventions, along with his brand of dialogue, humor, depth, and violence. 

So this is just one interview compared to your one interview... from this one, it seems that he cares a great deal, that he's put a lot of time, effort, money, and his name behind this movie... that he cares on one level about discussing a difficult topic that Americans tend to ignore. I'm not saying you have to like everything he says or does (I sure don't), but your claim is unfair to him and the movie... it's obvious to some he cares a great deal. 

 

[kvsm23vs24]

I know it doesn't matter but I like you input Big J. What's your ethnicity?

 

[powerballin]

It's sad that this movie is the best representation of black love in a major motion picture.

Its hyperbole like this that really bothers me. That's just a ridiculous statement.

 

[antonlavey]

It's sad that this movie is the best representation of black love in a major motion picture.

There are many crappy, sappy movies about black love. I'm mad this dude went to see a Quentin Tarantino movie expecting a romantic comedy. Such foolishness.

 

[omgitswes]

The scene with the masks was the funniest part in the whole movie

 

[macbk]

There are many crappy, sappy movies about black love. I'm mad this dude went to see a Quentin Tarantino movie expecting a romantic comedy. Such foolishness.

Exactly.

If anything, QT did a great job at making a movie "about" racism and turning it into a movie where the protagonist is basically a superhero in his own right.

 

[powerballin]

Big i respect your response but I don't agree. I seen other interviews also. He said he even spoke with Sidney Pottier. I understand he cares about the movie but I feel as though he didn't feel the responsibility. And I'm not sure he could being who he is. He's not just a white man but in his own words"can handle rougher stuff than most people.". His attitude and slang in interviews shows a lack of connection. Also how can you write a movie and not have your own personality show in the work? Impossible. And I don't agree with him denying that he overused the nword. Yes in that time and in the south they used it....but not every other word. He's lying through his teeth or just dumb if he thinks they talked like that. Why not admit it was written that why for shock and laughs