Quentin Tarantino will likely have hundreds if not thousands tips of the cap to films of old in his upcoming Django Unchained. As one person said to me on Facebook when I posted the trailer yesterday, “I hope there’s a coffin with a Gatling gun in it somewhere in the movie. Django and The Good the Bad and the Ugly are my favorite westerns.”
Well, I haven’t read the script so I don’t know if Franco Nero‘s Gatling gun will make the film, but for anyone that saw the trailer Nero is in the film getting a grammar lesson from Jamie Foxx at the tail end of this first trailer. Yet, that isn’t the only nod thrown in there as a keen Reddit user noticed the above screen capture in the first trailer for the film.
For those that don’t recognize the name, Edwin S. Porter was the director of The Great Train Robbery, the 1903 short film known particularly for its powerful ending in which audience members were startled when one of the film’s bandits (Justus D. Barnes) faces the camera and fires his gun. The film is recognized for several of its other innovative techniques (editing, multiple locations, etc.) and iconic scenes, such as the moment a character shoots at another man’s feet, forcing him to dance. How many times have you seen that?
You can watch the entire short film below and you’ll most likely remember seeing a brief snippet recently in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and, if you’ve never seen it, you can also watch the original Django directly below as well.
If you missed yesterday’s trailer premiere for Django Unchained, click here and get caught up. The film hits theaters on Christmas Day.
