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Django Unchained is, in many ways, a very typical Tarentino movie; violent, brash, epic, and complete with a plot that can often be called “dubious” at best. Set in the Old West during the Antebellum period, the movie focuses principally on the territories between California and Texas that elected to become slave states. With runaway slave laws in effect, it is unlikely indeed that the two protagonists in the film would have enjoyed any freedom to move through these states without harassment (even if some money was exchanged between Dr. Shultz and the dying slaver before he was killed). However, regardless of the legal accuracy (or lack thereof), through Django’s breaking of social norms ascribed to black people in the time period, the film accurately alludes to the attitudes many people had in those days and creates a vivid image of the old west.

In terms of communication, almost everything is handled in person. This is fairly important seeing as how the two main characters act as bounty hunters (a job often made easier by appearing in person). However, it is not entirely talking and horseback riding. Bounties are advertised through flyers, implying the importance of print, not just for news but as a medium for circulating warnings and employment offers. As well as this, early on in the film, during the scene outside of the saloon, a point is made about “wiring” the court officials in another state to receive proof that there was indeed a bounty on the then sheriff’s head, implying the presence of telegraph lines across the West (and presumably also across the East and between the two coasts. At first I was surprised to see so little attention paid to the construction of the railroad in the film and the use thereof (especially seeing as how there was so much traveling across the country to visit the numerous plantations), and I first thought that this was an attempt to create a more dramatic shot during scenes of traveling. However, I later came to realize that it wasn’t until after the Civil War that the railway really extended into the West, and that the job was done more by indentured servants than slaves (even though slavery hardly died out after the war, even if it did by name). It was interesting to see that even after settlements were established, it still took time to move the infrastructure over, even when there was so much gold to be transported across the West Coast.

Sorlin’s point about filmmakers not wanting to shock their audience or show “excess” immediately made me think of Tarentino. I think that Sorlin’s work is a little outdated in this light as Tarentino has never been a stranger to shocking audiences with his violent, rude, and provocative works. However, I guess it could be said that at this point, audience members will go to see a Tarentino film because they expect the shock value to be there. But with that said, I find it hard to believe that Sorlin wouldn’t class the violence in Django Unchained as excessive.

In a movie with such a heated racial narrative, for a modern audience to find characters that they can side with, those characters need to be more equally minded and progressive than many people of the time would have been. Both Avery and Sherwood raise an interesting point about movies depicting scenes and characters that seem arguably too familiar to modern audiences, as attitudes in Antebellum America probably would not have allowed for the forward thinking, ethically mature Dr. Shultz to exist. Granted, the vast majority of characters in the film fit the stereotype of racist southern bigots, but the night and day comparison between those characters and the mature, racially irrelevant relationship between Django and Dr. Shultz seems a little too “Hollywood” to me.

Sorlin, Pierre. “How to Look at an ‘Historical’ Film.” In The Film in History: Restaging the Past. Basil Blackwell, 2001.