DJANGO UNCHAINED (2012): The Slavery Story Revised

Like every other Tarantino movie, Django Unchained is both predictable and unpredictable.  The movie is long (165 minutes), violent and overly clever.  At the same time, anticipating all of the plot twists is impossible.  According to the IMDB database, the most common plot keywords include (1) racial vengeance; (2) racial violence; (3) historically inaccurate; (4) sadism; and (5) slavery.  It stars some of the usual actors in Tarantino films including Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Christoph Walz.  It also features newcomers such as Jamie Foxx, Don Johnson and Kerry Washington.  Bruce Dern even has the chance to make a cameo appearance.

It’s too difficult to describe the plot in depth without going on for pages.  Chiefly, it concerns a black slave separated from his wife doing anything possible to get her back.  Django (Jamie Foxx) escapes from slavery due to the mischief caused by a former dentist, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Walz), now turned bounty hunter.  Eventually, the two have to face down the formidable slaveowner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), who has Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).  An advisor to Candie is a villainous former slave named Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) who is the first to figure out what Django and the dentist are planning.  It ends in lots of shootouts and Django escaping the plantation with his wife.  For whatever reason the dentist cares, he dies to help the two escape to freedom.

Anyone who has seen any Tarantino movie knows that he tries too hard ever to make a perfect film.  While only a few viewers hated the film, there are many mixed reviews of the film.  I don’t believe it’s the violence that turned certain viewers off. 

As far as violence, Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch, a western filmed in 1969, might have it beat.  It’s mild compared to Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ (obviously not a western), filmed in 2004.  Again, the movie is unpredictable.  But unlike so many of Tarantino’s other films, the plot takes place chronologically.  And there were movies with stranger plot twists back in the 1960s and 1970s including Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, Clockwork Orange, Once Upon a Time in the West, and The Deer Hunter.

More likely, what made certain reviewers uncomfortable was the irreverent and none too polite portrayal of race relations in the years leading up to the American Civil War.  It’s a topic that some feel is too sensitive for this sort of humorous treatment.  And I suppose much of the film is in bad taste.  But as someone once said, humor and bad taste are inseparable.

One reviewer stated the transformation of Django from an unsophisticated slave to a superhero is the film’s weakest link.  How did he suddenly become such a good student to end up doing what he did at the film’s end?  Whether you feel this criticism is legitimate largely depends on whether you consider the film serious satire.  Many do not and would not even worry about such character development.  They cannot take Tarantino seriously.

I think there is a place for a film like Django Unchained.  If the film is a farce, is it any more of a farce than what led up to the institution of slavery to begin with?  The depiction of slavery in Gone With the Wind is one of the benevolent plantation owners who were truly there to bring gentility to the south by allowing the blacks to pick cotton for them.  Even in films where characters are sympathetic to the plight of blacks in America, the heroes are white.  Not so in Django Unchained.  Too violent?  It’s difficult to separate slavery and violence.  To begin with, there were over 600,000 Americans who died during the American Civil War.

Yet as in all Tarantino films, we’re not sure what his motivations are in this movie.  I think Django Unchained is actually one of his better films in that it’s less quirky and contains less grandstanding.  Still, these traits do appear.  And this is why many think, and will continue to think, he’s more of an entertainer than a storyteller.  We’re not sure if the humor in his films has a purpose, or whether it’s there to be self-serving. 

May 27, 2019

© Robert S. Miller 2019

THE MUSTANG (2019): The Convict and his Wild Horse

The Mustang is one of those short and low-budget films that most moviegoers will miss.  This is unfortunate since it’s probably going to be a better film than whatever wins the next best picture award.  It’s only a 96-minute film, features an actor from Belgium, Matthias Schoenaerts (not a household name in American films), and directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (also not a household name).  

I could give away the entire storyline for this movie and not spoil it for anyone.  The Mustang’s two great virtues include its visual depictions demonstrating the beauties and challenges of living side-by-side with wild horses, and the acting of Schoenaerts as convict Roman Coleman.

Roman is doing hard time due to a domestic abuse incident.  The only person who visits him in prison is his daughter Martha (Gideon Adlon).  She has understandable reservations about Roman since her mother was the victim of Roman’s abuse.  The visits are anything but friendly and usually end in arguments.  Martha is pregnant at the film’s beginning, and we probably can assume that the father of her unborn child disappeared.  Possibly the only reason she first visits her father at all is so that she can sell a piece of property for which Roman has an ownership interest.  

Roman is incapable of showing warmth or communicating with anyone.  It is only by a fluke he’s recruited to work with wild horses as part of a prison program.  First assigned to shovel manure, Myles (Bruce Dern), who heads up the program, decides to let Roman work with one specific horse.  Roman calls the horse Marcus since he can’t pronounce the word “marquis.”   This horse has the identical temperament of Roman.  At first, Roman becomes so frustrated working with the horse that he physically attacks it trying to punch it into submission.  Despite this setback, Myles still provides Roman another opportunity to work with Marcus.

As the training progresses, we see a change come over Roman as he becomes accustomed to his job.  Possibly, Roman is the only one who could tame this beast.  Another prisoner, Henry (Jason Mitchell), provides Roman advice along the way and becomes the closest thing to a friend Roman ever has.  And as Roman learns to adapt to the horse, he also learns how to relate with his daughter who is coming closer to the delivery time for her child.

What saves The Mustang from sentimentality is the toughness of the acting and the storyline.  Both Schoenaerts and Adlon play their roles perfectly.  Bruce Dern is adequate in support, though it’s certainly not his finest role.  And the storyline remains intense from beginning of the film until the end.

The Mustang is not a perfect film only because the filmmakers try to say too much rather than too little.  There are storylines in which the film possibly would be better without.  For example, his friend Henry is killed for drugs by Roman’s cellmate.  This results in Roman attacking his cellmate.  This entire subplot comes close to melodrama.

Also, when the prisoners demonstrate their horses for bidders at an auction, a helicopter flies over the arena disturbing Marcus and leading to Roman being thrown from the horse.  After this, the prison staff decides they should euthanize Marcus.  When Roman hears this from Myles, he manages to break Marcus out of prison and allow him to run free.  This leads to consequences for Roman (probably additional prison time).  This storyline seems somewhat contrived.

While neither of these storylines appeared necessary to the primary plot, both of these scenes, while showing both Roman and Marcus as untamable, also portray the two as figures deserving sympathy.  The movie manages to pull off this difficult task.  Roman is not someone we want to visit our home, and Marcus is not the horse we want to take on a joyride.  But the film does a magnificent job depicting these flawed creatures as redeemable living beings.

© Robert S. Miller 2019

April 28, 2019

SEX AND POLITICS: An Unusual Finding

I heard on the news the other day about some study suggesting that many millennials care more about politics than sex.  Fortunately, many of those millennials will never have children.  The study prompted a sex therapist to comment that dating strictly within one’s political party is making people too comfortable.

I wonder how someone goes about creating such a study.  What questions do they ask the participants, and how do they come to their conclusions?  

 

Still, there probably is legitimacy to this study.  And to be fair to millennials, they’re probably not the only ones who think like this.  I’ve recently witnessed individuals ending years of friendship over political disagreements.  In conversations with total strangers (workplace or social settings, restaurants and bars), I’ve heard people volunteer their opinions on anything from abortion to climate change while assuming that I am in total agreement.  And the result?  People appear foolish doing this.

People appear foolish when they can’t see more than one side to any issue.  Whether they’re from left, right or center, I imagine them picturing themselves as the champions of freedom … by wanting everyone to think as they do.

I heard once that there are two prongs to conformity in America:

• Corporate identity.  Since the 1960s, corporate advertising has turned Americans envious.  To fit in, we have to drive the right car and wear the right clothes.  Even own a cellphone.
• Governmental oversight.  With a $5 trillion budget, the federal government can reach just about everything – including private behavior.  (The irony is that the most vocal critics of the current administration propose to make the government bigger.)

It comes down to the same thing in either case: we’re afraid.  In the 20^th Century, we followed lots of tyrants out of fear.  In the 21^st Century, we join groups because we’re afraid of being alone.   To belong, we endorse causes, products and messages while not giving it much thought.  Sometimes we do this in places like Facebook and Twitter.  (Facebook, by the way, now has a net worth of $470 billion and takes in close to $56 billion each year.)

We seem to be doing well at making each other miserable.  In the last month, we’ve heard of people buying admissions for their children to enroll in prestigious colleges.  There was another mass killing at a mosque in New Zealand where the killer filmed the shooting to appear on Facebook.  There’s more talk about immigration and building a wall.  And the Mueller Report is another argument starter.

If millennials (or anyone else) do care more about politics than sex, it makes me wonder if they have lost all sense of fun.  Maybe they are more afraid of disapproval than being alive.

March 28, 2019

© Robert S. Miller 2019