VCU news

By Brian McNeill

Oliver Speck, Ph.D., an associate professor of film studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, is the editor of a newly published collection of scholarly essays exploring Quentin Tarantino's  successful and controversial "Django Unchained."

Speck, a professor in School of World Studies in the College of Humanities and Sciences, recently discussed the book, "Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained: The Continuation of Metacinema," (Bloomsbury Publishing) with VCU News.

What is it about "Django Unchained" that makes it a rich subject to explore with a collection of essays? What are some of the topics covered?

Tarantino touches on subjects that are generally considered taboo in an American dinner conversation: race, class and money. Tarantino is, of course, everything but polite. That's his job as an artist. I think that the topics that Tarantino explores in the film — slavery, race, history, capitalism — do deserve to be discussed in open, informed dialogue. As scholars, it is our job to explore these subjects from a multitude of perspectives that take into account our respective expertise. I was able to find a diverse group of scholars, whose different backgrounds, in turn, inform their scholarship.

In your introduction, you argue that Quentin Tarantino's recent films exploring slavery ("Django Unchained") and the Holocaust ("Inglorious Basterds") show that Tarantino is a "real auteur." Can you elaborate a bit on that?

If you compare Quentin Tarantino with Steven Spielberg (as one of the contributors to this volume has done), you can quickly see how different the basic impetus of their work is. Spielberg always aims for a transcending truth, as the motto for "Schindler's List" goes: "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire!" Tarantino, in opposition to Spielberg, renders the singular perspective with its attendant truth. To understand this significant difference, you just need to watch the first few minutes of "Inglorious Basterds" — this is all about the ultimate political power, the power over life and death. Here, the audience is actually put in the shoes of the killer, a kind of seductive Mephistopheles, and, perversely, for a brief moment we are drawn to him and made to identify with him. In other words, a real auteur uncovers the hidden political structures and mechanisms of identification that make something like the Holocaust possible in the first place.

Do you think "Django Unchained" is Tarantino's best work?

That depends on the perspective you take on the film. This might not be the film I watch to relax — that would probably be the understated love story in "Jackie Brown" (1997). But while you might be able to overlook the political statements in "Inglorious Basterds" and enjoy this alternative version of history, race and violence are subjects that just can't be ignored because they remain volatile. I would venture to say that this is Tarantino's most provocative film.

What led to your interest in this project?

Initially, I noticed again the strong connection with Germany, my home country. Unlike the incarnation of evil in the figure of Col. Landa in "Inglorious Basterds," Christoph Walz plays a German immigrant who obviously fled the political oppression in his native country. I found it fascinating that an American filmmaker discovers a "virtual Germany," a Germany that can teach us about freedom and democracy. Watching the film, I quickly realized that there are just too many aspects that need to be explored in depth, such as the complex history of the representation of race in American cinema, against the backdrop of the German Romantic-inflected enlightenment discourse of liberation. Therefore, I decided to invite colleagues who could explain these aspects much better than I could. It was a highly fruitful effort!

While this collection of essays was written by academics, it seems accessible to a wider audience. Was that a goal?

Yes, definitely. I told the contributors to keep in mind that this is a multidisciplinary project and that all terminology and technical terms need to be explained. Professionals often fall back on conceptual catchwords in order to save time, but I sincerely hope that this collection will find a wider audience.

 

Subscribe for free to the weekly VCU News email newsletter at http://newsletter.news.vcu.edu/ and receive a selection of stories, videos, photos, news clips and event listings in your inbox every Thursday. VCU students, faculty and staff automatically receive the newsletter. To learn more about research taking place at VCU, subscribe to its research blog, Across the Spectrum at http://www.spectrum.vcu.edu/