Comparison of “Django Unchained” and “12 years a slave”
- Matthew Markham
- Dec 9, 2015
- 3 min read
In this essay I am going to be writing about two different films with many similarities and
differences. One of the films i have chosen to write about is "Django Unchained " which was released in 2012 and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The other film i have chosen to compare with "Django Unchained" is "12 Years A Slave" which waas directed by Steve Morgan and was released in 2013. Both of these films are set a few years before the civil war, in "Django Unchained" the main character finds himself working with a german bounty hunter to help him kill the brittle brothers to earn his freedom. "12 years a slave" the years before the Civil War, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South and the film shows his survival and individual suffering during this peroid. These two films are both about Racism and the slavery period within America around the Civil War. The reason I am writing about these two films is because they both highlight black history and I am going to be writing about the genre and authorship of both of these films. Although these films are based around the same time the director styles gives off a complete different message to one another. Quentin Tarantino in “Django Unchained” shows the action side of the film with different people being killed all throughout the movie, giving the audience not only a deep message and a highlight of black history that comes with the film itself but also something to enjoy watching and entertain them. Steve Morgan has more of a deep message for the audience with “12 Years A Slave”. The same as “Django Unchained” it follows one specific black male character throughout the entire film. The reason I think Steve Morgan has done this to show the individual hurt and suffering that black people faced during the slavery period, rather than showing the effect on the entire black race as a whole. The genre of these two films are similar even though they are giving off different director styles and messages to the audience. Quentin Tarantino in “Django Unchained” as well as showing the slavery period and the tough times black people faced he is also show the up rise for black people and the chance for them to be free, whereas Steve Morgan in “12 years a slave” focuses mainly on the poor treatment and abuse of black people during the slavery time, he does this by focusing on the main character and showing what he would have to put up with on a daily basis as a slave during these horrible times. I have chosen two scenes to compare from each of the films, firstly in "Django Unchained" Jamie Foxx who plays Django approaches the brittle brothers, he shoots the first one in the chest and watches him drop to the ground, as the other brother anticipates Django killing him next he goes for his gun in a panic. Django grabs a whip and whips the man down to the ground and continues to do so until he is no longer moving, he then unloads his clip into the mans lifeless body. The scene i am comparing with this is in "12 Years A Slave" the main character in the film has been instructed to repair a shed, he is hammering nails into wood and fixing the shed, his master comes back and insists that he has done something wrong, he kicks a wooden panel out of the wall and demands Solomon to strip for a whipping, Soloman refuses to do so and the two characters engage into fighting Soloman throws his master to the ground takes his whip from him and begins to whip him continuously until he is stopped by another character, the scene finishes with Soloman standing still with the whip in hand and sweat dripping from his chin. I chose to compare these two scenes because they both show white people being on the recieving end of a whipping from a slave which in these times wouldnt of happened, it shows the rise of the black race as a whole and the idea of them not being seen as a slave anymore.
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