4. Find Humour In The Unlikeliest Of Places
In pretty much every screenwriting article I've written to date, I've droned on about how important it is to surprise your audience, to steer clear of the ordinary, and to ensure that your scenes are always unique and fresh. Of all the filmmakers working today, I believe that Quentin Tarantino is the one of very few director who choose to embraces this mantra whole-heartily - the man's clearly not afraid to take risks: who knew, after all, that a movie set in one of America's darkest and most shameful periods could be so brilliantly funny? Seriously.
Django Unchained is, to my mind, Tarantino's most outrageously funny film - considering the setting, that's something of a shocker, isn't it? But the director manages to mine humour from topics and situations that might not - at first, anyway - seem wholly appropriate. How, you ask? Simply put: QT ridules the absurdity of it all. The sheer absurdity of the situation. When a white passerby spots Django atop a horse in the film's second scene, he stares, dumb-founded, and blurts: "There's a n*gger on that horse." Why, you might question, is that funny, exactly? Because we're laughing at the
idea that somebody is so shocked by the mere sight of a black person riding a horse. It's
ridiculous. More so - because once upon a time - it was true. Personally speaking, I don't think that any right-minded screenwriter should be afraid to look for humour in the less obvious avenues of history or otherwise. What can we do if we can't look back at what has happened and laugh about it? The point is that we're moving forwards as species - refusing to discuss or talk about certain matters for the sake of political correctness isn't healthy. The best way to face up to the horrors and atrocities of the past is to look them dead in the eye and laugh. And QT, better than most, knows that.
Django Unchained got a healthy dialogue going, and that's something to be commended. Its success should, above all, help you to be a more confident writer - and to be less afraid of taking risks.