Don't Be A Square!

Don't Be A Square!: The Hitchiker's Guide to the Tarantinoverse

What is there to say that hasn't already been said about Quentin Tarantino? We all know that the man's a cinephile turned awe-inspiring auteur, working out his kitschy, video store clerk obsessions in sprawling action pictures that gush gab and guts in equal measure.And we all know that his splatter-tacular final acts and obsession with the linguistic possibilities of the F, S, and N words make his pictures the ultimate in leave-grandma-at-home scuzziness. To write a column about QT is to run two grave and simultaneous risks. There's a chance that, in attempting to pin down what makes the man so great, you'll just wind up blindly restating the usual critical hosannas, but there's also a very real possibility that you'll get so lost in the specifics, in lists of film references and music cues and pretzeled plot structures and double meanings that you'll go movie-geek obscure and overshoot your target. In an attempt to avoid both these potholes, I'll do my best to strike a balance. For those who've never seen one of his pictures before (you poor souls), I'll examine some of the basics that make Tarantino tick, and, hopefully, provide some access points into a world that will seem appalling to some and insane to most. However, Tarantino's flicks aren't as overlooked and underrated as most of the pictures I write about, so I also hope unlock some new ways of re-seeing them, for one of the singular joys of this man's work is its inexhaustible bigness, the way it constantly expands and contracts depending on which lens you view it through. Think of it as movie football camp. Learn the plays, and then I'll teach you the game. That's how sports work, right? Also, congrats to our Cowboys on their World Series win!

Quentin Tarantino makes pure cinema. What is pure cinema, you ask? Well, purity implies essence. So...what is cinema's essence? I'd say motion. I mean, "move" is part of the damn word. Plenty of movies are good without being pure, because of the story or the talent or the ideology. Just as a pure singer ought to sound extraordinary, a pure movie ought to move extraordinarily, give us a galvanizing glimpse of image and time set free to dance. Tarantino's makes movies move like no one since Scorsese. His chief interest is stretching the form until it bursts, seeing all he can do with the light and sound and motion at his command. His movies are intricately plotted and, I'd contend, deeply moral (we'll get to that later), but most of all, they are talent shows on a grandiose scale. For so many pictures, the essential image is the victim of all other factors.

Take Love, Actually, for example.

It's possible that, in the finale, the filmmaker's wanted to linger on Colin Firth's journey to Portugal, really take a good look at that beautiful place. They wouldn't dare! With only twenty minutes of plot left, screenwriting structure dictates that it's time to hurry the plot along. Plus, when we go to see a romantic comedy, we'd be all out of sorts if we were subjected to a ten-minute travelogue that interrupted our stars journey towards HappyEndingVille (TM). So, more often than not, convention dictates the moving image. Not in the TarantinoVerse. Here, the image dictates itself. Spoiler-freeish example: in Pulp Fiction, John Travolta's hitman Vincent takes his boss's wife, Mia, out for the night. They return to Mia's house. Mia does something very stupid. I wouldn't dare give it away. In your average film, these events would serve to kickstart a Plot Crisis, and as such would be briskly attended to, to help "move things along". But, in between two major events--the night out and Mia's epic boo-boo--Tarantino leaves Mia alone next to a radio, swaying to a Neil Diamond cover. At first, we think he's doing this to further the plot. As it continues, we surmise, as we've been trained, that, since it's lasted more than .5 seconds, it's progressing past plot to tell us something about "character development". But even after that phase, Mia continues, segueing into a full-on dance as the camera glides in tandem with her. That's when you ought to realize that something extraordinary has happened. The choice of song, the nature of Thurman's dancing, and the use of camera language have conspired to create a moment that stands independent of plot and character. Because of the way the character is moving and the way the filmmakers have captured that motion, we get a sense of something electric and ecstatic going on, a sense of movie-life that occurs outside of the particulars of the story. Not convinced? Take a look at the way the camera spins around Pam Grier in Jackie Brown's shopping mall sequence, or follows Lucy Liu up the stairs in Kill Bill, Vol. 1. I believe that such moments are the best starting point for appreciating QT's work. The man's movies may offend you, or, confuse you, or even downright bore you, but I think it helps to avoid labeling them as "violent" or "controversial" before you've even seen them. Start with the understanding that these are liberations of the moving image, and you'll be able to appreciate them, even if you don't enjoy them.

But what to say to those that do enjoy Tarantino's work, and have enjoyed it time and again? Let's start with what you already know. Tarantino loves him some language. He also loves him some violence. But while both are picked apart, few have looked at the tension between the two. It's not uncommon for artists to worship what they're good at. It's no wonder Christina Aguilera idolized Etta James; they're equally adept at high voltage riffing. And of course Toni Morrison adores William Faulkner; her scrambled plot structure would be right at home in his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. It's a circular process; they imitate these people because they idolize them, and then they idolize these people because they began their career imitating them. Tarantino loves Scorsese and Leone because they preceded him in the liberation of the moving image; more to the point, he adores film noir and screwball comedy because they inspired his love of language. Hold that thought. Take a look at these scenes--the name game in Inglourious Basterds, the final confrontation in Kill Bill, Vol. 2, and that most famous of QT scenes, Samuel L. Jackson's Ezekiel rant in Pulp Fiction. All of these scenes luxuriate in language before exploding into tragic violence. What's significant about this? Well, take a look at the Transporter movies. You never see Jason Statham discussing the finer points of life before hanging Ethnic Criminal No. 4 out to dry. More often than not, Tarantino's fight scenes are preceded by lengthy, lengthy dialogue. Why? Well, back to the idol complex. Tarantino loves language because he is good with it, and is good with it because he loves it. Is it any surprising then, that he puts his characters to the test with it? If they are able to use it cunningly to defuse a situation--watch Thurman's plea in KBV2, or Jackson's final monologue in PF--they are rewarded with safety and survival. If they screw up, as in the scenes mentioned at the beginning of this train of thought, they tend to die. And I tend to laugh as they do so. I'm no sociopath, though. It's funny! Think about it. Tarantino, lover of language, acquits or punishes his characters based on their creativity with words, or lack thereof--based on whether or not they are like him! Such is the whacked-out power of the storyteller. In the Tarantinoverse, Tarantino himself would survive and thrive.

The above presents a psychoanalytic way of looking at Tarantino; let's close with a moralistic view. I insist that most of Tarantino's movies have moral fiber. Well, not IB and Death Proof, which are, for all their ingenuity, glorified splatter pieces. But I think we can uncover something in his other pictures. For all their zappy style and zingy movement, look how they all end; oddly enough, with a scene of genuinely affecting emotion; with a woman holding her offspring, or a long-awaited kiss. That's not how crime dramas or kung-fu flicks end! What to make of these surprisingly touching finales? Well, for one thing, they're always anomalies; not a single scene leading up the finale delivers half the emotional heft. Furthermore, these scenes are almost discomfortingly still; that constant purity of motion I discussed earlier has tapered off. And yet, these moments don't feel out of place. They come off as perfectly proper denouements. The key to this conundrum, I think, lies in one of the last lines of Pulp Fiction: "You're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd." For all their whup-assery, the Bride and Jules Winnfield and all of Tarantino's other creations are ultimately placid sheep, frequently led away from what's best by their base instincts for survival and superiority. "That girls deserves her revenge", Michael Madsen says in KBV2, "and we all deserve to die." But he isn't about to sit by and let justice happen; indeed, it is he who subjects the vengeful heroine to her most torturous of obstacles. He is rendered almost helpless by his animalistic instinct. He knows what he just, but is compelled to avoid it time and again. It is in the resolution of this tension that QT's films find their moral genius. In these pictures final moments, they cut away from the dead bodies--from those who succumbed to their instincts--and give us a brief glimpse of goodness in the most depraved of characters. Here, content does indeed dictate image; as we move from instinct to thought, the camera stops moving, zeroes in on the characters. Suddenly, the movement of the movie drops out, and we focus with great intensity on these people, finding an unexpected kernel of goodness. Tarantino does not absolve these people of what they've done. They are killers, liars, and thieves, some of whom may very well continue to murder, cheat, and steal. But, he does shine a compassionate light on them as the curtain falls. Many people in the Tarantinoverse will be led like sheep to the slaughter. But QT reminds us that, even in his mad, mad world, it's possible to be the master of one's fate, the captain of one's soul. It's possible to be the shepherd.