All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S13E06.Django.Unchained.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-Kitsune_track3_[eng]

By 2009,
Quentin Tarantino

was at the top of his game.

We just wanna say we're
a big fan of your work.

and the world.

"Inglorious Bastards"
was a huge hit.

He'd
taken the inglorious

and covered himself in glory.

Made over $300 million
at the box office.

Sound good?

Yes, sir.

Leading
some to conclude--

This is your masterpiece.

He had also established

a reputation for
rewriting history.

We hear a story
too good to be true,

- it ain't.
- I really think

that's his own genre.

Damn good stuff, sir.

A slightly better
version of history.

The man can just
flat out fucking write.

And despite
plenty of pushback,

he wasn't done using history

as his personal pinata.

In fact, he was about
to bring it all home.

It's a big part
of our history.

Gotta get going now.

Being on that plantation,

it was really soul wrenching.

Few
Hollywood filmmakers

had taken on a subject
matter this sensitive...

It was all the
things that we know,

all the things that our
forefathers have experienced.

...this
controversial...

What's the Black
intelligentsia

gonna say about this film?

I ain't impressed.

...or this risky.

Who the hell is this nigga?

Poitier said to him, "You
got to face this head on."

She didn't have a body double.

I was horrified.

Let alone
in quite this way.

Tarantino might not be
the first white director

to take on slavery...

There was a lot of controversy

about the fact that Quentin
was making the film.

It'd be disrespectful
to my ancestors.

A movie directed
by a white guy

that has the N word in it

like 572 times or
whatever it is.

You want me to
play a Black slaver?

...but for
"Django Unchained"

not to be his undoing...

There was a lot of people

feeling deeply uncomfortable.

...he'd have
to walk a very fine line.

Django.

If "Inglorious
Bastards" proved anything,

it was that Tarantino
relished playing God

when playing with history.

But following the
World War II epic,

whom the director
chose to play with

was set to change.

Longtime producer and
confidant Lawrence Bender

was about to be consigned
to history himself.

They definitely have had
times apart and friction,

and they've had times
together and great joy.

I think it's like
any relationship.

They had just kind of run
their course at that point.

Lawrence had his
other interests.

It wasn't just Quentin anymore.

He was Lawrence
Bender Productions.

While
three producers

would fill the Lawrence
Bender-shaped void

on Tarantino's next movie,

the idea for the film was
seeded 15 years earlier.

I met Quentin Tarantino
at an awards show.

We just launched into
talking about movies.

And we got into
this conversation

about movies about slavery.

It was 1997

and slavery was a
subject on the minds

of some important
American filmmakers.

Here are the true
owners of these slaves.

Steven
Spielberg's "Amistad,"

the story of a slave
ship rebellion,

had gotten Reggie thinking.

That movie was 5% slave revolt

and 85% movie trial.

- Your Honor.
- The problem

was not about slavery,

it was how filmmakers told
stories about slavery.

Steven Spielberg's one
of the greatest filmmakers

of all times,

but that's not the
movie I wanted to see.

I wanted to see a movie

where the courtroom

was kind of a bracketing device

for a movie about
mutiny on a slave ship.

In other words,

a movie where justice
was served cold.

I want a movie that had
more cathartic release to it.

Like it was
for "Black Charley" in 1972.

I saw that movie
when I was a kid,

and I can't remember
a frame of the film,

but I remember leaving
the movie feeling great

'cause Fred Williamson
just kicked people's butts

for 90 minutes.

I don't want torture porn,

I wanna feel great.

What are you waiting for?

And that movie delivered.

- Out.
- Reggie wanted to see

more Black justice
than white guilt.

What if there were
like an A class version

of a movie like that?

And that's when I felt like
maybe there was

a little light bulb
going off with Quentin.

That kind of
just simmered away

in Tarantino's brain.

But
Tarantino's inspiration

for a more victim-centered
slave story

wouldn't come
directly from Reggie

or even American history.

Hey, wait a minute.

It would come
from Italian filmmakers,

Sergio Corbucci
and Sergio Leone--

who had made
Spaghetti Westerns.

A different
vision of America,

told not by Americans,
but Italians.

These extremely violent,
extremely gritty Westerns,

which included one
called "Django."

He thought, "Hang
on, I could do this

kind of like nasty,
brutal Western,"

which for Corbucci was
very much influenced

by growing up and being
part of Fascist Italy.

This is how he put together
these two concepts.

Quentin had a title,

borrowed partly from
Corbucci's "Django"

and partly from the
French, Italian epic,

"Hercules Unchained."

And as far as Reggie knew,

that was all.

Jump to several years later.

When in 2011,

Reggie was invited to what
sounded like a baby shower

for a newborn script.

I get a call and he's
having a publication party.

Publication day
is when Quentin

gives copies of his newly
completed screenplay

to everyone he knows.

Gathered to
welcome the latest edition

to the Tarantino
family of films,

at least in script form,

were Hollywood luminaries.

My favorite memory
from this experience

was Quentin hands Warren Beatty

a copy of the screenplay.

The first thing Beatty does

is go to the last page,

and he's like, "167 pages."

Quentin says, without
missing a beat,

"Yep, still shorter
than 'Reds.'"

Tarantino had no intention
of making another "Reds,"

the three-hour plus
Warren Beatty vehicle

that definitely needed
its intermission.

Instead, Tarantino
had written the film

Reggie had always wanted to see.

A film you could say
Reggie kind of manifested.

He said, "You were the seed

and this script is the tree."

I'm like, "Really?"

Like
an excited boy,

Reggie immediately
climbed to the tree.

I went home and I
read "Django Unchained."

So he called me, he said,
"What do you think?"

I said, "Oh, I love it.
This is so great,

and I can't wait
to see this movie.

I'm so glad you're
going back to work."

He goes, "Oh, no, no,
we're doing it together."

I'm like, "What?"

"We start work immediately."

Reggie's
experience at Paramount

and as president of BET

also made him the ideal
choice for producer.

He was also an
accomplished filmmaker.

So, we're on our
way to house party.

with a string
of hits under his belt.

The first note Reggie
brought to the project

went all the way back

to their first
discussion years earlier

about movies dealing
with slavery.

For a movie on
this subject to work,

there needs to be
a two-to-one ratio.

And for every bad thing that
happens to an enslaved person,

twice as many bad things
have to happen to enslavers.

You just have to be mindful
as you make the film

that there's payback
all along the way.

This
formula suited Tarantino,

who some believed
built his career

on a different kind
of revenge porn.

When it came to payback,

Tarantino had one man in mind

for the vengeful lead.

The slave, he becomes freed,

he becomes a bounty hunter.

An actor
who had dispensed

Tarantino's particular
brand of retribution

in multiple films.

- Who's that?
- That's Beaumont.

That character was conceived
for Samuel L. Jackson.

We're gonna be cool.

The idea was
that it would start

with Django later in his life,

but would flash back
telling his origin story.

But I don't want that.

Quentin realized that
actually the whole film

needed to be that origin story,

and that necessarily made
Django a younger person.

Oh, it's like that, huh?

But Jackson
would be too old for Django.

- Shit.
- Instead, he was offered--

- You miss me, huh?
- Oh, yes, sir.

the role
of a right-hand man

to the slave owner.

Most Black
Americans understand

where that character comes from.

You stay right here.

A sympathizer
on the wrong side of history.

Even though we don't
agree with that character,

I believe sometimes
we have to show

what the past really is

without sugarcoating it,

so that we can appreciate
where we are right now.

But
what Black actor

would be willing to be that guy?

It might've been a hard
sell for any other actor.

This is another cheeky Black
bugger like yourself, Stephen.

Sam is an actor of
tremendous courage.

The niggas we sell
to LeQuint Dickey

got it worse than that.

Weirdly, when it came

to the slave owner himself...

Quit stalling now.

...Tarantino was
having to beat them off.

Well, at least one guy.

Leonardo DiCaprio
got hold of the script

and said, "I wanna
do this film with you

and I wanna be Calvin Candie."

Tarantino had imagined

an older man in the role,

but then--

Leonardo was not an
insubstantial piece of casting.

You little Dickens, you.

I don't see why not.

So he reconfigured
the part for DiCaprio

Actors
were lining up.

But what about a studio?

Nervous but committed,

Tarantino's longtime executives,
the Weinsteins, pressed on,

hunting for a distributor

brave enough to take the risk.

Quentin with a new
script and a new idea

is gonna excite a lot
of different places.

You know, we're
meeting with Universal

and we're meeting with Fox

and I think Sony was
the last big meeting.

The studios
were falling over themselves

to secure a deal with Tarantino.

But a movie about slavery

in the hands of a
renegade white director?

Even with Tarantino,

it raised a million questions.

One of the top studio
execs there asked us,

"What's the Black intelligentsia
gonna say about this film?"

Sony was
interested in the idea

of a new take on
America's slavery story

despite the controversial
subject matter.

And then people go,
"Oh, I don't wanna see

any more slave movies."

I go, "I get it,
no one wants to see

the horrors of that."

Except for this man

and his friend,
Quentin Tarantino.

We have to tell the
story of the Holocaust,

the stories of Rwanda,

the stories of Cambodia.

We have to tell the stories
of American slavery.

All genocides must be told

so that we don't forget.

Because when we
forget, we repeat.

That
said, the studio,

much like the Weinsteins,

had concerns.

I'm aware this is
probably disconcerting news.

One of the top
studio execs asked us,

"What's the Black intelligentsia

gonna say about this film?"

And that's when Quentin
and I looked at each other

like, "Well."

You had my curiosity,

but now you have my attention.

Most people look
at the Black audience

as kind of a monolith.

And the fact is, there's all
these different constituencies

that make up the,
quote-unquote, "Black audience."

So the fact that this
person was aware of that

was very impressive to me.

Impressive enough
for Sony to secure the deal.

So they bought it not knowing
who Django was gonna be,

but knowing we had Sam Jackson

and we had Leonardo.

I say splendid.

But
the subject matter

was but one question mark on
the studio executives' minds.

There was a lot of controversy

about the fact that Quentin
was making the film.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

And this was
not just a white director,

but a white director with
a totally different take.

Everybody calm down.

That's why Django
is a Southern,

meaning it's a Western
set in the South.

For Reggie, there
was only one man for the job.

The only way this
story would be told

with this excellence

would be with someone
like Quentin Tarantino.

But the right
woman for the job was gone.

Tarantino was taking on his
most challenging film yet

without his most
trusted collaborator.

There was a lot of
concern about losing Sally.

She was a wonderful person

and a trusted collaborator.

The untimely
death of editor Sally Menke

deprived Tarantino
of a guiding light

that had been there
since "Reservoir Dogs."

You're right, this is bad.

Sally
was irreplaceable.

But there was a way to tap into
his former editor's legacy.

I started as an
assistant editor.

I was working with Sally Menke.

Fred had worked
with Sally on "Kill Bill,"

but it was the artful skid marks

of a major Hollywood franchise

that sealed the deal.

In his home theater,

Quentin got a print
of "Tokyo Drift"

and "Fast & Furious."

Both films
on which Fred worked.

And then he was going to a
midnight show of "Fast Five."

And why'd you drag us
halfway around the world?

'Cause we got a job.

I didn't realize
it at the time,

but this was Quentin
checking out my work.

But while
Quentin was checking out Fred,

Fred wasn't leaving
anything to chance.

Hollywood appreciates
a bold move.

I emailed Quentin.

"I realize that
you're gonna have

every editor in Hollywood

knocking on your door.

I am certainly far
less experienced

than almost all of them,

but I can guarantee you

I will work harder
than any of them."

So what do you
say, am I worthy?

I got an email
back from Quentin.

"I've actually
been thinking about

having you do this with me.

Don't take any other jobs."

Have a good time.

This was the single
most exciting email

I had ever received in my
entire life.

Exactly
whose performances

Fred would be
finessing into a story,

particularly in the
title character,

remained a big question mark.

But Tarantino had
already discovered

the genial German
he wanted to costar.

One of the great discoveries
in motion picture history

is Christoph playing in
"Inglorious Bastards."

Bingo!
How fun.

Waltz
would play a brutal

but sympathetic
German bounty hunter.

Who's that stumbling
around in the dark?

A part
Tarantino had written

specifically for him.

I'm Dr. King Schultz,
this is my horse, Fritz.

But who
would play Django?

At one point, the
answer was simple.

The biggest Black
actor in Hollywood.

I will be at
the South Street Seaport

every day at midday.

There were real
conversations with Will Smith.

Who was definitely
coming from a happy place.

I'm getting a better job.

But an
actor of Smith's clout

was inclined to use it.

Don't ever let
somebody tell you

you can't do something.

And Will
ultimately told Quentin

he couldn't be in a role
this violent, ironically.

Ultimately, they
just couldn't agree

on things that Will wanted to do

that Quentin was like, "Nah,

that would take my script
too far off course."

There was another
actor with Oscar pedigree...

I remember he told me
and the other producers,

"I'm gonna meet with
Jamie Foxx tonight."

...who had played
everything from American icons

You hear that?

Her heart just skipped a beat.

to talking birds.

So are you here for Carnival?

And I knew that Jamie
was from Terrell, Texas.

He grew up a cowboy for real.

Jamie has his own horse.

I had no doubt

he could pull off everything
required for the role.

And I turned to
the other producers

and I said, "He's gonna offer
it to Jamie Foxx tonight."

They said, "Reggie, no.

He said he's gonna meet
with every actor twice."

I said, "I know what he said."

So the next day,
he called and said,

"Ah, so I met with Jamie."

I said, "Yeah, how'd it go?"

And he goes, "Ah, I
offered him the role."

First-choice
Kerry Washington

landed the role
of Django's wife.

They call me Hildy.

Quentin and I were pretty sure

that Kerry was pretty
perfect for the role.

I also love that her name
was Broomhilda von Shaft.

- Broomhilda?
- Mm-hmm.

I said, "Of
course her name is von Shaft."

Reggie
approved for its references

to the iconic Black action hero

of the '70s.

♪ Shaft ♪

♪ Damn right ♪

"Because these are the
ancestors of John Shaft.

And Quentin said, "They are?"

I said, "Absolutely."

♪ John Shaft ♪

Walton Goggins
was cast as Billy Crash.

A role nearly played

by first Kevin Costner

and then Kurt Russell.

Kurt Russell, made clothes
for him, had a fitting.

who ultimately
wasn't the right fit.

Sorry.

In the role
of Old Man Carrucan,

Tarantino decided once more

to reanimate another
childhood favorite.

He had grown up
seeing me in a bunch

of the TV Westerns, "Gunsmoke."

I got time off
for good behavior, boy.

"Big Valley."

As soon as they see me,

they're gonna kill me.

He said, "Doing this
movie, 'Django,'

and I really don't
have a part for you."

You wouldn't be playing
foxy grandpa with me?

"If Quentin wrote
a scene for you,

would you come down to
New Orleans and do it?"

And I said--

- All right.
- Sure.

And to
round out the ensemble,

Don Johnson emerged
from obscurity

to star as plantation
owner, Big Daddy.

That's them sons of bitches.

Jonah Hill was cast

as Broomhilda's one-time
owner, Scotty Harmony.

This was what
anyone would call...

A Quentin
Tarantino-worthy cast.

Oh, and there
was one other cast member

who had already worked
extensively with Jamie Foxx.

Jamie's horse in the
movie is Jamie's horse.

And
Cheetah, as he was named,

was not just your average horse.

♪ He's the talk of the West ♪

Little tricks
that the horse does

that horse could actually do,

and Foxx had taught
it to do that.

♪ Alive with his Colt .45 ♪

Foxx was a
natural in the saddle.

The same couldn't be
said of his costar.

Christophe Waltz was
taking riding lessons.

Just as shooting
was scheduled to start

in November of 2011,

"Django Unchained" found
the first bee in its bonnet.

A bee got under the
saddle of the horse,

kicked him off,

and he fell and broke his hip.

At that,
Christophe Waltz

was not going to waltz
onto Tarantino's set,

not after a disagreement

between a bumblebee and
a horse he was riding

in preparation for his role.

The horse got stung by a bee,

and it threw him off.

He fell and broke his hip.

I think he broke his tailbone.

Actually
it was a dislocated bone

in his pelvis.

Not good for Christophe

and not good for his character.

In the screenplay, he's
introduced riding a horse.

So Christophe
couldn't ride a horse.

I feel vaguely responsible.

And so they had to come
up with a way of riding

that would be somewhat
more comfortable.

Alas.

I think it was Quentin
who came up with the idea

of the dentist wagon.

So I
guess we can thank

that insect and that horse

for this delightful contraption.

What's everybody's staring at?

Quentin came up with the idea

of the tooth on the spring.

And once anointed--

It is the Quentin
Tarantino version

of a Spaghetti Western.

Good morning, innkeeper.

Shooting
could begin on schedule

in November of 2011.

But nothing about dealing
with the theme of slavery

was going to be easy.

What's your name?

Certainly not for the
man at the center of it all.

Django.

I did notice this
was a little, I think,

more challenging for him.

Jamie trying to find the Django.

Point me in that direction.

Jamie walked on set,

and he's like walking in,

you know, he's like in
character as Django.

And Quentin goes, "Jamie,
I need you to come over here."

And he's like, "What
the fuck is that?

That's Jamie Foxx.

This is not Jamie Foxx.

You're a slave."

You know, and it's like,
fuck, for a white guy

to feel that comfortable,

it has to be 'cause
he's speaking

on behalf of something else,

which is the vision.

And Jamie's fucking great

'cause he's like,
"Oh yeah, right."

Django's
transformation

from a withered slave on the run

to a dignified dandy

helped Jamie Foxx
transform himself

into the character.

It's scripted he puts
on a valet costume.

Christoph's character
was giving it to him.

I looked at Quentin and I said,

"Why don't we just make
it more pronounced?"

I showed him "Blue Boy."

That's this "Blue Boy,"

Thomas Gainsborough's
1770 portrait

of an adolescent aristocrat.

So when we did that,

Quentin and Christophe and Jamie

all decided to
adjust the script,

decide, "Oh, no, he
picked that out himself."

♪ ...along the countryside ♪

Basically he became
a prince in his head.

You mean you wanna
dress like that?

Just as the lead
actor was finding his feet,

another used his to
walk off the project.

Jonah Hill jumped ship

to take the lead in this comedy.

He's actually right.

Pigs have uniforms,

I think we should
have uniforms too.

He was
recast to a smaller roll.

Hey, Marty, bring
any extra bags?

- No.
- Now known

simply as Bag Head,

Hill left behind one memorable
scene of the darkest comedy.

I can't see fucking
shit outta this thing.

Jonah Hill was so
unbelievably funny.

It's actually Jonah and Quentin,

'cause Quentin is the other
dummy underneath the mask.

What about you,
Robert, can you see?

Not too good.

And
what looked like

the most straightforward
of costumes for Sharon

was instead as
loaded as the guns

the characters carried.

That was a very
challenging costume for me

because Quentin
did not want them

to ever look like the clan.

Wishing
to skate alongside

the historical reality,

Tarantino again
took his inspiration

from a safe distance.

He gave me some footage

of some obscure
Spaghetti Western

that had those kind of masks.

And I couldn't figure out

how to place it on their face

so it wouldn't move

because it had no structure.

Hold on, I'm fucking
with my eye holes.

- Oh.
- They were never even,

and
they looked crazy.

Who made this goddamn shit?

I thought, "This
is a fantastic way

of dealing with
the Klu Klux Klan,"

because their whole
thing is they're scary,

but it's like, well,
they're buffoons.

Not pointing any fingers,

they could've been done better.

I thought that was a brilliant
piece of social justice.

There
was no doubt Tarantino

was bringing his
own irreverent take

on dark histories,

but what no one
could tell Tarantino

was whether that tone was right.

After all...

What's the Black
intelligentsia

gonna say about this film?

You mind telling me
what the hell you doing?

He did start like worrying

about appropriateness

and the comfort
factor for his actors

in portraying, you
know, such a dark period

of American history.

It's one thing to write
on a piece of paper,

you know, "100 slaves are
marched through the mud

in a slave auction town,

moved along by white men
on horses and with guns,"

and it's another thing

to put 100 human
beings in those chains.

So he thought maybe one
way to kind of mitigate this

would be to shoot it
outside of the state.

Almost like culturally
neutral territory in a way.

Tarantino
even sought counsel

from one of the most respected
figures in Black cinema.

You're not in
trouble, are you?

Celebrated actor
and civil rights activist,

Sidney Poitier.

"You've gotta lean into it.

Don't lean away from it.

This is the film you're making.

You've absolutely got
to face this head on."

Y'all done heard the man.

Get ass up outta that.

So in the end, Tarantino
did exactly that.

He found a historic plantation

which still has
like 22 slave huts

and used that as the main base

of the Candie Land plantation.

But leaning into
his story and its history

meant confronting
America's darkest truths.

We kind of all
learned the history

of this certain plantation,

which was horrible.

And
for his Black cast,

playing in the
sandbox of history

involved digging up
the painful past.

That was a tough one,

'cause it's so horrible.

Stop.

Framed like
the Spaghetti Westerns

that inspired it,

it was easy for
Tarantino's cast and crew

to forget they were working on

his most controversial
project yet.

The first part of filming,

we were in different
parts of California,

and we were making a Western.

Come out right now with
your hands over your head.

And it was fun.

"Oh, we're making a Western.

They're riding into town."

But
"Django Unchained"

wasn't a Western, remember?

It was a Southern.

Meaning it's a Western
set in the South.

The Deep South.

Now we're making
a slave movie.

The
production had shifted

to a real plantation.

And the thing
about plantations

is that they're
beautiful physically.

It's all the weeping
willows and all that stuff.

A place
whose beauty belied
its brutal history,

But they're
concentration camps.

Unspeakable horrors
happened there.

So you're constantly
aware of that.

And the whole tone of
the entire cast and crew

just got darker.

As
real as the location

was the language in
Tarantino's script.

What did you say?

And one
violently loaded word

and inevitable
point of contention.

The N word.

Get that
nigger outta here.

And in this
script, it was as unavoidable

as it was unutterable.

I think it was
counted 110 times.

I believe it's
around 116 times.

That was
at least 110 times

too many for one actor.

I was in his dressing
room where he goes,

"I really don't
wanna say it anymore.

I can't, I don't want
to say..."

I could see he just was
really not into doing it.

- Why?
- Because I said so,

that's why.

'Cause how uncomfortable
is it to play that guy?

What's your name, boy?

It was really painful to him.

You're in trouble now, son.

Yes, sir.

In the
end, there was really

only one person on set

able to help by lending
some perspective,

and it wasn't Tarantino.

My understanding
was that Sam said,

"Hey, man, this is
just Tuesday for us."

It would appear
that Broomhilda

is in fact the right nigga.

I give him the utmost
respect for doing so.

- This nigga here?
- That nigga there.

Because it's so not him.

Now, gentlemen,
I do apologize.

While
Leonardo DiCaprio

was challenged by a single word,

Kerry Washington
embraced the challenge

few would have the
courage to confront.

She didn't have a body double.

I remember her going
through everything herself.

She had
committed to the method

for her performance

as the victimized wife
of Django, Broomhilda.

She's a serious actor.

But it makes sense, right?

I mean, her character is so
emotionally loaded in that film.

If you're gonna
have a body double

for all the emotional
heavy parts,

I mean, there's gonna be
something missing, right?

But
method acting this role

involved embracing the trauma

at the very center of the story.

And it wasn't only emotional.

The hot box scene, man,

that was a tough one.

It's so horrible.

It was one of those things

that were just a
little too realistic.

And she seemed pretty okay
when we left the dressing room.

But I know it was really
a struggle for her.

More
than a struggle,

her role would become an ordeal

when she refused a stand in

or stunt woman for this scene.

When it came time
to shoot that scene,

Kerry's performance
was so powerful.

All of us were
just being crushed.

I was horrified.

The stunt
whip was made of nylon

to limit physical injury,

but it still hurt significantly.

Everyone was being
pushed to their limits.

And I remember Quentin,

his eye was at the
viewfinder shooting,

and then he lifted his eye up

and he was weeping.

Unfortunately,
this cast member's character

never got a spotlight.

Just a swift chop.

Tracker Peg has
a whole history.

My bottom jaw has
been ripped off.

Zoe's character,
Tracker Peg, was cut down.

There was this whole
fight scene we'd set up.

There'd be this
amazing ax fight.

Tarantino of
course had proven his form

when it came to
artfully dispatching

an odd ax or two.

My scarf was meant to unravel

and you're meant to see that
half of my jaw is missing.

It was just a brilliant
classic Quentin Tarantino

big fight scene.

Or
it would've been,

the scene was reduced to this.

One shot of Django just
shooting everybody in there.

We got to that
part of production,

he was like,
"We can't have

a big fight scene that late."

Because...

Quentin knew the
movie was just too long.

We had too much movie.

And while some
action and bloodletting

was jettisoned,

spirited performances made
sure there would be blood,

real blood.

In the midst of the take,

Leo had slammed his
hand down on the table...

Now lay your palms
flat on that tabletop.

...had cut himself
on a wine glass.

The blood is
forming on his hand.

It was not scripted like that.

Broomhilda here
is my property.

Did not stop his performance,

kept going all the way through.

I can choose to
do with my property

whatever I so desire.

Tarantino
liked what he saw.

However...

No one was 100% certain

that it was going
to really play.

Because if we go with
the bloody hand take,

all the coverage afterwards

has to account for
the bloody hand

or a bandage around
his hand afterwards.

So producers elected to
shoot a bloodless backup.

So from that point on,

they shot the movie
two different ways.

One with his hand bleeding
and then bandaged-

One more moment, Doctor.

and then one without
any of the blood.

But there
was no equivocating

about the amount of blood in
the film's crucial crescendo.

A bloodbath scene.

Whatever
they were shooting now,

it was what was already in
the can that mattered next.

Because the first
audience to watch it

was the head of the studio.

And he has concerns.

Quentin
Tarantino was rewriting

the third act of
"Django Unchained"

to make sure it went
out with a bang.

One as big as it was bloody.

Because it had to top

what was a very poignant
storytelling moment

closer to the middle.

That was this
scene with Walton Goggins

as a sadistic slave handler-

Cock-a-doodle-doo.

which
was not only poignant,

but unpleasantly pointy.

He's playing
with his genitals.

Time to say
goodnight to them nuts.

He's going to torture
him before he kills him.

I got you.

Just one
reason "Django Unchained"

has never been adapted
into a Broadway musical.

But editor Fred Raskin had
another fire to put out

when he received a heads-up.

"Harvey's gonna come
into the cutting room.

Quentin has
basically given his okay

for you to show him
whatever he wants to see."

Harvey
Weinstein was getting nervous

about the film's subject matter,

and what was potentially

the most controversial Tarantino
property he had produced.

Fred knew exactly the
scene to showcase-

Everybody calm down.

the classically
Tarantino-esque blend

of tension and bloody action.

I played the first scene
of the movie for Harvey.

Last chance, fancy pants.

It comes to an end

and I bring up the lights.

So then I turn around,

and I just go, "And that
is how you open a movie."

- No doubt.
- Well, Harvey just laughed

and he was like, "Keep playing."

With Harvey's
approval of the edit,

Tarantino could shoot his
reimagined final scene,

instead of Django
exacting his easy revenge

at Candie's funeral,

Tarantino wanted...

A bloodbath scene.

I couldn't resist.

And he moved it
into the house.

An orgiastic
dispensing of summary justice,

Django's ultimate
revenge on his enslavers.

A gunfight so big
that, once again,

Tarantino's longtime
special effects pals, KNB,

would be called upon to
keep the blood pumping.

He changed the whole
ending like out of the blue.

It's like, "It's
not a lot of stuff."

And it turned out
to be tons of stuff.

And not only that,

Tarantino had to
call on his crew

to make up the numbers.

Quentin comes to set,

and he said, "Oh yeah, and
then we're gonna shoot this

and then we're gonna
shoot Dieter the Kid."

Dieter the Kid was not
a character in the film.

It was Tarantino's nickname

for his trusty
production assistant

who was about to become
a character in the film,

albeit briefly.

John McLeod--

That's special
effects supervisor, John McLeod.

And he's like, "Oh,
so we're gonna put on

a leather plate under your chest

and put the squib on top."

I'm like, "Ah, I
don't need that."

And he's like, "Okay, well."

I mean, the squibs
could be like this big.

Squibs being
the explosive blood bags

that do this when triggered.

I was so nervous,
I just flew backwards

without it going off,
and then it went off

while I was flying backwards.

It felt like a horse giving
you a kick in the chest.

I was like, okay, I
went up to him like,

"Hey, John, can I get that
leather plate?"

I don't know how
actors do it, man.

You gotta have it in your blood.

So to speak.

This bloodbath
certainly satisfied

Reggie's golden
ratio of two to one

when it came to Black
vengeance over white crimes.

And besides, this was
a Tarantino signature...

- Oh.
- ...written in blood, of course.

Not you, Steven.

You right where you belong.

Following the
massacre at Candie Land,

there was just one
thing left to do.

Blowing up Candie Land.

That is
to say their sudden

cataclysmic disassembly

of this carefully
constructed facade.

Okay, three, two, one.

And it
was gone.

And with that,

"Django Unchained" wrapped
principal photography.

The Western that was
really a Southern

was finally in the can.

And not a moment too soon.

Quentin said, "I can't
do this anymore."

"Let's go back to LA."

But the can
was overflowing with film.

Even with whole action
sequences dumped,

the assembly cut...

Believe ran four hours
and 27 minutes long.

It was long.

We had too much movie.

Initially
choosing what storylines

would stay was simple.

If it bleeds, it leads.

Like Leonardo.

It was clear to everyone
upon watching it the first time

that the blood was the
way we were gonna go.

It was a pleasure doing
business with y'all.

And that was that.

Getting
the comedy right

would prove more tricky.

The bags-on-their-head scene--

Do we have to wear
'em when we ride?

We screened that a few times

for people that were
just visiting us

in the editing room.

Make your own goddamn masks.

Every time we played it back,

it barely got laughs.

I could've cut it
better than this.

And Quentin said,

"I wanna take that
scene out of the movie."

Next time, we
do the bags right.

And we may
never have seen this

were it not for one audience.

I didn't say no bags.

The test audience,

which included the man himself.

Quentin sits in the
middle of the audience.

When you sit there

and you just have
your antenna out

and you're feeling the room.

Are they enjoying it?

Are they laughing at things?
Are they not?

Okay, I'm confused.

Are the bags on or off?

They laughed uproariously.

You could barely
hear the dialogue

they were laughing so loud.

And all I can
hear is criticize,

- criticize, criticize.
- And so we knew,

"Okay, this scene is
staying."

Even
trickier was working out

how much the film should bleed.

Turn him around now.

We discovered
the Mandingo fight

was pretty traumatizing
for the audience.

And before they've had
a chance to recover,

they watch a guy
get eaten by dogs.

Tarantino's
take on treading a fine line

was so Tarantino

it might've been a scene
in one of his films.

Quentin had a phrase
where it was like,

"I cut their heads off,

but then their heads grow back.

If their heads don't grow back,

then I've lost them."

And you wanna cut
their heads off,

but give them a
chance for recovery.

Aw.

We softened both of
those scenes just enough.

Would you please shut
these goddamn dogs up?

I cannot hear myself think.

You still hated Calvin Candie,

but you also were not so
traumatizing the audience

that they couldn't
actually enjoy the movie.

But an
unsuspecting test audience

was never going to be
Django's toughest crowd.

My memory is,
after the screening,

there was heated conversations,

and I'm pretty sure it
had to do with the N word.

Initial unease
about a white director

running roughshod
over Black history

now seemed warranted.

It's against
the law for niggas

to ride horses in
this territory.

And there was like a,
"Maybe we need to pull back

on not just the N word,"

but effectively that
became the symbol

of what they were talking about.

Sons of bitches.

Tarantino
understood the concerns,

but refused to compromise.

And I'm not trying
to speak for him,

but if it makes
you uncomfortable,

there's a reason it
makes you uncomfortable,

and you should
feel uncomfortable.

Unsurprisingly,
critics begged to differ,

including some of Black
America's most respected voices.

He doesn't really like
the way he used the N word.

I wish to purchase
one of your nigga gals.

The report on the internet

is that it is the movie

that has the most uses of
the word in film history.

Spike
Lee was outspoken

in his criticism of the film.

He refused to watch.

It would be disrespectful
to my ancestors.

He felt that this
movie did disservice

and that it was a caricature
of his ancestors' experience.

The American slave experience

was not a Sergio
Spaghetti Western.

Why y'all wanna
come into my town

and start trouble?

Sam L. Jackson
defended Tarantino,

saying he's not a
racist director.

Oh, come on, I ain't
got no problem with it.

That he's speaking in the
language of the characters.

That's how they would talk.

Now, what you got
to say about that?

I'm not seeing it.

He may have been

one of the hottest
directors in Hollywood,

but on the eve of its release,

the studio executives
were getting cold feet

about Quentin Tarantino's
most controversial film.

There was some upset people,

and Quentin included.

He wasn't feeling supported,

and the people he wasn't
feeling supported by

were probably just
feeling fucking terrified.

"Django
Unchained" was released

in December of 2012.

♪ Django ♪

And it was "Django
Unchanged" for Tarantino.

If you know you're
coming from the place

you're coming from,

you have to believe it and
you have to fight for it.

They're a little
tense out there.

Whatever
Tarantino was saying...

I count two guns, nigga.

...and however
he was saying it,

audiences wanted to hear it.

All you Black folks,

I suggest you get away
from all these white folks.

This spoke to a deep-seated
need in Black viewers,

and they finally got to see
what they really wanted to see.

You know, we were right.

The Spaghetti
Western-inspired Southern

raked in over $425 million

from its $100 million budget.

This phase of
Tarantino's career

is like each movie is like,

oh, it's bigger
than the last one.

So "Inglorious Bastards,"
his biggest ever.

- No longer, no.
- Nein, nein, nein.

This was
Tarantino's biggest hit yet.

Everyone
fucking loved that movie.

That's accurate.

With "Django"
so warmly received,

two years later, Tarantino
saddled up once more

for "The Hateful Eight."

Well, I'll be
double-dog-damned.

"The
Hateful Eight."

Tarantino
reprised a dream team

of his own acting alumni,

and gave one favorite
a leading role,

some said was overdue.

Got room for one more?

I liked that Sam
got to finally star

in a Quentin Tarantino
in "Hateful Eight."

That gets me.

I think it is a profound

collaboration in cinema history,

I really do.

It gets me too.

But another of
Tarantino's collaborations...

I want to thank
Harvey Weinstein.

would
not end so well.

Harvey was just a pig.

Three days after
multiple sexual abuse charges

against the producer
became public,

Harvey Weinstein was
fired from the company

that bore his name.

Quentin knew about
it, I knew about it.

Most people did know,

but nobody was
gonna say fuck all,

because you just
wouldn't do that,

'cause he's Harvey
Weinstein for Christ's sake.

He was the most powerful
guy in the industry.

Everybody was scared
shitless of him.

He definitely wreaked
havoc in a lot of our lives.

His outing
sparked a global reckoning.

This happened
to a lot of women.

And the
ground zero of the scandal

proved to be right at the
heart of Tarantino's world,

from Mira Sorvino, Salma
Hayek, to Rosanna Arquette...

My heart was racing,

as soon as, it was
like, "Danger, danger."

to Daryl Hannah.

She goes, "I'm in the bathroom.
I got the door closed,

and he's out there
and he won't leave."

And
at the epicenter,

his own muse, Uma Thurman.

Many of Weinstein's victims

were actresses who had helped
make Tarantino who he was.

And yet the price paid
for some survivors,

like Rose McGowan,
was their careers.

I think that the fact that
we've got a man this powerful

to see Lady Justice
staring him down,

it feels like a
huge win already.

Weinstein
was jailed in 2023

for rape and sexual assault.

He's lost his career.

He's a very sick man.

Tarantino
severed ties with the man

who had helped make him a star.

Very understandably,

and necessarily parted ways.

That's a great idea, Kato.

His next film,
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,"

would be his first
without Weinstein

and would serve as an
autobiographical epic

tying together his
cinematic universe.

And cut.

Quentin Tarantino,
who's made a career

out of stealing
from everybody else-

You got a problem with that?

this piece actually takes
everything from his own movies.

We got the Western,

we got the "Django" and "The
Hateful Eight" with the Lancer.

Nobody likes
Spaghetti Westerns.

The car
from "Reservoir Dogs."

How are those pickles?

There's a piece of him
from all of his movies

in "Once Upon a
Time in Hollywood."

Could you roll me
one of those, cowboy?

Now, I smoke red apples.

A sort of
highlights reel of Tarantino

sounded like a recipe for
success at the cinema.

What a picture.

And was, to
the tune of $390 million

from a budget of 90 million.

Not bad, Kato.

His
second-biggest hit,

it brought Tarantino's total
box office over nine films

to over $1.9 billion.

But this is not really
a story about money.

It's the little differences.

It's the
as-yet-unfinished tale

of a postmodern American auteur.

Quentin's got a pulse
right on the emotional nerve

of the audience.

A bold
young filmmaker

who found his feet as a director

and never stopped.

Quentin's done
an amazing job of,

I was gonna
say walking the line,

but also just being
like, "Fuck the line.

I'm just gonna put
my shit out there,

knowing that I love humans,

I'm fascinated by humans,

I love history, I love film."

He loves all of these things.

And then if people
take offense,

they can take offense.

That's life in
the Tarantino-verse.

I'm sure you'll like it.

Yeah, I like it
a lot, smartass.

The former video
store clerk, movie junkie,

turned writer, director
and occasionally actor...

What the fuck was
I talking about?

...somehow created
his own movie language.

That's the difference from
Quentin Tarantino pictures

to any picture that anybody
else might do anywhere.

The very best there is.

And like all
risk-taking rule breakers,

he changed the game.

He changed the way
things went in Hollywood.

The rules are different,

the game is unique,

and everybody wants
to be a part of it.

His often-quoted
aim to make just 10 movies

means one thing.

He's got one left.

I'm sure he'll make it.

You have not heard
the last of his voice.

He's too great a filmmaker

to stop giving us
incredible movies.

So thank you, Quentin.