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.
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