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Spike Lee Talks "Django Unchained"

Epola said:
I will see the movie so I can have more insight.
Someone mentioned Django Unchained is like Inglorious Basterds. To a point it is. But the issue is - Unlike the holocaust, Slavery stories and history have been swept under the rug for so many years. Besides Roots, there aren't many movies dealing with slavery. There are thousands of EPIC movies about the Nazi/Jew Holocaust, even Spelberg got in the action. So Inglorious Basterds with alternate funny story is okay.
White folks want to act like slavery didn't happen. This great nation was built on the backs of slaves, without them, it won't be where it is today. For folks not to talk about it and omit from school books and history books is a slap in the face.
The slavery topic is very sensitive to most and rightfully so. Because Jamie Fox character goes around and kills white people serves as a justification for all the crap and injustice done to black people? Fuck No.
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So... glorifying the Jews fascination for revenge against the Nazis in an event compared to a white person's version of a black man getting revenge for his abuse and his wife...

better off reading about the injustices of slavery through history... and don't look for their education system to tell you the truth of what slavery American style was... not long ago, they tried to alter history in Texas, trying to make the middle passage as insignificant as 'The Love Boat'...

Its not that Slavery is a sensitive topic, its that their avoidance of what they done which makes it like that... it will always be a scar and not forgotten, but their acknowledgement of what they have done only goes as far as other nations' genocidal issues... aparthied? all over it... Holocaust? [both of them] all over it... Somalia? all over it... American slavery? its a long time ago... forget about it...

But they reserve the right to make movies glamorizing it.. they are allowed to make time pieces relishing it... they are allowed to teach your children that nothing important happened.
 
Epola said:
Black actors with prestige like Denzel,Morgan Freeman, Whitiker, Fishburn will not act in QT's films. They feel they have a responsibility on how they are portrayed in movies. I think Will Smith has politely turned down QT a few times too.
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He wanted Will for this Django movie. Also, Reginald Hudline is a producer on the flick. Take that for what you will.
 
I'm not understanding how this is disrespectful towards our ancestors.

I think my great grand father would love to be able to see Jamie Foxx shoot racist ass slave owners. Someone explain this shit to me.
 


http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowan...hained_script_and_well_its_certainly_not_nat_



So I finally got through reading Quentin Tarantino’s screenplay for Django Unchained. And, well, I'm sorry to say that it’s not at all what a lot of you seem to think, or rather hope it will be, as the title of this post suggests.

Recall when I had Wendell B Harris Jr (Chameleon Street) on the Shadow & Act Livecast a couple of years ago, in 2009, and he relayed a time when he boldly pitched a contemporary lynching retribution film to studio execs, who, not-so-surprisingly weren’t interested? And, in a later post, I made connections between Wendell's idea and another Tarantino movie (which hadn't been released at the time), Inglorious Basterds - the revisionist history movie on how WWII ended, set in Nazi-occupied France. It’s a revenge flick; as Jeffrey Wells put it: “a Jewish payback movie in which all kinds of brutal and sadistic killings of Germans are presented as not only righteous but delicious, because “them Nazis”… are viciously anti-Semitic and deserve it all to hell.”

Revenge in Basterds, unlike Wendell Harris’ lynching retribution idea, does not take place almost a century after the crime. It happens synchronously, in the era it references – essentially one man’s fantasy about what could have been, and not what actually was.

So, it got me thinking… what if Wendell B Harris’ lynching revenge flick followed a similar story strategy? Again, revisionist history, set during the days in which the lynching of black people were de facto commonplace.

Thus, like Tarantino’s Basterds, two story lines converge. Borrowing almost verbatim from the Basterds synopsis, with some obvious alterations made with purpose: One story follows a ragtag group of black men whose mission is to take down as many offending whites as they can get their hands on. They ambush and kill white men responsible for the hangings of blacks (whether members of the KKK, officers of the so-called law, and members of any white supremacist mobs usually found at the center of lynchings), unabashedly desecrating their corpses, always leaving one alive, so that he can tell others. And the second storyline follows a young black woman who seeks to avenge the death of her family at the hands of white supremacists, by sabotaging the premiere of some supremacist group’s latest propaganda film release, by luring all the offending parties and their leaders into her theatre, with the intent to seal them all in, and burn the building down, killing them all. And, given the time the movie will take place, we’ll make the propaganda film in question being shown, D.W. Griffith’s Birth Of A Nation!

The title of Wendell Harris’s version can stay the same – Inglorious Basterds. It still works, right?

Well… sorry, but that’s not quite the kind of film you’re going to see here, with Django Unchained. It’s not Inglorious Basterds with black Basterds, and white supremacists getting their skulls crushed with baseball bats.

To be frank, I’m not so sure why the script is attracting so much acclaim, from those who’ve read it. I don’t think I’ve read one single negative reaction to it yet. So, I suppose mine may attract the wrath of fanboys and girls across the blogosphere.

I, unfortunately, can’t reveal plot details. I can only give you the vaguest idea of what to expect.

Yes, I know it’s essentially a parody of spaghetti westerns, with a little blaxploitation elements thrown into the mix. In fact, you’ll find pieces of films like Drum and Mandingo in it. I believe Tarantino once previously referenced the latter as an influence of sorts.

But I found this to be maybe his most contrived work. It looks and feels too much like a "Tarantino film," if that makes any sense, in terms of the pastiche of stylistic elements and substance that generally characterize his works. In essence, it feels kind of stale to me, despite the subject matter, and not really what I’d call a reinvention, which I was expecting.

As for the story itself… Call it the frivolity of slavery... superficial and gratuitous. It’s exploitation cinema, and, I think it would have worked much better, and been an easier pill to swallow 40 years ago.

Django isn’t quite the hero here – not the way you’re probably expecting. For a good 2/3 of the script, he’s pretty much playing second fiddle to Christoph Waltz’s character who is essentially Django’s mentor, and the man responsible for his freedom, later providing him with the necessary skills Django needs to eventually challenge the plantation owner who holds his wife captive. Waltz is pretty much playing Hans Landa, the same character her portrayed in Inglorious Basterds... the difference being he's on the side of “good” here. But, as I read it, I saw Landa all the way - multi-lingual, professorial, cunning, but efficient and deadly when necessary.

In fact, I’d say that Django doesn’t really, fully, come alive until about the last 25 minutes of this almost 3-hour script/movie. And there are circumstances that accommodate that transition, which I can’t reveal here – circumstances that felt all-too-convenient. Suffice it to say that just as it takes the assist of a white man to set Django free and on course towards saving his damsel in distress, it also takes the assist (however unintentional) of a white man to finally allow Django his moment to really shine, and get out of the white man's shadow. And even those last 20 minutes, aren't very satisfying.

Waltz is pretty much the show for much of the film, with the occasional unintentionally comedic line from Django, as well as flashback sequences to provide back-story.

Speaking of its blaxploitation influences… regarding the lead female character in this, named Broomhilda, Django’s slave wife, whom he’s separated from, and seeks. She’s the lead female in the film, but her part is limited to really just physicalities. She has the most screen time of any other woman in the film, which is why I call her the lead female character, but, really, there’s no Shosanna in this one, as there was in Inglorious Basterds. The black female “lead” here doesn’t get the same kind of dignified treatment that Tarantino gave Shosanna. Not even close. Yes, I know it’s a different time altogether, but, I’m sure he could have afforded Broomhilda some complexities, and maybe even made her a heroine in her own right.

There are some 4 or 5 scenes in which the she's, shall we say, "exposed"… i.e. naked; and they felt gratuitous to me; 2 in which she's raped by white men. When we first meet her, she's on the auction block and asked to bare her breasts to potential buyers; later, she's chased through a hotel, through hallways, and lobbies, etc, by a slave master, completely naked, after being woken up from sleep, with a whip across her naked body; and still later, she's locked up naked in a steel box as punishment for trying to run away. Yes, I’m sure these are all scenarios that very well likely could have played out at the time; however, Tarantino could have opted to depict her in another light altogether, but instead chose this less flattering, exploitative one. If the intent here is to elicit sympathy for her, and, in turn, ensure that we hate her captors even more, justifying their eventual comeuppance, it certainly doesn't. Not for me anyway, as someone who's already familiar with the atrocities of slavery, and didn't feel like I needed to see a character that's really the female lead in the film, essentially exhibited almost like Saartje Baartman (aka the Hottentot Venus) was. I'm betting Tarantino will likely get a well-endowed black actress to play the part, not-so unlike, as I already made comparisons to, the blaxploitation films of the 70s, the most famous female face (and body) of the era, Pam Grier.

Who exactly will take this particular role, I don’t know. It’s not the most glamorous, nor complex. Although, I’m sure there are a lot of actresses who’d gladly sign up for it.

As for Django, I'd be shocked if Will Smith agrees to do this, as is. I can't see it AT ALL! Not only because the part doesn't suit him; not in the slightest (the character is described as scrawny, first of all); but also because this isn't what I'd really call leading man material. As I already noted, Will Smith would essentially have to play second fiddle to Christoph Waltz for about 2/3rds of the film, and I just can't see him signing up for that.

To make a comparison, this is essentially Will and Tommy Lee Jones in the first Men In Black movie, wherein Tommy Lee scouts and recruits Will, is impressed with his abilities, and brings him into the collective. It's not the strongest comparison, since, in that film, Will’s character is pretty much already his own man (obviously, he’s not a slave in it); but I think you get the point.

What I think a lot of us would prefer, given your reactions to the initial announcement of this project, is something more akin to a story centered on some brute slave, fed up with the oppressive system he’s been subjected to for all his life, seething with rage, who courageously takes it upon himself, in the face of near-insurmountable, even deadly adversity, to restore some humanity and dignity to the life he and his family lead. Sure, like Nat Turner, he most likely would be killed in the end, but, I’d rather have that, than this, essentially, black/white buddy action/comedy movie, in the most basic sense.

Django Unchained feels more regressive than transgressive.

It’s unnecessarily long. Why did this need to be 166 pages? It’s dialogue-heavy, which, as we all know, is Tarantino's forte, after all. He loves a riveting, humorous verbal exchange; the battles of wits. There’s a lot of that here. Though, the script could easily be 66 pages less, and I don't know if you'd lose much, except chunks of dialogue that don't really add a hell of a lot to the narrative, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe reducing the number of times the word “******” is used may actually kill off about 10 pages, because its use here is heavy; and even though it’s representative of the times, will probably make some uncomfortable… just like the now infamous “Dead ****** Storage” scene in Pulp Fiction, which Tarantino was criticized for – notably by Spike Lee.

To use Hollywood parlance, this is a role more for a "character actor," than the proverbial "leading man," and, again, I just can't see Will Smith taking this role... at least, not without having some input on script changes. If the Men In Black III shooting was postponed twice because Will wasn't happy with the script, well... do the math here. But given that Tarantino's ego is just about as massive, I don't see him altering the script, not for Will; not even for God.

I'm sorry to say that I think a lot of you will be sorely disappointed with this. This isn't the revenge fantasy tale that most seem to be think it is, and want to see. This isn't Inglorious Basterds part 2; no KKK skulls being crushed with baseball bats; this isn't inspired by Nat Turner's revolt nor Toussaint L'Ouverture.

I know Jug has read it, but not sure who else may have. I’d like to hear what those of you who have read it think of Django Unchained. Am I just missing something here? And if so, what? School me…

Lastly, I’ve heard Michael K Williams’ name mentioned by a few folks, and I think he’d be a much better fit here, in terms of the way the character is described and depicted. The folks over at one of our sister sites, The Playlist, posted a thorough writeup, listing their choices for what actors would be best for just about every single major role in the film, and it's worth a read. Find it HERE.

I’ll leave you with this scene from Boardwalk Empire to give you the idea (although I'd say that there's actually more meat and subtlety in the character he portrays in this short 3 1/2 clip than there is in Django)





 
Couldn't see the video on my Droid.

I bet Spike couldn't explain in detail why it's disrespectful to his ancestors.

Something Spike says some smart dumb' shit and people mistake him for being intelligent and militant when in reality he's just being a bitter hating fuck.

How did Girl 6 uplift his ancestors?:rolleyes:

See/Don't see the movie for your own reasons not because Spike ran his trap.
 
reading these responses, some people get it and some just dont. The only movie about slavery that gets greenlighted in hollywood is one made by a tongue in cheek hack who turns one of the most ignored and horrific times in american history into a bugs bunny cartoon where a WHITE man teaches a black slave how to play cowboy and fight back. And people wonder why spike thinks its disrespectful to our ancestors.
 
That review Moneybroker posted was insightful. If the review was a honest representation of the script, it looks like another slavery movie that is more about the White man helping the Black man to overcome, than it is about the Black struggle itself. Django plays second fiddle to the White mentor.
 
Spike always bitter and mad. :lol: I already knew his stance before he even said it. Now if Django is disrespectful to his ancestors than what was Red Hook Summer? Now grant you, I liked the film RHS but its was a film just like Django is.
 
I'm not a fan of Spike or his monvies in the least.That said, some of you are really revealing yourselves as CACs in here. We as Black folks are the most "turn the other cheek" or "laugh at ourselves" people on earth.Fuck that movie. :smh:
 
Leroy Soup Nutz said:
Don't expect much insight on slavery from this film...having read the script you won't find much if any from what I recall...Inglorious Basterds didn't really offer much insight into the Holocaust and was historically inaccurate being that it took place in an alternate universe...but I agree that there def ain't too many flicks about slavery/the slave trade...prior to seeing Amistad the last movie I saw about the subject was Sankofa when it came out years ago...don't remember it being a particularly memorable movie either
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I meant Insight on the movie itself so I can break it down. But yeah I will check out the script instead.
 
SOME OF YOU PALE FACE ASS DEVILS ARE SHOWING EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE IN THIS THREAD... :lol::lol::lol:

AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SPIKE LEE OR THE MOVIE... :lol::lol::lol:

CRACKERS POSING AS BLACK ON A BLACK FORUM... :smh::smh::smh:
 


"I'm sorry to say that I think a lot of you will be sorely disappointed with this. This isn't the revenge fantasy tale that most seem to be think it is, and want to see. This isn't Inglorious Basterds part 2; no KKK skulls being crushed with baseball bats; this isn't inspired by Nat Turner's revolt nor Toussaint L'Ouverture."


 
No disrepect to Jamie Fox.

Much respect to Spike.

But it has nothing to due with my ancestors.

I'm would be more concerned about my friends who are white than them.

If tapping into some deep seeded hate Blacks have for Whites is the motivation,

Then they missed the mark, there's proably a lot of Black who go through life with a chip on their shoulder who would enjoy that, but I ain't one of them.

Playing out some fantasy about saving the black women from rape....

is psycho bull for the dollar bill. We know history...and what happened.

It's tasteless...and this is one reason I think Spike may have right.
 
moneybroker said:


"I'm sorry to say that I think a lot of you will be sorely disappointed with this. This isn't the revenge fantasy tale that most seem to be think it is, and want to see. This isn't Inglorious Basterds part 2; no KKK skulls being crushed with baseball bats; this isn't inspired by Nat Turner's revolt nor Toussaint L'Ouverture."
Click to expand...

I never got that impression and I'm surprised some people do get that from what we've seen from the flick so far. It's not really advertised to be nearly as brutal of a revenge movie to me. It looks like there's gonna be more painful & hard to get through scenes than racist CAC brain bashing. Some people in this thread have implied it looked like a CAC thrashing film throughout without the painful & unbearable slavery images or something. I'm sure the majority of the film is damn near torturous towards black folk and then at the end Django finally saves the day. I never felt it was gonna be our Inglorious Basterds, I'm surprised a few people feel it will be like that.​
 
Theo_Huxtable said:
I never got that impression and I'm surprised some people do get that from what we've seen from the flick so far. It's not really advertised to be nearly as brutal of a revenge movie to me. It looks like there's gonna be more painful & hard to get through scenes than racist CAC brain bashing. Some people in this thread have implied it looked like a CAC thrashing film throughout without the painful & unbearable slavery images or something. I'm sure the majority of the film is damn near torturous towards black folk and then at the end Django finally saves the day. I never felt it was gonna be our Inglorious Basterds, I'm surprised a few people feel it will be like that.​
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Runtime:165 min and foxx kill people or do his thing for 25min.


A lot of black people are going to get a wake up call!
 
I have a curiosity for seeing the movie. I can easily see how this film can pose a problem for my sensibilities so I have decided not to pay to view it.

What's a bootleg site for watching Django?
 
Django isn’t quite the hero here – not the way you’re probably expecting. For a good 2/3 of the script, he’s pretty much playing second fiddle to Christoph Waltz’s character who is essentially Django’s mentor, and the man responsible for his freedom, later providing him with the necessary skills Django needs to eventually challenge the plantation owner who holds his wife captive. Waltz is pretty much playing Hans Landa, the same character her portrayed in Inglorious Basterds... the difference being he's on the side of “good” here. But, as I read it, I saw Landa all the way - multi-lingual, professorial, cunning, but efficient and deadly when necessary.

In fact, I’d say that Django doesn’t really, fully, come alive until about the last 25 minutes of this almost 3-hour script/movie. And there are circumstances that accommodate that transition, which I can’t reveal here – circumstances that felt all-too-convenient. Suffice it to say that just as it takes the assist of a white man to set Django free and on course towards saving his damsel in distress, it also takes the assist (however unintentional) of a white man to finally allow Django his moment to really shine, and get out of the white man's shadow. And even those last 20 minutes, aren't very satisfying.
Click to expand...

You dummies that are cosigning this bullshit are gonna go pay to see Django enslaved for the majority of the movie and not even wreck shop until the last 20 minutes. Even then he needs whitey's help.

Any Black person that pays money to watch this movie in 2012/2013 is a fucking idiot.
 
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moneybroker said:
Runtime:165 min and foxx kill people or do his thing for 25min.


A lot of black people are going to get a wake up call!
Click to expand...

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I can't say I personally have too many strong feelings for this flick one way or the other...I'll probably just come across it on cable once it's on there, but I hope people aren't exactly expecting to see 1001 Ways To Kill A CAC or some shit from Django. lol.​
 
Chico Fontane said:
You dummies that are cosigning this bullshit are gonna go pay to see Django enslaved for the majority of the movie and not even wreck shop until the last 20 minutes.

Even then he needs whitey's help.

Any Black person that pays money to watch this movie in 2012/2103 is a fucking idiot.
Click to expand...



:bravo::bravo::bravo:


Just like slaves needed Lincoln to set them free :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:




Fucking lost sheep man


:lol:
 
pogobor99 said:
E-militants out deep tonight.


"Hey fellas I want to see a spaghetti western place in the deep south where the protagonist- a black man-avenges the death of his kidnapped wife by killing a fuck ton of white people!"

E-militant: " I ain't going to watch that cOOn ass shit! And if anyone one black who supports it is a cOOn of the first degree!"

"Wait what? WHY????"

E-militant: "Cause Spike Lee said so- he feels he would be disrespecting his ancestors in seeing it."

"Disrespects his ancestors? A MOVIE ABOUT A SLAVE KILLING WHITE PEOPLE IS DISRESPECTFUL???"

E-militant: "Well the movie uses the word nigga alot. And is not an accurate depiction of the time and/or shows it in a bad light."

"Considering the movie is set in the South during the height of slavery I would feel the term would be used quite freely. Bad light? The fuck do you think SLAVERY WAS?"

E-militant: "Well Tarintino uses the word frivolously in his films."

"Where are you cats when Scorsese makes his movies? Hell he rips blacks in everyone of his films MOST IN THE OPENING SCENES (The Departed) while the film will have nothing to do with black in general (" Let's just write in 'I hate ni66ers ' and.....ACTION!"). Yet all I hear is how awesome The Departed and Good fellas were. He gets a pass?"


E-militant: "Well...I'm not going to see it."


"And that's your right but that doesn't make me a cOOn cause I want to. Want to see a movie about a slave killing white folks by the way."


E-militant: ....


"Be cool baby, as soon as you get ready to storm the powers that be you give me a call and I'll be the first one down front giving it to whitey. Until then.... Relax nigga."


*two cents*
Click to expand...



:lol::yes::lol::yes:
 
Theo_Huxtable said:
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I can't say I personally have too many strong feelings for this flick one way or the other...I'll probably just come across it on cable once it's on there, but I hope people aren't exactly expecting to see 1001 Ways To Kill A CAC or some shit from Django. lol.​
Click to expand...

Chico Fontane said:

Unfortunately not after they make Tarantino millions :smh:
Click to expand...

:yes::yes::yes::yes::yes:

Now i'm going to say something that might hurt some feelings.Kerry Washington spoke at the dnc convention.Don't be surprise if Obama might c/s this shit!

:smh::smh::smh:
 
id slice my eyeballs with a razor blade b4 supporting this shit :smh:


steal/bootleg it just like yall do the black artist

wouldnt it be extra backwards to support this after downloading and sharing
black artist music or crying about blacks not getting Oscars? :confused:

Imagine how foul that would be!!!

:lol: @ all the twisted logic and mind games being used as to why u should support this shit.
 
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