I thought Shultz shooting Candi had to do with the 3 muskateer's reference. Something about that story and handshakes.. No idea what, but that was my thought.
Sorry I thought you had met before. Adree, the movie-going American public. Movie-going American pubic, Adree.
He was just playing the Magical Negro. I love that Tarantino used that trope, though I realized what would happen pretty early on in the movie.
I don't understand what part of my post you are responding to. Magical Negro? I didn't see that trope used anywhere.
It's a trope made famous for many Americans by a Man Show skit. Since then, with the advent of youtube, it's been widely misappropriated by conservatives as a fun slur to use on Obama or any other notable black person that gets their jimmies rustled. Eduardo's saying that Tarantino inverted the usual color divide between the all-knowing mentor and the black protagonist.
The Magical Negro. Basically, it's a black character with strange insight into the world who helps a white protagonist reach his goal for little or no compensation. He usually just does it out of the goodness of his heart. In a great deal of the stories, he dies for the white character, usually with no real need (i.e. The Green Mile). In this case, there is more of a need than usual, but King had mysterious knowledge of a foreign nature and helped Django for no discernible reason. In the case of typical Magical Negros, they're used to show that black people "aren't bad after all" to an audience that is not used to black characters. Here, we get one white guy who isn't that bad, after all.
I dunno if I buy that. King has no special insight or powers, other than being a skilled bounty hunter with a gift for persuasion. He has character-driven reasons to help Django: first money, then friendship. King doesn't die for Django, but instead kills Candi for his own reasons, nearly killing Django and Brunhilde.in the process. King is also a much more developed character than most "magical negros". Still an interesting point though.
Saw it tonight, really enjoyed it. My one complaint is that at no point did Django drag a coffin around in order to pull a gatling gun out of it to kill a small army. Which is really a shame, given his namesake.
But like so many other the dozens of other Django ripoffs, Tarantino just stole the name. I think this was unofficial sequel 37 or 38. Should we count Rango? That'd be 39....
Tarantino doesn't own the movie. I can interpret it any way I want, especially if I have evidence. Seeing as how several reviews I've read since posting the magical negro thing mention it, I'm glad to see it isn't just me who saw the trope playing out. I appreciate the trope being reversed, too. It felt like another clever move in this fantastic movie about race.
Tarantino essentially admits that it's a valid interpretation in the very passage you quoted. Great art isn't always intentional, Adree.
No. He's not a savior here, just as Tarantino says. He sacrifices himself after selflessly guiding Django, imparting wisdom and helping him find a place in the world. In fact, Roger Ebert describes King Schultz as "a wizard from a fairy tale, a man capable of knowing about people's lives, steering their fates, seducing them into situations in which they receive the destinies they deserve." He doesn't make the leap I do from this to "magical white dude," instead calling him a deus ex machina, "a wonderfully useful device to guide the plot wherever it must go." That Tarantino has him die before Django needs rescuing means that Schultz dies so that Django's character may live and grow. Hollywood LOVES to makes stories about people of color about white people. Tarantino references Cry Freedom. The Last King of Scotland, in which a white character is invented to replace the black historical figure who is depicted in the movie who actually flees Uganda to tell the world what he has seen. The same is true for Native Americans: we learn of their plight by showing Kevin Costner failing at saving them. Or giant blue humans actually saving natives. Tom Cruise in Last Samurai is that white savior character. Schultz guides Django, but doesn't save him.
That's a really good interview. I liked his point of view on the "leftover cake scene", as well as his rationale for the Schultz death. Also for some reason from listening to the soundtrack I thought his name was Cain or Kane or something, even though the movie had pretty clearly impressed King on me (but I thought of it as a long last name like Dr. Kingschultz or something). Thanks, Henry Louis Gates!
Eduardo X, I got it, I just thought some others here were thinking that. I was thinking of Schultz as wizard, if anything, myself. (But Django's no hobbit.)
I could maybe offer another facet of the King-Schultz scene at the end. The Nibelungenlied is referenced, although somewhat peripheral and with noticeable divergences to the real legend, The legend ends with a posse of heroes going to the court of a powerful leader you could compare to Candie (Etzel, an Attila-figure) and those heroes deciding that their principles are worth more than their survival and safe return, even taking into account grievous damage to and the death of people they care for. Like King-Schultz many of those heroes are not bright figures of pure good either but have dark sides as well. One noticeable one being Hagen von Tronje, who not only kills the classical hero Siegfried in the early parts of the legend but is also the last man standing, refusing to give up his principles before his death.
I really enjoyed the three part interview linked earlier with Tarantino, but for the opposite end of the spectrum, here is Tarantino as a narcissistic Hollywood asshole. I can understand his frustration at being asked about violence, but he seriously didn't seem to get the irony of telling the interviewer that he's not going to dance for him and then assert the interview is just a commercial for his movie as if that gives him some authority over the content of the interviewer's questions. Spewing his self-aggrandizing racial dialog bit before hand didn't help much though either.
Just got back from seeing it, and I loved this movie. I want to see it again. And I want QT to just make historical revenge films from now on, please. And maybe Christoph Waltz can be in all of them!
While I thought his tactics were a bit... obtuse, he's 100% in the right; it was a promo piece for his movie, and the guy was asking him bated questions to fuel more of the "Violence in media makes all of our children violent!" despite the fact that has never been proven.
No. He agreed to the interview to promote his movie, but he was interviewed on a network news program with its own interests paid for by someone other than Quentin Tarantino. The whole, I'm going to co-opt your program for my marketing, thus I'm going to treat you and your program like my property is arrogant douchebaggery and diva like entitlement.
Except the questions were obviously loaded. I wouldn't answer those questions even if I wasn't doing the interview only because I was trying to promote my movie. He was rude, agreed, but I don't think there's anything wrong with him taking the stance that he did. He has answered the question about violence in his movies, in almost ever interview with him, ever.
He asked a single question about the consequences of violence in film, and like interviewers do, he asked a follow up questions. I wasn't criticizing that Tarantino didn't want to answer the question. What I was criticizing was the hypocritical way he treated the interview and the interviewer. The whole tantrum aspect--especially after his own misunderstanding of one of the questions--is just bonus douchebaggery.
This finally turned up in cinemas here. I was really impressed, and along with everything (except the acting by Tarantino) I especially enjoyed that it in no way let the white guy overshadow the black hero, as has been mentioned by Eduardo X and others in this thread. Having Waltz portray a "good" German among evil Americans was a nice inversion of his role in Inglourious Basterds. And I'm kicking myself over not noticing the reference in Broomhilda Von Shaft's last name until reading about it later.
This movie has been growing in my mind for the past few weeks. I can't wait to see it again. I don't remember everything I saw in 2012, but I think this is my top 2012 movie.
