Tarantino brilliantly turns Spaghetti Western on its head but then undermines it through cheap revenge fantasy

Rating: 5/10 (15 March 2013)

With clever aplomb, Quentin Tarantino has turned the Spaghetti Western on its head and created a vision of the pre-Civil War South and Wild West, much more like it probably was: a landscape replete with the nightmare images of slavery, highlighting a society permeated by racism at every turn. When he decides to be 'serious', Tarantino 'gets it' and proffers up a series of disturbing images, scenes and characters that prove on a certain level, he's read his history.
The opening scene, where a group of male slaves in chains are being transported by the Speck Brothers, introduces us to the brutal world of slavery. One notes the horrible condition these men are in and the sadistic way they're treated by the racist Ace and Dicky Speck. The brutal way in which the slaves take revenge on Dicky, after his horse falls on him after being shot, suggests their actions are an understandable reaction to years of terrible oppression.
Tarantino is hardly finished. There are scenes of slaves on the way to the slave market in shackles, often forced to wear gruesome metal head locks that resemble the kind of restraints one associates with Hannibal Lecter in 'Silence of the Lambs'; a terrifying mob of hooded racist night riders, obvious precursors of the Ku Klux Klan, on their way to take revenge on Tarantino's protagonists, Dr. Schultz and Django; Mandingo fighting where blacks are forced to basically kill one another in the wrestling ring while racist whites bet on the fight for sport; and the copious use of the 'n-word' throughout the film (Tarantino doesn't care about offending modern day sensibilities--he realizes that the overuse of that demeaning word, was commonplace during those times!).
Tarantino is at his best when he comes up with a character like Calvin J. Candie, the racist plantation owner, so winningly played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Candie is not just your average racist brute as are so many of the other characters in the film. Candie represents a racist with intelligence, as he toys with those he lords over, sadistically deriving pleasure through both physical and psychological means. In perhaps the most disturbing scene in the film, he coaxes one of his top Mandingo fighters down from a tree, after the poor, broken man confesses he's no longer able to fight and then sics a pack of savage dogs on him, tearing the man to pieces. Candie also is shown to have much in common with the Nazis in the 20th century, as he pontificates about what he believes to be the genetic inferiority of the black man.
After all this clever scene setting as well as some brilliant writing in his portrait of Candie, why does Tarantino undermine his story by resorting to the same kind of puerile wish fulfillment fantasy, we saw in full relief in his previous effort, 'Inglorious Basterds'? The answer can be found in the examination of Tarantino's two protagonists, Dr. Schultz and Django.
While Christoph Waltz proves to be highly entertaining as Dr. King Schultz, the witty dentist turned bounty hunter, one must recognize that Schultz, personifies Tarantino himself. Not only does Tarantino want to be on the winning side, but he must prove, as a white Italian, that he is entirely sympathetic to black people and is 100% against racism. So here he grafts this 21st century sensibility on to his Schultz character, who is such a friend of black people, that he'll not only make Django his partner but go out of his way and risk his life, to help Django save his wife from the clutches of the very dangerous Calvin J. Candie.
It hardly seems believable that Schulz would be able to save himself in that scene where he appeals to the Marshal's good will. I would imagine that after shooting the sheriff, the Marshal and his posse wouldn't have been in the mood to listen to Schultz's story that he was a bounty hunter, and would have shot them both on the spot. I was unable, however, to suspend my disbelief when it came to Schultz making Django his assistant, and parading around, ensuring all those racist townspeople got their comeuppance. It might have made Tarantino feel good that his white liberal Schultz and super-human racist killer, Django, were so successful, but the reality of the 1858 South, was quite different (Think about John Brown's fate after attempting to start a slave revolt when he raided Harper's Ferry).
If Schultz is a stand-in for today's white liberal, Django represents the flip side: militant black people's wish fulfillment. Spike Lee is completely right that 'Django' trivializes the history of slavery (I wish only he saw the film so he can back up his beliefs with specific detail). When Django kills Candie's sister and Samuel L. Jackson's Uncle Tom, Stephen, and then blows up the plantation, it gives those unfamiliar with American history the wrong impression. Quite the opposite occurred: there was little opportunity for blacks to revolt against the slave master; and when such revolts did occur, they were brutally suppressed.
By indulging himself with these revenge fantasies, Tarantino may be encouraging ignorant young people to resort to violence. Some of these young people may erroneously equate the racist behavior seen in 'Django' with people of today. In our own time, is it right to blame Germans born after World War II, for the crimes committed by their grandparents?
Ultimately, Tarantino succeeds when he transforms the Spaghetti Western into the nightmare reality of a pre-Civil War racist world. But by also accepting the stock conventions of that genre, with all of its attendant juvenile trappings (e.g. one bloodbath after another), coupled with his need to be on the 'winning side' and indulging in revenge fantasies, Tarantino ends up appealing to the baser instincts of those who deny over 150 years of progress and hark back to an age that no longer exists.