Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Peter H-son (A) on November 29, 2007 at 08:46:56

In Reply to: RE: About "not getting it" posted by halfnote on November 28, 2007 at 21:13:08

I do not agree.

I do not like opera. But I do "get" it. I can appreciate the art and the work that goes into setting up a production like Carmen. I can appreciate nothing in a post Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

There's nothing deep about Tarantino. Having a floozy wear Bruce Lee's yellow jumpsuit was at most about intertextuality. Bruce Lee wearing the jumpsuit had meaning and depth.

If kitsch and vulgarity tell us something about our time, then every movie is a social commentary. And cannibalizing other people's works is not a reflection on or criticism of a cannibalizing society, but a product or symptom of a cannibalizing society. The only thing a Tarantino movie says is, "Ain't it cool?" (Which also is the name of the most worthless website in the history of the Internet.)

By cannibalizing a work you devalue the original. Tarantino claims that he rips off (called "homage" if you are French) movies because he loves the original. Which, of course, is a lie. If you admire an artist, you safeguard him. The postmodernism is the age of re-production. It is the age of zero value.

Tarantino is a representative of junk or eclectic postmodernism. "Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture: one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald's food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and 'retro' clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games" (Richard Appignanesi). Tarantino is nothing but masturbation for fanboys.

There's a lot more depth in the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Knock Off than in Tarantino's entire oeuvre. Granted, it's a commentary on the unique variation of postmodernism found in Southeast Asia and Korea, which should make it uninteresting to an Anglo-centric audience. So it would be to ask too much of any American critic to "get" it.

Jeff Lau uses mass-market kitsch to tell profound stories of deceptive depth. His best movies are A Chinese Odyssey (a freewheeling take on the Journey To the West) and the different, though similar titled Chinese Odyssey 2002. The cinema of Jeff Lau is closely related to postmodern dramatist Dennis Potter.

It's hard to say how much depth there was in Warhol since he appears to have been brain dead. Whatever the case, he loved the great icons of American culture--the $, Mickey Mouse, Hollywood and, especially, fame. He made mass-market kitsch into high art, not by questioning the kitsch, but by showing them for what they were--modern icons. Much has changed since Duchamp's urinal shocked the establishment in 1917. Today industrial design, like that urinal, are put up on display in museums around the world and appreciated as fine art.

Edits: 11/29/07   11/29/07