Well, the Peck’s bad boy of Black Films has done it again! No, not Spike Lee— I’m talking about Quentin Tarantino and his latest release, DJango Unchained, starring two Oscar winners, Jamie Fox and Christoph Waltz among others. Since I have often faulted Tarantino’s nonlinear story structure, and felt Mr. Fox’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles was more “imitative” than “creative,” I was light-years from being fair-minded when I sat to see the movie.

Tarantino has a long history for being controversial—particularly, when using African-Americans (which is often) in his movies. His groundbreaking Pulp Fiction featured two mob hit men, one black and the other white, who liked to banter about cheeseburgers while casually shooting their victims. More distasteful was having a mob boss played by a hulky, African-
American, Ving Rhames, kidnapped and hog-tied by two, nutty white sadists and tortured during an all-night session of anal intercourse! Brutally funny, the movie was a huge success and gave Tarantino the gravitas to follow with another African-American, Pam Grier, in Jackie Brown, which was a spin-off of the younger character she played in the 1974 blaxploitation flick, Foxy Brown.

For starters, Django-Unchained shares a lot more with Spaghetti westerns than it does with American history. It is rooted in films like A Few Dollars More and Django-1966. From the latter is the revenge-seeking hero; from the former is the teaming of two bounty hunters, Fox and Waltz. The premise is from the famed Japanese filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa’s film, Yojimbo. Even the battle to the death set piece between two Man- dingo slaves is bogus. Then, too, were the Russian Roulette “suicide set” scenes in the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter. By now you should get the drift: Good movies rely less on facts; more often than not, they are based on other good movies.

That said, Django Unchained is set two years before the American Civil War and deals with slavery in full bloom. Nevertheless, watching dogs maul docile slaves and seeing too many blacks’ backs whipped does not make for good entertainment. But when Django and his German émigré partner come to the rescue, we are reminded that this movie is a revenge-fantasy and not a documentary!

At first, the mayhem was refreshingly cathartic and enjoyable. As it went on, it became gratuitous; I had to remember Clint Eastwood’s film, Unforgiven, where he avenges the killing of Morgan Freeman’s character and shoots everyone in a saloon—including the ornery sheriff played by Gene Hackman. That’s the stuff of American Folklore: where a lone individual
achieves justice by taking the law into their own hands. Yes, Clint was a white man killing other whites to avenge an innocent black man—that too, is American Folklore, and it won the film an Academy Award.

The question is whether a white writer/director can enter the cannons of Black Film Folklore.
Few would argue that a white writer, Margaret Mitchell, made the first contribution to Black Film Folklore when she created Mammy, the loyal black house- slave in Gone With The Wind who raised Scarlett O’Hara and the other O’Hara siblings. Mammy’s exalted status out-ranked all other slaves on the plantation. She even had “talk-back” privileges with most white folks and provided the actress Hattie McDaniel with the first Oscar ever awarded to an African-American. Of course, not all Americans were pleased with either the role or the award. They didn’t argue whether Mammy was a true depiction. The resentment was in Ms. McDaniel’s willingness to bring so much pride and dignity to a character that many deemed was an insult to a progressive mind-set. Apparently, Tarantino has his own take on the issue.

Setting aside Django’s heroics, Tarantino’s major contribution to Black Film Folklore is in creating Stephen, the “house negro” who runs the Candie Plantation. Tarantino one-ups Margaret Mitchell big time! As played magnificently by Samuel L. Jackson, Stephen is a lot more than a slave who says, “Yassah.”

He is the man who runs things; the power behind the throne. He is also evil incarnate! It does not take long to realize that without Stephan’s able and rueful assistance, a strong argument can be made that white folks truly aren’t smart enough to manage and perpetuate slavery on their own! It’s the “house negro” who comes to their rescue and keeps the ship afloat; who alerts Master when there’s trouble brewing; warns Master when a slave revolt was in the making. Stephen’s power is the Master’s power, and the Master’s power is Stephens! Make no mistake about it, the head-butting conflict that results when Django runs up against Stephen, is worth the price of admission, alone!

I doubt whether a black filmmaker could’ve presented this conflict any better than Tarantino! He focuses on raw, gut-wrenching power; how to gain it by serving those who have it, and savoring a little piece of it for oneself!

Finally, I applaud how Django frees himself from a seemingly impossible situation—handcuffed and guarded by four armed men.

That’s when Django guilefully uses psychology and appeals to his capturer’s, greed, gullibility and stupidity—exemplifying a brand of American “can-do” exceptionalism that draws the subtle admiration from another slave and vaults Django into the cannons of Black Film Folklore.
In summary, Mr. Tarantino takes the oppressed histories of African-Americans and retells them as a revenge fantasy where the tables are turned—no, not just turned—flipped end over end!

Yes, he uses a heavy dose of violence and mayhem—because everything about America’s past is violence and mayhem—to produce a dark, cathartic release that winks and hints, “this is how things could’ve happened” if life only worked the way it should! In the process, Tarantino has become a great, unappreciated Liberator of Black Film Folklore. He has paved the way to free the minds and passions of future filmmakers and writers from the burden of being constantly factual, educational and boring. He has provided them with permission to soar.

So let’s not discourage or dampen Quentin Tarantino— let’s clone him!