By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Django Unchained on the Croisette

Posted Monday, May 21st, 2012 - 2 Comments »
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The 10-minute Django Unchained trailer that screened for select press today in Cannes – obviously not a final cut – opened on a typical Western backdrop, with slaves walking across a dusty cliff.

But hey, I will tell you what you want to know: Django Unchained looks fantastic. The footage screened was gory, funny, and filled with everything else you love about Tarantino, so fans can breathe easy. Of course, I am a devoted Tarantino worshipper, so take my word with a grain of salt. QT’s stylistic panache is on full display here, and Django Unchained looks like an incredibly exciting revenge narrative.

It would appear Django Unchained is a much funnier film than anything Quentin Tarantino has done before, and that humor seems to fit perfectly with the bravado and ruthlessness of the American Old West. Jamie Foxx’s “Motherfucker Jones” in Horrible Bosses proved the actor still has the comedic chops to pull off some big laughs, and it’s pretty clear his role as the title character will have us quoting Django (“the D is silent”) for a long time. The same can be said for Christoph Waltz’s character of Dr. King Schultz, the bounty hunter who hires Django to help him. Schultz’s horse Fritz will similarly steal scenes.

In addition to what looks like a barnburner of a script, Django and Schultz are more than proficient with their repeater rifles, and I’m happy to report that I counted at least seven exploding bodies in the footage. Schultz’ method of bounty-hunting opts to choose the former in the phrase “dead or alive,” and he trains Django to do the same. People die and heads explode.

I’d argue Tarantino is also known for costumes that are visually very striking – think Beatrix’s yellow tracksuit in Kill Bill for example – and Django’s bright blue get-up should be equally memorable. Additionally, nearly everyone in this film looks to be equipped with elaborate facial hair and/or deep scars – all in all, it’s very cool and totally in sync with the era.

Based on what was screened, I can assume, with a fair amount of confidence, the following about Django Unchained: it’s bloody, it’s hilarious, and possibly destined to become a definitive entry to the Spaghetti Western genre. What more could you ask for?

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Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Django Unchained on the Croisette”

  1. Andy says:
    May 22, 2012 at 9:25 am

    ” Jamie Foxx’s “Motherfucker Jones” in Horrible Bosses proved the actor had the comedic chops to pull off some big laughs”

    More so than 95 episodes of “In Living Color”?

  2. Jake Howell says:
    May 22, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    Hi Andy,

    Yeah – this is where my youth shows. Thanks, I’ll change that. A colleague of mine pointed this out to me earlier but I didn’t have a chance to fix it. Never knew Foxx’s comedy history. Oops!

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon