Django Unchained

Django is by no means Tarantino's best - far from it in fact. However, by the very nature of what the film is about, it may wind up being one of the most important things he's ever done.

Films about slavery are few and far between. In my lifetime, I've seen one - Amazing Grace from 2006. Wikipedia lists twelve (three of those are set for release in 2012 or 2013). A scant few compared with  many hundreds - if not thousands - of films that have been made about the greatest crime against humanity in the twentieth century; holocaust films.

After the holocaust came a swell of films about the holocaust; providing an outlet for the widespread feelings of anger, horror, repentance and regret. They came from all sorts of countries, but German cinema especially was shaped by a generation of Germans looking back on their past. Likewise, in the wake of the Vietnam war, there were a flood of films that depicted the horrors that unfolded there, and called into question America's longstanding pride in superiority in warfare. The scars of the Vietnam war are still there, but it has been 'dealt with' on a cultural level. These films helped entire nations move on from the mistakes they've made; they are a result of and a part of the healing process. It's a trend that has gone on for centuries, and we see it now in today's trend of movies about wars in the Middle East.

But America hasn't finished dealing with its past yet. Django Unchained is an important movie because it is an American film about American slavery before the civil war. The practice is arguably more inhuman than the holocaust; treating entire people groups as animals to be commanded, traded, and bred. It was widespread around the world, and lasted far longer than the holocaust or any other genocide (for a solid rundown on the context of slavery, click here). And as I said before, there is relatively little in American popular culture that reflects on precisely what transpired across those decades.

Birth Of A Nation

Ambitiously made, with volatile subject matter. D.W. Griffiths phenomenal epic about the formation of the United States still strikes a nerve even today. Sitting through this film is an ordeal - but as affecting as great cinema should be.

Just look at that poster. Our hero everybody!

Wind the clocks back almost a whole century, to 1915. Film was the new thing, a cheap sideshow type attraction, with studios pumping out hundreds of movies a year, selling tickets for 5c at nickelodeons. The films were only about 20 minutes long, and no one would really call them high art yet, but there was one director that had a vision.

D.W. Griffith is considered the great pioneer of filmmaking. His techniques were not new or ground-breaking - but their implementation at his hands was marvellous. Audiences were blown away by his ability to juxtapose two scenes in editing - creating the sense of two things happening simultaneously in different places. They had never experienced a camera that moved at the same speed as the horse it was following; the thrill was spectacular. All these and more Griffith utilized in creating what is arguably his greatest film - certainly his best known: the 3-hour epic that is Birth Of A Nation.