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RE: About "not getting it"

Posted by halfnote (A) on November 28, 2007 at 21:13:08

In Reply to: RE: It's quite unfortunate that many.. posted by Peter H-son on November 27, 2007 at 10:46:56:

I have to take issue with you here.

The more people who seem to "get" something, the more likely it is to be of undistinguished quality. Lots of people "get" films like "Pretty Woman" and "The French Connection." Does this make them more meritorious as films? "The French Connection," you may know, won an Oscar for best picture the same year that "Clockwork Orange" was nominited. More people "got" the former film, I guess.

I think if I had to name one recent film maker whom people have consistently failed to get, it would be Kubrick. But then, lots of people don't "get" Shakepeare, or Kafka, or Faulkner, or Picasso, either.

Now, Tarantino presents another problem altogether. Here is a film maker that people THINK they get, primarly because of the colors on his palette, so to speak -- violence, crime, sexual intrigue, drugs ... all the elements of mass market melodrama. His forays into these popular, visceral themes give his movies broad appeal. At the same time, I don't think his movies are well understood, anymore than the works of Andy Worhol were understood in their day.

But, like Worhol, Tarantino displays a new-fangled sensibility, an ability to find the human soul in the cliches of mass marketed films and pop culture. His films, unlike those of anyone else I can think of, are about US, and what makes up our cinematic collective unconsious.

As he parades one more utterly conventional scene before us, as he presents yet another character of shallow or obvious motivation, we find ourselves oddly persuaded somehow that this is, in fact, the way things really are.

And yet, I'm not sure I really "get" Tarantino either.

Edits: 11/28/07

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