Django Unchained: How Tarantino Brought Catcher Freeman to Life

"Knock'em dead, kid"

I've never been a fan of Jamie Foxx. I always felt he was way too cocky for his own good, despite being clearly, if middlingly, multi-talented. That said, Foxx has made some decent movies, cockiness notwithstanding. With Django Unchained, he's finally at the center of a movie that matches the flair for cockiness and dramatic vulnerability that has defined his roles since his turn as Ray Charles. It just so happens that he does so in a movie most of us thought we'd never see: a live action version of the Legend of Catcher Freeman.

Django Unchained is unquestionably Tarantino's stab at bringing a Boondocks episode to life, right down to Samuel L. Jackson playing Uncle Ruckus. And what a magnificent stab it is. Django, like Inglorious Basterds before it, is the best kind of revisionist fantasy: violent, hilarious, and surprisingly sobering--all of which are expected from Tarantino. That Django is a ridiculously audacious sort-of masterpiece is no surprise, what is a surprise is the sheer fact that Tarantino can make audiences laugh so consistently at the single ugliest era of American history while still making them cringe. legitimately Granted, some members of the audience are gonna cringe at the buckets of blood Tarantino throws at the screen, but even more will cringe at the real, and occasionally exaggerated-but not too exaggerated--treatment of African-American slaves during the height of the Antebellum Era, an amazing feat that makes Django one of the most affecting--far more than the trailers would lead the audience to believe--exploitation homages in years.

With Django, as with most of his work, Tarantino takes a simple plot and runs with it in the most audience-pleasing manner possible. It all begins with German bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (played with immeasurable charm and grace by the consistently exceptional Christoph Waltz)--indeed, the irony of that character is not lost--and his search for a particularly nasty band of outlaws, The Brittle Brothers. In search of a way to identify the Brittles, the enlightened Schultz, who is positively baffled by this slavery malarkey, "purchases" former runaway slave Django (Foxx) on the condition that he will "free" Django if he helps him find the Brittle brothers. Their pursuit of the Brittle siblings leads the two to form a fruitful, long-term mentor-mentee partnership and begin a journey to save Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who resides in hellish Candieland plantation in the heart of Mississippi run by dandy Calvin Candie's (Leonardo Dicaprio finally looking like he's having fun on screen) and house negro supreme, Stephen (a particularly evil Samuel L. Jackson knocking the Uncle Ruckus impression out the park).

As to be expected of a Tarantino enterprise, Django is an alternatively talky and violent affair elevated by amazing performances. At two hours and twenty minutes, much of Django's runtime is devoted to the colorful diatribes between the equally vibrant characters, though the dialogue is far more pointed and careful, considering the time period and the lack of widespread pop culture touchstones that would usually pepper Tarantino's dialogue. Of course, the big to-do over the dialogue is Tarantino's furious use of "nigger", which is essentially much to do about nothing considering this is a tale about a slave turned bounty hunter in the Antebellum South. If Tarantino didn't allow his characters to use nigger he would be courting the greater danger of being inauthentic; thus rendering much of Django's effectiveness mute by neutering the antagonists and diminishing the quality of the conflict. Indeed, some in the audience will be offended by Tarantino's flagrant, racially-charged expletive fest, but this is par for the course with Tarantino as is the ultraviolence on display. 

Within the first ten minutes, a horse's and a man's heads are decimated in a manner that is so gloriously over-the-top that it long jumps over realism into the realm of Looney Toon violence. While most of the violence is cartoonish enough for reasonable audience members to dismiss, there are moments of brutality that no matter how exaggerated will make even the boldest viewers flinch, but it is all done in a way to emphasize the cruelty of the characters rather than glorifying gore for the sake of gore. For all intents and purposes, the violence in Django is more punctuation than pure spectacle--though it is undoubtedly spectacle--and it is only relentless in bursts, which should be heartening for those with weak stomachs. However, audience members who are thinking about seeing Django should inform themselves about Tarantino's work before making the choice to see this flick. 

Dialogue and violence aside, Django is enlivened by uniformly strong performances with the real standouts being Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Jamie Foxx may take top billing but he's saddled with a typically stoic hero, albeit one with more pain behind his eyes than the average hero, who doesn't really become larger than life until the climax, and Kerry Washington is a tad underutilized in the damsel-in-distress role. Meanwhile, Jackson, Waltz, and DiCaprio get to have all the fun playing outsized characters. Jackson is particularly entertaining as the repugnant Stephen, an evil, quick-witted slave who runs Candieland with greater efficiency and cruelty than DiCaprio's "slave master". Stephen's dialogue is so vitriolic that he Jackson seems to spit every word, but it also teeters into inexplicably modern Sam Jackson, BAMF, territory that it becomes unsettlingly comical. Waltz, on the other hand, is consistently appealing as Schultz, the total flipside of his relentless but no less affable Col. Landa. Schultz is almost the living embodiment of white guilt, to a fault, and he displays overwhelming earnestness and grace that counters the duplicitous hospitality of the Southern gentility. Schultz effectively serves as a counterpoint to every slave master he and Django encounter, especially DiCaprio's Candie. Candie is the result of what would have become of Amsterdam Vallon if he embraced the ways of Bill the Butcher. He is a devilish fop with an affinity for Mandingo fights and humiliating his slaves. He is probably, and sadly, the most fun character DiCaprio has played on screen.  In fact, this may be the most DiCaprio has ever smiled in a film since Titanic. DiCaprio, Waltz, and Jackson may run away with the show, but even "bit players" like Don Johnson and Jonah Hill shine in small roles. 

From performances to plot, every ounce of Django is masterful. Tarantino shows great maturity and restraint here, opting to tone down, but not eliminate, some of his trademark flourishes like the 70s score and old school on-screen graphics while delivering some great shots of the frontier. Yet, for all the mastery on display, I can't help but think all of the ground covered in Django was addressed with the same audacity, humor and violence in the Boondocks' "Legend of Catcher Freeman" episode, not to mention the Dave Chapelle's time traveling pimps who pleasantly introduced slave owners to a pistol.  By the same token, Samuel L. Jackson's Stephen is Uncle Ruckus through and through, just a bit more foul-mouthed. That's not to say that Django isn't a welcome addition to the canon of slave vengeance narratives; it's just not as original as it seems. But, what is? Still, it is an unabashed pleasure to watch a film as well-crafted and entertaining as Django based around the simple premise of a former slave dispensing righteous vengeance on his "masters". As Django says, "what's not love?"

The Dearth of Our Imagination

I returned from my first pilgrimage to Comic-Con inspired, but broken-hearted.

Comic-con was every inch the spectacle of legend. The central exhibition hall of the San Diego Convention Center, a two-block long cage of white-washed steel and glass, was crowded from wall to pillar to post to wall with an ocean of ‘geeks,’ children, tourists, stars, creators and drag-a-longs. The crowds clamored, pushed and tugged beneath towering displays of supersized mechas and movie posters, grabbing and snatching at every free trinket or toy tossed in their general direction. The hallways above the exhibition hall were congested with snaking lines that wrapped around, inside and outside the convention center. Hall H alone was a staggering, humbling sight. The cavernous hall, housing more seats than a small theater, barely contained crowds of thousands who waited hours with baited breath, and sharpened pencils, to squint at the movie stars of the month and gaze at sizzle reels. Among those crowds, the brown and, especially, the black faces were easily outnumbered by what seemed to be a 100 to 1 ratio.

For two days, my girlfriend and I squeezed through the stifling crowds, sliding between bodies to grab swag and wearing out the soles of our feet for a chance to see our favorite TV stars from 300 yards away. As we shimmied through the crowds and stood in ridiculously long lines, I noticed how rare a sight we were. In a moment like this, my girlfriend’s brother would pose the terribly clichéd inquiry, “How does it feel to be the pepper in the salt shaker?” My typical response would be to let the question hang until the silence becomes too awkward to continue any conversation. But this time, I would’ve answered, “lonely and discouraging.” Sure, attendees of myriad ethnicities attended Comic-Con. The diversity of California’s population practically demands it. But, among the rainbow of attendees, people of African descent were notoriously underrepresented. As bad as it seemed, the dearth of black creators and talent was even more distressing.

The minimal presence of black artists at Comic-Con was enough to make one ask, “Do we have any imagination?” Personally, I wondered: Where were the representatives of Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks—a series steeped in as equal doses of pop culture lexicon to rival Scott Pilgrim—? Who was present to discuss DC Comics Milestone Line—one of the most influential collection of African-American superhero creations—? I know we are capable of contemplating and conjuring the same feats imagination as creators of any other culture—despite having less money in many cases—but looking across the exhibit hall would prove that assertion wrong. I passed maybe four or five booths, out of hundreds, with black artists and, even more depressing, maybe one or two booths with black-owned properties. Of the two booths displaying black-owned properties I saw, one was a cheaply-made comic with poorly rendered superhero archetypes and the other was a clear Boondocks knock off, complete with brown-skinned anime characters. Generally, this type of creativity is inoffensive and tolerable, but, in a room where creativity is bursting at the seems, a couple of derivative projects with brown and black characters weren’t going to draw much attention. Perhaps the best example of dismal black attendance on either side of the Comic-Con fence came in the last minutes of our last day at the convention. My girlfriend and I were making our final rounds on the exhibit floor, minutes before the doors were to close, when a stocky black man with a immaculate ‘fro and a wide collared shirt over a canary yellow suit caught sight of us. I saw him approaching out the corner of my eye, hoping he wasn’t some suit trying to drag us to a preview of some hackneyed project like No Ordinary Family or The Cape. Instead, he politely blocked our path and asked “Do you guys know Jim Kelly?” Of course, I knew the legendary Jim Kelly from Enter the Dragon and Three the Hard Way. Since the question was obviously directed at me more than my girlfriend, I replied with a guarded enthusiasm, “Yeah.” He responded, “He’ll be here tomorrow…Come and check him out.” We nodded, feigning enthusiasm and knowing that, even if we were coming the next day, we probably wouldn’t stop to see Mr. Kelly because we’d rather catch the Marvel movie preview in Hall H.

Our apathy for black projects or seeing an aging black actor was likely informed, in some part, to the apathy our people show towards aspects of pop culture that don’t include music or sports. Despite the fact that the world is falling at the feet of the comic and video game gods, we don’t seem to care to contribute. However, we’ll gladly consume. We’ll buy movie tickets, video games, toys and a select few will purchase comics, but we rarely have a presence at the creator’s table and, at times, it seems that we don’t care to. Now, I won’t decry the hard work of the black creators who are stretching their imagination and creating uniquely creative work that demonstrates we are on par with the best creators of any color. Unfortunately, these creators are buried beneath the rappers, athletes, actors and quasi-celebrities who most of America associates with black “creativity.” Making matters worse is the reluctance of some creators, even the best, to avoid creating material so ingrained in “our” struggle that it turns off the mainstream consumer. I believe everyone should tell their story their way, but if we persist in telling stories with decaying neighborhoods, discordant romances and preachy drag queens, and we only stretch our imagination to evaluate the same issues of racism, poverty, and urban despair that have been repeated ad-hoc for decades then we risk alienating mainstream audiences who are far more engaged in the fantastic than the tragicomic. We don’t have to sacrifice the spirit of our stories and the integrity of our voices, but a little variety wouldn’t hurt. There are infinite ways to address these issues with imagination and ingenuity, from metaphor to allusion. If we, as creators, don’t embrace creative approaches to our material and start dreaming a little bigger then we’ll be stuck selling the same stories to the same people. With African-Americans making up a small percentage of the country, how far will that strategy take us?

To be fair, I’m sure a number of black creators and talent would have willingly attended Comic-Con to sell their stories and promote their projects. I’m also sure that there’s a sizable community of African-Americans and individuals of African ancestry from other countries who would love to have attended the convention as witnesses to the glut of creativity, but couldn’t for a myriad of circumstances. The truth is not everyone’s going to make the pilgrimage every year, but that shouldn’t stop those of us who love this stuff—the comics, the movies, the video games, the genre shows, the anime, etc.—from trying, at least once. And, for those of us who dare to create pop culture art or tell a wildly inventive story—myself included—it is imperative that we make the pilgrimage at some point, so that we can share our creations with an audience that will devour them without hesitation. Let’s just be sure to bring something fresh and original that will blow the geeks out of the water and show them that creators of color can dream as big and as bright as the best in the business.