Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by RGA (A) on January 30, 2006 at 22:13:37

In Reply to: Re: Why do people watch Tarantino? posted by Victor Khomenko on January 30, 2006 at 06:20:20:

Well you ask relevant questions are we seeing Pulp Fiction to be voyeurs on the sufferring of others or to see the gore etc?" I don;t think I can satisfy you with an answer though because I think everyone has a line. I saw Good Will Hunting and the people behind me got up and walked out because of all the swearing -- they felt the film crossed the line with innapropriate language while until they said it I did not even notice. Am I decensitised to it? Possibly or possibly I expect these kids to to talk like that and it does not bother me in the context of their conversations.

Films can be argued to be a societal dark side release valve -- people go to see the evil of the world out there in the parts of town they usually always avoid. Still that does not really provide a reason why such a thing motivates Tarantino - clearly though these people fascinate him and he gets to bring them to life for the rest of us. Pulp Fiction is not to be taken seriously -- it is a blown up larger than life with a root in reality. Black Comedy.

There is a scene in this film in a Car where Travolta is talking to an informant in the back seat and they're joking around -- the car goes over a bump the gun goes off and basically blows informants brains all over the back of the car with bits of brain in Samual Jackson Hair. Every person in the audience roared with laughter. Think about that (I did) as I was one of them laughing the hardest. Think about what Tarantino managed to do with a scene that by any normal situation would be truly appaling. Tarantino managed to evoke the opposite response than the expected to take you into the opposite world from which every person in that theater likely belongs and successfully brought us into their world.

Our society has become fat and lazy and because of technology we believe we are somehow morally superior to the poor sods living in huts in other countries or in the poor neighbourhoods. Tarantino brings us into this world and sheds the safe holier than thou morality we have and gets to the base impulses. These people were born without Freud's concept of the Super Ego.

Film allows us to get close to these people to see into their hemisphere and view of the world and then when the lights go up we can walk away. I think Tarantino does leave us with optimism that some of these characters have grown. Samual Jackson primarily.

Tarantino has a lot of meat usually to digest in these films and he's usually saying something about something.

The fine line of how much is too much or why show the gore is for each person to assess for themselves. Dawn of the Dead (1979) is one of my favorite films because the stomach turning gore and Zombies at the begining of the film are eventually pitied and even forgotten by the two thirds point and by the end seem to be the only civilized part of society left. The violence and the Gore are serving as an allegory for the densitization and zombification of the consumer mentality. I can never walk through a mall without a slight chuckle at the idiocy of our "let's buy something so it will make us happy approach" -- the truly disturbing or Horrifying aspect of that film was the Romero was right about his predictions back in 79 and it has pervaded into the fabric of Western Culture. That is what is truly stomach turning not a zombie eating a guy's intestines. (err though I don't recommend eating Spaghetti while watching Dawn of the Dead).