Django Unchained isn't merely a "slave revenge" film

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2012)

Django Unchained is about a hero who saves a damsel-in-distress. The 'damsel-in- distress' is a classic theme in literature, art and film. The damsel is usually a beautiful woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain, who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. In Tarantino's film, Dr. King Schultz, a German bounty hunter, takes great pains to compare Django to Sigurðr and Broomhilda to Brynhildr (the latter characters from the Norse Völsunga mythology). Broomhilda/Brynhildr is a stock character of fiction, particularly of melodrama. However, never in recent memory has an African American chattel slave from the 1800s been cast as a damsel-in-distress... deemed worth saving. This alone was worth seeing the movie.
In Alex Haley's Roots (book and television mini-series) Kizzy is a would-be Broomhilda, a beautiful young slave woman who is savagely and repeatedly raped by slave master Tom Moore, producing a son. Kizzy becomes resigned to her fate (as Master Moore's comfort woman). Kizzy is never saved, unlike Broomhilda in Django. Another reason I mention Roots is because of the excessive use of the n-word. BET recently re-aired the mini-series as part of a holiday marathon, perhaps as a lead-in to the Dhango Unchained opening. The n-word was used in Roots about as much as it is used in Django Unchained. The n- word was what slaves were called during that time period and it was (and still should be) a term of hate. Thus, the use of the n-word in Django is more historically correct than in prior Tarantino films.
Tarantino's research of chattel slavery in the U.S., during the 1800s is highlighted in the film and he addressed issues such as phrenology (measurement of the skull) and drapetomania, a supposed mental illness described by U.S. physician Samuel A. Cartwright that caused black slaves to flee captivity. At one time science was used to justify the enslavement and brutalization of African slaves in the Americas. Django is just the tip of the iceberg. The knee jerk reactions of some critics regarding the excessive use of the n-word and it being a "slave revenge" film was not helpful. I ignored these criticisms and saw the movie for myself.
I applauded the performances by Christoph Waltz, Samuel Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio, among the others. Samuel Jackson channeled the Boondock's Uncle Ruckus to an extreme degree. If anything, I felt Jackson had too much screen time. Also, there were a few pauses in action and dialog that seemed out of sync with the flow of the film. However, there were also quite a few humorous moments that kept me in the narrative. Towards the end of the film Tarantino pays homage to a beginning sequence from Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West," when a Native woman is told to flee the scene. A long time Ennio Morricone fan, Tarantino often makes extensive use of several Morricone pieces from several 1960s film scores. The 2009 film Inglourious Basterds also uses many Morricone pieces, as well as sharing "Il Mercenario (Ripresa)" with Kill Bill.
To conclude, rather than label Django Unchained as a 'slave revenge' film (bringing to mind the historical fear of revolt) I find it more helpful to think of what the film attempts to do for African Americans: offer us a fictional, historical revisionist retelling of Roots with substantial alterations in the characters, to revise views shown in earlier work. The goal, here, is not to bring or keep African Americans down but to insert new mythology into a classic narrative to elevate us and maybe even unite us.