#1
Post rating: +


The triumphal moment in “Lincoln,” rather than the much-ballyhooed passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, takes place on the floor of the House of Representatives, where debate still rages and the fate of the bill is not yet certain. Thaddeus Stevens, leader of the Radical Republican faction and believer in the controversial idea that black people are human beings, has paused for a moment in his defense of the bill. This is the decision he must make: Should Stevens stick to his principles of total equality and torpedo any chance of the amendment’s passage, or should he instead revert to a position of “equality under the law,” a middling stance which turns to jurisprudential gobbledygook as a shield for the unpalatable belief that human beings are not divisible by the color of their skin. Emitting a sigh oozing with gravitas, Tommy Lee Jones as Stevens takes the second option and compromises the very stance which makes him “Radical”—he gives up the struggle he has fought for years in favor of an easier one, a simpler one, one which leaves open the possibility for perversion by those wishing to deny blacks their rights as a matter of course, and willing to use the same legislative system to keep former slaves in check.

In more capable hands, this moment could have been cast as a crushing blow to a proud and respectable statesman. Stevens could be made to wrestle with his choice and lose sleep over it. His black mistress and common-law wife could elicit disapproval and disappointment with Stevens’ turn to opportunism in favor of moderate half-solutions.

Instead, John Williams’ score bursts through the background and the crowd goes wild.

Such is the problem with “Lincoln,” despite its impeccable performances and its careful, evocative camerawork; aesthetically, it makes all the right moves and exudes those safe and sappy swings of mood typical of period dramas, while ignoring or outright fabricating the historical infrastructure it claims to represent. As Aaron Bady so correctly stated in Jacobin Magazine, it “gives us the illusion of perspective without giving us its substance.” To top off this incredulous and definitive moment of “Lincoln’s” failure as righteous political drama, a black character enters the chamber, having left during Stevens’ ideological abdication. As the votes are counted and the amendment passes, she smiles and joins in the celebration, as though the preceding drama never took place. Most directors take the time to whitewash their fables before or after the film proper is done; they write out or re-cast important characters as Caucasian or go on a series of preemptive, post-production interviews to dispel any “myths” that a white savior narrative has been supported with their “visionary” work. Spielberg at least has a visionary method of cutting out the black perspective: He used his editor. It wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest if at some point a plaintive whisper was heard across Michael Kahn’s table: “Could we put in the one where she’s smiling? I want to make sure everyone knows black people were happy about this moment too.” One character is even seen to comment on the historic nature of blacks being allowed in the House chamber. Truly, this has been a great step forward for the minority perspective in Hollywood film. Used to be, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, Arabs, or any other minority group only got to see whites tell their stories for them by watching movies where the whites told their stories for them. Now, some of those movies feature people just like them, watching whites benevolently handing over their freedom! It’s a bold new world we live in.

Yet barely a month and a half later, as if by magic, another film has been released which deals with the “Tricky, very Tricky” (A.O. Scott, New York Times) subject of slavery, in a wholly foreign and exciting way: It blows the sons-of-bitches straight to Hell.

“Django Unchained,” hot off the liberal-moderate heels of “Lincoln,” offers a radical rejoinder to the stuffy parliamentary procedure of the wartime Congress. Where “Lincoln” debates and discusses the merits of this or that solution to the problem of slavery, “Django Unchained” makes its points with a hail of bullets and a stick of dynamite. “Lincoln” tosses around points of order with carefree abandon. “Django” tosses bombs. Despite the fairly disturbing impishness with which Quentin Tarantino employs violence and mayhem, seeing human monsters get golf ball-sized holes punched in them is infinitely more soothing to the soul than some clever riposte thrown at a loudmouthed Congressman.

Most notably in its cinematography “Django” employs a rawer, realer tone than “Lincoln” ever achieves in its endless fealty to historical simulacra. The almost Technicolor vibrancy of “Django” contrasts sharply with the muted grays of “Lincoln;” even the mud in Tarantino’s work is a brighter brown. The plasma gushes as Django (a preternaturally Eastwoodian Jamie Foxx) and Schultz (Christoph Waltz, fitting in comfortably as the playful mentor) cut a bloody swath through the antebellum South, while barely a drop stains the dignified frames of “Lincoln,” including the sequences of war flashbacks where, presumably, someone at least pricked a finger. Not even the famed assassination is shown onscreen, perhaps to drive home the point that “Lincoln” is not a movie about violence, despite taking place during one of the goriest conflicts in American history. “Django” is nastier and more assertive, because this is the historical truth which the disgusting fact of slavery demands. A violent institution like the ownership of human property must be met with equal violence if it is to be destroyed. This is what Tarantino understands, and what he understood about fascism when he similarly demolished Nazi ideology in “Inglourious Basterds.” Whatever qualms one might (correctly) have about Tarantino’s boyish commitment to death and dismemberment, one can at least admit he picks targets that deserve it. And, in choosing to show the gruesome culture of the slave South rather than ignore it as “Lincoln” does, “Django” presents the reality as it is, or at the very least, closer to history than the laughable masquerade of “Lincoln.”

Take for instance the head house Negro, Stephen, played with considerable volume by Samuel L. Jackson. Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian described him as the “biggest, nastiest Uncle Tom ever,” and though one may cringe reflexively at the use of such a term, it’s more than accurate, describing a mean and manipulative traitor to his own people. Stephen is a character who could not exist in “Lincoln,” because his introduction would create ambiguities which “Lincoln’s” simplicity could not answer. Better the black characters be a captive audience, soldiers lined up to take in Lincoln’s homespun wisdom or witnesses to a sham legislative accomplishment, instead of recognizable people with multivariate sets of motivation. Stephen defies such absolutist forms of characterization, presenting at once a stern disciplinarian to his kitchen-staff underlings and a sycophantic rube to his white master. His advice is rarely taken or heeded, and any utterance of an opinion from Stephen is more often than not contradicted by a direct order from Calvin Candie (a diabolically charming Leonardo DiCaprio) to do the opposite of his instincts. To “Django’s” further credit, the presence of a “house Negro” in the film brings to mind the relationship of the “house Negro” to the “field Negro” which Malcom X famously used as a parable for the modern black liberation struggle. And Django does not see fit to spare Stephen when he returns to the Candie plantation to exact his revenge; he tells the two black women present to leave but commands the turncoat to stay. “Django” is simply not given to telling a drab story of sentimentalist caricature like “Lincoln,” and will not hesitate to mark black faces for retribution for crimes against humanity. Nor will it spare the women; Candie’s widowed sister, shown to be complicit in the abuse of slaves by treating whip marks as a sort of unpleasantness not meant for the dinner table, is blown out of the frame and the film in a grim punchline to Django’s dispatching of “Candieland’s” last residents.

But Quentin Tarantino is white! Yes, and Django is given his freedom by Schultz rather than emancipating himself. These certainly are problematic, though one is more endemic of Hollywood and filmmaking as an institution rather than any artistic failing of “Django” itself. The other can be discussed in greater detail, but it’s my opinion that Django quickly earns Schultz’s respect and eventually surpasses him in skill, said to be a “natural” as he lets off a long-distance shot that would make LeBouef blanch. A more perfect film might have Django escape on his own. A more perfect “Lincoln” might have something more than lip service paid to blacks. A more perfect union might never have instituted slavery at all. We may never have perfect, so one utterly destroyed plantation will have to do.

Edited by Guyovich ()

#2
Post rating: +
schmaltzy speilberg talkfest or tryhard tarantino bloodbath, surely these will let us have an Important Discussion About Race
#3
Post rating: ~
ima see a movie next week with friends and we had a choice between django and jack reacher and it's definitely the latter
#4
Post rating: ~
seems like Tarantino has mellowed his excesses with age, while Spielberg remains a TERRIFIC film auteur. Excellent directors
#5
political car tune
Post rating: +
Reacher was a good blend of action and humor, just like my posting
#6
Post rating: ~
i dont know if one can say tarantino has simply mellowed with age. rather, has he not reached creative apotheosis with the serene synthesis of grindhouse, french new wave, kung fu, and the spaghetti western?
#7
Post rating: ~
cool post

simplicity simply

#8
drivel of drunken hags
Post rating: +
I suppose film can be a socially or politically important medium but this might as well be comparing two video games
#9
drivel of drunken hags
Post rating: ~
I just thought about how funny it would be if the modern left attempted to convey a message via a movie
#10
[account deactivated]
#11
Kurdt
Post rating: +

Groulxsmith posted:

I just thought about how funny it would be if the modern left attempted to convey a message via a movie


I just watched battleship potemkin ftw

#12
Post rating: ~

tentativelurkeraccount posted:

cool post

simplicity simply



yeah, didn't proofread as much as i normally do. you'll also notice the preponderance of "somes" in a couple sentences

#13
Post rating: ~

libelous_slander posted:

Reacher was a good blend of action and humor, just like my posting


Though it seems some devoted Reacher Creatures were dismayed by the casting choice of tom cruise.
http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/pageviews/archive/2012/06/29/tom-cruise-is-not-a-condom-filled-with-walnuts-reacher-creatures-freak.aspx

#14
Post rating: ~
#15
Post rating: ~
the basil rathbone of house niggers
#16
Post rating: ~

Guyovich posted:


Hey that Aaron Bady article was really good thanks.

#17
Post rating: ~

peepaw posted:

the basil rathbone of house niggers


Who's the Peter Cushing then?

#18
[account deactivated]
#19
Post rating: ~
or you could stop watching phony history movies made by fucking idiots and realize that slavery was a precursor to global capitalism so maybe instead of watching fake shit you could be torching down your local BoA brach or throwing rocks at police aka masters and overseers
#20
[account deactivated]
#21
Post rating: ~

field_goy posted:

or you could stop watching phony history movies made by fucking idiots and realize that slavery was a precursor to global capitalism so maybe instead of watching fake shit you could be torching down your local BoA brach or throwing rocks at police aka masters and overseers

Or maybe not and saying you did.

#22
Post rating: ~

field_goy posted:

or you could stop watching phony history movies made by fucking idiots and realize that slavery was a precursor to global capitalism so maybe instead of watching fake shit you could be torching down your local BoA brach or throwing rocks at police aka masters and overseers



brb getting right on that krs-one

#23
penitent
Post rating: ~
spartacus: vengeance.
#24
penitent
Post rating: +
how come nobody commented on the excellent exploration of leftist themes in spartacus: vengeance. was it because it had titys and fuckin and featured a dude getting a sword through his skull without having a bunch of references to 60s b-movies as if that hipster shit, fights capita;l
#25
Post rating: ~
because kubrick made a film about it.
#26
Post rating: ~
Something something.

Edited by wasted ()

#27
mt.real
Post rating: ~

deadken posted:

how come nobody commented on the excellent exploration of leftist themes in spartacus: vengeance. was it because it had titys and fuckin and featured a dude getting a sword through his skull without having a bunch of references to 60s b-movies as if that hipster shit, fights capita;l



i love tittys lets get ripped & smash the state

#28
Post rating: +++++
#29
Post rating: ~
waltz as Magical Caucasian???
#30
Post rating: ~
jack reacharound. keep the change, kid
#31
Post rating: ~
yo sorry to tell u mate but some ivy league history professor & new yorker contributor stole ur article: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/01/how-accurate-is-quentin-tarantinos-portrayal-of-slavery-in-django-unchained.html
#32
Post rating: +
yeah i saw that. my favorite part is when she mentions the harlem theater she saw the movie in, which means she made a special trip there to really catch the black reaction
#33
Post rating: ~
well hes actually black soooo maybe its u who is the real racist
#34
Post rating: +
Watch the Black Reaction - Pimp C. feat Lil Keke & Killa Keylon
#35
Post rating: ~
hm. my face is red
#36
Post rating: ~
Also racist
#37
puget's sounds
Post rating: ~
tarantaino made a courageous decision when he chose to tackle the taboo of slavery as an institution that is "bad"
#38
puget's sounds
Post rating: ~
tarantpaine
#39
[account deactivated]
#40
Post rating: +
the pimp c posthumous albums keep getting better, he really was the best who ever did it.