Category Archives: philosophy

Dr King Schultz

dr-king-schultz

Dr King Schultz is a fine incarnation of acting, character and screenwriting and his story challenges our attitude towards the law, morality and compassion.

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Django Unchained (2012): a love story, a blood story, a slave story

In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino’s alternate history unleashed fantasy revenge on Hitler’s regime. In Django Unchained, he brings it to the slavers.

With the help of the only good white guy in the South – a German bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) – Django (Jamie Foxx) sets out to rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from a brutal plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

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“Then I woke up”: No Country for Old Men (2007) – Part 4 of 4

There will be no abrupt ending to this series. We’re up to the fourth and final part! This post continues straight on from Part 3 so if you’ve just landed here, start at Part 1. For everyone else, Part 4 will reveal all…

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“It ain’t all waitin’ on you.” – No Country for Old Men (2007) – Part 3 of 4

In Part 1, we saw that in this life there are no clean getaways – either a bad guy will get you, your bad choices will get you or your body will get you. That’s pretty much how life seems. In Part 2, we saw Chigurh says we all bet our lives on something and how Llewellyn in particular trusts himself to take ‘any comer’ – to cheat death – and make off with the big score.

I’ve been wanting to blog about this film for a long time. I didn’t know quite what to say or where to start – it’s so incredibly sparse and beautifully-crafted, and memorable for darker reasons too, perhaps. And then there’s that ending.

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Betting your life: No Country for Old Men (2007) – Part 2 of 4

In Part 1, we observed the pervasive nature of death in the film No Country for Old Men. And so it is in real life, though I think we in the West tend to hide it away, shy away from it, avoid talking about it, avoid thinking about it. In No Country we’re confronted with the nature of life, death and suffering.

When you first watch No Country you may have found yourself a little stunned by Moss’ death in particular. Believe me, I was. I couldn’t believe it! (Might have been why I nearly missed the ending.) We follow Moss as he strains and he works and he musters all his courage to taken on this psycho only for him to be killed off-screen, like some supporting character! Seriously? No final showdown between Chigurh and Moss? Surely the Coens disrespected some rules of cinema and story, and certainly their audience! The moment caused a lot of discussion on internet forums at the time. (And look at me – 5 years later, still talking about it.)

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