‘Unforgiven’ Meets ‘Kill Bill’ in Quentin Tarantino’s Western Masterpiece

Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 film *Django Unchained* is now streaming free on Pluto, prompting a renewed look at his first Western, which he described as a “Southern”. The article argues that the film brings together influences from spaghetti Westerns and *Kill Bill* while giving its genre story a focus on slavery and race.

Jamie Foxx plays Django, an enslaved man freed by German bounty hunter Dr King Schulz, played by Christoph Waltz. Django then becomes a bounty hunter and tries to rescue his wife, Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington, from plantation owner Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The film draws on earlier Westerns and Blaxploitation cinema, and is contrasted with Tarantino’s later Western, *The Hateful Eight*, which centres on post-Civil War racial tension.