Back in the awards season of 2012, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). $425 million would be an impressive haul for a superhero movie, let alone a blood-soaked, darkly comedic spaghetti western tackling the horrors of American slavery.
By the time he wrote and directed his seventh feature film, Tarantino had rigidly defined the tropes and trademarks of his filmmaking. From historical revisionism to graphic violence to recycled Morricone music, Django Unchained exhibits many of the hallmarks of Tarantino’s work.
Cartoonishly Bloody Violence
There’s plenty of graphic violence in Tarantino’s filmography. From the accidental gunshot to Marvin’s face in Kill Bill’s House of Blue Leaves sequence, that violence tends to be so stylized that it plays like a live-action cartoon.
Django Unchained’s glorious action sequences are filled with huge splashes of blood. Every gunshot produces more blood than a human body can realistically contain. This action harks back to the old-school gore effects of classic spaghetti westerns and Shaw Brothers actioners.
Spaghetti Western Influences
While Django Unchained is Tarantino’s first full-blown spaghetti western, almost all of his previous films were heavily influenced by the stylized violence and operatic visuals of the spaghetti western subgenre.
There have been overt nods to Once Upon a Time in the West.
Regular Tarantino Cast
Tarantino recruited a bunch of familiar actors from his regular company for the cast of Django Unchained. Samuel L. Jackson, best known as Pulp Fiction’s Jules, gives a sinister turn as Calvin Candie’s house slave Stephen, while Christoph Waltz – fresh off an Oscar win for his chilling performance in Inglourious Basterds – is delightfully eccentric in the role of dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz.
Q.T. also cast a couple of new collaborators who went on to appear in his subsequent films: Leonardo DiCaprio plays the villainous Calvin Candie (and later played Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Walton Goggins plays Billy Crash (and later played Chris Mannix in The Hateful Eight), and Bruce Dern plays Old Man Carrucan (and later appeared in both The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
Pop Culture References
Tarantino is famed for referencing popular culture within his idiosyncratic dialogue, from the McDonald’s discussion in Pulp Fiction to the Delfonics discussion in Jackie Brown. Django Unchained has its own pop culture references within the historical context. Dr. Schultz references the German legend whose lead character is Django’s wife’s namesake.
Like Tarantino’s contemporary pop culture references, Django’s references tie into the idea that human beings communicate via stories, whether they’re discussing the deeper meaning of a German folk tale or the deeper meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin.”
Dark Humor
Tarantino’s movies are primarily dramas, but they also have plenty of humor, and that humor tends to be dark. In his first movie, Tarantino contrasted a harrowing torture scene with the lighthearted melody of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle with You.” In his second movie, he followed an accidental murder with the casually delivered one-liner, “Oh, man, I shot Marvin in the face.”
In Django Unchained’s funniest cutaway, Tarantino ridicules the KKK by depicting a similar hate group who can’t see out of the eye-holes on their white hoods.
Subtle Connections To Tarantino’s Other Movies
With the Vega brothers, Big Kahuna Burger, and Red Apple cigarettes, Tarantino created a shared cinematic universe long before the Avengers arrived on the big screen.
There are a few signature Tarantino-verse connections in Django Unchained. Dr. King Schultz is presumably related to the Paula Schultz whose grave Kill Bill’s “The Bride” was buried alive in. One of Django’s bounties is an ancestor of Christopher Walken’s Pulp Fiction character.
Recycling Old Morricone Scores
Instead of hiring composers to come up with original music for his movies, Tarantino tends to plunder the best tracks from existing film scores – particularly the works of Ennio Morricone. He used Morricone tracks in Kill Bill, Death Proof, and Inglourious Basterds before licensing a bunch more for Django Unchained and even tasking Morricone with composing an original piece.
Among others, Django Unchained features “Un Monumento” from The Hellbenders and “Sister Sara’s Theme” and “The Braying Mule” from Two Mules for Sister Sara. Tarantino later recruited Morricone to write the first original score of his filmography for The Hateful Eight.
Homages To Classic Movies
Tarantino became an icon of postmodernism by taking a bunch of familiar elements from existing movies, putting them all in a blender, and turning them into something entirely new. Like Q.T.’s other movies, Django Unchained is filled with cinematic Easter eggs.
Dr. Schultz has a retractable sleeve gun like Travis Bickle. The scrolling “MISSISSIPPI” caption is a nod to Shaft. There’s a wanted poster for Edwin Porter, the director of the seminal silent western The Great Train Robbery. The iconic “Mandingo” fight isn’t based on any particular historical record; it’s based on the movie Mandingo.
Cameo Appearance By Tarantino Himself
Tarantino often appears in his own movies, either in a small ing role or in a minor cameo appearance. He played Mr. Brown in Reservoir Dogs, Jimmie Dimmick in Pulp Fiction, one of the Crazy 88’s in Kill Bill, Warren the bartender in Death Proof, a scalped German soldier in Inglourious Basterds, the narrator in The Hateful Eight, and an off-screen commercial director in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
The writer-director gave himself not one, but two cameos in Django Unchained. He plays one of the Bag Heads and later plays an employee of the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company.
Historical Revenge Fantasies
After inaccurately killing off Adolf Hitler at the hands of Jewish American soldiers in Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino got a taste for triumphant historical revenge fantasies. The power of cinema allows Tarantino to go back into the ugliest chapters of history and give real-life monsters like Hitler and Goebbels their much-needed comeuppance.
In Django Unchained, an ex-slave learns how to shoot and rides across the South, massacring white slavers. In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Sharon Tate is saved from the Manson Family’s wrath by a TV cowboy, his stunt double, and a ruthless pit bull.
