Django was a slave until a German bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz, came along and made him a free man. Now he helps Schultz hunt down wanted men. Django has a wife, Broomhilda von Shaft, but they were separated and she got sold to a slave owner known as Calvin Candy. Dr. King Schultz helps Django find and get his wife back.
Blaine: Quentin Tarantino had been wanting to make a Western for a while. He also wanted slavery to be involved because a lot of westerns have taken place during that time, but they always avoided it. Quentin felt that there could have been a lot of dramatic, exciting and adventurous stories that could have been told. No one else did it so Quentin decided to be the first. Quentin has written parts for actors in his movies and some of them have turned it down. He wrote the part of Django for Will Smith, but Smith turned down the part. Jamie Foxx heard about the project and was curious to know what it was. Jamie got to take a look at the script and it was unlike anything he had ever read before. The first thing Quentin asked Jamie when he met him was could he play a slave and Jamie didn’t know how to respond to that question. Jamie didn’t know how to act like a slave so it was a challenge, but he was up for it and Quentin admired him for that. Jamie loved that Django is a character who cares for his wife and he stops at nothing until he finds her. Django finds his strength after he becomes a free man. The only two things he can’t do is read or write after being a slave almost all his life. Django has a special talent for being fast with a gun. He practices shooting targets on a snowman and manages to get every single shot. He also learns fast. Django learns a lot from his partner and best friend, Dr. King Schultz. Jamie is used to being called the N word because growing up in Texas he was called that a lot and it’s used 110 times in “Django Unchained”, so it didn’t bother him a bit.
Quentin Tarantino had “Django Unchained” in his mind for years, but there was no German involved until he worked with Christoph Waltz in “Inglorious Basterds”. Christoph says the lines Quentin has written like they are poetry and next to Samuel L. Jackson, it is hard for Quentin not to write part for Christoph in one of his movies. Quentin had Christoph read the whole script to him at his house as a test to see if Christoph was worthy enough to be apart of the film even though he already knew the answer was yes. Dr. King Schultz is a good teacher to Django. Django learns Schultz' special tricks about how to get out of serious situations just by talking. Django gets sold to work at a mine and is being transported, but he manages to talk his way out by showing the mine guys a wanted poster from his pocket. He tricks them and shoots them all dead. Christoph Waltz got injured while learning how to ride a horse.
Leonardo DiCaprio was impressed that Quentin Tarantino did a tremendous job at rewriting history again after “Inglorious Basterds” and that he mixed slavery with the spaghetti western genre. Leonardo hated Calvin Candy after reading the script, but your supposed to hate him because Quentin wrote him to an unlikable character. Leonardo knew Calvin Candy represented what was wrong with the south at the time. This was a completely new character for Leonardo to portray because he never played the bad guy before. Leonardo took the job because he never thought he was going to have the opportunity to be offered to work with Quentin Tarantino again and he wanted to work with the group of actors he had put together. Leonardo was nervous during his first day of shooting. He felt really terrible saying his lines while shooting a scene because his character is a terrible person. Samuel L. Jackson would tell Leonardo to calm down and that everyone knows he doesn’t mean the words his character says. Leonardo got injured while shooting the scene where Candy is showing the skull of a slave who served his father to Django and Dr. King Schultz. His hand gets cut and a lot of blood is bleeding out. Leonardo really cut himself while they shot that scene, but he kept acting. He didn’t want to stop even though he was injured.
Kerry Washington was the first person Quentin had met with for the project. Quentin is always good at having conversations with the people he wants to be in his movies. Kerry thought the script was intense, original and important. She thought it was amazing that Quentin wrote a story about a slave with power. Kerry knew that something like this had to be made. However she wasn’t sure if she was right for this movie because they were going to be traveling to a new area each time and she didn’t know if she could handle the weather, but Quentin made sure that she felt comfortable. Kerry had to learn how to speak German for the next two months after she was hired. Kerry’s father grew up in a world where there were no black superheroes, so she did this movie for him. Another reason she did it was the love story between Django and Broomhilda. Black people weren’t allowed to fall in love and get married when they were slaves, but most of them did anyway. Django becomes a freeman and then goes through so much to find and rescue his wife. Kerry shows a lot of great depression and fear in her performance, mostly her eyes, because Broomhilda fears the white man from the South after being tortured by them. She can’t take it.
Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino have had a long relationship. Samuel auditioned for Quentin’s first feature, “Reservoir Dogs”, back in ’91 and even though he didn’t get a part Quentin loved his voice and how he read the words from his script, so he wrote a part for him in “Pulp Fiction”. After that they worked together on “Jackie Brown” and Samuel did some narrating for a few scenes in “Inglorious Basterds”. Next to Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson is another actor Quentin resist writing a part for because he is very good with saying his lines. Quentin had sent the script to Samuel and then called him a few days later asking him if he was ok playing Steven. Samuel’s reply was “So you want me to play the most despicable negro in all of cinema?” He was messing around with Quentin. Samuel said yes to the project because he’ll play any character for Quentin. Samuel went through eight make up tests to find the right look for Steven. The reason Steven is know as unlikable is because he’s working for the bad guy. He spent so much time with Calvin Candy that he basically raised him.
Don Johnson and Quentin had been talking about working with each other for a while and it was a great joy for Don to finally be working with Quentin. All Quentin had to say was the name, Big Daddy, and Don knew this was a character he could take on. Don thought of Big Daddy as a pimp of that century. Big Daddy looks a lot like the Kentucky Fried Chicken mascot. Walton Goggins saw “Reservoir Dogs” when he was 21 and ever since then he has been dreaming about working with Quentin Tarantino. That dream came true twenty years later when Quentin Tarantino offered him a role in “Django Unchained”. Working with Quentin Tarantino was way better than what Walton was expecting. His character, Billy Crash is Calvin Candy’s Mandingo (slaves that are forced to wrestle and fight to the death.) fight trainer. Anyone who works for Candy is cruel.
Franco Nero was the original Django in a film he starred in back in 1966, “Django”, and that film has always been an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino. Quentin wanted everyone who worked on “Django Unchained” to watch the original “Django” because it is a huge film to him. Quentin had been wanting to meet Franco Nero for years because he worshiped this guy. In 2011, Franco was informed that he was going to be in Quentin’s next film, “Django Unchained”. They didn’t ask his permission, but he was ok with it. He was happy enough to be doing it for a big fan of his work. Franco Nero made a cameo performance at the gentlemen’s club where he questions Django’s name at the bar and asks him how it is spelled.
Like “Inglorious Basterds” there are zoom in, zoom out shots, only “Django Unchained” has twelve. My dad says that those fast zooms are on purpose, but traditionally you would think they were unprofessional because they are kind of too fast, normal zooms are very controlled and slower. The shootout scene where Django kills several of Calvin’s henchmen in the Candy house is so beautifully directed. A henchman keeps showing up and Django shoots him in plain site. When his gun is out of bullets, he quickly takes away the gun off a dead body of one of the guys he shot dead. The action is really choreographed, shot from a number of angles (it moves to a different shot and different room every time someone else gets shot.) I never seen a better shoot out scene.
Sally Menke had been Quentin Tarantino’s editor since “Reservoir Dogs” until she died from heat stroke while taking a hike in 2010. Quentin dedicated “Django Unchained” in memory of Sally for a long partnership. Fred Raskin was an assistant editor to Sally on Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” movies. When it came to making “Django Unchained”, Quentin had called up Fred Raskin and made him the lead editor. Fred was nervous if he wasn’t going to be able to be fast enough for Quentin because Sally worked fast as an editor for every movie Quentin made in the past. He also felt that he wouldn’t be as good as Sally. Quentin didn’t care if Fred was fast or not. All that mattered to Quentin was the style of the editing. While Quentin was shooting “Django Unchained”, the footage they shot would be sent to Fred to cut together because Quentin likes to stay focussed on production while shooting a movie. Quentin would visit the editing room which helped Fred a lot because he could let him know how he wanted the footage to be cut together. Fred would work 9 to 10 hours a day with Quentin. Quentin has a room in his house full of albums and whenever he and Fred were done editing for the day he would go home to listen to songs and see what songs go good with the movie. Fred had learned a lot about editing from Quentin Tarantino.
My rating on “Django Unchained” is five out of five stars.
Music
Blaine: My favorite shot of “Django Unchained”. The gun is out of focus and is in between Jamie Foxx’s eyes. Then the lens focusses on the gun.
