I had posted earlier this semester about how I’m a huge fan of western movies, but I couldn’t help but express my excitement for Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming western, Django Unchained! As Quentin Tarantino has an incredible appreciation for the classic spaghetti westerns, I am eager to see what references and homages Django Unchained has in store.
The film stars Jamie Foxx as the Django, a slave living in the South who has been separated from his wife and sold in an auction. After being rescued by the German bounty hunter King Schultz, the two team up to take the bounty on the criminal Brittle Brothers and save his wife from the plantation owner Calvin Candie.
Django Unchained has an incredible cast, including Foxx as Django, Christoph Waltz as Schultz, Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie. The film even features a cameo by Franco Nero, who starred in the legendary spaghetti western Django as the titular character. What I found particularly interesting in this casting is that DiCaprio, who normally plays protagonists such as Romeo in Romeo + Juliet and Dom Cobb in Inception, is playing the villain in the film. I was also slightly surprised that Christoph Waltz was not cast as the villain after his incredible performance as Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds; as a huge fan of Waltz I am very excited to see his performance!
Django Unchained opens on Christmas Day; the trailer can be viewed here, and even features the Ennio Morricone song "L'estasi dell'oro" from the soundtrack of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
