There’s nothing black and white about "Django Unchained." With a pop palette that hits the retina like a bounty hunter’s bullet, Quentin Tarantino’s triumphant genre mashup bares its visual and verbal bones this week with the release of two reflective analyses: a video featurette on its copious screenwriting merits (expect justifiable gushing from cast and crew) and a New York Times interview with cinematographer du jour, Robert Richardson.
Richardson is the yin to QT’s latter yang. Recipient of three Cinematography Oscars, he has been the art smarts behind the wide-angle pastiches of "Kill Bill" and beyond. His scenic gestures and increasingly ambitious location shots represent a thematic break from the interiority of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," but as Richardson insists in his one-on-one with the Times’ Carpetbagger blog, “It’s far better to shoot a good picture than a good-looking picture.” The right-angled dialogue which watermarks all Tarantino screenplays is dissected in parallel in a new script featurette from The Weinstein Company; to deliver it is, to quote Walton Goggins, “like eating the greatest meal, and not wanting a bite to fall from your mouth."
These post-match considerations are surely a prelude to what will constitute textbook chapters and film school classes in years to come. QT is writing the book on the original screenplay, and at the same time, re-writing history. Watch below.
