"So, Which Do You Prefer, Django (1966) Or Django (2012)?" Topic

Just in case some of you didn't even know about the 1966 movie, here are some posters of that film. It had a hilarious coffin scene too.

YouTube link

By the way, there was even a Terrence Hill sequel or two.

Dan

Never heard of it.

I didn't like the latest Django, too many racial overtones. We can do without all that crap

Thanks for the tip; I've never heard of the 1966 movie until today.

Austin, Texas still has one good big video store, "I Luv Video." If they have "Django" 1966, I'd rent it.

Jeff

Lol. Just remember it's a spaghetti Western. So no big budgets for expensive visuals, authentic costumes or proper sound effects. But fun to watch nonetheless.

Dan

They're regularly shown on one of the UK channels, movies4men or such like.

I've never seen it, or the newer one,which is in part,an homage,like all of Tarantino's films. In fact,Franco Nero has a cameo in the new one.

Checking on line, I was surprised to find there were over 60 sequels!

BTW, Terrence Hill has had a very successful late-life career playing a crime-solving priest in the Italian TV series "Don Mateo":

link

It's shown in the US on the MHZ Network.

I had no idea that was a remake (or "remake"). I have never seen the newer one. Likely never will. But I may check out the old one.

It wasnt a remake. Tarantino just took the name of the main character.

I thought the original had racial issues in it too.
I havent seen it in like 30 yesrs but wasnt it the KKK vs Mexican revolutionaries? Or am I remembering the wrong movie from the 60s? If I am wrong, what movie was it? Thanks!

The original is on utube:
YouTube link

I think you have to really have to work to find "racial overtones" in it, as oppossed to the recent one.

According to wiki they were KKK style ex-Confederates.

But then with wiki there is always the author's potential biases to be taken into account.

Looking at the synopsis on wiki one wonders how they got all of that plot into a 92 minute film.

Rango!

Is the "R" silent?

YouTube link

Dan
PS. By the way, it's a hidden joke in the Tarantino remake -- the new 2012 Django (Foxx) tells the old 1966 Django (Nero) how to pronounce the name, to which the old Django replies "I know."
link

1966!

Lol. Did you think Hollywood had finally come up with an original idea or paid writers to actually come up with new characters and stories, without reaching into their idea of a recycling bin?

They are banking on cultural amnesia and on Group-Think for all these projects of theirs to succeed.

By the way, here are 124 new Hollywood remakes and reboots currently in the works:
link

Dan
PS. And, if you wanted to go to the movies to get away from the bombardment of Hollywood's social messages, guess again. These days most remakes seem to be loaded with some special message Hollywood wants to drive into your brain. So the days of plain escapism for the sake of escapism seem to be over. The bombardment is on 24/7. They live! :)

The newer Django is a steaming pile of horse manure. Couldn't even watch the whole way through on my long commercial flight. Plot holes one could drive a Hummer through.

Bandoo: "Hollywood has been delivering 'special messages' since it began…nothing new."

Lol. One thing is piggybacking a good strong plot, but today's vessels of propaganda are engineered to be nothing but. If you haven't noticed the big difference this past half century, then I can't really make you see it.

It's like the B (flip) side of the WW2 era of Hollywood films, but those messages were under government control (even had conspicuous WPA labels and slogans as clear disclosure) and were only during the war effort. Today is an entirely different and coordinated social engineering "effort" at work, and also one not based on demand.

Dan

TODAY'S vessels of propaganda are engineered to be nothing but

(Emphasis added).

. . .this past half century. . .

Sorry, Dan, but you're a little off there. Maybe you're too young to remember:

Just a few.

We can go further back,if we want to:

Then,of course, the KKK were the "heroes". Wonder where that film is popular these days?

Hafen

You are right. I should have said after McCarthy.

Then things balanced out for a while (meaning the normal ebb and flow, but mostly escapism) and now it's as if a different kind of McCarthy was influencing everything, but in the opposite direction. Both sides just need to leave entertainment alone, for escapism and not for constantly preaching their views.

So in the last half century we've gone from a period that had something for everyone to one in which Hollywood machine produces everything according to the exact same views (and pretending that everyone else feels like they do).

I hear the same observations in various circles, from people of all ethnicities and backgrounds from all across the country, so this is not something I'm imagining.

Dan

Wow. That 1921 "Birth of a Nation" poster looks absolutely horrible. Was that atrocity produced in Hollywood or by a studio somewhere in the Deep South?

And was Hollywood already the center of all US film making that early in the century? I thought studios were located all over the place at that time, but I may be wrong.

Dan

RE "Birth of a Nation" – Woodrow Wilson love it.

The new version is just a racist.

A new version? You mean that Hollywood made a remake of that KKK film* even after that?

Wow, talk about Hollywood (and their main party) going from one extremist view of things and over towards the other extreme. Geesh.

Dan
* I'm just going by the Klan picture on the poster. Was it produced for the Klan?

My point was about Pondoo's statement, which is a valid one. The movies,like all popular art, reflects the values of its culture. That culture changes,and so does the art. You may feel that Hollywood is pushing some kind of "message", but as Pondoo said, it's always been so.

The Monsters of the 50's were almost invariably created through nuclear radiation, or some kind of atomic "accident". IIRC, some government officials at the time criticised Hollywood for "trying to make Americans afraid of atomic weapons".

The doom-laden Film Noirs of the post-war era, whether they explicitly depicted it or not, reflected the feeling among a lot of returning veterans that they might not be able to fit back into civil society.

A number of films of the 30's addressed the Depression--even some of the most "escapist" ones.

And so on,as far back as you care to go.

Any period of "balance" would have to be a very short one;"Failsafe" and "Dr. Strangelove" are both from 1964,and both were heavily criticised,in certain circles,as anti-Bomb propaganda.

Could it be that we tend to see,and be annoyed by, "messages" mostly when we disagree with the message? Some people may feel Hollywood is too obsessed with racism,for example; but will be a long time before it equals the amount exhibited up through at least the 1950's. It's just that it was,as you said, "going in the other direction". One famous (or infamous ) instance,from 1934:

youtu.be/H_X2mKJEcjg

The normative culture ate this stuff up; I'm not sure everyone did,not to put too fine a point on it.

Which leads into your point about Hollywood making "message films" for which there's no demand. The answer there is a simple one: films with messages for which there's no demand will fail at box office,and stop being made.

EDIT: This rather long-winded post took a while,so some other responses have appeared in the meantime.

RE Birth of a Nation--you've never seen it? If not, I recommend doing so. It's a groundbreaking piece of work,a turning point in film making,whatever its distasteful message. So was "Triumph of the Will". You can read about it:

link

And that indeed was the poster. The imagery in the film is just as powerful. I recall an account from the 70's or 80's that conveys it's effect on audiences. The writer attended a showing at Howard University. When the white "Knight Riders" arrived in the nick of time to save the white victims from the horde of "black savages" the student audience stood up and cheered. That must have been a weird night.

I guess this is one of those issues where we aren't going to agree on exactly all the same points.

As I and so many others have expressed here and elsewhere, the days when Hollywood made movies that really reflected the values of our nation's cultures have ended. These days it is solely concerned with reflecting its own "culture" and with making everyone else in the country feel alienated and to make us believe that Hollywood's views are those of the vast majority of the country.

And, contrary to what one would expect, public demand and box office sales no longer dictates what Hollywood produces. They take huge loses with a movie, then just turn around and produce the exact same material the following year. It's mind boggling.

Anyway, like I said, we don't have to agree on this.

Dan
PS. As for "Birth of a Nation", I never heard about it until just recently. Remember, I didn't grow up in the States and still have a lot of catching up when it comes to vintage (pre-WW2) entertainment. But, if I ever do watch it, I would need to be in the right frame of mind to handle it. I'm just not feeling that these days.

Fair enough. It's an important landmark in film history,but,like Citizen Kane,another one, it can sometimes feel like an "assignment".

A couple of points I didn't mention:

Yes, you're right about locations--the first big centers of filmmaking were in New Jersey and New York. But there were also film centers in Florida, and a few other places. They all just got subsumed into what we mean when we say "Hollywood".

Although I emphasized "messages", since that's what we were talking about, in every era,there were,of course, plenty of what you would call "escapist" films. This was particularly true during the Depression, I guess,but even here, it could depend on the attitude and outlook of the studio bosses, and their take on their target audience. Warners, for instance,was known for sticking up for the Little Guy,and even their musicals portrayed the hard life of the chorus girls and boys,the musicians and writers,even the producers and directors; and when they showed the rich and well-to-do, it was usually as bumblers and snobs,basically parasites.

Louis B.Mayer and company, on the other hand, were sure THEIR audience went to the movies to escape from their day to day lives;seeing an MGM musical, you'd never know there was a Depression.

As it turned out,both were right. And so it has always been. I'd be hard pressed to find the social message in "Dumb and Dumber". How about Will Farrell movies? If comedies are thought too easy targets, how about the Fast and Furious series? (You tell me--I haven't seen any). "Frozen"? I dunno. But I have a feeling there are probably as many purely escapist movies being made as there ever were.

And finally, I can only repeat what I said earlier. Keep in mind how long it takes to get a film into theaters:the average, from beginning of production to screen,is two years; and that's not including the time it takes to secure a property,get a script,hire a director, find the funding,on and on. In a way,making a film is a shot in the dark--you may think you have a sure-fire box office success,based on what's making money now,only to find out,in a year or three,that audiences have moved on,and you've got a box office disaster. No wonder studios tend to play it safe, so it seems they're making the same movies over and over. But of course, that can only work for so long. Then,on to something else,which gets copied and mutated until it,too becomes stale.

So yes,given the lead time,it's true that a studio will continue to produce,or at least sponsor,films that do poorly--for a while. But it's also still true that any company, whether it makes movies or soup, that produces something nobody wants,will eventually find itself out of business.

So, anyway, back to Django -- Yeah, Tarantino decided to make a Spaghetti Western his own way(like "Kill Bill" is his take on a Samurai movie). I think it's funny the life the name has taken on. It all starts with jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt (read his bio in Wikipedia.) The movie character's name was a tribute to the musician, somehow.
Decades later, George Lucas is doing Star Wars episode 2, and they need a name for the mysterious bounty hunter who is the source of the genetic material for the Clone Army. They named him Django Fett, in homage to the spaghetti western character.
THEN comes Tarantino.

Oh, for heavens sake.