Script Review: Is America Ready for 'Django Unchained'?

Tarantino's hand-written title page of his 'Django Unchained' script.



Quentin Tarantino has described in recent interviews his goal to create companion films that take ugly moments of history and turn them in the style of spaghetti westerns. The first was of course the hugely successful Inglorious Basterds, which rewrote the history of WWII into a revenge film straight out of the wild west. Americans were happy to sit back and watch the good US of A beat the hell out of those Nazi bastards. Something tells me, however, that the general American public will not take so kindly to his follow-up, Django Unchained.

In a nutshell, Unchained tells the story of Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who is freed and mentored by a German bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Waltz) in order to rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the ruthless slave owner, Calvin Candie (DiCaprio). In true spaghetti style, this is an ultimate tale of revenge. Django escalates to the level of mythic hero by the end, and one can hear the sweeping music even from merely reading scene descriptions. Such is Tarantino’s unparalleled eye for genre convention.

However, Tarantino has made it abundantly clear, both from interviews and the unapologetic brutality of the writing, that he wishes to portray this era in American history as the horror story it so undoubtedly was. To give a better picture of what exactly I mean by this, on any given page of the script, hardly two lines go by without someone using the “N” word. What allows him to get away with the offensive language is of course his unrelenting determination to immerse us in the period. The characters talk like this because…well, that’s how these kinds of people talked (whether we like it or not).

Every member of the cast has their work cut out for them. There is no role in the entire film that will not present risks to the careers of even the most famous of the cast. Indeed, probably the most daring individual involved has to be Leonardo DiCaprio, whose success has always seemed bullet-proof. It will be interesting to see how, or possibly if, he will survive the role of Calvin Candie, who is without a doubt one of the most disgusting villains in film, not just by Tarantino standards.

That said, if anyone is up to the challenge it is without a doubt someone with as much clout as DiCaprio, and it is certainly his performance I anticipate the most. Not to overstate, but I feel confident in saying this will be the greatest departure anyone is likely to see from him in his entire body of work. Not many a man would have the guts to go after a villain like Candie, who represents so much more than himself, indeed, he represents the darkest side of America’s national personality.

Kerry Washington also has a hugely formidable task before her. Apparently, Tarantino wrote the role of Broomhilda with her in mind, but was skeptical that she would accept it due to the amount of nudity called for by the role. Indeed, Broomhilda is rarely clothed at any given point in the script, and contrary to Tarantino’s usual trademark of strong women, Broomhilda is repeatedly made a victim. However, I attribute this complete and utter damsel in distress character to Tarantino’s mission to stay true to the conventions of the spaghetti western. The structure is simple: the hero seeks to rescue his love from the clutches of an evildoer. The complexity lies in the setting he has chosen to place this structure, and the clear desired effect it will have on its audience.

Judging from the script, this is probably going to be Tarantino’s most controversial film to date. He has no desire to appeal to “joe popcorn.” This is a niche genre film disguised by a Hollywood A-list cast, which will inevitably broaden its market. However, any audience member will be able to tell almost immediately who among them knew what they are getting themselves into and those who did not. Almost more than I am for the film itself, I am excited to see the reactions of the nation as we are confronted with our darkest period of history laid out before us in 35mm.

"Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France..."

Pictured (left to right): Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Omar Doom, Daniel Bruhl, Quentin Tarantino, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Brad Pitt.


I feel like every review I give on this blog begins or at some point involves the phrase “When I first saw the trailer for…” and I apologize for how repetitive that is getting, but in all fairness, lately I have been seeing many films that have truly stumped my immediate impressions of them based on their previews. Case in point: Inglourious Basterds.

When I first heard about this film, I wasn’t really sure what to think of it. At first I thought it looked ridiculous and downright stupid. Obviously it was never pretending to be historically accurate, and perhaps at first the history nerd in me was offended by that, but there was a short time in which I did find it intriguing. Yet for whatever reason, I never managed to get to a theater to see it. Thankfully my current place of residence has a projector and decent-sized viewing surface so the big-screen experience was not entirely lost when it came time to watch it on DVD.

Quite frankly, I love everything about this film. My only genuine gripe with it is a glaring continuity error in an earlier scene, in which one frame dispalys a head getting smashed by a bat, when moments later, the head is clearly intact. Literally, that is the only disparaging remark I can make on the entire movie.

I’ve always been wary of Quentin Tarantino as I’m not a huge fan of violence and gore (of which there is a surprisingly minimal amount in Basterds). I certainly appreciate his extensive knowledge of cinema, which is put on wonderful display throughout this, but I cannot help but slightly judge a man who has named “Observe & Report” as one of his favorites of the year. That aside, Basterds is one of his greatest achievements.

The precision of the dialogue is razor sharp, making it easy to believe that Tarantino spent almost ten years writing and fine-tuning it. The acting is spot on for the most part, though to be honest I found Brad Pitt to be the weakest link. The standouts for me were hands down Hollywood newcomers Cristoph Waltz as the menacing Hans Landa (aka “The Jew Hunter”) and Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus, a young Jewish woman seeking vengeance for the murder of her family at the hands of Landa. Indeed for me, the most emotionally resonating moment comes from Laurent, who, upon the conclusion of a heart-poundingly tense conversation with Landa in which she must maintain a false identity, lets out an enormous exhale that brings her near tears, a reaction the audience bears with her.

The history is absurd but it works. For example, Hitler is essentially a petulant child with Goebbels acting more as a handler than a right hand. However, Basterds does not make a joke of the horrors of WWII (which is what I initially feared) rather it takes the hardcore bloody revenge upon the Nazis that only a filmmaker like Tarantino would have the guts to admit we all sort of wanted. And so, I say tentatively (as I have not yet seen Up in the Air, Avatar, or Nine), Inglourious Basterds is my favorite film of the year.