Django Unchained (original title Django Unchained) is a film by Quentin Tarantino, a living classic of modern cinema. Quentin Tarantino directed and wrote this tape, and also starred in a cameo role. The film was released in 2012 and received positive reviews from both critics and audiences. He has won two Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, as well as many awards and nominations from other film awards and festivals.
Origins and idea of making the film
Quentin Tarantino is one of the directors with a striking author's style. His films are distinguished by an abundance of references to classic and little-known films of the past. The script for the film "Django Unchained" is also based on the traditions and script findings of the films already shot. The film was conceived in accordance with the traditions of the spaghetti western genre. It is believed that Quentin Tarantino largely borrowed ideas from the films "Django" 1966, "Mandingo" 1975, "The Great Silence" 1968, "Angel Set Free" 1970, "The Exploits of Hercules: Hercules and Queen Lydia" 1959 d. As the director himself said, studying Westerns and the history of the Wild West, he discovered that what was happening then had many similarities with the events of the times of fascism. In an interview with The Telegraph, Quentin Tarantino explained that while creating the script for the film Django Unchained, he wanted to raise the theme of American slavery, but to translate it not in the pathetic-moralizing form characteristic of this topic, but in the entertaining form of anti-Western.
Plot of the film
The film is set in 1958, that is, during the period of American history, when the slave-owning South still existed and the problems that later resulted in the Civil War were already obvious. The tape tells the story of a slave named Django and bounty hunter King Schultz. Schultz kills the slave traders who ferried a group of slaves and takes Django with him. He needs Django in order to track down and identify the people for whose heads he hunts. Schultz promises to free Django from slavery and pay money for his assistance. Later it turns out that Django is good at weapons and they become partners.
Further, the plot of the film tells about Django's attempts to find and free his wife, who was sold into slavery to Calvin Candy. Django and Schultz develop a plan to deceive Candy and, under the pretext of buying a slave for fighting, at the same time ransom from him and his wife Django. However, Candy's servant guesses about their plan, he reports his fears to the owner. As a result, a verbal duel unfolds between Candy and Schultz, the end point of which is the death of both. A gunfight breaks out, Django and his wife are surrounded. Django is caught and sent as a slave to the quarry. But Django manages to escape, he returns to Candy's mansion, frees his wife and blows up the mansion.
Roles
The role of Django, as planned by Quentin Tarantino, was to go to Will Smith. However, since Smith wanted to make changes to the script so that Candy was killed not by Schultz, but directly by Django, the role went to Jamie Foxx. On this score, the director himself spoke in an interview with Tribute Entertainment Media Group, emphasizing that it was important for him that it was the "white" man who killed the slave owner Candy. This episode, according to the author's idea, is the forerunner of the Civil War and the confrontation between the American North and South.
For Academy Award winner, musician and actor Jamie Foxx, the role in Django Unchained has become a hallmark. Unlike his role in Ray, which earned him an Oscar, his role in Quentin Tarantino's film brought him recognition not only in the professional community, but also massive recognition and popularity.
In the film, the actor starred on his own horse, which was presented to him for his birthday four years earlier. In addition to playing the leading role, Jamie Foxx took part in the creation of the musical accompaniment of the film. Rick Ross's "100 Black Coffins" soundtrack was produced by Jamie Foxx.
Christoph Waltz was invited to play the role of a former German doctor who hunts for heads in the open spaces of the United States and hates slavery. In 2009, Quentin Tarantino and the actor had the successful experience of working together during the filming of Inglourious Basterds. Waltz received many awards and flattering reviews for his role in Inglourious Basterds. Collaboration with Quentin Tarantino has become the most fruitful and successful period in his acting career. Four more film awards for the film in Inglourious Basterds were joined by four more awards: for the role of King Schultz in Django Unchained. Christoph Waltz has won two Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTAs.
Django Unchained has been running for over an hour when Leonardo DiCaprio's character appears on the screen. The role of Calvin Candy was the actor's first collaboration with Quentin Tarantino. This role is exceptional in the career of a super successful actor. For the first time, Leonardo DiCaprio agreed to a secondary role, moreover, for the first time, he agreed to the role of a frankly "bad guy" and even a "villain."
The episode of the film, where the actor accidentally injured his hand, but did not stop filming, but rather organically improvised, making his bloody palm one of the components of the most intense episode of the film, has already entered the golden history of cinema.
Unlike Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson has appeared in Quentin Tarantino's films on numerous occasions. They collaborated for the fifth time. In "Django Unchained," he got the supporting role of Calvin Candy's devoted servant. However, despite its secondary importance, this role is exceptional in the history of cinema - for the first time a slave appeared on the screens, who, being in the position of a servant, is in fact a puppet who controls the words and actions of his master.
The role of Django's beloved wife, the struggle for freedom and whose life became the trigger for the development of the film's plot, went to Carrie Washington. This is not the first time Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington have portrayed a married couple; they have already played husband and wife in the 2004 film "Rey", dedicated to the life of the famous jazz singer Ray Charles.
Among the significant episodic roles in the film "Django Unchained", several actors should be noted. This is Franco Nero - in 1966, he starred in the spaghetti western "Django". His appearance in the Quentin Tarantino film is a funny cameo where the "new" Django tells the "old" to pronounce his name without the first letter "d". Franco Nero replies, "I know."
Bruce Dern played a cameo role in Django Unchained, who three years later will co-star in Quentin Tarantino's next film, The Hateful Eight.
A small role in the film went to John Hill - initially a more significant role was allocated for him, but later his character was almost completely cut out.
Music for the film
The film was composed by Ennio Morricone. After working on Django Unchained, he announced that he would no longer work on Quentin Tarantino's films, as he believes that the director is too free to edit his music in the film and does not provide enough time to create compositions. However, Morricone became the composer of Tarantino's next film, The Hateful Eight, and won an Oscar for this work.
The title track of the film was Jim Croce's song "I Got a Name", released in 1973.
Interesting Facts
- The film became the longest shooting day in Quentin Tarantino's career. The shooting lasted one hundred and thirty days. Also, the film became the highest budgetary in his career - the film's budget amounted to more than a hundred million dollars.
- At Comic-Con, director Quentin Tarantino stated that Django and his wife are the ancestors of Detective Shaft from the 1971 movie Shaft.
- Filming took place in Wyoming, Jackson Hall.
- The blue suit that Django acquires is a nod to Thomas Gainsborough's famous Boy in Blue.
- The name Gerald Nash, which belongs to a gang member in Django Unchained, was already used by Quentin Tarantino in the 1994 film Natural Born Killers.
- The phrase "And that will be the story of you", which Stephen's servant says before Django's death, viewers have already heard in another Quentin Tarantino film - in "Kill Bill 2".
- The image of a doctor who became a bounty hunter has a real-life prototype named Doctor Holliday.
- Jamie Foxx as Django makes a cameo appearance in the 2014 comedy A Million Ways to Lose Your Head.
- The slogan of the film is “They took his freedom. He will take everything from them."
- The film was produced by The Weinstein Company. Producers Harvey and Bob Weinstein are responsible for the success and acclaim of one of Quentin Tarantino's early films, Pulp Fiction.
Film criticism
The film "Django Unchained", like all other films of Quentin Tarantino, has received extensive criticism. The main reason for criticism was the abundance of foul language and the use of the word "Negro" in the film. The film also features dozens of murders and other forms of violence. However, all attacks on the need to adhere to political correctness by Quentin Tarantino, as well as many film critics, were dismissed, since the demonstration of the use of these words and actions was conceived as the main idea of the film - to show the shameful pages of US history.
The film was also criticized for having many minor historical inconsistencies. For example, the film contains dynamite and weapons that have not yet been invented in the specified time period. The expression "motherfucker", used repeatedly in the film, appeared in the vocabulary only during the Second World War. The tape uses many words, objects and pieces of music that could not have been known in this era. The film caused controversy among historians regarding the existence of the Mandingo slave fighters, since there is no reliable information that the slave owners staged such fights.
