Django Unchained

by | Dec 27, 2012 | Actors, Art, Concerts, Directors, dvd, Exhibits, Film, Movies, music, Writing and Speaking

Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx

Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx

Quentin Tarantino, the over hyper creative genius, and his new film Django Unchained flirts with mastery. The film is maybe 15 min too long but its close enough(more about the 15 min later).  If you’ve seen a ton of movies in your life, you will find a reference to just about every one of them in Django Unchained, that’s what Tarantino does, except in this one “The Guys with the White Hats” loses out. Directors like Sergio Leone, Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, Tim Burton and many more have contributed unknowingly to this creative effort and again this is no knock on Tarantino’s creative talents, it is his creative talent in using themes we are all familiar with and in some cases turning them upside down that makes us laugh and maybe even think.

The film makes no pretense that the story of Django is based on anything remotely true and yet still is able to paint an ugly picture about this country’s past. The movie is often hilarious, heart breaking (for some of us) and outrageous.   Tarantino has created an African America Super Hero who rides a horse that mimics Trigger and thus slaps down  the fable of “Guys with White Hats” being the good guys. There is room here for a sequel(s), the son of Django Part 2.

The movie is gory, so if you find vampires, Bruce Willis, Jason Bourne or Bambi disturbing you should avoid Django and not see it. The dialogue at times is that of two 9 year old inner city kids acting out scenes from a movie, with a child’s emphasis on vulgarity.  As promised, the wasted 15 min: Cutting the number of times the N-word is used in half to about 70 would make the film shorter giving Tarantino his masterpiece.  Spoiler alert, no other movie that I’ve ever seen has approached the subject of Black Slavers (Blacks who enslaved other Blacks) and while its not gone into in great depth it has not been swept under the rug either and I am not sure how open Black America is to this fact. In addition Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) is an important and complex character in the film, similar to, but a more repulsive,  Colonel Nicholson (Bridge on the River Kwai) who are  both blinded to their own culpability.

Django Unchained is enormously entertaining and not a source for cultural or political debate and yet people will feel a need to see it as some referendum about current, past or future events. What can be debated is that Tarantino got to do a film that no African American director would be allowed to do, and that should be debated (and not with me). Django is a movie, just like Les Miserables, Jack Reacher, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are all just movies. Django just happens to be really good.

 

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Love What You do

Love What You do

by | Jun 26, 2009 | Actors, Art, Artist Residencies, Culture, Dance, Education, Events, Live Performance, Writing and Speaking

The key to a great career is to be totally in love with what you do. Helen Mirren must have been in more then 50 movies and a equal amount of plays and TV series. She is remarkably in that she continues to work.  Her first credits go back to 1967. hellen mirren

London’s  National Theatre Production of  Phèdre starring Ms. Mirren, performed in London and screened at Mann Chinese Theatre in LA yesterday. These kinds of screenings   make theatre accessible and affordable again. No travel and no enormous Broadway ticket price.

There is a review on the LA Times blog but there are also tweets by the theater goers. Pretty nice.

2009 William H. Johnson Prize

2009 William H. Johnson Prize

by | May 28, 2009 | Art, Artist, Creativity, Photograhy, sculptor, Writing and Speaking

Applications for the 2009 William H. Johnson Prize are now available online at http://www.whjohnsongrant.org

Please note that the due date for all applications is July 31, 2009, several months earlier than in past years. Applicants are advised to take note of the change so that they do not miss the deadline. The 2009 William H. Johnson Prize is 25,000 USD and the winner will be announced in September 2009.

William Johnson Self Portrait

William Johnson Self Portrait

The William H. Johnson Foundation for the Arts is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization that seeks to encourage African American artists early in their careers through its annual award, The William H. Johnson Prize. Early career African American artists who work in painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, installation and/or new genre are eligible to apply.

William H. Johnson, an African American artist born in Florence, South Carolina in 1901, is the namesake of the Foundation. He moved to New York as a young man to study at the National Academy of Design, and though he was acknowledged as the most talented artist in his class of 1926, he was passed over for a traveling scholarship, most likely because of his race. Rather than see Johnson struggle in the United States, his teacher, Charles Hawthorne, gave Johnson 1000 USD so that Johnson could travel to Europe. This act of faith and generosity was pivotal in Johnson’s life, for it provided the seed from which his career flourished.

In the same spirit, the William H. Johnson Prize is intended to encourage the best artists working today. Past Johnson Prize Winners include Laylah Ali (2002); Nadine Robinson (2003); Kori Newkirk (2004); Dave McKenzie (2005); Edgar Arceneaux (2006); Rodney McMillian (2007); and Jennie C. Jones (2008).

THE WILLIAM H JOHNSON FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
6022 Wilshire Blvd, #200
Los Angeles, CA 90036

323 931-3744
323 931-3751 fax

http://www.whjohnsongrant.org
info@whjohnsongrant.org