Quentin Tarantino Channels Saul Bass with ‘Django Unchained’ Teaser Poster

The new poster for Tarantino’s slave-trade western is heavy on atmosphere and spare on plot details

The teaser poster for Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" that hit the Internet Thursday is heavy on atmosphere, but short on clues about the plot of Tarantino's spaghetti Western-inspired film, a so-called "Southern."

"Django" hits theaters on Christmas Day and reunites the filmmaker with his "Inglourious Basterds" star Christoph Waltz. Audiences loved the pair's last genre-mashup, and "Django" seems destined to provide a bit of the old ultra-violence in addition to Tarantino's crackling dialogue. 

It centers on a German dentist turned bounty hunter (Waltz) who teams up with a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) to take down a plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). 

Kerry Washington, Kurt Russell and Sacha Baron Cohen co-star in the film, which will be released by The Weinstein Company.  

The poster features the dark outlines of two figures (Waltz and Foxx?) striding purposefully across a field. The broken chains and stylized look of the teaser seem to harken back to graphic designer Saul Bass' posters for classic films like "Anatomy of a Murder" and "Vertigo." 

That reference to Hollywood's golden age is fitting, as Tarantino's movies always have a foot firmly planted in cinema history. 

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