Post Modernism by Sachin Mistry

How can Django Unchained be viewed as a postmodern film?

I believe that post modernism is a reaction to modernism due to the social alienation and the needs to elevate everyone to improve standards. I think that post modernism is a contradiction of itself and therefore it is a paradox. It is a paradox because it rejects grand narratives and because there are no absolutes. This makes postmodernism undefinable due the mix match and the differences between post modernism and modernism. Some people criticise postmodernism for being too out there and often call it problematic, other people have said that it isn’t real as it only has a surface meaning. Fredrick Jamerson said that it is “nothing more than a series of self-references ‘jokes’ which no deeper meaning or purpose (ironically postmodernism don’t use their criticism as their purpose)”. This links to the idea of postmodernism contradicting itself because nothing is both good and bad. The term 'grand narrative' is built from politics, science, religion and genres. It was introduced by philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, he summed up a range of views which were being developed at the time, as a critique of the institutional and ideological forms of knowledge. 

The postmodern mashup that is Django Unchained, directed by Quentin Tarantino, contains different elements of postmodernism that I think stand out to an audience that can recognise the intertextual references that the film has featured as they understand the concepts of postmodernism. Tarantino took inspiration from many films as he paid homage to the texts and directors of those different forms of media. The text therefore can arguably be considered to be a mashup because those who understand the references to the others films will see the selection of work which he used in his film. Films such as Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs and the Kill Bill franchise all pay homage to inspiration that Tarantino has extracted from other texts. The title 'Django Unchained' was created from inspiration provided from existing texts such as Django (1966), Hercules Unchained (1959) and Mandingo (1975). The of Django and Hercules Unchained helped to influence the name of Tarantino's film Django Unchained, but the film Mandingo, became inspiration for events that occur during the video. The idea of the ‘Mandingo fighting’ proves to be historically incorrect as there is no actual proof that this sort of fighting used to happen in the late 1890’s in America. But as a result of this it proves to the audience who look at the films from a surface point of view, that this sort of thing was the ‘norm’ in those times. The title Django is an example of meta because this is a self-referential text because in Django Unchained, the soundtrack in the opening and text used pays homage to the original 1966 version. It is clearly identified that Tarantino used a bricolage of existing materials to create the film.

The narrative to the film consists of an African American slave, Django, who accompanied a German bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz who gave him freedom in order to search and be reunited with his wife, Broomhilda, by freeing her from enslavement from a plantation owner. The setting for the narrative was set 2 years before the outbreak of the American Civil War (1859). The film is a combination of spaghetti western, western. A spaghetti western film is considered a sub-genre to its larger counterpart, western genre. Spaghetti western films are generally low budget cowboy films that are directed by and Italian director, they include Italian and sometimes other European actors. These films are generally dubbed to into English after the production of the film regardless of the mismatch in visuals and sound.  This particular sub-genre of the western genre became successful during the 1960s after the success of Sergio Leone's style of filming became successful at the box office. Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, but the genre's audience appeal soon broadened across racial and ethnic lines. A film example of Blaxploitation is Shaft (1971), where Richard Rowntree plays John Shaft who according to Tarantino, shares a relationship to Django's wife, Broomhilda Von Shaft. These two sub genres fall under the western genre. Here the genre is open to opportunities of adventure and heroism, two characteristics that can arguably be identified in Django Unchained. It was quite controversial to merge a Spagetti Western and a Blaxploitation as the intent was to make the film captivating to its audience by retelling American history during the civil war. The aesthetics include violence or extreme violence which s taken from spaghetti westerns, the settings have been taken from western and black dominance films. This combination is a remix which reflects the postmodern concept that is created using ac combination of modern and traditional techniques.

There are some key criticisms of the film given by critics. An example of a criticism provided by an audience was the over use of word ‘nigger’. Tarantino has been criticised for using the ‘nigger’ too much in his films Jackie Brown (1997), Pulp Fiction (1994). This word directly targets the African Americans that were featured in the film around the era in which the film was set. However, this word is still used in modern day society but can be put into different contexts. An example of the neglecting of slavery in the film appears when Django, Schultz and Candie travel towards the plantation known as Candie Land. Whilst heading towards the plantation, a stop is made where Candie confronts a slave who attempted to escape. By not complying with Candie's orders, the slave is killed by being gored by dogs. There was sympathy towards the slave as Schultz attempted to free the slave, but at the moment he became savaged by the dogs, the sympathy was reduced.

Historical deafness is another criticism in the film.  An example of historical deafness in the film is the type of language they used because we find the language which they use acceptable in time which we live in but back then when the film was set (1890’s) this sort of language was un common and therefore they Tarantino used it would have been unusual and would make sense. This causes some contradiction in the film industry. Contemporary artists such as Rick Ross and RZA are featured in the soundtrack for the film. The soundtrack used by composers that are from outside of the time set for the film. This shows that the soundtrack can be taken out of context.  These tracks can be viewed as low culture in the contrast of high culture of Beethoven. The idea of implementing this particular soundtrack is to again ensure that the film looks aesthetically captivating to the audience.

Lastly, the overused and obvious intertextual references used in Tarantino films isn't favoured by some critics. Fredric Jameson believes over-exposure in mass media means we can only recycle the conventions of earlier texts and never be original. The intertextual texts that Tarantino tries to implement are developed to make them slightly less noticeable to the audience. The concept of pastiche is formed by Tarantino through the use of references to previous films and TV drama. This has the impact of some critics assuming that there is reduced creativity applied to the film as there are a large number of intertextual references. I think that it is using people’s styles in a new way which is viewed in a different way as nothing is original and therefore content needs to be created by using other pieces of information. I truly believe that everything is a version of or used elements from another fragment of media.