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read in my life," says DiCaprio, passage for any Western. Then,
who had been wanting to work with one month left on the shoot,
with Tarantino for ages. This is Oscar-nominated production
the star's first nonleading role in designer J. Michael Riva suddenly
nearly 15 years (although he was died of a stroke.
originally in the mix to play Riva's wasn't the only death that
Basterds' Landa before the role cast a pall over the project. Django
went to Waltz), and he's now gen- marks Tarantino's first major
era ting awards buzz for his feature without Sally Menke, his
performance, as are castmates editor and collaborator of nearly
Foxx and Waltz. "Once I stepped two decades, who died on a hiking
on set, it was a different me. I had trip in 2010, before Tarantino had
to have a different relationship with everybody," DiCaprio says. even finished the script. (Menke's duties were taken over by
Django's road to completion appeared bumpy. Names con- Fred Raskin, an assistant editor on Kill Bill.) "When I went into
tinued to attach themselves to the project before detaching the process of editing it, yeah, it was sad," says Tarantino, paus-
again. Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell were both in talks for a ing and turning unusually serious. "I missed her terribly."
part that would eventually be folded into Billy Crash, one of During the editing process, Tarantino and executive producer
Candie's stooges played by Justified's Walton Goggins. Jonah Harvey Weinstein also pondered splitting the film into two parts,
Hill and Sacha Baron Cohen were each slated to appear in the as they had done with their last collaboration, Kill Bill. "That
film, before dropping out; in the end, Hill has a small bit as a always comes up, especially when you're running out of time,"
member of an early, bumbling version of the Ku Klux Klan. says Weinstein, noting that they would have made the cut at the
(Tarantino even cast himself in a key small role after Anthony point where DiCaprio enters. "Trust me, we could have. But you
LaPaglia bowed out because of a scheduling conflict.) The really need both halves of the whole for it to work." In the end
filmmaker was rewriting the script during production, includ- they managed to trim the story to two hours and 45 minutes,
ing major changes to its third act. Shooting in snowy Wyoming finishing the final cut only two days before the first screening.
and rainy Louisiana added some weather headaches-a rite of ACK AT DO HWA, the rollicking kick start of
IJJ rumbles over the speakers. Even Tarantino laughs,
Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle With You"

acknowledging the song that scored the gruesome
WOULD DJANGO PASS ear-ectomy in Reservoir Dogs. This year marks the 20th anniver-
A HISTORY TEST? sary ofTarantino's debut film, a Sundance phenom that launched
his career. (If you want to get circular about it, you might note
MANDINGO DJANGO'S BOUNTY
FIGHTING SUNGLASSES HUNTERS that Reservoir Dogs' iconic amateur-surgery scene was inspired
FACT In the film, FACT The sunglasses FACT Christoph by a similarly brutal ear slicing in Corbucci's original Django.)
DiCaprio's plantation that Jamie Foxx Waltz's Schultz is
owner trains slaves to sports may look ultra- modeled on men With his eighth film in the can, the director claims he wants to
fight each other until modern, but their who helped tame retire before his consistency suffers. "I don't want to be doing a
one is left standing- round spectacles and the Wild West
and so-called battles hooked temple arms by hunting down Topaz or a Buddy Buddy," he says, referring to the subpar later
royal really did are close to the earliest criminals across output of Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, respectively. Taran-
occur. Ralph Ellison versions of tinted jurisdictions.
famously documents eyewear designed in FICTION Schultz tino is fiercely protective of his legacy. He says he makes movies
one in his 1952 novel the mid-1700s by calls himself a servant not for the black-tie audiences at gala premieres but for "the kid
Invisible Man. James Ayscough. of the court, but that
FICTION The term FICTION Of course, didn't become official 10, 20 years from now who watches the TNT version of Django
Mandingo fighting is a sunglasses were origi- until an 1872 Supreme Unchained on TV" -a kid not unlike the young Tarantino, who
Tarantino invention, a nally meant to correct Court ruling. And
nod to the 1975 exploi- bad eyesight, not pro- there were certainly famously worked at a video-rental store. Weinstein, on the other
tation film Mandingo, tect against the sun's no black bounty hunt- hand, is more focused on the here and now, particularly Django's
which depicts a similar glare. And definitely ers in the region then.
gladiatorial system. not just to look badass. -Keith Staskiewicz release on Christmas, which may seem an odd day to launch such
a violent, genre-busting film. But the pinch between awards-
season eligibility and the film's long production schedule nar-
rowed his options. "What date could we have?" Weinstein asks.
Regardless of the reception for Django this year, Tarantino
believes that films shed their contemporary context over time.
For him, the true test of a movie's worth comes decades later,
when some boy or girl stumbles upon Django and utters what
Tarantino believes to be the greatest thing any filmgoer can
say after a movie is over: "Wow, who the hell did that?" ■