What Tarantino does have to say overall isn’t quite as layered as his commentary on storytelling and the morally specious satisfaction audiences can take in violence that lay embedded in Basterds, but there are still some interesting threads about infantilization (the whites in the film, especially Candie, seem to view blacks as children more than animals) and some fairly common Tarantino riffs on performance and role-playing. For the most part, however, Tarantino seems to be reveling in the vibrant, if often ugly, characters he’s created and how they interact with one another, in particular Candie’s slave chief-of-staff, in a phenomenal performance by Samuel L. Jackson.
If you’ve never seen a Tarantino film before, it might be worth brushing up on some of his work before deciding if Django is worth a trip to the theater (which, if you are going to see it, is pretty essential given Robert Richardson’s glorious cinematography). If you have seen Tarantino’s work, then you already know what to expect and your decision should be easy.
Article comments
1 - Adam
I absolutely loved Django, IMHO it ranks as one of the best westerns ever.
Also, I didn't even think of the Blazing Saddles parallels, awesome to point that out. It makes me want to go and watch Django again.
2 - Dan
It's not too surprising that progressive, white, racial masochists dream crap like this up in order to exploit the fragile historical egos of black people, but it's always disappointing that blacks so gleefully engage in racial revenge fantasy.
Diverse racial equality can probably never be achieved, but the best reminder of enduring inequality is the obvious profound double standard that would be imposed on any film depicting lots of evil blacks being put down by heroic white guys.