Django Unchained is a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson in supporting roles. Set in the Old West and Antebellum South, it is a highly-stylized, heavily-revisionist tribute to Spaghetti Westerns, in particular the 1966 Italian film Django by Sergio Corbucci, whose star Franco Nero has a cameo appearance.
Django Unchained premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City on December 11, 2012, and was theatrically released on December 25, 2012, in the United States, grossing over $425 million worldwide against its $100 million budget, becoming Tarantino's highest-grossing movie to date. The film received acclaim from critics, mainly for Waltz' performance and Tarantino's direction and screenplay, though the film's racist language and depiction of violence drew controversy. The film received numerous awards and nominations, as well as five nominations at the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Waltz won several awards for his performance, among them Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and BAFTAs. For his screenplay, Tarantino won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA.
In early 1858 Texas, brothers Ace and Dicky Speck drive a group of shackled black slaves on foot. Among them is Django, sold off and separated from his wife Broomhilda von Shaft, a house slave who speaks German and English. They are stopped by Dr. King Schultz, a German dentist-turned-bounty hunter seeking to buy Django for his knowledge of the three outlawed Brittle brothers, overseers at the plantation of Django's previous owner and for whom Schultz has a warrant. When Ace levels his gun at Schultz, Schultz kills him and shoots Dicky's horse. As a result, the horse falls on top of Dicky, pinning him to the ground. Schultz insists on paying a fair price for Django before leaving Dicky to the newly freed slaves, who kill him and follow the North Star to freedom. Schultz offers Django his freedom and $75 in exchange for help tracking down the Brittles.
Django and Schultz kill the Brittle brothers at Spencer "Big Daddy" Bennett's Tennessee plantation. Bennett rounds up a posse whom Schultz ambushes with explosives, killing most of them while Django kills Bennett. Feeling responsible for Django, Schultz takes him on as an apprentice and agrees to help him find and rescue Broomhilda. They return to Texas where Django collects his first bounty, keeping the handbill as a memento. He and Schultz rack up several bounties before spring, when they travel to Mississippi and learn that Broomhilda's new owner is Calvin J. Candie, the charming but cruel owner of the Candyland plantation, where slaves are forced to wrestle to the death in brutal “Mandingo” fights.
Schultz and Django hatch a plan. They know that if they offer to buy Broomhilda, Calvin will price her beyond reach, so they will instead offer $12,000 (equivalent to $355,000 in 2019) for one of his best fighters as a pretext to acquiring Broomhilda for a nominal sum. They can then feign second thoughts about buying the fighter and leave with just Broomhilda. They meet Calvin at his gentlemen's club and make the offer. Intrigued, Calvin invites them to the Candyland plantation.
En route, the group encounters Calvin's slave trackers who have cornered D'Artagnan, an escapee, and disfigured Mandingo fighter. Schultz attempts to pay Calvin to spare him, but Django intervenes, careful not to blow his and Schultz’s cover as hardened slavers. In response, Calvin has lead slave hunter Stonecipher release dogs at D'Artagnan, who maul him to death. The sight upsets Schultz, but Django does not visibly react. Calvin asks Django why Schultz, supposedly in the business of forcing slaves to fight to the death, is so disturbed. Django tells Calvin that Schultz is used to seeing men die in fights, not be killed by dogs. Django says that Schultz, being a foreigner, is unaccustomed to America.
The next morning, Django is tortured and about to be castrated when Stephen arrives, halting the torture to say that Calvin's sister Lara has taken charge and that Django will instead be sold to a mining company and worked to death. En route there, Django uses his first handbill to prove to his escorts that he is a bounty hunter. He claims the men on the handbill are at Candyland and promises the escorts all but $500 of the reward money. Once released, Django kills his escorts and returns to Candyland with a bag of dynamite. Recovering Broomhilda's freedom papers from Schultz's corpse, Django avenges him and D’Artagnan by killing Stonecipher and the other trackers and frees Broomhilda just as Calvin's mourners return from his burial. At the mansion, Django kills Lara and the remaining henchmen, releases the two remaining house slaves, and kneecaps Stephen before igniting the dynamite he had planted throughout the mansion. Django and Broomhilda watch from a distance as the mansion explodes before riding off together.
Casting
- Jamie Foxx as Django Freeman
- Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz
- Leonardo DiCaprio as "Monsieur" Calvin J. Candie
- Kerry Washington as Broomhilda "Hildi" von Shaft
- Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen Warren
- Walton Goggins as Billy Crash
- Dennis Christopher as Leonide "Leo" Moguy
- James Remar as Butch Pooch / Ace Speck
- David Steen as Mr. Stonecipher
- Dana Gourrier as Cora
- Nichole Galicia as Sheba
- Laura Cayouette as Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly
- Ato Essandoh as D'Artagnan
- Sammi Rotibi as Rodney
- Clay Donahue Fontenot as Luigi
- Escalante Lundy as Big Fred
- Miriam F. Glover as Betina
- Don Johnson as Spencer "Big Daddy" Bennett
- Franco Nero as Amerigo Vessepi
Other roles include James Russo as Dicky Speck, brother of Ace Speck and erstwhile owner of Django. Tom Wopat, Omar J. Dorsey and Don Stroud play U.S. Marshal Gill Tatum, Chicken Charlie and as Sheriff Bill Sharp respectively. Bruce Dern appears as Old Man Carrucan, the owner of the Carrucan Plantation. M. C. Gainey, Cooper Huckabee and Doc Duhame portray brothers Big John Brittle, Roger "Lil Raj" Brittle and Ellis Brittle respectively, overseers of both Carrucan and Big Daddy's plantations.
Jonah Hill plays Bag Head #2, a member of a Ku Klux Klan-esque group. Additional roles include Lee Horsley as Sheriff Gus, Rex Linn as Tennessee Harry, Misty Upham as Minnie and Danièle Watts as Coco. Russ Tamblyn appears as Son of a Gunfighter and his daughter Amber Tamblyn as Daughter of a Son of a Gunfighter. Zoë Bell, Michael Bowen, Robert Carradine, Jake Garber, Ted Neeley, James Parks, and Tom Savini play Candyland trackers. Jacky Ido, who appeared in Tarantino's previous film, plays one of the slaves in an uncredited role. Michael Parks as Roy and John Jarratt as Floyd, alongside Tarantino himself in a cameo appearance as Frankie, play the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company employees. Tarantino also appears in the film as a masked Bag Head named Robert.
In 2007, Tarantino discussed an idea for a type of Spaghetti Western set in the United States' pre-Civil War Deep South. He called this type of film "a Southern", stating that he wanted:
to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like Spaghetti Westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to.
Tarantino later explained the genesis of the idea:
I was writing a book about Sergio Corbucci when I came up with a way to tell the story. ... I was writing about how his movies have this evil Wild West, a horrible Wild West. It was surreal, it dealt a lot with fascism. So I'm writing this whole piece on this, and I'm thinking: 'I don't really know if Sergio was thinking this while he was doing this. But I know I'm thinking it now. And I can do it!'
Tarantino finished the script on April 26, 2011, and handed in the final draft to The Weinstein Company. In October 2012, frequent Tarantino collaborator RZA said that he and Tarantino had intended to cross over Django Unchained with RZA's Tarantino-presented martial-arts film The Man with the Iron Fists. The crossover would have seen a younger version of the blacksmith character from RZA's film appear as a slave in an auction. However, scheduling conflicts prevented RZA's participation.
One inspiration for the film is Corbucci's 1966 Spaghetti Western Django, whose star Franco Nero has a cameo appearance in Django Unchained. Another inspiration is the 1975 film Mandingo, about a slave trained to fight other slaves. Tarantino included scenes in the snow as a homage to The Great Silence. "Silenzio takes place in the snow. I liked the action in the snow so much, Django Unchained has a big snow section in the middle," Tarantino said in an interview.
The title Django Unchained alludes to the titles of the 1966 Corbucci film Django; Hercules Unchained, the American title for the 1959 Italian epic fantasy film Ercole e la regina di Lidia, about the mythical hero's escape from enslavement to a wicked master; and to Angel Unchained, the 1970 American biker film about a biker exacting revenge on a large group of rednecks.
Among those considered for the title role of Django, Michael K. Williams and Will Smith were mentioned as possibilities, but in the end Jamie Foxx was cast in the role. Smith later said he turned down the role because it "wasn't the lead". Tyrese Gibson sent in an audition tape as the character. Franco Nero, the original Django from the 1966 Italian film, was rumored for the role of Calvin Candie, but instead was given a cameo appearance as a minor character. Nero suggested that he play a mysterious horseman who haunts Django in visions and is revealed in an ending flashback to be Django's father; Tarantino opted not to use the idea. Kevin Costner was in negotiations to join as Ace Woody, a Mandingo trainer and Candie's right-hand man, but Costner dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Kurt Russell was cast instead but also later left the role. When Kurt Russell dropped out, the role of Ace Woody was not recast; instead, the character was merged with Walton Goggins's character, Billy Crash.
Jonah Hill was offered the role of Scotty Harmony, a gambler who loses Broomhilda to Candie in a poker game, but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with The Watch. Sacha Baron Cohen was also offered the role, but declined in order to appear in Les Misérables. Neither Scotty nor the poker game appear in the final cut of the film. Hill later appeared in the film in a different role. Joseph Gordon-Levitt said that he "would have loved, loved to have" been in the film but would be unable to appear because of a prior commitment to direct his first film, Don Jon.
In a January 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, costume designer Sharen Davis said much of the film's wardrobe was inspired by spaghetti westerns and other works of art. For Django's wardrobe, Davis and Tarantino watched the television series Bonanza and referred to it frequently. The pair even hired the hatmaker who designed the hat worn by the Bonanza character Little Joe, played by Michael Landon. Davis described Django's look as a "rock-n-roll take on the character". Django's sunglasses were inspired by Charles Bronson's character in The White Buffalo (1977). Davis used Thomas Gainsborough's 1770 oil painting The Blue Boy as a reference for Django's valet outfit.
In the final scene, Broomhilda wears a dress similar to that of Ida Galli's character in Blood for a Silver Dollar (1965). Davis said the idea of Calvin Candie's costume came partly from Rhett Butler, and that Don Johnson's signature Miami Vice look inspired Big Daddy's cream-colored linen suit in the film. King Schultz's faux chinchilla coat was inspired by Telly Savalas in Kojak. Davis also revealed that many of her costume ideas did not make the final cut of the film, leaving some unexplained characters such as Zoë Bell's tracker, who was intended to drop her bandana to reveal an absent jaw.
