Django Unchained

Django Unchained pronounced  is a 2012 American western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson. The film was released on December 25, 2012, in North America.
Set in the antebellum era of the Deep South and Old West, the film follows a freed slave (Foxx) who treks across the United States with a bounty hunter (Waltz) on a mission to rescue his wife (Washington) from a cruel plantation owner (DiCaprio).
The film received very positive reviews from critics and was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture. Christoph Waltz received several accolades for his performance, and won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His first win was for another Tarantino film, 2009's Inglourious Basterds; Waltz is one of the few actors to win more than once in this category.[7] Tarantino won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, his second Oscar in this category for which he first won in 1995 for co-writing Pulp Fiction, as well as the Golden Globe and the BAFTA. The film grossed over $422 million in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantino's highest grossing film to date.

Plot

In 1858 in the American South several male slaves are being driven by the Speck Brothers, Ace and Dicky. Among the shackled slaves is Django, sold off and separated from his wife, Broomhilda. The Speck brothers are stopped by Dr. King Schultz, a German dentist and, unbeknownst to the brothers, a bounty hunter. Schultz asks to buy one of the slaves, but despite being rebuffed doesn't take no for an answer. He continues to prod and pry, angering the brothers. Tempers soon flare, and Ace, refusing to lower the shotgun leveled at Schultz, is shot dead. As soon as Dicky draws his pistol, Schultz shoots Dicky's horse in the head, the collapsing animal crushing the surviving brother's leg. While Dicky screams in pain in the background, Schultz interrogates Django as to the identity of the Brittle Brothers, and when he finds out that he can identify them, offers Django his freedom in exchange for help tracking them down. Django agrees and the pair toss the shackle keys to the other slaves and depart, with Schultz suggesting the slaves kill their tormentor and witness to gain their freedom. After executing the three Brittles, Django partners with Schultz through the Winter, becoming his apprentice. Upon being questioned by Django as to his motivation, Schultz explains that, being the first person he has ever given freedom to, he feels responsible for Django and is driven to help him in his quest to rescue Broomhilda.
Django, now fully trained, collects his first bounty. The pair travel to Mississippi, and Schultz uncovers the identity of Broomhilda's owner, Calvin Candie, the alternately charming but brutal owner of Candyland, a plantation where slaves are forced to fight to the death in boxing matches called "Mandingo fights". Schultz expects Candie will not entertain offers for Broomhilda if they are forthright with their request, so they devise a ruse whereby they will purchase one of Candie's prized fighters for a "ridiculous offer", obtain Broomhilda as an accessory to the fighter, then disappear before the deal is finalized. Schultz and Django meet Candie at a club in Greenville and submit their offer. His greed tickled, Candie invites them to Candyland. At the plantation, Broomhilda is secretly debriefed on the plan, and during dinner, Schultz moves to the next step by offering to purchase Broomhilda with Candie's fighter.
While everyone is eating and talking, Candie's staunchly loyal senior house slave, Stephen, becomes suspicious of Broomhilda and deduces that Django and Broomhilda know each other and that the sale of the Mandingo fighter is a distraction. Stephen alerts Candie, and an enraged Candie extorts the bounty hunters with Broomhilda's life for the complete bid amount. Schultz yields, and after the money is paid and the paperwork signed, Candie demands a handshake from Schultz to finalize the deal. Schultz, disgusted and mentally tired, kills Candie with a concealed Derringer. In retaliation, Candie's right hand and body guard Butch Pooch kills Schultz before either Broomhilda or Django can react. A massive battle ensues in the mansion and Django kills many, including Pooch, but is forced to surrender when Broomhilda is taken hostage at gunpoint by Billy Crash.
The next morning, Django, hanging inverted from a rafter completely naked, is kicked awake. Crash approaches with a red-hot knife to castrate him, but Stephen interrupts at the last moment and states that Django has been sold to a mine, where he will be worked to death. En route to the mine, Django dupes his escorts into believing there is a very large bounty on a man back at Candyland and they will get a massive cut if Django is released. The moment the captors free and arm him, he shoots the group, takes their dynamite and rides back to Candyland.
Returning to the plantation, Django releases Broomhilda from her improvised cell. When Candie's mourners return from the funeral, Django reveals himself. In the final shootout, everyone is gunned down save Stephen, who has both knees disabled. Django and Broomhilda watch from a distance as the mansion, filled with dynamite, explodes, then ride off into the night.

Cast

Jamie Foxx as Django Freeman[8][9]
Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz
Leonardo DiCaprio as "Monsieur" Calvin J. Candie[9]
Kerry Washington as Broomhilda Von Shaft[10][11]
Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen[12]
Don Johnson as Spencer 'Big Daddy' Bennett[13]
Walton Goggins as Billy Crash
Dennis Christopher as Leonide "Leo" Moguy[14]
James Remar as Butch Pooch / Ace Speck[15][16][17]
David Steen as Mr. Stonecipher
Dana Michelle Gourrier as Cora
Nichole Galicia as Sheba
Laura Cayouette as Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly
Ato Essandoh as D'Artagnan
Sammi Rotibi as Rodney
Clay Donahue as Fontenot
Escalante Lundy as Big Fred
Miriam F. Glover as Betina
Omar J. Dorsey as Chicken Charlie
Franco Nero as Amerigo Vessepi[18]
Other roles include James Russo as Dicky Speck, Tom Wopat as U.S. Marshall Gill Tatum,[17] Don Stroud as Sheriff Bill Sharp, Russ Tamblyn as Son of a Gunfighter, Amber Tamblyn as Daughter of a Son of a Gunfighter, Bruce Dern as Old Man Carrucan, M. C. Gainey as Big John Brittle, Cooper Huckabee as Lil Raj Brittle, Doc Duhame as Ellis Brittle, Jonah Hill as Bag Head #2,[19] and Lee Horsley as Sheriff Gus (Snowy Snow). Zoë Bell, Michael Bowen, Robert Carradine, Jake Garber, Ted Neeley, James Parks, and Tom Savini play Candyland trackers,[20] while Michael Parks, John Jarratt, and Quentin Tarantino play The LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. employees.

Production

Development

In 2007, Tarantino discussed an idea for a form of spaghetti western set in the United States' pre-Civil War Deep South which he called "a southern", stating that he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to."[21] Tarantino later explained the genesis of the idea: "I was writing a book about Sergio Corbucci when I came up with a way to tell the story. One of the things that's fun when you write about subtextual criticism ... you don't have to be right. It doesn't have to be what the director was thinking. It's what you're gathering from it. You're making a case. I was writing about how his movies have this evil Wild West, a horrible Wild West. It was surreal, it dealt a lot with fascism. So I'm writing this whole piece on this, and I'm thinking: 'I don't really know if Sergio was thinking [this] while he was doing this. But I know I'm thinking it now. And I can do it!"
Tarantino finished the script on April 26, 2011, and handed in the final draft to The Weinstein Company.[23] In October 2012, frequent Tarantino collaborator RZA said that he and Tarantino had intended to crossover Django Unchained with RZA's Tarantino-presented martial-arts film The Man with the Iron Fists. The crossover would have seen a younger version of RZA's blacksmith character appear as a slave in an auction. However, scheduling conflicts prevented RZA's participation.
One inspiration for the film is Corbucci's 1966 spaghetti western Django, whose star Franco Nero has a cameo appearance in Django Unchained.[25] Another inspiration is the 1975 film Mandingo, about a slave trained to fight other slaves.[26] Tarantino included scenes in the snow as an homage to The Great Silence.[27] "Silenzio takes place in the snow. I liked the action in the snow so much, Django Unchained has a big snow section in the middle," Tarantino said in an interview.

Title
The title Django Unchained alludes to the titles of the 1966 Corbucci film Django; Hercules Unchained; the American title for the 1959 Italian epic fantasy film Ercole e la regina di Lidia, which deals with the mythical hero's escape from enslavement to a wicked master; and to Angel Unchained, the 1970 American biker film that deals with a biker exacting revenge on a large group of rednecks.

Casting

Among those considered for the title role of Django, Michael K. Williams and Will Smith were mentioned as possibilities, but in the end Jamie Foxx was cast in the role.[30][31] Smith later said he turned down the role because it "wasn't the lead".[32] Franco Nero, the original Django from the 1966 Italian film, was rumored for the role of Calvin Candie,[33] but instead was given a cameo appearance as a minor character. Nero suggested that he play a mysterious horseman who haunts Django in visions, and is revealed in an ending flashback to be Django's father; Tarantino opted not to use the idea.[34] Kevin Costner was in negotiations to join as Ace Woody[35] but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.[36] Kurt Russell was cast instead[37] but also later left the role.[38] When Kurt Russell dropped out, the role of Ace Woody was not recast; instead the character was merged with Walton Goggins' character, Billy Crash.[39]
Jonah Hill was offered the role of Scotty Harmony, a gambler who loses Broomhilda to Candie in a poker game,[40] but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with The Watch.[41][42] Sacha Baron Cohen was also offered the role, but declined in order to appear in Les Misérables. Neither Scotty nor the poker game appear in the final cut of the film.[40] On June 15, 2012, it was announced that Hill had become available to join the cast, but in a different role.[19] On April 4, 2012, Joseph Gordon-Levitt announced that he would be unable to appear in the film because of a prior commitment to make his directorial debut on Don Jon. Gordon-Levitt explained, "I would have loved, loved to have done it. He's one of my very favorite filmmakers."[43] The film does have cameo appearances of several famous film and TV stars of the past, including Tom Wopat, Bruce Dern, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson.

Costume design

In a January 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, costume designer Sharen Davis said much of the film's wardrobe was inspired by spaghetti westerns and other works of art. For Django's wardrobe, Davis and Tarantino watched the television series Bonanza and referred to it frequently. The pair even hired the hatmaker who designed the hat worn by the show's Little Joe, played by Michael Landon. Davis described Django's look as a "rock-n-roll take on the character". Django's sunglasses were inspired by Charles Bronson's character in The White Buffalo (1977). Davis used Thomas Gainsborough's 1770 oil painting The Blue Boy as a reference for Django's valet outfit.[44]
In the final scene, Broomhilda wears a dress similar to that of Ida Galli's character in Blood for a Silver Dollar (1965). Davis said the idea of Calvin Candie's costume came partly from Rhett Butler, and that Don Johnson's signature Miami Vice look inspired his (Big Daddy's) cream-colored linen suit in the film. King Schultz's faux chinchilla coat was inspired by Telly Savalas in Kojak. Davis also revealed that many of her costume ideas did not make the final cut of the film, leaving some unexplained characters such as Zoë Bell's tracker, who was intended to drop her bandana to reveal an absent jaw.

Filming

Principal photography for Django Unchained started in California in November 2011, in Wyoming in February 2012, and at the National Historic Landmark Evergreen Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, outside of New Orleans, in March 2012. The film was shot in the anamorphic format on 35 mm film. Although originally scripted, a sub-plot centring on Zoë Bell's masked Tracker was cut, and remained unfilmed, due to time constraints.[49] After 130 shooting days, the film wrapped up principal photography in late July 2012.

Distribution [edit]

Marketing [edit]
The first teaser poster was inspired by a fan-art poster by Italian artist Federico Mancosu. His artwork was published in May 2011, a few days after the synopsis and the official title release. In August 2012, at director Quentin Tarantino's request, the production companies bought the concept artwork from Mancosu to use for promotional purposes as well as on the crew passes and clothing for staff during filming.[57]
Release
Django Unchained was released on December 25, 2012, in the United States by The Weinstein Company and released on January 18, 2013, by Sony Pictures Releasing International in the United Kingdom.[58][59] The film was screened for the first time at the Directors Guild of America on December 1, 2012, with additional screening events having been held for critics leading up to the film's wide release.[60] The premiere of Django Unchained was canceled following the shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.
The film was released on March 22, 2013, by Sony Pictures in India.[62]
In March 2013, Django Unchained was announced to be the first Tarantino film approved for official distribution in China’s strictly controlled film market.[63] However, on April 11, 2013, the debut of the film in China was cancelled for what was said to be technical reasons.[64] It was reported that the film will be re-released on May 12, 2013.[65] Lily Kuo, on Quartz, wrote that "the film depicts one of America’s darker periods, when slavery was legal, which Chinese officials like to use to push back against criticism from the United States."[66]
Home media
The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital Download on April 16, 2013.[67]
Reception

Controversy [edit]
Some commentators have felt the film's heavy usage of the word "nigger" is inappropriate, affecting them to an even greater extent than the depicted violence against the slaves.[77][78] However, other reviewers[79] have defended the usage of the language in the historic context of race and slavery in the United States.[80]
Filmmaker Spike Lee, in an interview with Vibe magazine, said he would not see the film, explaining "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else." Lee later tweeted, "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them." Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, interpreted the movie as "preparation for race war."
Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe compared Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen character to black Republicans like Clarence Thomas or Herman Cain.[84] Samuel L. Jackson said that he believed his character to have "the same moral compass as Clarence Thomas does."[85]
Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Columbia University, compared the fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop Christopher Dorner to a real-life Django, saying "It’s almost like watching ‘Django Unchained’ in real life. It’s kind of exciting."[86] Writing in The Los Angeles Times, journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan noted the difference between Tarantino's Jackie Brown and Django Unchained: "It is an institution whose horrors need no exaggerating, yet Django does exactly that, either to enlighten or entertain. A white director slinging around the n-word in a homage to '70s blaxploitation à la Jackie Brown is one thing, but the same director turning the savageness of slavery into pulp fiction is quite another."
While hosting NBC's Saturday Night Live, Jamie Foxx joked about being excited "to kill all the white people in the movie". Columnist Jeff Kuhner wrote a reaction to the SNL skit for The Washington Times, saying: "Anti-white bigotry has become embedded in our postmodern culture. Take Django Unchained. The movie boils down to one central theme: the white man as devil — a moral scourge who must be eradicated like a lethal virus."
Use of violence
Some reviews criticized the film for being too violent.[90] The originally planned premiere of Django was postponed following the Connecticut school shooting on December 14, 2012.[91]
Thomas Frank criticized the film’s use of violence as follows:
Not surprisingly, Quentin Tarantino has lately become the focus for this sort of criticism (about the relationship between the movies and acts of violence).The fact that Django Unchained arrived in theaters right around the time of the Sandy Hook massacre didn't help. Yet he has refused to give an inch in discussing the link between movie violence and real life. “Obviously I don’t think one has to do with the other,” he told an NPR interviewer. “Movies are about make-believe. It’s about imagination. Part of the thing is trying to create a realistic experience, but we are faking it.” Is it possible that anyone in our cynical world credits a self-serving sophistry like this? Of course an industry under fire will claim that its hands are clean, just as the NRA has done – and of course a favorite son, be it Tarantino or LaPierre, can be counted on to make the claim louder than anyone else. But do they really believe that imaginative expression is without consequence?
The Independent said the movie was part of "the new sadism in cinema" and added, "There is something disconcerting about sitting in a crowded cinema as an audience guffaws at the latest garroting or falls about in hysterics as someone is beheaded or has a limb lopped off.
Historical inaccuracies
Although Tarantino has said about Mandingo fighting, "I was always aware those things existed," there is no historical evidence that slave owners ever staged gladiator-like fights to the death between male slaves like that depicted in the movie. There are only undocumented rumors that such fights were staged.
Writing in The New Yorker, Jelani Cobb observed that Tarantino's occasional historical elasticity sometimes worked to the film's advantage. "There are moments," Cobb wrote, "where this convex history works brilliantly, like when Tarantino depicts the Ku Klux Klan a decade prior to its actual formation in order to thoroughly ridicule its members’ (literally) veiled racism." The marauding masked group depicted in the film were known as "The Regulators" and were depicted as spiritual forebears of the later post-civil war KKK and not as the actual KKK.
On the account of historical accuracy Christopher Caldwell wrote in the Financial Times: "Of course, we must not mistake a feature film for a public television documentary" pointing out that the film should be treated as entertainment and in no way a historical account of the time period it is set in. "Django uses slavery the way a pornographic film might use a nurses’ convention: as a pretext for what is really meant to entertain us. What is really meant to entertain us in Django is violence."[99] To the contrary, Stephen Marche wrote that "The amazing thing about watching all this is that it's all perfectly Tarantinoesque, but it's also for the most part historically accurate."[100] Jamie Foxx told The Los Angeles Times, "This actually gives us an opportunity to entertain and to educate people that are wondering what slavery is about."
Richard Brody wrote in The New Yorker: "Tarantino rightly depicts slavery as no mere administrative ownership but a grievous and monstrous infliction of cruelty. The movie shows slaves forced into fights to the death for the entertainment of owners, and one fighter ripped to death by dogs when he refuses another bout. Whipping, branding, cruel punishment, and casual murder are the lot of slaves and the caprice of owners..."[102] However, Southern slave codes did make willful killing of a slave illegal in most cases.[103] For example, the 1860 Mississippi case of Oliver v. State charged the defendant with murdering his own slave.[104] Beginning in 1822, slaves in Mississippi were protected by law from cruel and unusual punishment by their owners.
Accolades
Main article: List of accolades received by Django Unchained
Django Unchained has garnered several awards and nominations. The American Film Institute named it one of their Top Ten Movies of the Year in December 2012.[106] The film has received five nominations from the Golden Globe Awards, including Best Director and Best Screenplay for Tarantino. The Film won Best Original Screenplay, written by Tarantino.[107] Christoph Waltz received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Bafta Award for Best Supporting Actor, his second time receiving all three awards, having previously won for his role in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009). The NAACP Image Awards gave the film four nominations, while the National Board of Review named DiCaprio their Best Supporting Actor. Django Unchained earned a nomination for Best Theatrical Motion Picture from the Producers Guild of America.
Soundtrack

Main article: Django Unchained (soundtrack)
Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the official soundtrack to the motion picture. It was originally released on December 18, 2012. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, relying heavily on spaghetti western soundtrack. The album was a great commercial success in a big number of countries.
Although many of the songs are earlier recording and chart hits, there were a number of tracks composed specially for the film. These are: "100 Black Coffins" by Rick Ross and produced by and featuring Jamie Foxx, "Who Did That To You?" by John Legend, "Freedom" by Anthony Hamilton and Elayna Boynton, "Ancora Qui" by Ennio Morricone and Elisa.
These four songs were all contenders for an Academy Award nomination in the Best Original Song category, but none of them were eventually nominated.[114]

The soundtrack also includes seven tracks that are dialogue excerpts from the film, some of which have been cut from the film.