"Django Unchained"
Then, finally, we saw the Weinstein Company logo, the Columbia logo, and seven minutes of pure unfiltered pleasure began. I think it's safe to say there is no movie in production right now that I want to see more than this one, and this may have made the wait harder, not easier.
The opening images are of slaves, with bare backs criss-crossed with whip-scars and bare feet, marched along through day and night, across a desert, through a forest. The men leading the slaves along, riding on horseback, hear someone else in the woods, and they stop.
"Who's that stumbling around in the dark? State your business or prepare to get winged!"
A wagon comes riding up out of the darkness, and sitting at the reigns is Christoph Waltz. On top of the wagon, there's a giant tooth mounted on a spring. "Calm yourselves, gentlemen, I mean you no harm. I'm Dr. King Schultz, and this is my horse Fritz."
Fritz blows a greeting at the mention of his name.
The men peer at him suspiciously. "You a doctor?"
"Affirmative."
"What kind of doctor?"
Waltz sloooooowly turns and looks up at the self-explanatory tooth. "Dentist." There's a jump in time as Schultz makes his pitch, slowly walking up the line of slaves, looking at each face in the light from his lantern. "Among your inventory I've been led to believe is a specimen I'm keen to acquire." He stops on Jamie Foxx, who won't even meet his eyes at first. "What's your name?"
When Foxx replies, it's low. "Django."
"Then you're exactly the one I'm looking for."
It's obvious that the men who were leading the slaves aren't eager to make a deal with him. "Hey, no sale." One of them draws a gun on Waltz, who seems unimpressed.
"My good man, did you simply get carried away with your dramatic gesture, or are you pointing your weapon at me with lethal intention?" In response, the rest of the men also draw their guns, all of them cocking them. Waltz seems both disappointed and resigned at their response, sighing. "Oh, very well." Without hesitation, he fires three times.
James Russo, playing one of the men, ends up screaming, pinned under a fallen horse. "I'm gonna lose this leg!" he bellows as Waltz gets closer.
Waltz shrugs. "No doubt." One more gunshot, and then the slaves are free. Waltz advises Foxx, as he begins to dress himself, "If I were you, I'd take that winter coat." And like that, the two of them ride away.
As they ride into a town together, people stop, watching them both go by. "What's everybody staring at?" Waltz asks.
"They ain't never seen no nigger on a horse before," Foxx responds.
"What is this bizarre obsession they have with you riding a horse?"
"Are you asking me why white people do what they do?"
A Johnny Cash song kicks in on the soundtrack, because nothing says ominous like Johnny Cash singing about graves. Waltz and Foxx sit in a saloon together, talking, the entire place empty except for them. Foxx asks, "What kind of dentist are you?"
"These days, I practice a new profession. Bounty hunter."
"You kill people.. and they give you a reward?"
"The badder they are, the bigger the reward. Which brings me to you. I'm looking for the Brittle brothers." And as this next exchange takes place, we see a flashback to Django with his wife Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington, as they are torn apart by the aforementioned Brittle brothers.
"I know what they look like," Foxx says. "They stole my wife."
"I would like the two of us to enter into an agreement. We visit every plantation out there until we find them. Once the final Brittle brother lies dead in the dust, I'll take you to rescue your wife. Handsome cowboy hat included." That is one elegant distillation of the film's sprawling plot.
What I was most concerned about with the casting of Foxx was that he simply wouldn't look like he was of the times. He's such a modern presence that it seemed hard for me to picture. But looking at him here, listening to his line readings, seeing him in the world that Tarantino has captured, I am sold. I love the way he's portraying the West, and it feels to me like the far more dirty low-rent cousins to Sergio Leone, the guys whose names aren't thrown around by movie snobs. It is a beautiful use of real locations, and it feels suitably epic.
"Why do you care what happens to me? Why do you care if I find my wife?"
"You're just not ready to go off on your own. You'll get hurt. While we're together, I'll teach you a few things you're going to need to know." Little by little, we see Django cleaning up, starting to pull himself together. He goes from rough slave to polished cowboy, and he and Waltz look great together. There's a real energy between them, even in these clips. It's obvious that Walsh is feasting on this script like it's a buffet and he's a starving man.
We see the two of them in the snow, Waltz coaching him on how to shoot. "Smooth is more important than fast, and more important than smooth is accurate." He demonstrates with a few shots. "Once you get smooth, then you get fast." Foxx responds by drawing his gun and taking his shots, blowing the head clean off the snowman that Waltz built for a target. Waltz smiles, impressed. "I think it's safe to say you're faster than a snowman."
The Johnny Cash song ends, and we cut to a scene as Django and Schultz come riding up the main road on the property of Spencer Bennet, played here by Don Johnson, who has the smarm turned up to about 1000. Once again, Schultz is in his dentist wagon, and Foxx rides alongside on his horse, dressed in an absolutely absurd blue suit. "My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet Django, and these are our horses Tony and Fritz…"
This time, both horses give a noise of greeting, as if on cue.
Johnson, watching them from the balcony of his house, seems unimpressed. "Well, what if I say I don't like you or your fancy-pants nigger?"
"Mr. Bennet, if you are the businessman I've been led to believe you to be, I have 5000 things I might say that could change your mind."
A big smile creeps across Johnson's face. "Well, come on inside, and get yourself something cool to drink. Betina!"
Miriam Glover, playing one of Bennet's slaves, steps up. "Yes'm, Big Daddy?"
To Waltz: "What's your nigger's name again?"
"Django."
"Betina, sugar, could you take Django here around the property and show him all the pretty stuff?"
"As you will, Big Daddy."
Before they go inside, Waltz stops Johnson. "Mr. Bennet, I must warn you that Django is a free man. He cannot be treated like a slave. Within the bounds of good taste, he needs to be treated as an extension of myself."
"Understood, Shultz." Once more, Johnson calls down. "Uh, Betina, sugar?"
"Yes?"
"Django isn't a slave. Django is a free man. Y'understand?"
"Yes'm, Big Daddy." To Foxx. "Come on."
As she leads Foxx away, they start to talk. "Whatchoo do for your master?"
"Didn't you hear him tell you I ain't no slave?"
"So you really free?"
"Yes. I am."
"You mean you wanna dress like that?" Trust me… when you see the electric blue suit they've got Foxx in, you'll see why that's a laugh out loud line.
"Betina, we're looking for three white men, three overseers. The name is Brittle. You know 'em?"
She doesn't hesitate and just points. "Well, one's over in that field." Foxx's reaction is priceless. That is not what he expected to hear, and he's got no reason to hesitate. There's a great shot of Bennet and Schultz sitting inside talking, and we see through a window as Django storms by in the background.
We see M.C. Gainey as Big John Brittle, preparing to whip a slave woman he's got stripped to the waist, as Betina asks, "Is that who you was looking for?"
As the slave closes her eyes and begs, crying "I ain't gonna do it again! I ain't gonna do it again!", MC Gainey prepares his whip, obviously enjoying himself.
"After this," he says, preparing to strike, "we'll see if you break eggs again."
Before he can swing, though, Django stops behind him, and calls out "JOHN BRITTLE."
Gainey turns, realizes who he's looking at, and freezes. Foxx doesn't wait, though. He just pulls his gun and fires, blowing a hole in Gainey's chest. He goes down hard, and Django steps up, stares down at him. "I like the way you die, boy."
And with that, James Brown's "The Big Payback" kicks in on the soundtrack, big and brash and rowdy, just like the film appears to be. We finally see Leonardo Di Caprio in character as Calvin, dressed well but with rotten teeth, and he addresses Django and Schultz. "We got us a fight going on that's a good bit of fun."
His character, Calvin Candie, is one of the most pivotal in the film, and we see a bit of Waltz and Foxx trying to win his confidence. He mentions that one of his men said, "You looked over my African flesh, and you was not too impressed. You wanna buy a beat-ass nigger from me? Those are the beat-ass niggers I'm wiling to sell."
It's Foxx who responds, "He don't want the nigger you wanna sell. He wants the nigger you don't want to sell."
As the song pauses for a moment, Candie sizes them up again. "Gentlemen, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention."
So many quick shots start to pile up in the footage at this point. There was an amazing shot of Schultz firing his gun and one of the casings flips up out of the chamber and gets stuck in his hat. Lots of blood. Big nasty squirts of it. At one point, Foxx snarls, "You even touch your guns, you die," and it looks like quite a few people must touch their guns, because there is a rapid-fire montage of gunplay and mayhem, along with Leone-like title cards for each of the main characters including Kerry Washington. We also get a quick look at Walton Goggins, who I hear has delighted Tarantino so far on the shoot, and whose role is evidently growing each day.
Finally, as the trailer wraps up, Waltz asks Foxx, "So, how do you like the bounty hunting business?" A few more shots of Django raining pain down on some well-deserving targets, the James Brown back and kicked up even louder now.
After a few more deaths, we see Foxx again, and he comes the closest we see in the whole trailer to a smile. "What's not to like?"
The last bit is in a saloon, and none other than Franco Nero, the original Django from the 1966 film, is sitting next to Jamie Foxx, and asks him, "What's your name?"
Foxx replies, this time without any hesitation or shame, "Django. The 'd' is silent."
And that's that. It was so confident, so alive, and so very, very funny in execution that I have to believe Quentin's on his way to another monster hit here. The cinematography by Robert Richardson looks great. The production design is lush and period-accurate. The soundtrack choices were great. And Christoph Waltz appears to be well on his way to his second major awards season in LA next year. And as you can tell from some of the dialogue, the film, set just before the Civil War, is going to pull no punches in terms of it portrays a world where African slaves were treated as subhuman, and it should make Django's revenge quest all the more satisfying in the end.
My thanks to The Weinstein Company for including us in tonight's event. It was well worth it, and I certainly can't wait to see the finished results for all three of the films they highlighted tonight.
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