‘Django Unchained’ won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and it’s up for five acadamy awards but director Spike Lee is not impressed, in fact he refused to go see it.

It’s the story about bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz(Christopher Waltz) who visits plantations and eliminates targets for the government or makes sure that they are dead. He is German man who works under the guise of a dentist. He comes across Django(Jamie Foxx) chained up in a line of slaves that is being transported and sets him free. He offers him freedom in exchange for his assistance on bounties.

Django chooses his freedom and the two set off together, Dr. Shultz on his small carriage with a tooth on top and Django on a horse. As the two become more acquainted with each other their intimacy grows. Dr. Shultz trains him to be a top-notch killer as can be seen in a clip of him practicing on a snowman. More importantly though Dr. Shultz begins to build a friendship with Django as he learns intimate details about his life, like the story of his long lost love Broomhilda(Kerry Washington). It turns out Django’s love might be stationed at one of the targeted plantations on Dr. Shultz’s list and so Dr. Schultz and Django devise a plan to trick the owner and set his lover free so that they can be together.

Tarantino is known for his camp story-lines. He makes the terrifying/inhumane seem novel. The fear and rage in Django’s character comes across well, his hand is never too far from his pistol and he is ready at any moment to put a bullet through anyone who opposes him.

Director Spike Lee spoke out against Tarantinos film calling it, “disrespecful” to his ancestors in an interview with Vibe. Tarantino’s sense of humor does take the viewer to new lows suggesting that slavery was at all comical. It was not, it was a harsh reality. The problem with ‘Django Unchained’ is that a lot of that reality get’s left out as you can read about here.

But what this movie might serve some, as with many of his other movies is a form of catharsical release of pent up rage. Rage against a hidden oppressor, or even one not so hidden, it delivers the viewer from the feeling that somehow you might be worth less than someone else in the sickest way possible. In this case a white slave owner named Calvin Candy(Leonardo DiCaprio) and his “Uncle Tom,” Stephen( Samuel L. Jackson).

It’s the dialogue and the decisions Django’s character makes not the violent often-grotesque scenes of abuse or the gunfights that trigger thoughts or memories. The violence that ensues is just in effect, which is perhaps why the movie took the Golden Globe for best screenplay, because the timing between dialogue and pistol fights is just right.

For example, the scene where Django explains his love for Broomhilda and Dr. Shultz offers to help could be interpreted as the first time a real bond as equals happens between the two cohorts. While there isn’t any violence that ensues there is a new sense of camaraderie that you get the understanding Django’s character has not once known in his life.

In the scene where Django tests Dr. Shultz’s patience by verbally abusing the other slaves you get the feeling that Django is acting out of control. Dr. Shultz approaches him and asks him to stop risking their cover by antagonizing the other slaves and he responds, ” What you said was, ‘that this is my world and in my world you have to get dirty’ so that is what I am doing.” In that same scene where Django interjects Dr. Shulzs  trying to save the life of another slave and in turn gets the other slave killed right in front of them, you know Django will regret that in the future but while it’s happening he doesn’t break character, instead you can only imagine the shame and anger that he is feeling.

In a scene with Brad Pitt at the dinner table when, after Stephen pulls him aside to tell him that he thinks the two are secretly planning to liberate Broomhilda. Mr. Candy comes back into the room and begins to explain the “anatomical evidence” that black people are inferior to white people. A scene which erupts into Candy shouting off at the two for attempting to trick him and eventually forces them to stop their charade and pay up the full amount for Broomhilda.

All of these scenes do the same thing, they make you detest Calvin Candy and therefor empathize with Django’s character.But the point Spike Lee would have you remember, is that there is a difference between inappropriate entertainment and disrespect.

‘Django Unchained’ is up for five academy awards for; Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Waltz), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Sound Editing.