[my letter to Roger Ebert]
I feel like there is an enormous amount of pressure to like/appreciate Kill Bill simply because it comes from Quentin Tarantino.
Sure, I like his style, I like his method of story telling, I like the moods he creates and the atmosphere he builds, BUT, what the hell is up with his choice of subject matter? Why in Pulp Fiction did there have to be a stylized homosexual rape scene? Why in Kill Bill did there have to be another rape scene and a pedophilia scene (made to look that much more hip because it was animated)?
These aren't fact based stories that he is trying to stay true to. Why stylize rape in any form? Why make a horrible act look horrible in a really cool way? What's the point. Why this subject matter? Has QT made any comment? Do critics care? Cartoon violence and fountains of blood, fine. But why stylized, hip-looking, ultra-cool, mood-building sexually deviant crimes? Why Why Why?
'Cause it's all about the style, not the content. The content is utterly irrelevant: it's just all about how you dress it up. It's also a brutal indictment of our American psychis'. We'll swallow anything, heck, even like it, as long as you make it look "cool."
It's really hardly any different from "Bad Boys II" for that matter.
Posted by: JosiahQ at October 16, 2003 04:35 PMsure, but what is his fixation on rape? that's what it boils down to for me. why rape?
Posted by: McKormick Astley at October 16, 2003 04:43 PMMaybe to "defamiliarize the familiar" as one theorist puts it. Similar to walking on a long stretch of gravel barefoot, we eventually stop feeling the rocks at all, in the same way, we oftentimes become accustomed to seeing certain things in life, so much that we no longer really see them. Art - and specifically film - exists to defamiliarize those things, and help us to see them again. Tarantino made you see rape in a different way, and as such, even years later, you're still trying to come to grips with why it exists. Isn't that telling?
Posted by: scott cunningham at October 20, 2003 04:21 PMPaul Jaussen (an old pal of mine who sadly has no blog for his brilliance) argues that Tarantino's films are the ultimate achievement in moviemaking because they so completely distance you from the material -- they never let you forget that you are seeing. Thus they exist not as immersive experiences but as objects that you can only gaze at from the outside. You cannot feel with the characters because they have no clear motivations -- there is only violence and death, which you view as an outsider. This fits well with a modernist vision of art.
I don't entirely buy this argument (esp. when I watch Tarantino in interviews, the snarky little bugger), but I find it interesting. If it's true, it might mean that art can serve a purpose beyong the traditional Aristotelian catharsis ideal. I think we've assumed that Aristotle's idea of drama (fear and pity, boys, fear and pity) is a Christian perspective. Is it?
Posted by: mesh at October 20, 2003 06:02 PMi agree and acknowledge the 'power' of his methods and art. but who gives him the right to do this with pedophilia? it is not a taboo subject for film and can be dealt with ('mystic river') but tarantino seems enjoy the coolinization of his subjects/topics. there is nothing cool or stylistic about this.
and i don't measure a movie only by it's ability to be thought-provoking. thynk if this scene wasn't animated. it would be thought provoking and potentailly illegal.
btw, roger ebert hasn't responded as of yet. i've bated my breath.
Posted by: McKormick Astley at October 20, 2003 06:25 PMExactly. I'm thinking critics are jumping on the boat because, like in Ebert's case, they snubbed him in the past (he hated Reservoir Dogs)
One of the few intelligent reviews for Kill Bill was over at filmrot.
You may want to check it out:
http://www.filmrot.com/articles/filmrot/004103.php
The superior man loves his soul, the inferior man loves his property.
Posted by: Birnbaum Daniel at January 10, 2004 06:34 AM