Quentin Tarantino is (except for maybe Martin Scorcese) one of the most film-literate directors out there. That might not mean anything to Ed, but if you can’t “speak” the language of the film, you have no business writing a screenplay. In “Inglorious Bastards” alone, QT covered everything from “The Searchers” (the John Ford/John Wayne classic) to Truffaut’s “The Last Metro” to “Cat People” (both versions) to Peck(name removed by moderator)ah’s “The Wild Bunch.” There are generations of filmgoers who might not have never heard of Goddard if it weren’t for him, or the French film “Au Revoirs, Les Enfants,” whose mispronunciation gave us the title of Reservoir Dogs.
Pulp Fiction, in its linear, non-chronological order, is a redeeming story of the Prodigal Son. That’s unavoidable, even if you think the movie’s trash.
My taking art classes in college taught me one thing: I should have taken Industrial Design. After taking Art Appreciation, I realized I had just taken Art Indoctrination. I was given a reeducation by individuals skilled in brainwashing. I was told, with great drama, that a piece of plexiglas with metal rods sticking out of it was actually a man’s life! After viewing a spiral of duct tape on the floor of an art museum, I noticed a small, white card next to it: Please do not remove. This is art. Then the illusion was broken.
Instead of joining the Art Cult, I began to observe it in action. Its priests were art critics, its places of worship were art galleries. I met with a local group of fine artists who also dressed in a cohesive, strictly classified way. I heard speeches encouraging the tribe to do something. Only later did I learn the meaning of the ritual.
Oh, I can speak the language alright. The problem is I’d rather be like the cleaning lady at the art museum who
needed that little card to tell her that the duct tape was somehow important and should not be scraped off the floor.
I am privileged to have been involved in world building, creating environments and characters. Thanks to the direction of some very skilled and talented individuals, I have seen work at a level of quality that I thought had ceased being done.
I object to what Mr. Tarantino has done because his work is reflective of a template that degrades entertainment at all levels, including comic books, animation, printed fiction, TV programs and movies: the rise of the Dysfunctionals. The sordid, the lurid, the graphic. Like Picasso who declared: “I have come to destroy beauty.”
In the 1960s, so-called art houses showed “art films.” Yeah. Art. J.D. films from the 1950s were avoided for a reason.
After reading art reviews, I began to realize that the writing was more important than the art. A recent review of a performance by some important musicians described the sensation of experiencing their work as ‘telepathic.’ Pleeeease. We’re all on planet earth and we have bills to pay just like we had last month.
The chosen language of film today, for the most part, reflects not just pushing the envelope, but tearing it to shreds. There are some bright spots. It appears those never go away entirely. Great art, in my view, revolves around positive and functional themes, even if they portray great suffering. When a message is buried under layer after layer of the vulgar, the lurid, and the graphic, it becomes voyuerism. It becomes less than what it could be.
God bless,
Ed
