Thinking some more about Django. I'm going to be talking about a bunch of vignettes from the movie, I think, as I try to work through some of my reaction. I've been wondering about the parternship and then friendship of Schultz and Django -- and in particular that Schultz pays $12,000 for Broomhilda. At some point the Schultz-Django (or should I call it the Schultz-Freeman) relationship migrated from the point of business to friendship. I guess that started pretty early on, though it began with an owner-slave relationship, Schultz promised Django freedom in exchange for his help and then it moved to Schultz promising Django help as part of the bounty-hunting business. And by the time they arrived at Candyland, Schultz was willing to spend a fortune to help Django and Broomhilda. Would it introduce too paternal an interpretation into this movie about slavery to say that Schultz thought of Django like a son? (I have a lot more to say on this point if anyone's interested.)
If Candie is Simon Legare, then I'm thinking that Schultz is John Brown. Schultz is willing to die for the cause of opposition to slavery; and late in the movie Django pays respects to Schultz' body. So that set me to thinking about business partners who then became friends. And my mind turned to a cemetery monument in the Shockoe Hill Cemetery in Richmond, which was put up by a businessman to commemorate the life of his partner. I'm intrigued by it for a couple of reasons -- one is that though it's stone, it looks like wood (hard to tell that from the picture). The second is that I don't recall seeing a lot of monuments like this.
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