Django Unchained
Django Unchained is a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Tarantino's A Band Apart and Columbia Pictures, it stars Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson with Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson in supporting roles. The film, set in the Antebellum South and Old West follows the story of an enslaved man who trains under a German bounty hunter with the ultimate goal of reuniting with his wife. It is a highly stylized, revisionist tribute to spaghetti Westerns, with its title referring particularly to the 1966 Italian film Django by Sergio Corbucci.
Development of Django Unchained began in 2007, when Tarantino was writing a book on Corbucci. By April 2011, Tarantino sent his final draft of the script to The Weinstein Company. Casting began in the summer of 2011, with Michael K. Williams and Will Smith being considered for the role of the title character before Foxx was cast. Principal photography took place from November 2011 to March 2012 in California, Wyoming, and Louisiana.
Django Unchained premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on December 11, 2012, and was theatrically released by The Weinstein Company on December 25, in the United States, with Sony Pictures Releasing International handling international distribution. It was a commercial success, grossing $449.8 million worldwide against a $100 million budget, becoming Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date, as well as the highest-grossing Western film of all time.
The film received widespread acclaim from critics, who praised the performances especially those of Waltz, DiCaprio and Jackson and Tarantino's direction and screenplay, though the film's extensive graphic violence and frequent use of racial slurs were source of [|controversy]. It was named one of the top ten films of the year by the American Film Institute and by the National Board of Review, and received numerous accolades, gathering five nominations at the 85th Academy Awards—including for Best Picture—winning for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay. It also received five nominations with two wins at both the 70th Golden Globe Awards and the 66th British Academy Film Awards.
Plot
In 1858 Texas, several male African American slaves are being "driven" by the Speck Brothers, Ace and Dicky. Among the shackled slaves is Django, sold off and separated from his wife, Broomhilda. The Speck Brothers are stopped by Dr. King Schultz, a German ex-dentist and bounty hunter from Düsseldorf. Schultz asks to buy one of the slaves, but while questioning Django about his knowledge of the Brittle Brothers, for whom Schultz is carrying a warrant, he irritates Ace, who aims his shotgun at Schultz. Schultz quickly kills Ace and leaves Dicky at the mercy of the other newly freed slaves, who kill him. Since Django can identify the Brittle Brothers, Schultz offers Django his freedom in exchange for his help in tracking them down.Django discovers Schultz is a bounty hunter, as Schultz kills an outlaw named Willard Peck, who was posing as the Sheriff in a small town. Schultz and Django then track the Brittle Brothers down, leading them to a plantation. Django shoots dead the first brother, brutally whips the second before shooting him too, while Schultz kills the third brother. They then ambush and kill the plantation owner who leads a group of lynchers. Django partners with Schultz through the winter and becomes his apprentice, and Schultz discovers Django's natural ability with gunslinging. Schultz explains that, being the first person he has ever given freedom to, he feels responsible for Django and is driven to help him in his quest to rescue Broomhilda.
Django, now fully trained, collects his first bounty, keeping the handbill as a good luck charm. In Mississippi, Schultz uncovers the identity of Broomhilda's owner: Calvin Candie, the charming but brutal owner of the Candyland Plantation, where black slaves are forced to fight in wrestling deathmatches called "Mandingo fights". Schultz, expecting Candie will not sell Broomhilda if they ask for her directly, plots to feign interest in purchasing one of Candie's prized fighters, offer to purchase Broomhilda on the side for a reasonable sum, then take her and escape before the Mandingo deal is finalized. Schultz and Django meet Candie at his gentleman's club in Greenville and submit their offer. His greed tickled, Candie invites them to Candyland. After secretly briefing Broomhilda on the plan, Schultz claims to be charmed by the German-speaking Broomhilda and offers to buy her after arranging to buy a fighting slave.
During dinner, Candie's staunchly loyal house slave, Stephen, becomes suspicious. Deducing that Django and Broomhilda know each other and that the sale of the Mandingo fighter is just a misdirection, Stephen alerts and privately admonishes Candie on his greed. Candie is humiliated at being fooled by a black man, but he contains his anger long enough to theatrically display his knowledge of phrenology which he uses to justify white superiority and black inferiority. Candie's bodyguard suddenly bursts into the room with his shotgun trained on the two bounty hunters, and Candie furiously threatening to kill Broomhilda. He extorts Schultz for the complete bid amount, and taunts him by demanding a formal handshake to finalize the deal before he leaves. Tired of his arrogance, Schultz fatally shoots Candie with a concealed derringer and his henchman kills him in turn. Django grabs a revolver and, after a violent shootout, is forced to surrender when Broomhilda is taken hostage at gunpoint.
The next morning, Stephen tells Django that he will be sold to a mine where he will labor for the rest of his life. En route to the mine, Django proves to his dim-witted Australian escorts that he is a bounty hunter by showing them the handbill from his first kill. He convinces them that there is a large bounty for outlaws who are hiding at Candyland, and promises that they would receive most of the money. The escorts release him and give him a pistol, and he kills them before stealing a horse and leaving for Candyland.
Django returns to the plantation and kills more of Candie's henchmen. He takes Broomhilda's freedom papers from Schultz's pocket, bidding his friend and mentor a final farewell before freeing Hildi from a nearby cabin. When Candie's mourners return from his burial, Django kills Candie's few remaining henchmen and his sister Lara, releases the two remaining house slaves, and kneecaps Stephen. Django then ignites dynamite that he has planted throughout the mansion. He and Broomhilda watch from a distance as the mansion explodes, killing Stephen, before riding off together.
Cast
- Jamie Foxx as Django Freeman
- Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz
- Leonardo DiCaprio as "Monsieur" Calvin J. Candie
- Kerry Washington as "Hildi" von Shaft
- Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen
- Walton Goggins as Billy Crash
- Dennis Christopher as Leonide "Leo" Moguy
- James Remar as Butch Pooch / Ace Speck
- David Steen as Mr. Stonecipher
- Dana Gourrier as Cora
- Nichole Galicia as Sheba
- Laura Cayouette as Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly
- Ato Essandoh as D'Artagnan
- Sammi Rotibi as Rodney
- Clay Donahue Fontenot as Luigi
- Escalante Lundy as Big Fred
- Miriam F. Glover as Betina
- Don Johnson as Spencer "Big Daddy" Bennett
- Franco Nero as Amerigo Vessepi
Jonah Hill plays Bag Head #2, a member of Bennett's masked white supremacist group. Additional roles include Lee Horsley as Sheriff Gus, Rex Linn as Tennessee Harry, Misty Upham as Minnie, and Danièle Watts as Coco. Russ Tamblyn and his daughter Amber appear as townspeople in Daugherty, Texas; their roles are respectively credited as "Son of a Gunfighter" and "Daughter of Son of a Gunfighter". Zoë Bell, Michael Bowen, Robert Carradine, Jake Garber, Ted Neeley, James Parks, and Tom Savini play Candyland trackers. Jacky Ido, who played Marcel in Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, makes an uncredited appearance as a slave. Michael Parks as Roy and John Jarratt as Floyd, alongside Tarantino himself in a cameo appearance as Frankie, play the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company employees. Tarantino also appears in the film as a masked Bag Head named Robert.
Production
Development
In 2007, Quentin Tarantino discussed an idea for a type of spaghetti Western set in the United States of America's pre-American Civil War Deep South. He called this type of film "a Southern", stating that he wanted:Tarantino later explained the genesis of the idea:
Tarantino finished the script on April 26, 2011, and handed in the final draft to The Weinstein Company. In October 2012, frequent Tarantino collaborator RZA said that he and Tarantino had intended to cross over Django Unchained with RZA's Tarantino-presented martial-arts film The Man with the Iron Fists. The crossover would have seen a younger version of the blacksmith character from RZA's film appear as a slave in an auction. However, scheduling conflicts prevented RZA's participation.
One inspiration for the film is Corbucci's 1966 Spaghetti Western Django, whose star Franco Nero has a cameo appearance in Django Unchained. Another inspiration is the 1975 film Mandingo, about a slave trained to fight other slaves. Tarantino included scenes in the snow as a homage to the 1968 film The Great Silence. "Silenzio takes place in the snow. I liked the action in the snow so much, Django Unchained has a big snow section in the middle," Tarantino said in an interview. Tarantino credits the character and attitude of the German dentist turned bounty hunter King Schultz to the German Karl May Wild West films of the 1960s, namely their hero Old Shatterhand.
The title Django Unchained alludes to the titles of the 1966 Corbucci film Django; Hercules Unchained, the American title for the 1959 Italian epic fantasy film Ercole e la regina di Lidia, about the mythical hero's escape from enslavement to a wicked master; and to Angel Unchained, the 1970 American biker film about a biker exacting revenge on a large group of rednecks.