You can watch the magnificent Django Unchained on TV today. But there is one scene Quentin Tarantino should have left out of his 195-minute epic.
Quentin Tarantino is a master at giving every character, no matter how small, at least one memorable moment. An idiosyncratic appearance, a casual line of dialogue or a pithy look: With Til Schweiger, all it takes is two guitar riffs and we know exactly what his Hugo Stiglitz in Inglourious Basterds is made of. In a split second, the character is anchored in pop-cultural memory.
No wonder that even stars queue up for small roles in the casting of a new Tarantino film. Whoever makes it in front of the camera for Tarantino and doesn’t end up on the cutting room floor is assured a moment for eternity. It is all the more astonishing that Tarantino did not manage this feat with his cameo in Django Unchained. He should rather have done away with this performance altogether.
Tarantino has pulled off many great cameos, but in Django Unchained he fails all the way
Tarantino actually knows a thing or two about cameos. The director, who is an occasional actor, already took on a supporting role in Reservoir Dogs. Since then, he has popped up every now and then in his own films. In Django Unchained he even has a double cameo: in the first half of the film as Ku Klux Klan supporter Robert aka Bag Head 1, in the second as miner Frankie.
While the first cameo is barely noticeable, the second takes you completely out of the film. Not only does Tarantino fail spectacularly at giving his miner a convincing Australian accent. He also fails in his supreme discipline. Where Tarantino shows remarkable sensitivity in directing all the other supporting characters, his Frankie bursts into the film completely awkwardly.
You can watch Tarantino’s cameo in Django Unchained here:
Frankie is part of a group of three men who escort the bound Django (Jamie Foxx). With a ruse, the hero of the story manages to free himself from his predicament. The scene culminates in Frankie being shot by Django and blown into a thousand pieces thanks to dynamite. It’s a spectacular exit that ends in one of the film’s most debonair musical moments.
Frankie and a handful of dynamite: Why Quentin Tarantino’s cameo doesn’t fit in Django Unchained
Because as soon as Frankie disappears, Tarantino has the film firmly back on track. The silhouette of the title character slowly emerges from the swirling sand. An iconic image. Tarantino knows exactly what he wants. The same cannot be said of his cameo. Despite its brevity, the scene feels excruciatingly long because we can watch Frankie think at every second – and not in a good way.
Every other character knows exactly what they are doing or have to do in this scene. Frankie, on the other hand, seems like a cowboy male who was put in the film and doesn’t even understand how he got there. Tarantino’s body language says it all: he is actively thinking about the fact that he is now in front of the camera and acting. And it’s uncomfortable to watch him do it.
