Django Unchained is certainly Quentin Tarantino's most commercially-successful film and is arguably also his most controversial. Fellow director Spike Lee has denounced the representation of race and slavery in the film, while many African American writers have defended the white auteur. The use of extremely graphic violence in the film, even by Tarantino's standards, at a time when gun control is being hotly debated has sparked further controversy and has led to angry outbursts by the director himself. Moreover, Django Unchained has become a popular culture phenomenon, with t-shirts, highly contentious action figures, posters, and strong DVD/BluRay sales.The topic of Django Unchained (slavery and revenge), the setting (a few years before the Civil War) and the intentionally provocative generic roots in Spaghetti Western and Blaxploitation demand a thorough examination of the film, including its many intertexts and references to German and French culture. The volume concludes with an interview with Quentin Tarantino, giving the final assessment to the man behind the movie.
