With the release of Grindhouse, film critics Kim Morgan and David Fear debate the status of Quentin Tarantino’s filmography. Here is a sample:
David Fear:
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.
Kim Morgan:
What’s wrong with a guy reveling in his encyclopedic 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.
For myself, I am in a little of both camps. In general I do like Tarantino’s work. I thought Kill Bill was incredible, with Pulp Fiction following close behind as his greatest work. On the other hand, I think Fear gets to an important point not just for Tarantino but for a lot of pop art of our period. Inter-textual references to movies, music, and other media have become increasingly used as in place of actual observation and the result is a lot of work that is made up of other pieces. Making tribute to your influences is noble, but if filmmakers (or musicians, or novelists) cannot make their own observations, then the work does not amount to much more than hero worship. This is where I think Kim Morgan’s observations are right on. She writes that by combining these various genres and styles, Tarantino is able to take the old and make it new. When that is accomplished, and Tarantino did accomplish this in Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, and Pulp Fiction, then audiences are treated to something really fulfilling because what it allows him to do is simultaneously make a new experience and comment on the original.