Only a handful of filmmakers have final cut rights in every contract they sign. What that means is that the financier or studio can make as many suggestions about what could be change or tweaked to the script, cast, or finished film, but the director has no obligation to listen to a single thing. In short, these directors have 100% control over what they're doing. As a concept, of course, this sounds like the ideal setup for making movies. After all, what do studio heads know about movies? They're businessmen, not artists, right? Quentin Tarantino began in the independent circuit and by the time his second movie (Pulp Fiction) was released to huge profits and acclaim, it was clear that this man was one of the rare artists who would forever get final say on everything he did from now on. In the beginning, he had final say over a series of low budget, low risk projects, but as the 2000s rolled around, the budgets grew increasingly higher and Tarantino became one of the even more extremely rare few who could make blockbusters and take no criticism from anyone giving him money.
Now, that is not to say there was no one giving him opinions throughout that time on how to improve his work, be it through pacing, what plots could be expanded on or taken out, or even music choices. From the very beginning with Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino got this valuable advice from a woman named Sally Menke, his editor. With Menke, Tarantino found a genius to shape his massive narratives into tightly woven, fatless products. That's not to say every project the two collaborated on was a masterpiece; I'd argue that their 90s work towers far above the post-2000 films with the exception of Inglourious Basterds. However, it was clear that Menke had the sensibilities that a studio head may not; she could take an objective look at what Tarantino made and turn it into the best product the story had the potential for. Tragically, Sally Menke died in 2010 at the early age of 56. A year later, Tarantino began work on Django Unchained, his most expensive project to date and ultimately his longest.
Perhaps reading this, you're wondering why I'm launching this long exposition into a critique on editing when I could edit all of this out and just talk about Django but I think it's all important to keep the story behind the scenes on your mind for what exactly is wrong with Django, a film that could have reached the heights of Tarantino's previous efforts and become a highly original western/fairy tale set in the antebellum south. The ambitions of the project were every bit as amazing as they could have been and potential was magnificent. Clocking in at two hours and forty five minutes, Django Unchained tells the tale of a slave turned bounty hunter (played by Jamie Foxx) and the trials he'll go through to save his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Django is aided by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a seasoned bounty hunter with progressive views on slavery. Waltz needed Django to identify some of the men he needed to kill, and the two become partners of a sort for the winter before embarking on the journey to save Django's wife from Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), owner of one of the biggest and most dangerous plantations in the south.
For the first time in Tarantino's career, he's finally made a movie where the tone is an uneven mix of humor and atrocities. Sure, that's a very hard balance to find, but somehow his previous films hit that balance perfectly. Here, the backdrop of slavery provided some of the more disturbing moments in the film simply because almost every character we're introduced to in the south is a monstrous racist. Sometimes this is played for humor, an almost satirical view on how stupid slavery actually was. The first half of the film plays almost more like an all out comedy than anything else, and the laughs nearly always land. It's only once the real story begins to form and the audience is taken to Candieland that things start to get really gut wrenching. Here, you see Mandingo fighting where slaves are pitted against each other to fight to the death for the amusement of whites. You see a man torn apart by dogs. And, here you get one of the goriest finales that's been captured on film in a while. Yet the tone of the film does not intentionally fall into this dark territory as a myriad of jokes and silly moments continue to pop up from time to time. The only problem is you start to get a little too disturbed to be as lightheartedly amused as you were before.
In a way, I wish Quentin Tarantino would simply make up his mind on films like this to either make them serious or funny. The funny stuff works and the serious stuff could have worked, but the two meshed together just did not create the right atmosphere for a spaghetti western. Rather than letting us get really emotionally invested in the horrible life Django and Broomhilda have had to endure to this point, Tarantino has us laughing at a bunch of goofy moments and then getting serious and then getting goofy and then just getting over the top gory. Never before have his stories had so much trouble tonally. That being said, he's only done a love story once before, back in 1997 with Jackie Brown, which is undoubtedly his most mature work to date. It sometimes seems like Quentin Tarantino has started getting less mature with each film since it. Unlike Jackie Brown, Django leaves romance on the cutting room floor and simply has you accept the relationship since we know Django and Broomhilda are married. Your emotional involvement here stems far more from the satisfaction of watching these horrible despicable villains die than legitimately needing this couple to end up together. And that's too bad.
While the film itself is largely entertaining and there are moments of brilliance sprinkled in many places throughout the first two thirds of Django, this is Quentin Tarantino at his most indulgent and this new editor did not appear to have the capability to stop him. The film gets repetitive, somewhat bloated, and a little tiresome during the actual finale. It appears that Mr. Tarantino wrote himself into a corner about two hours in, where a forced character action had to bring about a gunfight, which then turns into Django's personal journey instead of the climax. The actual climax at the end of the film is full of so much gore it becomes silly. Tarantino's insistence on creating homages to the awful exploitation films of the 70s that he loves is detrimental when you're so taken out from the moment by how fake everything looks. Then you have so many modern songs Tarantino shoved into the movie that just gets tiresome. There is a moment where one song ends just so another song can play as a montage continues. It just doesn't flow well, which is what an editor is supposed to tell him.
So, it probably sounds like I hated this movie. No, that's not it at all. There's a lot to like, but there are certainly flaws along with Django Unchained. Tarantino is a wonderfully creative artist, but he's not a god. An exploitation/spaghetti western/love story was always going to be a hard combination to make work and he almost did it, but he forgot how love stories rely on an emotional core to work. Inglourious Basterds didn't need an emotional core because it was never not going to be satisfying to see the Nazis defeated. Django isn't about ending slavery, it's about reuniting lovers. Sure, I'm fine with these awful people dying, but that's not the point of the story. All that being said, this is still worth watching just for the moments that do work, especially the first half of the film. It's not a classic or a game changer, but Django Unchained is still a fun ride.
7/10
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