The marketing campaign for Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, up to this point, has rearranged mostly the same footage. Which is fine, because for the most part, the neo-noir Western looks amazing. But now that Tarantino has wrapped filming on what we hear was a complicated, sprawling production, we’re able to see fresh scenes and alternate takes on familiar scenes, many of which are included in the new international trailer. We have it for you right here:
That breathtaking opening shot, alone, is worth the price of admission. Prior to now, my focus has been on Tarantino’s writing, or the performances of his eclectic ensemble: Jamie Foxx as the liberated slave Django; Christoph Waltz as the bounty hunter; Leonardo DiCaprio as the deranged plantation owner; Samuel L. Jackson as the ringleader of a brutal slave-fighting trade. Suddenly, my interests have shifted to Robert Richardson’s cinematography. (He worked on Scorsese’s Shutter Island, Oliver Stone’s JFK and Born on the Fourth of July, and the two Kill Bill movies, to name just a few.) I’m interested in J. Michael Riva’s production design on Tarantino’s first true Western. I want to see if QT can edit his story down into a tight, streamlined package.
But really, the new trailer gives us an in-depth look at DiCaprio’s approach to playing a flat-out maniac, while simultaneously taking us on a better tour of Candie Land … his vicious Southern plantation. It ramps up the action and the gunplay, where earlier clips showed us the dialogue and the root of the relationships. This, finally, looks like a Tarantino genre picture.
It still doesn’t look like a Christmas release, yet that’s when we’re going to see Django Unchained, which opens on Dec. 25 in the States.
