(USA 1994 153m) DVD1/2
Ezekiel 25:17
p Lawrence Bender d Quentin Tarantino w Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary ph Andrzej Sekula ed Sally Menke m various art David Wasco
John Travolta (Vincent Vega), Samuel L.Jackson (Jules Winnfield), Uma Thurman (Mia Wallace), Bruce Willis (Butch Coolidge), Maria de Madeiros (‘Lemon-Pie’), Harvey Keitel (Winston ‘The Wolf’), Quentin Tarantino (Jimmy), Tim Roth (‘Pumpkin’), Amanda Plummer (‘Honeybunny’), Ving Rhames (Marsellus Wallace), Peter Greene (Zed), Eric Stoltz (Lance), Rosanna Arquette (Jody), Christopher Walken (Captain Koons), Steve Buscemi (Buddy Holly waiter), Frank Whaley, Bronagh Gallacher,
Though Pulp Fiction was received to virtually universal acclaim following its Cannes festival success and instantly hailed as a masterpiece by all and sundry, some critics dared to call it shallow, pretentious and junky. They’re right in many ways, but they are missing the point? The title of the film is, after all, Pulp Fiction and what we have here is a cinematic version of a cheap piece of pulp throwaway literature. Just as such stories are meant to be expendable and forgettable, Tarantino uses this as a way to make even characters disposable and dialogue deliberately ‘normal’. This may be the same world of Reservoir Dogs, personified by Travolta playing a relative to Michael Madsen’s character in Dogs, but this is, to quote Jackson’s Jules, “not the same ballpark, not even the same sport.” It’s a cinematic adrenaline rush (excuse the pun) of unbridled virtuosity and energy.
The story intertwines four plot lines; two hitmen killing some small time crooks and the ensuing accidental murder of a hostage; one of them taking out his boss’ wife for dinner and a funny but potentially fatal chain of events; a boxer being paid to throw a fight, then not doing and going on the run; and two worthless robbers deciding that robbing a diner is an easy target without reckoning for two of the diner’s customers.
Here was a film that played with narrative in a way not really seen since Godard and that’s no coincidence, Tarantino being a major fan in particular of his Bande à Part. Yet every twist, every coincidence and overlapping of the plot really works and it seams together beautifully. Here is a film of extreme confidence, relishing every line, every shot and every glance. This is not just actors striking iconic poses to look cool but straight out of cliché. They are iconic and do strike poses, but it’s somehow real. This confidence is best exemplified in the sequence at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, where Thurman and Travolta go to have dinner and Zorro et al serve the meals. Thurman equal parts Louise Brooks and Hollywood gothic, Travolta trying desperately to say the right thing and not offend but finally not resisting asking what most men wouldn’t have done. As she says, “this doesn’t sound like the usual mindless, getting to know you chit-chat. That sounds like you actually have something to say.” Travolta may repeat himself countless times, but he goes with it and we warm to them both. The uncomfortable silence, the refusing to embarrass, the dancing around the obvious attraction knowing the potentially deadly result are all instantly recognisable. It all comes together in the iconic Twist contest where Travolta (not so much Saturday Night Fever as Sunday Morning Hot Flush one critic quipped) struts his stuff with Thurman on the dance floor. Their evening may end with Thurman taking a lethal cocktail of Oasis’ cigarettes and alcohol (oh yes, and much cocaine), but they somehow survive the evening. It’s so exhilarating that the story with Willis’ past-it boxer who realises his kind don’t have an old timers’ day isn’t quite as interesting, though Willis gets to say “Zed’s dead, baby” and handle a katana in a way that cannot be described, only seen.
So is Pulp Fiction great a decade on? Maybe not quite as great, but it remains a supreme guilty pleasure, even more relishable for the performances. Roth, Plummer, Walken (in a one scene role), Rhames (“I’m gonna get medieval on your ass”) and Keitel are all great, but Thurman is iconic a decade before becoming Tarantino’s Bride of Vengeance and Travolta and Jackson the epitome of differing styles of cool. If Tarantino never makes another great film (and I doubt he will), he has a place in history secured.
Superb review (“not the same ballpark, not even the same sport” – brilliant), although I expected this one to come a bit alter in the countdown.
Cheers!
Very good review, Allan. Though I pretty much disagree about it’s virtues.
It’s pure Tarantino, though. And those perceptive critics that didn’t go for the herd-like applause were seeing a side of QT that’s become more and more prononced subsquently – “shallow, pretentious and junky” could refer to his whole worldview and artistic sensibilities. A view I concur with. Though it is good-looking and has a certain brio.
Pulp fiction literature was no more throwaway than paperbacks. It’s greatest works rank alongside anything produced by the “slicks”… ‘The New Yorker’, ‘The Saturday Evening Post’, ‘Colliers’ or in earlier generations, ‘The Strand Magazine’. The pulps produced Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet, Henry Kuttner, Robert A. Heinlein – many of whom graduated to the higher paying markets. ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘The Martian Chronicles’ were born there. And it’s influence was seminal on film noir. Let alone the powerful impact it had as a scource material for ‘Thriller’, ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ and ‘The Twilight Zone’.
Pulp was simply the cheap paper they were printed on, but much of the literature was timeless even if the writers were knocking out a word a cent. In many ways, before the advent of tv, comics and paperbacks killed most of the pulps/digest market for the short story – it worked with the efficiency of the old studio system.
I think this movie ugly irredeemable trash. I know I will be ridiculed by the commentariat here, who will wax lyrical on Tarantino’s “vision”, the “beauty” of his dialog, and his technical re-invention of the exploitation genre of the 70s, ad nauseum . Despite its sordid appeal to a coterie of aficionados who elevate technique over content, it runs to no more than baseness as urban cool. How do, to quote others, “glib pop-culture references”, “knowing genre pastiche”, and “punchy, flamboyant surface is all” qualify as qualities of a “great” film?
Tony, I won’t be attacking you,that’s for sure. I accept the adulation from Dennis, Allan, Dave, Anu, Just Another Film Fan, Jamie, Dee Dee and Joel, but almost every one of them admits there are issues here. If you recall I brought a lot of grief upon myself when I railed against IB, but I stick to my guns.
The funny thing is, Tony, I agree with you about PULP FICTION (yet, on some level it is “entertainment” and the Christopher Walken monologue about the watch still gets me every time) … but yes…what “ugly irredeemable trash” it is.
And even funnier, Sam, as you know, I totally disagree with you on INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. I loved it and think it was Tarantino’s most mature and accomplished work to date…and totally redeemed him as a filmmaker in my eyes (though it in no way redeems some of his past films that I thought were pretty terrible).
But Tarantino (or any one of his films) is one that people could talk all day about because you either love him or loathe him…or like me, have loathed him AND loved him. That bastard! You can not NOT have an opinion about him…and for that…I suppose he is a true auteur.
I won’t even touch Tony’s comment. I will say this, I have no problem with calling this film art. Art can be for and about the bottom of the barrel sometimes, and this film proves that brilliantly. Its all about ingenuity, seeing how far you can stretch the rubber band without it snapping in your face. PULP FICTION is an exercise on tension and dealing with tense situations and the ironies that sometimes go along with it. Yes, Tony, I do believe this film is trying to be, purposely, cool and waxing poetic. It succeeds brilliantly. I don’t know if Allan is right though: Since PULP, Tarantino has made a few other very good filmsm I liked JACKIE BROWN and think KILL BILL is not only striking but the film that Tarantino really wanted to make. That said, I say nice essay and, Allan, she snorted heroin, NOT cocaine, from Vincents bag.
I think we mistaken Taratino for something he is not. Is. He a proficient director and screen-writer? Resoundingly, YES? Is Tarantino a purveyor of class and man of taste? Not by a long shot. We tend to forget that this is just a Video-store nerd with some talent remaking, better, the junky films he likes. RESERVOIR DOGS-The bad heist film. JACKIE BROWN-The blaxploitation film. KILL BILL-The bad Kung-Fu/ Martial arts movie… We respond to Tarantino, ashamedly so, because he validates our own guilty pleasures and makes it public. He’s not Orson Welles or Godard, as he likes to think he’s on par with. But, I have to give him credit: he makes entertaining and brilliantly constructed films that grab you by the throat and take you on an exhilarating ride. Don’t read into him too much, I say, just throw caution to the wind. What’s wrong with that?
Dennis, I think you might be on to something here. And I think that is how QT thinks of himself.
A film I was never a huge fan of but I understood the love that surrounded it. It is the one of the most popular and easily the most influential film of the decade. Its hard argue the importance of the film or even Quentin Tarantino, but the film never resonated with me. But I always thought Jackie Brown was a masterpiece and one I would argue as one of the ten best films of the decade. But Pulp Fiction is a good film that features great performances, especially from the great Samuel L. Jackson whose performance as Jules may be one of the ten best of the decade, and also deservingly draws comparisons to Godard’s Breathless. The film might be, along with Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, the defining moment in cinema of the 90s.
The issues Tony raises have never bothered me simply because I don’t approach this film for any great meaning… I just enjoy it. Does it qualify as a “great” film or piece of art? I don’t know, everybody else’s guess is as good as mine. All I know is that I enjoy it, that’s pretty much all I care about it. I can separate the two — Ozu’s Tokyo Story is a “great” film, but it doesn’t mean I care to watch it again anytime in the near future. You can argue greatness in circles until the end of time and get nowhere. But, at the same time, I wouldn’t argue with anyone who doesn’t care for Pulp Fiction or any of Tarantino’s other work. It’s certainly not for everyone.
Jackson and Travolta carry this film for me and both performances are outstanding. The other storylines are at times interesting, but for me it is always about Jules and Vincent.
Pulp Fiction is an exceptional piece of work on its level. Is it profound? No. Is it morally responsible? No. I know these are things Tony may argue against and in some ways I can see his point. Yet of its somewhat flimsy type – which the very title tells you it was always meant to be – it’s as good as you’re likely to see. However, it rates 26 on my list, which tells you that of the truly great films of the 90s (and there’s only about 30 I’d give *****), it ranks pretty low.
I certainly wouldn’t criticise anyone for not liking Tarantino, for let’s face it, since this, he’s made nothing approaching greatness and I;m pretty sure he never will again.
Dennis and Dave, I believe in the quaint notion that what enriches our humanity is art and that which sullies it is not art. A great film must be great art. Tokyo Story is great and Pulp Fiction is not great.
Tony, we’ve been over this ground before, so I’ll keep it brief but I must disagree with almost all of your statements here; while I respect the integrity of your viewpoint, I think when you try to make your subjective preferences objective principles you misstep.
First of all, a great film need not be great art. It can be great entertainment as well – or possibly even great trash. Without getting into a massive discussion about what constitutes “greatness” – I actually do plan on tackling that in an eventual essay – I believe it’s a quality that can pop up in a lot of unexpected places, and when it does it more or less speaks for itself.
I think both Tokyo Story and Pulp Fiction are great, in very different ways (though not entirely divergent – both display an astute command of the formal principles of filmmaking).
“what enriches our humanity is art and that which sullies it is not art”
Actually, in a way I kind of agree with you. But here’s the thing – humanity can be enriched by grace (which PF’s style has), intelligence (which its dialogue displays), and pleasure (which Pulp Fiction provides to WAY more than “a coterie of aficionados who elevate technique over content” – an unfair marginalization of the film’s fan base; Tony, you’ve got to admit here that it’s you who are running against the populist streak, not us.)
That is not the end of the discussion of its greatness, over the beginning, but to focus on a film’s “message” as the sole arbiter of its “enrichment of our humanity” is somewhat narrow.
Again, I’ve no issue with you not liking the film nor even with your disputing its greatness (which is certainly debatable – I’ve wobbled back and forth on the issue myself before firmly deciding that it was indeed a great movie, however malign its influence on future filmmakers). I’ve issue more with your blanket statements about a film’s worth and the possibility of this film being great given its approach. But I do like the fact that you force the rest of us to question our beliefs somewhat, and look for their foundations without just asserting them pell-mell.
Darn, that wasn’t very brief!
Joel, I am not trying to make “subjective preferences objective principles.” I expressed an opinion. As to the hurdle being higher for a contrary opinion (see your comment below), I beg to differ.
Which I would interpret as: if YOU deem it to be enriching then it is art… if YOU don’t deem it to be enriching then it is not.
Sorry, I can’t get on board with this. I don’t like to think that a single person is the sole arbiter of such classifications.
Apologies to George Costanza – it’s ME not YOU
Anyone who can relate something to George Costanza is aces in my book, Tony!
I see Tony’s itching to talk (again) about how good and moral something like ‘In the Valley of Elah’ is. OK, OK, I get it.
Needless to say Allan, good review on a good film. Oddly enough it also placed #26 on my 90’s list.
Jamie, Selsun Blue is goof for an itchy scalp…
Pulp Fiction will please no one who applies the concept of moral fiction to cinema or associates greatness with particular moral or humane concepts. At the same time, Pulp Fiction is a work of excess theoretically redeemed by a once-daring narrative strategy that now looks like a personal tic — a compulsion to break stories down into chapters, books, etc. Its enduring virtues are Tarantino’s ear for character and an ability to imagine archetypal epiphanies that tap into the pure joy of genre. At his best, Tarantino produces sensationalism in the best sense of that word, and that’s a kind of art. If he’s inferior to other directors, it’s not because he’s immoral or sadistic but because, except for Jackie Brown, he’s refused both the challenge of sustained classical narrative and the theoretical challenge of his predecessors who made the same refusal. He may be a Godard who wants to eat his cake and have it too, but it’s often a treat for us when he’s willing to share.
I am no big fan of Tarantino, (my review of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS pretty much presented my general point of view which is by and large applicable to his other work) but I must say that the gifted and prolific Samuel Wilson has again sized up the situation magnificently here.
Needless to say I have been most enriched by this thread.
So he’s an idiot savant?
LOL!!!!!!!!!
What a great thread! LMAO — Such great and divergent comments…and such quick wit from all ends.
Indeed David, and your multiple contributions here tonight on this thread as well as the one son THE SWEET HEREAFTER and the MONDAY MORNING DIARY are typically brilliant. Yes the dialogue is great and you are a prime reason!!!
I am a slight fan of Tarantino, I find his talent pretty obvious, and I can see where someone sees slight references to Godard in his work (Tarantino is clearly a fan). But after pop culture I do not find there work similar at all, Godard is a supreme artist and philosopher that happens to make films. Tarantino is a talented undergrad that is probably pledging a fraternity.
Jamie, I quite agree with you here. He is nowhere on that pedestal, as Samuel admitted when he said that Tarantino “wanted” to be a Godard. Love that last sentence Jamie! Nice!
Sam J. is actually representing my viewpoint better than I did myself. Godard and Tarantino start from similar points of fandom but Godard’s development made it impossible for him to remain that kind of fan. Again, I think Jackie Brown proved Tarantino’s ability (with help from Elmore Leonard’s source novel, I presume) to write a diversity of character, but I’ll concede that normally he presents a kind of diversity of character within a world built on relatively limited imagination. In the end, I like some of his work, and I won’t be told that it’s immoral to do so.
You are a modest guy Samuel! Yep, again I can’t part company on everything you say there including your inherent artistic right, which I utilized myself in praising a film by Lars Von Trier (ANTI-CHRIST) that had many including the highly respected Kevin Olson running for cover. I liked Bobby J’s definition of Tarantino as a grinning psychopath, which he suggested back on the INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS thread! LOL!
I actually rewatched the film last weekend, and although I enjoyed portions, one thing gets to me every time I’ve thought about it afterward – the characters all seem to speak the same way. It’s all very quick-witted and snappy, and I’m sure that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but it didn’t really seem to help distinguish the characters as individuals… Even Quentin Tarantino’s character talks like, well, Quentin Tarantino… giving unexpected flack to Jackson’s character about gourmet coffee he made. I think this seems to be a problem in most of his films.
That’s the problem with all movies like this (see the god awful ‘Juno’ too), but the writers of stuff like this are not really operating in reality (whereas ‘Juno’ was supposed to) so they get a pass in my opinion. Tarantino would say this is his world and this is how his characters should/would talk. This is what makes his work very auteurish.
I say YAY and YAY to the insights just expressed here by Dave and Jamie.
One mans ART is another mans TRASH. I get it. But, as we are all born individually, have our own sensibilities and think our own thoughts I think the old addage BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER lays the firmest ground here. I happen to think this film is art. Tony thinks its trash. Is Tony wrong? No, its his opnion. Am I wrong? I think you all can see where I’m going with this. Art is something that enriches our lives, that’s the definition Tony came to us with. That does not enrich, or as he put it “sullifies” is not. Hmmmm. The only problem I have with that is who is to say what enriches or sullifies ME? Or YOU? I agree with MOVIEMAN here. Its really everyones right to an opinion, but blanket statements that “defineL what it should be for everyone doesn’t fly. I like PULP FICTION. Tony doesn’t. To each his ownm alaan picks the films. I cannot, nor will I not, try to belittle him for his personal tastes or opinions. PULP is 26 on the count. Live with it.
Dennis, it’s not that I don’t think semi-objective statements can’t be made, or at least attempted, when it comes to art (otherwise there’s no real ground to say Citizen Kane is a better film than Fantastic Four). But I think they should be lodged carefully and with something to back them up, if challenged – particularly when the statements are asserting negatives.
Booby J, your reference to Chandler reminds me of a great section in Chandler’s last Marlow novel (apart from the incomplete Poodle Springs books), Playback, which is I believe squarely aimed at the likes of Spillane, and by ( my liberal) extension, Tarantino (my emphasis):
“I went out to the kitchen and removed the top of the percolator, and poured us both a cup. I carried hers to her. I sat down in a chair with mine. Our eyes met and were strangers again. She put her cup aside. “That was good. Would you mind looking the other way while I gather myself together?”
“Sure.” I picked a paperback off the table and made a pretense of reading it. It was about some private eye whose idea of a hot scene was a dead naked woman hanging from the shower rail with the marks of torture on her. By that time Betty was in the bathroom. I threw the paperback into the wastebasket, not having a garbage can handy at the moment.
And it is worth recalling the scathing Bezzeridis/Aldrich critique of Spillane in Kiss Me Deadly.
Good point(s) here dennis. All this is true AND add in the fact that no matter how moral reprehensible you find this film (or don’t) it still just remains a film. Now sure art affects how we act, react, and perceive the world but still you need to find a discount with what you find reprehensible about the world and when you see it happen on the screen. Both are not the same.
I find moral authority arguments incredibly boorish, we all need to get over ourselves… especially when it happen in a created world that isn’t remotely based in reality. Can one find Tom and Jerry reprehensible?
Jamie, I am sorry you find me boorish, but are you any less predicatble?
Nope, but I try to not make others wallow in my predictability.
Let’s not try and get into any battles here, guys. We have our different way of looking at things. I don’t agree with Tony’s way of looking at things, not remotely, and we have disagreed many times and famously so, but we really shouldn’t be surprised by anything he’s saying as it’s nothing that he hasn’t said before on other threads (I remember Taxi Driver in particular). He’s only standing by his guns.
I myself could not look upon things from such a moral standpoint, for such a standpoint needs, I think, a strong belief system, whether religious or not. I don’t believe in any God, only in the necessity of inventing him.
Let’s try not to start throwing insults, or else I perhaps should have them as if we all looked at movies by my standards, we’d all be fruitcakes on the level of my sad obsessiveness.
Let’s calm it down, he says not wanting to sound too hypocritical. It’s only a movie.
How do I do that Jamie? If you must drag this down to a face-off, your hubris is really quite laughable. Give me a break and grow-up.
There have been some really interesting points here. Especially about the sameness of the dialogue between the characters.
“Now sure art affects how we act, react, and perceive the world but still you need to find a discount with what you find reprehensible about the world and when you see it happen on the screen. Both are not the same. ”
Jamie, I’m making the presumption that its typo and you actually mean disconnect rather than discount.
What you seem to be saying is that, yes – the media affect every part of our reality and the actions we take, yet in the same breath, that we need to disconnect away from it and not care because, hey, it’s just a movie, right.
With that thinking, it would be permissable to have cigarette advertising.
Yet every piece of psychological research, much to the chagrin of leftish libertarians and rightish free marketers, seem has shown a correlation between onscreen violence. There is a bio-feedback loop. One influences the other and vise versa.
I actually find moral arguements deeply fascinating, and they can be as invigorating as any philosphical arguments of the ages. So long as real world cause and effect science comes into play. Rather than sheer moral, black and white canvas.
I found the ear-cutting of ‘Resviour Dogs’ pretty sick, and the male rape in ‘Pulp’ indicative of issues the director has. The same way as Lectar last line about having a friend over for dinner in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ pretty sick. Not moral, not amoral but immoral…as in evil. A film can be evil. As can a tv show, such as ‘Dexter’. These films ushered in what is considered by film scholars as ‘an age of cruelty’.
It’s not that we need to get over ourselves, it’s just that some of us know what effect a movie can have. Kung Fu schools didn’t just open, but were inspired by Bruce Lee.
I’ve studied hypnosis, and what they refer to as trnace states occur on a daily basis. These happen all the time, such as when we fall into a flow state of complete absorbtion with a spell-binding piece of literature of a involving movie. It’s level of reality is irrevelent. And during that intense flow – anything suggested will reside in the subconcious. You and your conscious thinking mind have no say in the matter.
When people find themselves in a weak position to debate something, they will usually resort to the extremes of an issues to make a point. Tom and Jerry would be an extreme.
As for art versus trash. I, personally think all media is art. A trash scource can be made artfully. It just takes adults with maturity to do it. Tarantino doesn’t qualify. It would be like asking Michael Jackson in his heyday to be a masculine.
Pulp Fiction sure looks good, visually (kudos to the director of photography), and they all strike poses very well, but it really doesn’t go very far. For many who’ve seen noir at its mid level, let alone best, its not worth a pot of piss, because its soooo shallow. To paraphrase Chander, it a little boy’s idea of tough guys.
Just my two cents.
Sorry about the typos. Am hungry after two hours of dance classes. By the way, Kung Fu and Bruce Lee is not a condemnation as it inspired me to take it up and it’s about more than fighting, but self-mastery. And yes, violence does have a place in art, so long as it done by David Lean (Oliver Twist), Singleton (Boyz and the Hood), David Simon (The Wire). Not a wanna be gangster.
bobbyj, enjoyed this. A few random thoughts:
“What you seem to be saying is that, yes – the media affect every part of our reality and the actions we take, yet in the same breath, that we need to disconnect away from it and not care because, hey, it’s just a movie, right.”
Yes, I did mean ‘disconnect’, my belated apologies. Disconnect in that this is still a world we live in with other colliding bodies that must acknowledge what we see on screen isn’t real. No matter how much it appears to be, or how the images effect how we live and act. I may want to mimic the walk or dress of James Dean in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ but I need to ‘disconnect’ when I reenter my real life and realize the chances he’s taking on screen are not the ones I would be taking in my real life if I attempted playing chicken and having knife-fights. I hope this is clearer. Not sure how this affects your comments on hypnotism (meaning if we ever even have an option to ‘disconnect’).
I suppose David Byrne said it better then I ever could when he said ‘Violence on television only affects children whose parents act like television personalities.’
“With that thinking, it would be permissable to have cigarette advertising.”
I do find it permissible to have cigarette advertising. As long as we have advertising, everything should be allowed to advertise… what is your objection to cigarette advertising? Is it because the product kills? I don’t want to build a strawman if one doesn’t exist (so correct me if this isn’t why you object), but if we are going to disallow advertising to only ’safe’ products we are going to find we have pretty slim pickings. I’d rather all the stuff air and let an (hopefully) intelligent public decide what stays and what goes, or what is bought or not bought (or in this case, what is smoked or not smoked).
“Yet every piece of psychological research, much to the chagrin of leftish libertarians and rightish free marketers, seem has shown a correlation between onscreen violence. There is a bio-feedback loop. One influences the other and vise versa.”
I certainly agree with this. What’s the cure then? I also think this says nothing about values or judgments on art. Good point regardless though. Should we be more accountable in what we create? Probably so, but it seems pretty unrealistic at this point. And who decides. Where does this leave us when a true artist creates something potentially offensive (Von Trier’s ‘Antichrist’ springs to mind) to some?
“When people find themselves in a weak position to debate something, they will usually resort to the extremes of an issues to make a point. Tom and Jerry would be an extreme.”
Touche. Perhaps I should have listed something dealing in reality? But that was my point ‘Pulp Fiction’ is not reality (and its title punctuates this), it’s an accumulation of b-images. A katana, a bondage mask, Marilyn Monroe. What would have been an applicable comparison? A Slasher film? A Seijun Suzuki film perhaps? Are these less extreme? Perhaps the comparison is better to ‘Pulp Fiction’ but I don’t think they are any more or less extreme then a ‘Tom and Jerry’ short.
“As for art versus trash. I, personally think all media is art. A trash scource can be made artfully. It just takes adults with maturity to do it. Tarantino doesn’t qualify. It would be like asking Michael Jackson in his heyday to be a masculine.
Pulp Fiction sure looks good, visually (kudos to the director of photography), and they all strike poses very well, but it really doesn’t go very far. For many who’ve seen noir at its mid level, let alone best, its not worth a pot of piss, because its soooo shallow. To paraphrase Chander, it a little boy’s idea of tough guys.”
Agreed, as I said elsewhere in the thread, “Godard is a supreme artist and philosopher that happens to make films. Tarantino is a talented undergrad that is probably pledging a fraternity.” I do think that Tarantino does have an emotional chasm between everyday life (or his ability to express how he feels about it) to what he’s seen in film. Perhaps he’s seen to much, or saw to much to early. I can’t say why, or what in this instance. But I will not damn him for it, rather I feel I should create to counter-act him (or things I dislike). Perhaps I’ve just changed the topic to what I feel about art criticism. Who knows.
I think that is enough for now.
Bobbyj, either we absolutely know the effect of movies – and thus should severely censor them – or we don’t. I wouldn’t want to see the immoral works going away, even in cases where I condemn them, because they also tell us something about human nature and furthermore, can be art aside from their moral/immoral nature (look at Birth of a Nation). One of the reasons I find films and art “beyond” morality (or rather, encompassing it rather than being encompassed by it) is because they are not supposed to be guidelines but reflections – perhaps of reality, perhaps of our fantasies. As such, I’m extremely hesitant to narrow the field.
Of course PF is shallow. That in itself should be no disqualifier from greatness. All the specific objections lodged against it are fair, but I don’t believe we can discount it on a larger scale simply because of its type.
As for free will or determinism, if the latter is the case (as I often think it is) it probably goes all the way – and hence what we think or do about anything hardly matters, as it was all bound to happen anyway.
Jamie, cigarette advertising – who profits. Multinational corporations. Who pays, the average citizen who as a child was drawn by the warmth of the Joe Camel image, as an adult had glamour linked via movie stars, sponsored behind the scenes by the manufacterers. What you may have consider is that advertising works, even when we know it’s a lie, once the image has been introduced through effective ads, or repeated enough – it’s in there (your subconcious). And all of it dependent upon linking to it sex, glamour and cool. It’s a devastating lie.
Movieman, you make valid points from a different perspective. I’m of the belief, made by many of the film-makers of the golden age, that censorship brought out the best in the them. For something to work, in art, finance, ecology, or any sphere – it must have boundaries. Otherwise we have banking crises (daylight robbery or socialism for the rich), enviromental degradation that won’t destroy the planet at all but will evoporate the human spiecies. If art has an corrosive effect (which all research shows, it does), who pays for the prisons, and the lost lives, the savage society it leaves behind. There’s a terrific documentary on Radio 4 called ‘The Muse of Censorship’ that’s about how East European artists bemoan the lack of restrictions, the ones that made them rise to new levels of creative peaks. Even poetry and the short story have boundaries upon themselves (in the amount of lines or length used).
I think the idea of them being reflections is too idealistic. If they were guidlines they would be boorishly moralising.
There was a very good program on BBC $ the other night called ‘The Golden Age of Glamour’ – the last episode of which covered the ’20s and ’30s and Hollywood’s massive sociological impact, dictating new glamourous role models that sold everything from clothes to cigarettes. The media reflect and at the same time mould behviours, ethics, values.
And I have no solution to it. There simply are too many media outlets, too much old media with freaks chasing teens around – for the top to be sealed over Pandora’s box.
Nor is the purittanical any better. Are well, that’s the way the cookies crumbled.
If you look at film noir of the classic period, you can argue that the films were better for the creativity needed to ‘get around’ the Production Code and Breen.
I agree with what you’re saying in a sense, inasmuch as older films rely more on suggestion which is powerful. But you’re conflating two benefits of censorship here – the social, and the aesthetic – as well as two aspects of compliance – one which actually strengthens the pull of the illicit by making it forbidden and suggestive, and one which fully complies and thus avoids the illicit. I think they should be kept separate; also, the Eastern European directors may grumble but I doubt any of them would seriously support a return to dictatorship just so that they could find a new tension in their work.
Ultimately, censorship is akin to childhood – while at times one may long for the return to the security of mommy and daddy watching over you (or at least the perceived security), one has to grow up eventually. The Pandora’s Box analogy is apt, because there’s no going back – the best thing is to move forward and find responsibility in oneself (and here, obviously, I differ from you in that I don’t think that responsibility need reflect a moral outlook, except in the sense that Godard meant when he declared, “tracking shots are a matter of morality,” God love him).
Cigarettes, alcohol and, ideally, most drugs, also should be left up to the individual. Banning them, and banning advertising altogether, won’t make the problem go away and is an example of the excessive Nanny State which can’t trust parents to take care of their children or adults to take care of themselves (and usually, by stepping in, makes things worse because the administrators are just as human as the rest of us). Not sure if that’s what you’re suggesting, but at times it seems to be. Not to say there can’t be limits and regulations in the marketplace for protection – but it should for the most part be to protect people from other people, not from themselves.
Either we have choice in life or we don’t; and if we don’t, than arguing about whether to ban something or not is fruitless since it’s destined to get banned or not get banned already. In that case, our consciousnesses are just along for the ride while our nerves and external conditions determine every “choice” that we think we enact.
But, heck, that’s a conversation for another board …
Tony’s made an excellent response to the advertising angle.
If you think that really have a choice, when things have been advertised to you, then you are in for a rude awakening. You may want to watch the work of Derren Brown, especially ‘The Heist’ – where he takes 4 normal law-abiding managers and over a two weeks (or was it one month), gets 3 of them to rob a Bank of England’ security van with a fire arm. Every show is a event in this country.
I think drugs should be allowed for junkies, free of charge, at certain places. It would whack organised crime, and much of the allure of it would be lost and rehabilitation would ensue for those wanting it.
But to use glamour, sex, masculine role models (Marlbro man), is just throwing parrafin over chaos.
I’d say that all responsibility is based upon values and beliefs which are founded upon some moral base, if not religous then secular humanism. Responsibility can’t exist in a vacum.
We do have choices, but the vast majority of people (99%, maybe) are going about programmed from birth. When a person meets another, it their pre-programmed sub-concious talking to the others pre-programmed sub-concious. Basically, from morning to the moment we fall asleep, humans generally live in an auto-mated mode.
but to awake, we need an ‘aware ego’ – a separtion between the thought (given by parents, teachers, media, ect) and the thinker. To do this takes regular meditation. To have genuine choice, requires awareness.
Only then is there freedom.
Movies now days have pornographically detailed violence that’s little removed from ’snuff’ movies. From your stand-point, you would have to argue for a teenage actress playing a child being abused sexually and in detail (so long as it was simulated) and that would be the right of the film-maker persuing his art. But it’s not the film-makers or the company that pays the price.
A teacher friend of mine – that’s one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met always qoutes Aristotle – that you can tell the character of a society by the contents of it’s prisons. I would add also by what is in it’s media.
“We do have choices, but the vast majority of people (99%, maybe) are going about programmed from birth.”
This is another problem I have with your theory, Bobby J, that it can lead to elitism…everybody’s programmed from birth, except us happy few, and we’ll right the regulations and controls for the rest of the sorry masses. It’s the flip-side to beneficent socialism.
Again, either we have choice or we don’t. If we do, however limited and slight, it needs to be respected – and, except where the danger is direct and to other people who have not made the decisions involved, untouched by the government (except in the sense of setting up roadblocks, which allows free choice but can help direct the more unthinking actions in a different way – see all those Sunstein theories the Obama team is so fond of). If we don’t, then all of us don’t, and this whole discussion is silly because our consciousness is merely a byproduct of our nervous systems, and while we blab our bodies are going to keep on doing what they’ve always been doing.
Movieman, rather than debate with my statement, that all people have a choice but most don’t consciously make that choice, you make it a black or white issue – like a religous zealot. I prefer to see things in terms of a spectrum of shades. Going up a spectrum or down it, will lead to a tipping point. But I prefer not to talk from one tipping point to another (Black/white).It’s not elitest to state that we always have a choice, that most of us very rarely wake up from it until something huge happens.
I suggest you watch the film ‘The Corporation’. Government is not the problem. In any tribe of any size, elders are chosen or take charge and set the rules for the survival of that tribe. Take a look at what 30 plus years corporate inspired de-regulation of all aspects life has led to. All waters and rivers in America contain more mercury than the recommended amount and is now leading swathes of children suffering. Banking is a no-brainer, the gigantism of Wal-Mart (which insists that all manufacturing goes to China, so as to reduce costs- leading the US turn slowly into an elite service economy).
All I’m asking is that rather than say that violence has no effect (against all evidence), big Government bad, choice good and thinking there is no interconnectness – try extrapolating cause and effect, seeing the psychological research, checking out what sociologists say, see how the different parts of life have changed over the long course due to having regulations and then having them removed, seeing what the experts say. Otherwise it’s just blinkered far-right, neo-conservative free market liberalism, allied to the social freedoms of the ’60s – of no censorship.
Without following up on the trends, its just leads to chaos. Not a good place to make “free” choices.
PS: Movieman, lets agree to disagree, we’re are coming from two different perspectives, one holistic, the other personal. Did you know, that they are chatting about ‘Goodfellas’ now?
Bobby J, I’m just trying to make sure the holistic and the personal don’t cancel each other out. As you probably know, I am not a conservative (though I would not be comfortable classifying myself as a liberal either) so I’m not trying to make a “free market good, government bad” statement. I see all sources of power as potentially threatening – corporations are a big problem, yes, but government can be too. The key is to keep everything in balance so that one source of power keeps the other in check.
I don’t think your intention is necessarily elitist, just that this is where the argument could lead if taking to its logical conclusion. My point about choice is not that we are consciously calling the shots all the time – but that if any free will exists at all (and frankly I have my doubts about that but one needs to act “as if” it exists to make sense of life) there’s something “absolute” about it. Choice is like Pandora’s Box, once you let a little bit in, it takes over. If we have even the slightest bit of choice in our actions, no matter how fettered by distracted and compulsions, we are suddenly responsible for our own actions and, on the flip-side, deserve the liberty that comes with free will. You can’t be a little bit free, just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant. That’s all I mean by making it sound black/white, though I’m not sure I’ve made myself clear.
Joel, let me segue here via Travolta to a 1998 movie in which he starred, A Civil Action, based on a true account of a small legal firm’s battle in the 1980s on behalf of a family devastated by leukemia after the water supply of Woburn, Massachusetts was contaminated by Riley Tannery, a subsidiary of Beatrice Foods and chemical company W.R. Grace. A Civil Action the book was published in 1996 as a non-fiction novel by Jonathan Harr and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for non-fiction.
The book is essential reading and to my mind blows your arguments about the nanny-state out of the water.
The movie is something Travolta can be proud of, as can be Touchstone Pictures and writer/director Steven Zaillian. Also appearing in the film were the likes of Robert Duvall, Tony Shalhoub, James Gandolfini, and Sydney Pollack. To me it is at the pinnacle of what committed film-making can achieve.
Corporations need to be as accountable as governments. Period.
“Corporations need to be as accountable as governments. Period.”
Agreed. What are we supposedly disagreeing about here, again?
By the way, I did see that movie, and enjoyed it. I do recall some dramatic issues, however, feeling disappointed that the movie ended abruptly well before when I would have expected. Not sure if I would feel the same today.
I thought it was ’self-evident’
To make it plainer: if you substitute ‘corporations’ for ‘government’ then the view that we don’t need government to protect the rights of citizens from corporations is untenable.
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security
PS: If you have watched Seasons 1-3 of by David E. Kelley’s Boston Legal, you will have seen such issues debated with intelligence and vigor in a court-room setting. Confucius say: debate without humor boring.
I can see that but the point is we need PEOPLE, acting through their various institutions, or independently of them, to keep each other – and other institutions – in check. That government is not an unfettered good, but can be good or bad.
Boston Legal – is that the wacky one with William Shatner? My dad loved that show. He was also a big Seinfeld fan, which I believe you are too. Out of curiosity, then, what do you think of House? He watches that religiously.
If we focus on marketing and advertising, there is a strong argument for controls. Take cigarettes. The marketing strategy of tobacco companies is get them hooked while they’re young, glamorize product use, and hide the ugly truth. Male brains do not reach cognitive maturity until the early 20s and females a bit earlier. Society has an obligation to protect the vulnerable. Period.
From cigarettes yes, but from advertising? That’s really opening up a can of worms if you ask me… It’s the parents’ job to keep an eye on their kids, and if simply glamorizing a dangerous product is fodder for state repression, we’re on a slippery slope indeed (and I say this aware that the government HAS taken this approach to a certain extent, though I’ll admit I’m not sure how far). When we’re assessing a product or an approach not based on physical, external, easy-to-read data, but rather on speculation about what’s going on in minds (away from prying eyes of censors and controllers) we’re in dangerous territory.
Still, I’ll concede some regulation is not unwarranted (the idea of a cigarette advertisement in, say, Nickelodeon magazine would certainly make me squeamish). But I tend to think the “turning-to-the-government-to-solve-our-problems” thing vastly overrated, unless we’re dealing with an issue like health insurance or market regulations, where no other entity will suffice (despite obvious disagreement with me on the former issue). Just because something’s immoral does not mean the government should step in.
Joel, “fodder for state repression” and “turning-to-the-government-to-solve-our-problems”? There is a philosophical divide here that is probably unbridgeable.
Let us focus rather on what is a rational response to the track record of big tobacco, big pharmaceuticals, and big finance? Less oversignt?
“Let us focus rather on what is a rational response to the track record of big tobacco, big pharmaceuticals, and big finance?”
Regulation insofar as they infringing on people’s rights, safety, or opportunities. As you know, I am not a supply-sider nor a libertarian, but I don’t see what’s so controversial about seeing the government’s dangers as well as its benefits – like any large institution, corporations or the military being other examples, if it gets too powerful there are risks involved. Plenty of leftists feel this way about the state too, particularly if the government is right-wing, but often even if it’s not (look at anarchists, for example).
At its best, government can be used as an effective and accountable check on the powers of other institutions. But if it’s taken in itself as a repository of social correction, with bureaucrats charged to “improve” society and correct the “mistakes” of the populace (particularly where their own decision-making is questioned) we getting into dangerous territory. Protecting people from other people is one thing, but protecting them from themselves should be their own job and that of their friends’ and families’, don’t you think?
…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security…”
??
Why did you post an anti-government statement, which bears out exactly what I was saying, as a riposte to my own skepticism of the government and in support of your apparent admonition that worries about an oppressive state are unfounded? You’ve lost me here, Tony!
Sorry about the spelling and punctuation on my last comment guys.. I’m blogging from my Blackberry
Look, let us put a lid on it. I have no illusions about my intellect or capacity for argument, or the gift for the glib turn of phrase that will make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but what I find amusing is that it is, to quote Jamie, “boorish”, to express a contrary opinion.
Tony, you can be sure of two things. Your intellect and writing talent are beyond reproach and your disdain of Tarantino is shared by me. As to the others, I respect where they are coming from, as I have embraced some Von Trier that others will rail into me for. But artistically on this thread you have an ally. As always, I welcome dispute, as it always brings out both sides and mitigates dull agreement.
I see the rest of my quote was left off… I find it perfectly fine that you and I (or anyone else for that matter) not see eye to eye. I was not calling you OR your entire opinion boorish.
the actual quote:
“I find moral authority arguments incredibly boorish, we all need to get over ourselves…”
It’s moral authority arguments I find boorish, not you personally, Tony. I actually agree with you quite often from time to time. I just find no importance in someone’s subjective morality on anything– not just art. If it happens to be you at a specific point in time then I’d find that particular statement or opinion boorish. Not you as an individual.
I hope this calms things down, better illustrates my point, and shows my intent was never personal.
Excellent, congenial response here Jamie. Kudos to you.
“or the gift for the glib turn of phrase”
I don’t know about that Tony, you’ve offered some zingers – I’m still trying to figure out a way to work “hysterical Chinese whispers in a tea-cup” onto my blog somewhere…
Touche
Allan this site has taken a lot worse than this. It’s our trademark. I wouldn’t want it any other way. This is small potatoes.
I agree, one remembers Bob and Allan’s swear offs… I don’t think I’d ever swear at Tony (as I really do quite like his opinion) or anyone else on this site for that matter.
We have ways to go before this would ever escalate….
Indeed Jamie. Speaking of Bob Clark, he is sorely missed here.
Agreed, I was thinking about him the other day. What happened to him?
Jamie, Bob sent me a nice e mail expressing condolences on what I had to endure as of late, and to be honest I don’t think I responded to him, as I am sometimes delinquent with all the blogging and e mails. I know he is watching and reading, but I think he has just hit a stretch where he would prefer not to comment. I am confident he will be back, and even believe he will have some posts/reviews up at WitD.
What he has done for this site is incalcuable.
I hope so too – and hope that our recent face-off didn’t make him weary of the site. I’ve had some bad internet experiences in the past, so I know that feeling of getting burned or feeling ganged-up on and that was not at all my intention. He certainly sparked more lively debates than just about anyone else on this site, and that’s saying something!
Good Heavens! How this one has evolved. I think all this polarization is because of QT himself. His knowledge about movies is extremely deep, like Scorsese. But he seems to just want to piss off critics by making fanboy comments like “violence is good” “smashing heads is funny” etc. If only he had made IB a more “serious” movie, people would have loved its politics and started speaking about its subtexts. Just because QT wants critics to believe that he is an empty-headed dud who imitates without reason (and he does that successfully, especially with his huge fan following), people grow wary of him. IMO, his way of filmmaking should be considered no less worthy than the “genre explosions” of Truffaut or Godard.
Thanks again ‘Just Another Film Buff’ for sustaining the thread that you actually posted first on with your typical insights.
As today is Veteran’s Day and I am off from school, I will be able to sit down and take in your fabulous cartoon post at The Seventh Art, which I urge all animation lovers here at WitD to check out:
http://theseventhart.info/2009/11/08/the-wild-and-wacky-world-of-wile-e/
When I read Allan’s review of “Pulp Fiction” I hesitated to add my thoughts because I know how fanatically admired this movie is by many people, and I don’t like to get trammeled by the juggernaut of popular opinion. I’m relieved, though, to find that I’m not the only one to dislike it. It’s certainly not art, and I don’t even find it entertaining. I saw this movie when it first came out and at the time I liked it up to the point where Travolta gives Uma Thurman the hypo through the heart. However, I found the whole Bruce Willis plot thread deadly dull, and its treatment of the gay characters the implausible product of someone’s paranoid fantasies as well as truly offensive to gay people. When I tried to watch it a second time I had to force myself to stick with the movie even up to the hypo, after which I gave up. The banter between Travolta and Jackson that people thought cool seemed to me simply the lame ramblings of semi-literate thugs. The whole idea that professional hit men are automatically cool is one I find puerile. These guys are amoral creeps, too stupid even to be called immoral because they have no morals to go against. The movie strikes me as the pathetic product of a posturing nerd pretending (unconvincingly) to be hip. The only thing this superficial movie really has going for it is the interplay between Travolta and Thurman, and that is not enough to sustain a feature-length movie. And this is just crushed by the wretchedness of the rest of the film. A competently made but otherwise truly awful movie that I would have to be forced to watch again.
Though I obviously like the movie a bit more than you, I agree about the weakness of the Willis episode – it just doesn’t have the same energy as the other bits, and while that’s probably what Tarantino was going for, I think the energy is really what PF has going for it. I find the dialogue between Willis and his French girlfriend really tedious.
That visceral quality you note there Joel has long since dissipated for me and most of what is left here is tedium. Perhaps more than any other film of its generation his one appears headed for the ‘Most Overestimated Upon Release’ prize.
R.D.: Superlative submission there, as usual.
Interesting, I’ve never felt the film was tedious (except for the passage I mentioned above) but a few years ago I had reached the point where I thought it overrated and not as good as it first appeared. Now I’ve come around to a reasoned perspective, I think, which see its flaws and its bad influences but also recognizes its power and skill. I’m definitely glad to see it on Allan’s list.
Yes R.D. I too hesitated, because of the expected backlash, which despite perceptions, I don’t welcome.
that’s not bad….RD, Tony, David, Sam and myself on one side of the fence. I’d say that’s a split down the middle. And all argued cogently.
Hi! Bobby J.
embarrassed.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, I would call it a 50/50 split, but did you notice that I removed myself from the conversation…
DeeDee
People who dislike the movie seem to ask of it what it cannot give. To hate Pulp Fiction because it has no “moral center” is like condemning (dead) comedian Sam Kennison because he’s not the Pope. The movie is a big, bouncy, glaring cartoon, and you have to enjoy it on its own terms and not whine because you can’t find it in the Louvre. Also, it’s well-acted in general, but I especially relish John Travolta’s performance–which is impeccable even in the small details. Remember that early scene where Travolta and Jackson invade the apartment of the snotty low=level drug dealers. Jackson has such a flamboyant rant that at first he seems to absorb ALL the oxygen in the room. As he raves away, in the background Travolta silently glances around the apartment with idle curiosity, not paying much attention to Jackson because he’s obviously heard it many times before–but as Jackson nears the climax of his rant (which will include shooting) Travolta visibly, seamlessly focuses himself to attention, eyes alert, because he knows it’s almost Showtime. He’s silent, almost invisible–yet fully living in his character. Exquisitely acted.
Margaret, we are not asking of it something that it isn’t – it’s lack of a moral compass. I and the others, especially R.D., are calling and it exactly what it is and are articulating why. It’s a shiny, mildy diverting and (emotionally) empty. It’s candy-floss laced with arsenic. It’s a cruel, little geek’s idea of masculinity. A masculinity so insecure, that as R.D. pointed out – (“its treatment of the gay characters the implausible product of someone’s paranoid fantasies as well as truly offensive to gay people). It’s almost as if QT was bullied in school for having a sweaky, high-pitched geeky voice by the jocks and called gay and was now taking his revenge. The narrative, whilest cleverly splintered, never picks up pace. The performances, photography, some of its chat, its splintered but inter-linked tales are mild diversions.
Emperor Trantino has no clothes, even if he raid’s Godard’s closet.
Tarantino seems to have enough mockery–and to spare–for virtually everybody in the movie, so I don’t think he’s glorifying trash-talking, morally contemptible thugs. He’s SHOWING them–with everything that the word Show could mean–and, obviously, is not above working them, their words, their psychoses, for full entertainment value. But glorifying them? I don’t see it. Think of the fate of the Ving Rhames character! And Vince’s end!
One thing: I’ve always hesitated to disclose this for fear of being thought a dullard, but I never liked or understood the value of the convoluted plot–with its flashbacks, switchbacks, doubling back. It kept at least one first viewer (me) on edge and anxious about losing the plot line.
Margaret, no-one is asking for anything. For some the film has no redeeming qualities. You like it, I don’t. It is as simple as that.
This is a reprint from my reply a couple of months ago…
“Craft, Trantino has – but the far harder things to attain are invisible to the eye and can only be felt. Though it’s not politically correct to say it, such elements as Taste and Maturity do not come easily and are not equal. There’s only so much maturity that can be gained from being a videostore geek, watching low-grade movies. Junk in, junk out. He makes movies with the sensibility of a grinning psychopath, chronically immoral and at home with the corporations that finance him. Sadism as a hue on his palette.”
And is is probably the best article that I’ve about him
“The tragedy of Tarantino”………
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-tragedy-of-tarantino-he-has-proved-his-critics-right-1777147.html
Another interesting quote from David Ehrenstein (http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/07/43/duelle.html): ” [Jacques Rivette's] Histoire de Marie et Julien [2004] was born of an era when Rivette (mistakenly) surmised that there was a large and growing audience of cineastes longing for a cross between Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955) and Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (Robert Bresson, 1945). What we’ve mostly seen instead is a mob of dissolute “fanboys” panting for the ‘grindhouse’ detritus dear to Quentin Tarantino’s heart. “
Ha Tony! Another terrific Ehrenstein quote there!!! Ehrenstein is a regular at Ed Howard’s blog BTW. He just commente dunder Ed’s most recent LA CEREMONIE review, which I added my own two cents too as well.