Two notes: First, the movie under discussion is violent and profane; don’t see it unless you’re comfortable with that. Second, spoilers follow. I wish the statement “it comes very late in the movie” were enough to tip everyone off to that, but might as well follow Internet etiquette on this one.
There’s a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained that’s sticking with me. It comes very late in the movie. The plot to that point: King Schultz is a German bounty hunter working in the American South. As a German, he finds slavery distasteful and racism ridiculous, but he’s an ironist rather than a radical. He’s fond of casually comparing the violence of his job, which he does with skill and panache, with the violence of slavery. He and his ex-slave protege Django have spent the middle third of the movie infiltrating a horrifically corrupt plantation in order to buy and rescue Django’s wife; their plot involves pretending to be fully amoral slavers. Django, because of his great love, plays his role fully; Schultz finds it increasingly difficult to keep his poker face in the presence of cruelty. Eventually, Schultz and Django’s scheme fails, and the pair is exposed.
So here’s the scene: the furious plantation owner, Calvin Candie, has decided to humiliate the intruders by terrifying them into a financially ruinous deal, so that they’ll escape with their lives and little else. While Candie draws up the papers, Schultz stews in a sumptuous parlor. A harpist plays Fur Elise. Schultz sees memories flash before him of the day’s terrors. For the first time in the film, he loses his composure, lurching angrily toward the harpist. He can’t abide this refinement and beauty in a place just outside of which slaves can be murdered by dogs. “Stop playing Beethoven!”
Candie, noticing Schultz’s outburst, first shrugs it off as the bitterness of a man bested in intellectual combat. But it’s not shame, it’s moral contempt. And when Candie understands this, he decides to complete the humiliation, saying that the deal can’t conclude without a handshake. He offers his hand, so that Schultz must visibly signal accommodation with and hence submission to a system of racism and slavery that now disturbs him to the core. And Schultz has reached a point where he can no longer ironize his morality. He cannot cross this line. Some things are more important than survival. Schultz shoots Candie through the heart. For this he’s quickly shot down by a henchman, and… well, the movie is really Django’s story, and I won’t ruin any more of it.
For those of us that thought the meta-concerns of Inglorious Basterds blurred out the moral realities required for a consideration of Nazi Germany, this moment of moral clarity is a blessed relief, and a challenge. Which hands are we shaking? And must we refuse?
The movie’s not perfect. It’s troubling how what is “badass” crowds out what is good in so many American movies, and this line of thought applies to Django Unchained. But it should also be known that Tarantino’s taken the old trope of the out-for-only-himself gunslinger’s self-sacrificial awakening (see also: Han Solo) and deployed it more than just convincingly, with the special help of Christoph Waltz’s acting. I can’t get the scene out of my mind.
December 30th, 2012 | 8:37 pm
very good point. love this “Which hands are we shaking? And must we refuse?” we should ask ourselves this everyday.
December 31st, 2012 | 1:01 am
[...] Django Unchained’s Moment of Moral Clarity – William Randolph Brafford, First Things [...]
December 31st, 2012 | 6:03 am
I intend on seeing this movie, but I’m wondering: is slavery presented as an intrinsic evil or only when it involves cruelty and abuse?
It is a moral question that seems to have divided the Christian community since the founding of our nation.
John MacArthur, though critical of the excesses and racism present in America’s use of slavery, says:
“Although slavery was carefully regulated under Mosaic law, neither the Old nor New Testaments condemns slavery as such. Social strata are recognized and even designed by God for man’s good. Some people will be served and some will serve others. That is the nature of human society.”
Yet, how can one not see the buying and selling human beings as if they were cattle anything but an affront to basic human dignity? Yes, the Bible nowhere condemns the practice as such (and even affirms its use in instances) … but I must concede the point to people like Dan Savage who insists that this is one issue where “the Bible got it wrong”.
December 31st, 2012 | 8:11 pm
Marxist consider the alienation of labor under industrial capitalism as akin to slavery. Certainly future Dan Savages will wonder why the Bible doesn’t condemn that. The answer is easier than that though the alternative to slavery was being slaughtered when your town fell.
I think the empirically weakest claim of the Bible is that turning the other check changes hearts why can’t we throw that overboard and keep Leviticus.
January 1st, 2013 | 1:05 am
Stop playing beethoven is a clear and direct reference to Kubrick’s A clockwork orange
January 1st, 2013 | 10:11 pm
I always thought it would be interesting if more serious attention was paid to trying to understand the point of view of history’s losers. Whether it’s slavery or Nazi Germany or Stalinism, it is too easy to fall for the idea that the bad guys were over the top villians dedicated to evil simply for the sake of evil. Over at The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates once had a fascinating series of blog posts where he wrote about an obscure theorist for slavery and his intricate arguments in defense of slavery.
I think such an explanation would illustrate the shift in world view that happened around the 1800′s. ‘Master and servant’ today is a rather mercantile affair. I eat out one night, I don’t expect the waiter to care about me, just bring me the food I order. Likewise I don’t care about the waiter. Aside from being polite and tipping respectfully, I have no obligations to him as a fellow man. Likewise I check into a hotel, the staff is there to clean up after me and answer my questions and that’s it.
I think the previous worldview was more along the lines of a family relationship. The master just didn’t ‘own’ the servant but was also responsible. He was obligated not just to feed and house the servant but also ensure a ‘good life’ was possible for him. Not a perfect analogy but sort of like your own children. You can give them directions, even order them to do choores, but they aren’t just there for your amusement and ease….you’re obligated to them beyond just giving them enough food to prevent them from starving.
Now theory and reality can be far apart. I think slavery was horribly cruel and could never give someone a ‘good life’. But the lies people tell are often the most useful thing for finding truth. The ‘myth’ of the happy slave or house servant was clung too intensely by the south and slavery’s defenders (see Gone with the Wind). Slavery’s supporters wanted very much to believe that not only did they benefit from slavery but their slaves did as well. This desire to believe that indicates that they felt they were obligated somehow towards their slaves as fellow humans.
I think if we could bring slavers back from the grave and interview them they would probably be angry at some of the ideas presented about them. For example, I think they would have rejected the idea that slave holders could stage ‘fights to the death’ for their own sick amusement and viewed such a slaveholder as a psychopath rather than just a ‘man disposing of his property’.
The South, I think, did have a point in noting that the North was presenting a different type of relationship between people. It was advocating the disconnected market based relationship of free labor where each person was on his own and there was no loyalty between employee and employer beyond honest pay for honest work. By itself this relationship can be quite cruel leaving those who are sick or old with nothing to fall back on.
The South’s response was elitism where the elites did have the right to exploit others but had a moral obligation to take care of those under them. Hence the desperate attempt to paint slavery and later Jim Crow as some type of benign paternalistic system where everyone was happy provided outside ‘agitators’ didn’t stir things up.
In short a really challenging movie would be one that depicted a slave owning white who was really committed to the view that he was not only doing well by his family but also by his slaves while blind to the cruelity and evil he did. Such a depiction would be very challenging because it would illustrate evil as it is at work in people like you and me rather than with cartoon villians who are evil simply for its own sake. I believe Lincoln did once say don’t hate slavery supporters as if he had been born in slightly different circumstances he very well could have been one.
Tarantino makes pretty impressive films IMO. Esp. since the operate on so many different levels including their ability to reference so many other films and genreas. I thought Kill Bill was a fascinating study of the merits and drawbacks of revenge by creating a character who had been so outrageously wronged that one almost had to support her quest for vengence. But in terms of moral reflection I’m not sure either of his last two movies help us much.
January 2nd, 2013 | 6:07 pm
It’s interesting they chose this particular piece by Beethoven, since the movie takes place two years before the Civil War, and Für Elise wasn’t published until 1867, 40 years after the composer’s death.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact