Who Is Django Unchained?

The classical Hollywood narrative is one of simplicity, linear continuity, and comprehensive storytelling, something typical American audiences were used to for most of films history. Quentin Tarantino, however, is not one to abide by the rules of cinema. The arguably auteur director reconfigures this narrative style with his 1994 classic Pulp Fiction. This film not only presented itself as a completely new and innovative take on what a film could be, but also created a foundation for which many films since have built their narratives from.

Francis Ford Coppola directed the gangster crime drama film, The Godfather (1972), inspired by the novel of the same name, written by Author Mario Puzo. The film plays out in the beginning how Don Corleone declined to join the narcotics business with notorious drug lord Sollozzo. With this in mind, one of the greatest gangster films created by a man who decided to lead, and not follows. Moreover, explaining the formalist approach for this film which covers an array of elements that include plot structure, camera techniques, editing, mise en scene, and sound. The following film critique will analyze “The Godfather,” beginning by utilizing the formalist approach theory, camera technique and sound gradually introducing additional theories

Quentin Tarantino’s movies are best known for their disjointed narratives and romanticized depictions of violence. Django Unchained is no exception. However, Django Unchained does provide an interesting example of how thoughtful approaches to diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, the narrative frame, and a character’s point of view can keep an audience interested for over 2 hours of runtime.

The film set in the deep South in 1858, about a slave who gains his freedom with the help of Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German bounty hunter, and sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner is an intriguing story with very graphic action scenes. The plot of the story begins as Dr. Shultz buys Django (Jamie Foxx), a black slave, from some traveling slave owners. He buys Django because he is chasing a pair of outlaws known as the Brittle Brothers and Django is the only person who knows what they look like. As the plot develops, Dr. Schultz and Django become allies and work together to achieve each other’s personal goals; Dr. Schultz wants to track down and

Of course, Django arrives at Candie’s plantation in order to rescue his wife, Broomhilda, and to also free her from slavery. Tarantino presents the traditional patriarchal characterization of Django as a masculine hero saving a submissive and powerless woman from danger. This gender approach defines traditional gender divisions in America society, which have been fund to be an issue in regards to a study done by Meyer and Wood (2013) on the negative perception of queer identity by male viewers of the teen show, “Glee”: “In day-to-day life, they keep their fandom secret in order to avoid a perceived stigma by non-gay (or masculine) viewers” (443). In this study, Meyer and Wood (2013) confirm male fears of being identified as “gay” by watching Glee, which is reinforced in the hyper-masculinity of Django’s personality as an aggressive male seeking to save his submissive wife from slavery. In this manner, Tarantino's film provides an extremely conservative view of gender roles, which depicts Django as the patriarchal hero in contrast to the submissive female role of Broomhilda as a captive of an evil plantation owner. These are the important characteristics of Django and Broomhilda’s gender orientation in Django Unchained by Quentin

According to the film critic, Phillip French, “The Western has always been about America rewriting and reinterpreting her own past,” if this is indeed the case, then the two most popular Westerns of the early 1990s reveal that many Americans had rejected the traditional interpretation of the Old West. The critically and commercially successful, Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven, repudiated the patriotic frontier myth that had characterised the Western when it was the preeminent genre in American cinema. Informed by new Western historiography, itself an expression of political concerns that had been moving into the American mainstream since the 1960s, the movies display a complex and nuanced understanding of the frontier experience. Dances with Wolves rejected the traditional narrative of the inherent superiority of the Anglo-American hero conquering both Native Americans and the wilderness, and also focused on the environmental destruction that accompanied the ideology of Manifest Destiny. Unforgiven would similarly reject the frontier myth, replacing the democratic, civilised frontier town, with a brutal regime in which white men’s property rights prevail over any sense of justice. The film is noted for its self-reflexive nature, with a writer documenting and embellishing the tales of the Old West before the viewer’s eyes. This self-reflexion indicates that Americans were re-evaluating the myths of the frontier, and seeing them for what they were, creations by the

Following the end of the United States’ Civil War, new territories had becomes states, notably what is now known as the West. The West, iconized by its Cowboys, gunfights, and horses in the years that followed the Civil War, made its way to the silver screen as one of the first genres of movies to be produced. The genre is popularized as a “Western” and is devoted to telling the

Kill Bill: Vol 1. (2003) is a film directed by, the famous, Quentin Tarantino. From start to finish, it is packed with action and excitement. This movie has a plethora of interesting elements. Yet the cinematography of Kill Boll: Vol 1. is one that makes history. Not only does it have camera angles unlike any others shown in a normal film, but it keeps the audiences’ attention. The unique choice of music adds originality to the film. For a movie with such a serious storyline, the music involved is quite quirky. Some would even say childish. Anyone who has seen a movie directed by Quentin Tarantino before will understand that adjustments like this are a reflection of his style. All of his work reveals that.

The critically acclaimed film, Goodfellas, is a gangster crime drama that features an incredible amount of talent. Household names such as: Robert De Niro (Jimmy Conway), Joe Pesci (Tommy DeVito), Paul Sorvino (Paul Cicero), and promising stars like Ray Liotta (Henry Hill) and Lorraine Bracco (Karen Hill), attracted numerous Oscar and Golden Globe nominations. That type of cast power, linked with the signature talent of Martin Scorsese as a director, made for cinematic gold. Unquestionably, the actors and actresses did an excellent job augmenting the verisimilitude of this film and compelling audiences to empathize with their characters. But the cinematography in this film plays just as large a role in having audiences feel what the characters are feeling at a specific moment. Through the use of freeze frames, we learn of significant moments that shape Henry into the man that he is. By means of first-person narration we are able to know exactly what is going through a particular character’s mind. Finally, wonderful editing made great use of point of view and multiple jump cuts, which added to the sensation that we are undergoing the same experiences as the characters on screen. I will go into further detail and specify scenes that convey these elements as the essay progresses. Altogether, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas effectively depicts paramount scenes and allows the audience to empathize with the characters by virtue of stylistic editing and cinematography.

The critically acclaimed film, Goodfellas, is a gangster crime drama that features a great deal of talent. Household names such as Robert De Niro (Jimmy Conway), Joe Pesci (Tommy DeVito), Paul Sorvino (Paul Cicero), and promising stars like Ray Liotta (Henry Hill) and Lorraine Bracco (Karen Hill), attracted numerous Golden Globes and Academy Awards nominations. That type of cast power, linked with the signature talent of Martin Scorsese as a director, made for cinematic gold. Unquestionably, the actors and actresses did an excellent job augmenting the verisimilitude of this film and compelling audiences to empathize with their characters. But the cinematography in this film plays just as large a role in having audiences feel what the characters are feeling at a specific moment. Through the use of freeze frames, we learn of significant moments that shape Henry into the man that he is. By means of first-person narration, we are able to know exactly what is going through a particular character’s mind. Finally, strong editing made efficient use of multiple jump cuts, which add to the sensation that we are undergoing the same experiences as the characters on screen. Altogether, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas effectively depicts paramount scenes and allows the audience to empathize with the characters by virtue of stylistic editing and cinematography.

Pulp Fiction by Quinton Tarantino falls into the genre of a Gangster film but has elements of other genres as well like Film Noir and Black Comedy. Pulp Fiction has a balance of drama and comedy along with hard to watch scenes like rape, violence, gore and heavy drug use. Tarantino’s style of movie making help make Pulp Fiction the classic it is today. The mise-en-scene, cinematography and other elements of movie, including sound effects and round characters leave us intrigued as well as content with the story structure as well as its ending.

Martin Charles Scorsese was born November 17, 1942. Suffering from asthma, he spent most of his time watching movies and by the time he was eight, he was already drawing his own storyboards that were directed/produced by himself. Although he considered going into priesthood, making movies was Scorsese’s true calling and he went on to make some of Hollywood’s most memorable films. Incorporating themes from his Italian American roots into his visceral, cinematic storytelling that has influenced generations of filmmakers. He is an American director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian, whose career spans more than 53 years. Scorsese 's body of work addresses such themes as Sicilian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, machismo, modern crime, and gang conflict. Many of his films are also notable for their depiction of violence and liberal use of profanity. Part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmaking, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential filmmakers in cinema history. For three decades Scorsese has been at the forefront of American cinema. Its most avid champion and often its most electrifying practioner. The most cinematic of directors, he has also been among the most formally restless and exploratory, evolving an obsessive-compulsive mise-en-scene based on dynamic, agile camerawork and radical editing rhythms.

I was a little late on the Kill Bill train and did not watch the movie until last year. As soon as the film started, I knew that it was going to be extremely intense. The same goes for Pulp Fiction. These two films directed by Quentin Tarantino were very different from all the other films that I’ve seen in my life. The mise en scene, dialogue, and music, were all different factors that intrigued me. I watched Pulp Fiction after watching Kill Bill and at first I thought that Pulp Fiction was an odd spin off to Kill Bill or that it took place in the same kind of universe because the worlds are so similar, the characters are just as intense, and the amount of violence was just as common. These are just a few things that make Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill similar. In this essay I will be discussing more similarities and slight differences between the two films.

As those of us who know Tarantino, we can expect, the seemingly disconnected dialogue; the abrasive, over the top outbursts of violence; the temporal shifts coalescing into a final endgame solution, or dissolution. And through these experiences, have we come to understand and developed our own unique Tarantino expectations. Through a cinematic lens of non-understanding, Tarantino stands alone in his film style. From the visual to the audio, quite nearly every aspect of his films diverge from traditional values. Although this divergence may seem unique, it has in fact, come from a dense, through-the-ages, and accumulated knowledge of films. In an attempt to subvert our understanding, preconceived notions, and theatrical assumptions, Tarantino utilizes overt cinematic language within the film of Kill Bill Volume One, in particular the opening scene of Uma Thurman and Vivica Fox’s first encounter. This attempt is at once subtle and also daringly groundbreaking, all serving to ultimately accomplish the subversion of the audiences perceptions. With the use of unique cinematic lighting and a close attention to visual detail as well as his exemplary form of dialogue, Tarantino instantly establishes, not only this particular scene, but the entire film, to be the epitome of what Tarantino represents. By playing on the audiences assumption’s Tarantino is able to cast off traditional cinematic tactics to achieve what his style has become known for. “The

Django Unchained is a film that follows the story of Django, who was a slave turned bounty hunter, and Dr. King Schultz, who is a bounty hunter. Schultz purchases Django in order to make him a freeman, due to the information he has about his bounty for Schultz. In return, the only goal Django sets out to achieve is finding and rescuing his wife, Broomhida, after they were separated in a slave deal. Schultz and Django come to find that Broomhida is located at the location of the famous Calvin Candie, who is a cotton-field owner. Schultz and Django then come up with a plan to rescue his wife from Candie.