Down And Dirty With Death Proof: The QT Point/Counterpoint

Is there a more polarizing filmmaker working today than Quentin Tarantino? A pop-culture savant whose veins pulse with melted-down celluloid, this superstar of the Sundance generation has undeniably left his mark on the cinematic landscape. (What other director from the '90s has inspired his or her own adjective?) But is he the most original and innovative narrative storyteller to come along in the last few decades, or just a self-conscious hipster who makes wax museums with pulses? It depends on whom you ask, which is why, on the eve of QT's latest release, Grindhouse, my pal Dave Fear (from Time Out New York) and I duke it out (at MSN Movies) over the merits of Tarantino's contribution to the seventh art. Let the slinging begin.

Kim Morgan: OK, let's start here: Quentin Tarantino knows what I want to see. I want to see girls in short shorts dancing to T. Rex in a run-down Texas bar; I want to see a weird, rough-looking Kurt Russell quoting Robert Frost while asking for a lap dance; and, I want to see a brave woman belted to the hood of a white 1970 Dodge Challenger (the Vanishing Point car) while her friend clocks somewhere around 80 mph. Wasn't this part of the reason cinema was invented? So I could see this stuff? I think so. But I'm one of those Tarantino fans who likes the director more when he makes movies that characters from his previous films (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) would discuss between their "royale with cheese." With Death Proof (his movie from the Grindhouse double bill with Robert Rodriguez), all of the above actions occur, aided and abetted by a lean and mean simplicity that's gorgeously shot, spectacularly stunted and oddly lovable. Tarantino is having loads of fun, but he's also respecting all the B-movie classics (and nonclassics) that he clearly cherishes (bless him for directing viewers to the original, superior Gone in 60 Seconds). I know many critics complain he's become increasingly superficial since Kill Bill, and that his last mature work was Jackie Brown, but I think he's actually becoming more advanced -- boldly experimental and oddly personal. These are his obsessions and his fantasies, after all. I'm just happy he's opened up the double doors to his den to let me poke around. Now if I could only borrow a few things ...

Dave Fear: So the guy with the cinematographic memory, the encyclopedic knowledge of exploitation flicks and the motormouth patter knows how to get a nice genre-hound gal like you hot and bothered. That's great, Kim, but the question remains: Does Death Proof, his half of this $53-million homage, do anything but wallow in nostalgia for yesteryear's cheap thrills? It's not like I don't have a soft spot for splatter flicks and anything involving muscle cars going vroom as well. The problem is that once you're done playing spot-the-reference (Ohmygod, the chick that kinda looks like Roberta Collins is driving Kowalski's Dodge Challenger and being rammed by Snake Plissken!), you realize there isn't anything there besides "his obsessions" (e.g., a foot fetish that would rival Luis Buñuel's and others' movies). Jackie Brown may have been an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel on one level and a sub-blaxploitation crime film on another, but Tarantino also managed to sneak in something heartfelt into the mix: what happens to people when they get older, get burned by life and have to make up for bad decisions and lost time. For him to go from something as emotionally naked as "Brown" to the jukebox cinema of Kill Bill (Wow, you've seen a lot of cool Asian movies. Um, congratulations?) felt like a serious step backward. Grindhouse is just another series of footnotes masquerading as a narrative. Cinema was invented to show groovy chicks dancing around in their skivvies and hot chrome-on-chrome action; it's also about telling stories, shedding some light on the human condition and showing us something besides a director's favorite scenes being rehashed. If you could leave him a little note while you're rooting around his den (be careful not to knock over those mile-high stacks of giallo videotapes), a lot of us would be in your debt.

Kim Morgan: Hot and bothered? Who said this was a sexual thing? How insulting. I mean, a ramming Dodge Challenger? Snake Plissken? What kind of a girl do you think ... OK, OK, maybe it's a little sexual. Anyway, my point is, what's wrong with a guy reveling in his encyclopedia knowledge of exploitation if he's actually being inventive and honest along the way? And both Kill Bill and Death Proof are incredibly inventive and, as you said of Jackie Brown (which I like -- especially Robert Forster's performance), exceptionally naked. He's not just cataloging favorite scenes from Asian cinema, spaghetti Westerns, Brian De Palma, giallo, exploitation and redneck road movies; he's actually building on them, mixing the aesthetic and thematic elements into a feverish work of grand geek opera. And he knows we know that. He's not, like some other "inspired" filmmakers, simply copying Terrence Malick or Martin Scorsese or Robert Altman; he's tweaking and amplifying what he truly knows of life -- movies -- and Tarantino is a fan of cinema from the Grindhouse to the Art House. In that sense, he's a lot like Godard. And, really, a lot like Woody Allen, who also riffs on his influences (Stardust Memories? Fellini, anyone?) and continually chats about movies and music throughout his films. Maybe April March's "Chick Habit" (used at the end of Death Proof) isn't as classy as George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" (used in Allen's Manhattan) but ... oh what the hell, the brilliant Serge Gainsbourg wrote it, so maybe it is. I truly believe Tarantino is (ahem) "shedding light on the human condition" via Kill Bill and Death Proof in that the human condition is not only comprised of what is real but what we fantasize about. When I watched Uma break through that grave in Kill Bill, I was significantly moved. And when Traci Thoms turned her Challenger around to pursue a murderous Kurt Russell, I was inspired. Why is that response, even in the most fantastical of scenes, any less meaningful than watching a movie where someone does something mature and responsible? And I do own a 1971 Ford Torino, so if some psycho tried to ram me off the road, I might do the same damn thing.

Read the rest of the ass kicking with Dave's response here and my defense here. It gets uglier. But Dave and I are determined to go on that road trip...

Comments

[theron]

I'm with you on this, Kim. A couple of things:

The cardinal rule of movie reviewing is, Review the movie you the film maker made, not the movie you wanted the film maker to make. Dave?

Also, what is film - or any art, for that matter - but an artist saying, "This is what I think about that - oh, and look what I can do!" Tarantino does that...in spades. Not everything has to be deep all the time. Pop songs are mindless, but they do what they're supposed to do. We don't expect them to be symphonies, nor do we want them to be. What's rare is the artist that can produce both good pop and good serious work. Tarantino can do both - when he wants.

Let Quentin do what he chooses, then sit back and enjoy. He'll do something different next time. As they say about the weather in Texas, if you don't like it at the moment, wait a few minutes and it'll change.

[sean]

hey there - not trying to fish for a war, but when you say: "like some other "inspired" filmmakers, simply copying Terrence Malick or Martin Scorsese or Robert Altman" - specifically for the first name, are you thinking of david gordon green?

[Stacie]

I sincerely hope you plan to do more point/counterpoint articles- that was fantastic. You talk movies smart...me like.

[Kim]

Sean,

No, I didn't mean David Gordon Green (though I can now kind of see how it might read that way). Anyway, I love David Gordon Green--I even love "Undertow."

I really just mean that so many filmmakers (and film students) are "inspired" by those directors.

No wars!

[sean]

i was hoping you would say that, actually - 'undertow' is a fantastic film. both green and paul schneider freely admit their admiration for malick, and do it well. in fact, i think he's a producer on 'undertow.

[George Schmidt]

QT has given pause to the American filmmaker & filmgoer by infusing his own blend of pop culture & hommages to any/all genres mixing ino a hi-energy cocktail that has made the cinematic experience take a deep breath & revitalize after so many years of dreck along the way with hacks at the ready (and still growing like a Romano zombie) hungrier for more. He tackles each new project w/rambunctious glee like a hyper -caffeinated kid full of cake & ice cream & soda at a birthday party and can't wait for his turn to break open the pinata to see all the treasures that await him. (and us)
Not all of his (or any filmmakers) works s/b expected to be 'masterpieces' - great would suffice and usually acts as the balm to the popcorn crowd; a masterpiece is often a fluke - to have more than one is a freak occurence.

[Ted Pigeon]

What great online discourse. As long-defending Tarantino fan myself, I must side with you on this debate, Kim. But I think there were very good points made by both of you.

The main point this discussion really hits on is, for me, a question of originality. How can a filmmaker that makes his own work (at least recently) so blatantly full of homages to other films call himself original?

It's a tough issue, one that needs to be talked about more in-depth on a critical level. David Bordwell actually posted a very good blog entry recently about the nature of pastiche and plagiarism, basically claiming that when it comes to moving images and narrative conventions, it's hard to pinpoint plagiarism. While this doesn't directly apply to Tarantino, since he is self-awarely calling attention to his influences, it does bring up a larger issue of coming up with new images.

I think your comments about Tarantino essentially breathing life into the influences he's riffing on are right on target. I have yet to see Grindhouse, but Kill Bill is a great film because of how it reflexively mixes so many different styles, in so doing expanding upon them by allowing them to interact with each other differently, yielding new styles and new images. On top of that, Kill Bill (especially Volume 2) is a much more intimate character piece than many seem to know. Those films are indeed orgasmic patiches of varying film styles and conventions, but Tarantino infuses the seemingly sel-conscious styles with a unique touch culminating in a very intimate story between two people that he works towards through both films.

The point I'm making is that even the most seemingly original work is inspired in some form or another by previous films. No film exists in a vacuum. Images are made based on what a filmmakers has already seen. A good filmmakers has a keen knowledge of the images previous films conjured, yet can also work within such stylistic and narrative devices to expand upon them and form new styles and images.

I will have to expand on these thoughts for a blog post of my own in the next couple of days, after I see Grindhouse. It's definitely a lot to think about, and I think this point/counterpoint discussion is exactly what we need more of in criticism.

[Eric]

Good article, do more point/counterpoint. Did you hear Tarantino's Death Trap, Scorsese and the concert/doc he did about the Rolling Stones are going to be at Cannes this year? Too much for one to handle, just too much.

[SolShine7]

That looks like Sidney Poitter's daughter in the second picture. I better run over to IMDb.com to see if it's really her.

[Jim]

You know, you're dead on about Tarantino's films being so much more more than catalysts for the stimulation of superficial fetishes. Oh, thats there too, but its so much more than that, and I think your refrencing the "grave escape" from Kill Bill Vol. 2 was the best possible example you could have used. In that scene, we are not only seeing The Bride's entire backstory reaching a single moment of glorious payoff, we are actually seeing the tomb of near-forgotten genres being "busted open" by the ambitions of a filmmaker DESPERATE to rekindle something tactile in an increasingly hard-drive based industry. As that gorgeous Ennio Morricone "L'Arena" score swelled, I found myself emotionally moved to see Thurman being put on the same "movie star" pedestal as a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but surrounded by the trappings of Kung Fu and Fulci that had me almost pinching myself to believe I was really seeing this surreality mere yards away from a theater in which Man on Fire was recycling tired cliches and "shoot for the edit" dynamics.

I loved the entire Grindhouse experience, and felt that Planet Terror is, the Frank Miller co-directed Sin City aside, Rodriguez's most purely entertaining (and completely successful) film since El Mariachi. But Death Proof (which saw one of my best friends grumbling on the way out of the theater), was something special...a return to the naturalistic verbal brilliance of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but with the added panache of everything he has picked up during the Kill Bill odyssey.

This is Tarantino working on a smaller scale, no doubt testing himself for his next "mountain", the war epic Inglorious Bastards. That many are writing off Tarantino for his portion of Grindhouse will, I think, make the achievement of that forthcoming project all the more stunning. I predict that the film (like Death Proof, but on a much larger scale) will stand firmly between Tarantino's two worlds...the literate, dialogue-rich "real world" of Pulp Fiction and the visually spellbinding, archetype-driven "movie world" of Kill Bill.

It is essential to realize that Death Proof is NOT set in the same universe as Kill Bill, but the universe of his earlier films. One would think that, given the nature of most exploitation cinema, Death Proof would have been further from the real world than Kill Bill. But Tarantino has never been the sort of filmmaker to meet people's expectations, and what this film points to in terms of his vision for the future is, I think, something that will truly revitalize NOT ONLY the exploitation films he has championed in his recent movies, but ALSO the unique flair for character and dialogue with which he so firmly cemented his arrival in the early 90's.

Quentin is, I believe, now attempting to bridge the gap between those two multifarious but LINKED worlds with what will surely be his most ambitious project...a war film that holds the potential for striking, retro-chic set pieces (a la the climax of KB Vol. 1) AND the great dialogue that made a triumphant return in parts of KB Vol. 2 and Death Proof.

Whatever Quentin's future holds, it will surely be interesting, and those who can't look at Quentin's last three features and understand that this director will NEVER stop following "the road not taken" (how fitting that another Frost poem figures so prominently in Death Proof), well, they were never the people he made movies for anyway. We were...and we are.

Rock on, Q, and great article Kim.