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In Reply to: RE: I'm a big fan and I was quite disappointed posted by tunenut on November 26, 2007 at 21:26:37
Wow! A surprising reaction from a "Pulp Fiction" admirer. I think, with all due respect, that a second look might reveal subtleties in the dialogue that are quite eaily overlooked. I'm still sorting through a few of them, and I wouldn't comment futher with great specificity until I had a chance to see the film again. And I'm sure you could argue that, as film viewers sometimes do, my perceptions might be highly subjective, and not really extensions of the film itself.
But there is on line (paraphrasing) that stands out: "Never in America."
Another fabulous shot: Rosario Dawson standing in front of the quickie mart, with the background filled with those hawking windows signs, each one of them a ironic comment on the movie itself, or so it seemed to me.
Now I agree, that certain scenes seem almost completely slap-dash and dis-tonal. But I will have to have another look before I come to the conclusion that this was not intentional on his part.
Kubrick was famous for incomprehensibly incongrous and discordant scenes -- the limed bodies scene in Full Metal Jacket comes to mind, where a virtual cartoon character of a Commanding Officer tells Joker "to come in for the big win." This scene bothered me for a few viewings of the film -- but ultimately knitted its way into the fabric of the film for me. There was that weird, detached, dispassionate viewpoint that materialized here and there in "Death Proof" that reminded me of Kubrick, too.
Follow Ups:
let me tell you this...my friend and I went to Kill Bill 1. When Kill Bill 2 came out, we saw it the first weekend. Both of these were classic Tarantino, filled with imaginative homages to various film genres, and in the 2nd with plenty of classic Tarantino dialog. OK, so of course we went to Grindhouse on its first weekend out. Planet Terror was OK, but the real draw was the 2nd half. And we both felt let down. It felt flat and minor. Maybe I'll try it again on DVD eventually, maybe I'll like it more.
It's funny. But I remember being totally disappointed in KB1, and thought Tarantino had descended into utter kineticism and mockery ... and then I saw KB2, which not only restored my faith in his abilities as a film maker, but forced me to go back to KBI and take another hard look.
It will say that KB2 redeemed KB1 for me, but the second still seems to have gotten most of "the father's favor," and I still consider 2 far superior to 1, taking each on its own.
"Now I agree, that certain scenes seem almost completely slap-dash and dis-tonal. But I will have to have another look before I come to the conclusion that this was not intentional on his part."
The auteur theory in a nutshell. Ineptitude becomes personal style. Repetitive and unimaginative direction becomes theme.
"Ineptitude becomes personal style. Repetitive and unimaginative direction becomes theme."
That is a bit harsh. And I don't think it comports with any theory of the "film auteur" which I know, or is even relevant to it.
Now there is bad film-making. It it is certainly possible for a director to be inept, repetitive and unimaginative. But I don't think that's the case here. I see a thematic consistency in this film, a very deliberate and almost cagey dramatic development.
I had the distinct feeling that the director was toying with the audience all the way through -- was this a mere grindhouse exploitation movie, or was there something more serious afoot? I thought it was important that the audience was being asked to pick out the realism from the mere cliche, the possible from the implausible, the serious from the absurd.
It seemed to me to be Tarantino's clear intention to put the audience in this position. It all seemed part and parcel of choosing to do a grindhouse flick in the first place -- to force us to draw a line between what we were entitled to react to emotionally, and what we weren't. In this fashion, I think Tarantino set about to say something about the nature of cinema itself, why we bother with it, and how it relates to actual experience.
I wasn't talking about Tarantino, but the postmodern film theory of "auteurism." It is an apologetic "theory." It wasn't a theory based on merit, but an attempt by some French fanboys with a fascination for everything American to justify their fascination. "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail," Mark Twain wrote. And once the French fanboys started to look for authorial marks, they found them everywhere.
Haven't heard of 'em.
Now, the "auteur" theory of film making, that film making reaches its artistic zenith in when it is under the control of a single artistic presence, is something I am familiar with.
And I am not surprised that some people would regard Tarantino as a film "auteur," that is, and individual who imposes a unique artistic vision on a film, as, say, the Coens, or Fellini, or Bergman, or Welles, etc.
Truffaut and the other French critics-cum-directors never called it or considered it a theory. They only had a more general idea of authorship. Andrew Sarris formulated The Theory. So the "Auteur Theory" is an American theory.
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