I am a huge Tarantino fan. I like all of his films, including the often dismissed Deathproof. He is possibly my favorite director. I can point various directors I respect but Tarantino's films are the only ones that get me hyped up once announced. Possibly because he always delivers with great characters, great acting and characterizations by actors, great dialogue, stylized directing, black humor, and violence.

I just watched Django during the morning. I think the movie is great and I can see myself watching it once again in the future as I do with any great film.  But there is one scene I can't seem to figure out. I don't know what was the  purpose of this scene and I am driven to question the reason behind it.

SPOILERS

I don't understand why Quentin decided to put that scene where Schultz guns down Candie.

You can argue that Candie deserved it, that Schultz was pissed at Candie enough to kill him. I can understand those things but let me put Schultz in context within the film. Schultz was portrayed as someone smart who knows the situation, is in control of the situation and turns situations into his advantage. For example, when he foresaw the ambush they were going to be subject by the white-masked men.

So why did Schultz get into this situation? He was portrayed as someone smart who knows the consequences of things. It seems to me he got himself killed, that is why he apologized to Django and allows himself to be shot (he doesn't start shooting anyone else to save his skin). Seems like he accepted his death.

But why did he decide to kill Candie that recklessly and get himself killed? Did he feel very bad for what happened to the slave with the dogs? During the scenes prior to Schultz shooting Candie, Schultz seems to have some little flashbacks of what happened to the slave with the dogs. But Schultz didn't feel any problem dealing with Candie after that incident. My guess is that the scenes of reminiscence of the slave served as kind of a bridge for Schultz to initiate the conversation with Candie and mock him about his lack of actual knowledge of French culture.

So, if we dismiss that Schultz overreaction wasn't because he felt bad about what happened to the slave with the dogs, why did he kill Candie? My guess is that he was very pissed at being outwitted by Candie and by losing $12,000. But I am having a hard time imagining why Schultz would just get himself killed just because of that reason. At worst scenario, he could have just walk away and look for a way to return and get everyone killed there in the plantation without getting himself killed. But no, he got reckless and got himself killed.

Maybe we could say Schultz in the end was portrayed as kind of temperamental and intolerant towards losing? That kind of changes the perception I had for that character before that very scene.

So, here is the reason for this thread. Why do you think Schultz did this, considering what I wrote above? Do you think this scene was well written? Do you see it reasonable? What are your thoughts?

*spoilers*

i guess he felt that the man deserved to die, i honestly didnt understand at, it could have been that the director wanted to both gone and django starts a fight with the rest of the people on the farm, i dont know, i didnt really understand it my self either
schultz seemed like the kind of man who didnt believe in slavery, and his experience with django changed him, he could have had enough with candie once he told him to shake his hand, it seemed like shcultz didnt want to be associated with a man like candie, he didnt want to be the same type of man as he is, so when candie insisted on him shaking his hand, it could have meant to shcultz much more than just a hand shake.
honestly, you got me interested in this, waiting to hear what other people say

it's weird cause some of the bountys of the other people was alot more then 12k so i didnt know what the big deal was either, maybe he was just pissed that he got owned

I get what you mean but I don't know, I think what you are writing is a reflection of my own situation when I try to approach this scene, we are trying to make sense out of something which is a little conflictive.

If we simply dismiss this scene as Tarantino wanting to get the Schultz character out of the way, so that Django's character could go forward in the way he did after Schultz death, that is a sign that Tarantino fucked up the development of a character just to make a story go towards a certain direction. That is cheap, in my opinion. A story needs to develop naturally and not seemed forced. I considered this possibility as well but didn't mention it because somehow I refuse to believe Quentin actually did this. I want to believe there is an aspect of the film I am not considering and that is why I am trying to talk to more minds in this forum here. :)

I can see why Candie is an asshole that deserved to die but, I don't know, didn't you guys feel that Candie may have not been the worst slaver around? He spoke with slaves directly without dismissing them, he listened to them, he had a very friendly relationship with Stephen. Candie actually seemed willing to let Hildi walk away with Django so it was all a matter of money to him.

Maybe Schultz has been kind of out of the slavery reality by going around killing targets and the slave killed by the dog became his first gruesome experience of a slave being abused to such an unimaginable extent, right? But, even though I can understand that Schultz could have gotten pissed at Candie for what he did to that slave with the dogs, he actually did not show any discomfort towards Candie up to the point he had to pay up Hildi's price.

I understand the uncomfortability he could have felt by shaking Candie's hand. But as a smart guy, couldn't he just shake his hand and get it all over with? And then maybe return gunblazing and getting everyone killed including Candie?

This brings me to what Chevinator123 wrote:

If he could have walked away without that money and getting it back with a couple of bounties, what's the big deal, right? The only option left I see is that Schultz was indeed pissed off at being outwitted and maybe he started antagonizing Candie and everything became very vivid (including what he did to the slave with the dog). Maybe he thought that he couldn't return to the plantation to have some revenge after being left humiliated like he was.

I believe Schultz was a pragmatic man, and he had never been that closely involved with slavery before, and he was obviously disgusted by the situation and of course he didn't like Candie and he had probably decided that that man should die since the incident with the dogs.
So my explanation is that killing Candie was a spontanious descision to shorten the process. He basically got upset by Candie to the point where he decided to do it there and then, without waiting and going through the hassle of concocting another plan. He knew it was wrong, and he knew he would die, that was why he apologized, but he just didn't want to wait any longer, because he probably thought it would be hard to get to him again once they had left.

This harmonizes with the above posts and at the same time brings me to another point. When Django and Schultz are discussing the plan to get to the plantation and rescue Broomhilda, Schultz says that getting her out of there is not like going for a bounty, Candie is not sought after as a fugitive, so they need to approach the plan differently, not just enter and kill everyone.

Being a bounty hunter, Schultz knew the consequences of killing Candie, he would have a warrant on his head and being a bounty hunter he may have had a clear idea of what killing a man like Cnadie implied and maybe he opted in that very moment to not live a life as a fugitive. So he allows himself to eat them bullets. He gets himself killed. He opted for that fast solution and may have told to himself: "Fuck all this, I am just gonna erase that fucking smile off his face." So he may have indeed allowed himself to be carried out by the feelings of that very moment and embraced the consequences of it all at the same time. Makes sense to me.

To the characters death itself, it didn't really made me mad that he died, because i expected he would. and i was glad it happened this way. it was quick, and it was his own desicion, and there was no long tearful dying scene with some awful last words.

I think that he just acted first... He felt like the situation was not going to improve and felt there was no way out anyways and he decided to give Django a shot.

It didn't quite ruin the movie for me but yeah it was totally unnecessary.
I already expalined why I thought that he could've gotten his wife without this weird plan to "buy" Eskimo Joe.

But yeah it lowered my personal score from a 9/10 to a 8/10.

*SPOILERS*

What bothered me more about it, is that the whole movie they made a huge deal of the papers for slaves and the fact that he got his wife's papers.

But what about all the other slaves that were at candyland...? They are screwd and he did not seem to care at all.. Its like yea dude.. you saved your wife but you killed like 50 people, your friend died and screwd over a bunch of slaves....

Also... What was the point of putting "2 years before the Civil War" in the beginning of the movie? That had no baring at all in the movie...