Tarantino Unchained: Still A Badass
Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is not your average cup of tea, though it never really is when it comes to Tarantino. The film contains a rather strange blend of humour, honesty, reflection and hardcore violence, topped with a cherry of romance. It starts off as a typical Western, but eventually transforms and the characters are no longer simply representations of ideologies—they become real, and brutally so.
John Grierson once described a documentary as a “creative treatment of reality,” and even though Django Unchained is not considered as such, it might possibly be one of the most unrestrained and viciously truthful depictions of slavery and racism in America during that time. It’s the story of reality told from Tarantino’s colourful perspective with its overblown action sequences, which is almost predictable of Tarantino anyway because why kill a guy with one bullet when you can shred him to pieces with twenty? When the film was criticized for its abuse of the N-word, Tarantino explained in an interview on Nightline that “it’s [his] job to tell the truth.” Yet despite the controversy surrounding Django Unchained and his slightly unfortunate attempt of the Australian accent, Tarantino claimed Best Screenplay at the 85th Academy Awards.
And this hardly comes as a surprise.
Pulp Fiction (1994) won Tarantino an Oscar for Best Screenplay in 1995 for its originality, wit and unconventional sense of direction in regards to cinema structure. Since his first film Reservoir Dogs (1992), Tarantino grew in recognition for his highly stylized nonlinear storytelling, accompanied by multiple narratives. While Django Unchained is generally told in chronological order with the camera following Django around for the most part, Tarantino still maintains his whimsical personality through a combination of eccentric characters, clever dialogue, unusual circumstances and a kickass soundtrack. For some, however, the journey was too long (not everyone can hack 165 minutes after all). For others, it was a rollercoaster adventure worth seeing through.
Christoph Waltz deservingly took home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor given his spectacular performance as a former foreign dentist turned bounty hunter who speaks in proper English. However, cast members Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson should also be acknowledged for the amount of effort they each put into shaping the vibrant and audacious world that is Django Unchained.
Kudos to Tarantino for reminding us once again what it means to be a real badass.
Related articles
- Ennio Morricone Won’t Work With Quentin Tarantino Again (slashfilm.com)
- How DJANGO UNCHAINED Connects to PULP FICTION (geektyrant.com)
- Ennio Morricone: I’ll Never Work With Tarantino Again (hollywoodreporter.com)
