Summary
A harpist plays "Fur Elise" by Beethoven as Candie signs the bill of sale drawn up by Moguy for Broomhilda's purchase. Schultz remembers D'Artagnan's grisly death, angrily orders the harpist to stop playing, and steps into the adjoining room. Schultz refuses Candie's offer of white cake, and ponders what Alexandre Dumas—the author of The Three Musketeers, whose hero is named D'Artagnan—would think of their situation. Candie is blithely unaware of the source of D'Artagnan's name, and the fact that Dumas was part African.
Schultz looks over the bill of sale, and announces to Broomhilda that she is now a free woman. Schultz intentionally tells Candie "Goodbye," instead of "Auf Wiedersehen," since the latter means, "'Til I see you again," and motions to Django and Bromhilda to leave. Before they can, Candie tells Schultz that it is customary in the South to shake hands after a business deal, but Schultz refuses. Candie orders Butch, still wielding his shotgun, to kill Broomhilda unless Schultz agrees to shake his hand.
Django steps in front of Bromhilda to protect her from the line of fire. Schultz walks up to Candie to shake his hand, but instead performs the same quick draw he used to kill Sheriff Sharp, firing a bullet through the white flower in Candie's lapel. Candie staggers backwards and collapses, and Stephen tearfully cries out his name. Butch turns around to fire on Schultz, who tells Django, "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist," before being blown away by Butch, who is in turn blown away by Django.
Broomhilda screams and Moguy attempts to flee the room, before catching Django's next round in the chest. In the hallway, Django kills several of Candie's henchmen, and then uses one of their fallen bodies as a human shield, causing the men stationed outside the front door to inadvertently fire on their own. As more men flood into the house, firing wildly, Django overturns a large secretary and crawls underneath it. Stephen orders the men to stop firing, and yells to Django that Billy is holding Broomhilda at gunpoint. Stephen gives Django until the count of ten, and Django walks out with his hands up.
The next day, Django is hung upside down in a shed, wearing an iron mask. Billy enters and is about to castrate Django with a molten blade when Stephen enters, and tells him Lara Lee has decided instead to sell Django to the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company. After Billy leaves, Stephen explains to Django that being slowly worked to death will be a fate worse than an ugly, quick execution. While being transported with other slaves, Django convinces his Australian escorts that a $11,500 reward awaits back at Candyland—a bounty for Smitty Bacall and his gang. Convinced by Django's testimony, the handbill in Django's possession, and the corroboration of the other slaves that Django is a bounty hunter, the men release him. As soon as one gives Django his gun belt, Django executes all three men, steals their dynamite, and heads back toward Candyland on horseback.
Several of Candie's farmhands are relaxing in a cottage, when they hear dogs outside bark. Django bursts in and quickly dispatches all of them with his rifle, before riding on. As Candie's men carry his casket to a cemetery, Django finds Broomhilda's bill of sale on Schultz's corpse in a vacant stable, telling him, "Auf wiedersehen." Django then frees Broomhilda, who rushes into his arms. The two share a passionate kiss, as the funeral party heads back to the house from the cemetery.
Back in the house, Lara Lee and Stephen order Cora and Sheba to prepare some coffee. Django suddenly makes himself known on an upstairs landing, open firing on the men, making sure to shoot Billy in the crotch. Django tells Cora to say goodbye to Lara Lee, which she does, before blowing Lara Lee away. Django tells Cora, Sheba, and the other servants to run along, except for Stephen. Django shoots Stephen in both kneecaps before lighting a fuse attached to the Australians' dynamite. Perched on a horse by the front gates, Broomhilda watches Django walk up the drive as the Candyland mansion explodes in the distance. Django remembers Schultz predicting he will become known as "the fastest gun in the West," before riding off with Broomhilda, as Candyland smolders.
Analysis
The tension between Schultz, a continental German with a moral center, and Candie, a quasi-European Francophile with no conscience, reaches its climax directly after the dinner sequence. Having been cornered, Schultz no longer pretends to tolerate Candie's use of European culture to whitewash his barbarity, leading him to admonish the harpist playing the Beethoven composition "Fur Elise," and mock Candie for not knowing the origins of the name D'Artagnan. Like Hercules and Siegfried, D'Artagnan is a heroic character, and a model for the kind of swashbuckling warrior that Django is soon to embody.
Schultz's personal disgust with Candie's quasi-European facade helps explain why he delights in telling Candie that D'Artagnan was the product of a part-African author (Alexandre Dumas), and why he tells Candie "goodbye" in English, rather than in German. Schultz's moral development over the course of the film—in which he started as a self-interested, fairly indifferent observer of slavery, and ended as a passionate opponent of its brutality—informs his decision to execute Candie, rather than shake his hand. Schultz seems fully aware that killing Candie will result in his own death, and may even endanger Django and Broomhilda's lives, which accounts for his memorable last words to Django: "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist."
Tarantino soundtracks the battle sequence using a song, produced specially for the film, called "Unchained (Payback / Untouchable)" featuring 2Pac and James Brown. As one of the most popular and controversial rappers of all time, and the son of active members of the Black Panther Party, Tupac Shakur symbolizes the radical insurgency of black power that is Django's violent revenge. In his review of the film for The New York Times, A. O. Scott noted that "vengeance in the American imagination has been the virtually exclusive prerogative of white men." Tarantino's depiction of Django's retribution against the white overseers of Candyland is at once an homage to blaxploitation cinema, an expression of the political energy of the Civil Rights movement and early-1990s gangsta rap, and a conscious transgression of an American taboo.
Django's capture and near castration at the hands of Billy reflects the pervasive cultural fears that many white Southerners had about black masculinity, perceiving it to be excessive, brutish, and threatening to white femininity. Ironically, Stephen rescues Django from this fate by suggesting what he thinks will be an even crueler and more inhumane punishment—sentencing Django to a lifetime of hard labor at a mining camp. Django's ability to successfully outwit and execute the Australians tasked with transporting him to the mining camp reveals that he has fully internalized Schultz's spirit—using his keen wit, lethal quick-draw, and persuasive tongue to save his own life.
The final confrontation between Django and Stephen symbolizes Siegfried finally slaying the dragon. Django notably tells the rest of the slaves at Candyland that they are free to go, but refuses to forgive Stephen for his complicity in Calvin Candie's atrocities. Critics of the film compared the character of Stephen to present-day Republican politicians like Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas, whose policies actually work to undermine the welfare of African Americans. After demolishing Candyland, Django remembers that Schultz predicted he would become "the fastest gun in the West"—fulfilling Django's subversive development as an African American man into the role of the classical Western hero.
