There was an interesting piece in Slate contrasting the Tarentino film with the original Django and some blaxploitation films of the 70s.
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012/12/django_unchained_tarantino_s_movie_seems_tame_compared_with_the_blaxploitation.html This is not a radical film, in any sense. Hewing to the spaghetti Western tradition, it's principal unradical angle is that Django is a purely self-interested loner. There is no hint of any collective response to slavery, and the only idealist in the film is the German. All the angst over use of the n-word surprises me. Doesn't anybody remember Richard Pryor? (Yes, I know he went to Africa and swore never to use the word again.) It's 1858, remember? All the pearl-clutching is a big hint that the film is racist, which is bullshit. Maybe I was imagining it, but the Samuel L. Jackson performance was striking. His obsequiousness was so over the top that you could see his character (I could, at any rate) using it but not being defined by it. It was Samuel L. Jackson, after all. I half-expected him to wash his hands of his master at the end, but instead his hatred for Django remains dominant, and more consistent with the character. On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 10:29 AM, Julio Huato <[email protected]> wrote: > Max wrote: > > > Tarentino has the intellect of a 14 year old > > combined with awesome technical skills. The film is fun. > > I think the safest bet is that Tarantino is *intellectually* > brilliant. But, yes, the response to oppression depicted in this > movie feels like a teenager's fantasy of lashing out against the most > immediate sources of his frustration. However, every response to > oppression, regardless of whether it is misdirected or not (including > the most well organized insurrection), has this irrational cathartic > element. Marx is on the record arguing that revolutions, with their > irrational eruptions and all, are *necessary* for the oppressed to > shake off the "muck of the ages" and build the resolve to reconstruct > a society from its foundations. I'm not entirely sure about that. > But we don't need to get too Freudian to recognize some sort of id in > us, the inner minor in us, unrestrained by the demands of civilized > human interaction, particularly its oppressive, historically > unjustified aspects. In fact, socialism (I believe it was Trotsky who > suggested this) can only stick if it manages to establish social > conditions conducive for our ids to find constructive expression. But > leaving all that aside, often times, the artist's emotional connection > with an audience hinges on temporarily suspending moral judgment to > enable the audience to get in touch with its rawer needs. Art, > fiction, humor, etc. play this role in any civilized society. > Sophocles' or Shakespeare's plays are all full of gory barbarism, > cruelty and infantile overreactions of the most violent kind, let > alone profanity and aspersive insults. So I imagine the hypocrites of > the times abandoning theaters in the middle of plays, calling for > censure, etc. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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