Django Unchained

[KevShmev]

One thing I thought was genius about this movie was that there is a clear difference between the regular fun Tarantino violence and anything to do with slavery, which has a totally distinct, horrific tone.

Agreed. The violence against slaves in the film was never portrayed as funny in any way, as opposed to the violence towards non-slaves, which was comical at times:

-Schultz saying, "Auf Wiedersehen," a split second before firing on the KKK.
-Moguy getting repeatedly shot by errant bullets during the shootout in the big house
-Stephen's profanity-laced tirade at the end moments before Django blew him and the house to smithereens (Stephen was an Uncle Tom, not really a slave)

DiCaprio was always my favorite performance in this movie. I think mostly because its so against what one expected from him, and it was just surprising to see him as a completely disgusting human being. And he really gave it his all.

He was really good, yes, and the role was definitely a departure for him, but to me, he just can't get any higher than 3rd place for best performance in this movie since Waltz and Jackson are 1a and 1b by such a large margin, IMO.

[Kotowboy]

Agreed. Waltz and Jackson were amazing and Samuel L. Especially. He head me in fits.

[El Barto]

-Moguy getting repeatedly shot by errant bullets during the shootout in the big house

Yeah, since I normally skip much of the last hour or so I had forgotten about that until recently. Hysterical.

[El Barto]

I didn't fully understand Sam's character. I assumed it was a big joke that he didn't realise he himself was black or something.

Or maybe he'd been around all those racist white people for so long he had become racist towards blacks too.

It was just weird but hysterical too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom#Epithet

Thirty months too late, but I think House Negro is far more applicable. Stephen didn't see himself as particularly subservient, hence pouring himself the brandy and kicking back to fill in Candy on the shenanigans, though he did know his place. He saw himself as superior to the rest of the slaves, and was very much aware of how much better he had it, and was thus a real prick about maintaining the proper order of things.

[hefdaddy42]

Yep.

[KevShmev]

I didn't fully understand Sam's character. I assumed it was a big joke that he didn't realise he himself was black or something.

Or maybe he'd been around all those racist white people for so long he had become racist towards blacks too.

It was just weird but hysterical too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom#Epithet

Thirty months too late, but I think House Negro is far more applicable. Stephen didn't see himself as particularly subservient, hence pouring himself the brandy and kicking back to fill in Candy on the shenanigans, though he did know his place. He saw himself as superior to the rest of the slaves, and was very much aware of how much better he had it, and was thus a real prick about maintaining the proper order of things.

Yeah, he would never act that laid back and relaxed around Candy around other people.  He'd get an attitude, like getting lippy about treating DJango like a white or talking back about having to take Broomhilda out of the hot box, but once Candy pushed back, he, like you said, knew his place and did what he was told.