The Inland Imperialist

Interesting article on Tarantino and what's gone wrong for him here:  "Pap Fiction," by Mark Harris
Harris misses a few important things, and, given the state of things, it's not very surprising that the tip-off is a cursory dismissal of 300 - predictably as a piece of comic book violence that somewhat mystifyingly interested audiences more than GRINDHOUSE did.  In the article, as in almost any critical discussion of Tarantino, the theme turns instead on a comparison between what the director is currently up to and PULP FICTION - his signal achievement, and clearly an important if arguably overrated film.   

Though no one expected or, as far as I can tell, today believes that PULP FICTION really was about much of anything, it reinforced a kind of optimism about American popular culture that was very fitting to the post-Cold War, post-Rising Sun '90s.  Typically, it was one of the first films that benefited greatly from internet-generated word of "mouth" (word of hand?).  GRINDHOUSE comes at a vastly different cultural moment.  One of the reasons that audiences, even and especially the much-derided but evidently quite sizeable 300 audience, have rejected it is, in my opinion, that it is so self-consciously not about anything other than meaningless violence. 

Those who refuse to accept that 300 was a message movie as much or more than it was an ode to "bloody comic-book violence" are perhaps less likely to understand that, in these times, cultural expressions that make moral sense of warfare fill a need, a pressing and deeply felt need.  (You don't necessarily have to accept the themes to acknowledge their attractiveness.)  Meanwhile, seemingly everywhere else in the mass media, in politics, at school, all of the real violence in the real world is portrayed as at best senseless, at worst "our fault."   For a young man told everywhere he goes that he and those like him are in the wrong, 300 must have been like a sip of water to someone dying of thirst. 

In that sense, GRINDHOUSE offers more of the cultural same - more empty self-hatred, more cynicism, more senselessness, more evil white men in a universe where redemption comes only by the heroism of the cultural other.  In contrast to GRINDHOUSE, and contrary to the hype, the violence in 300 is rather antiseptic, especially in comparison to what might have done with the same subject matter.  More important, it remains subservient to the theme of bravery, unity, integrity, and sacrifice for a greater good, one that is emphatically not separate from or counter to democratic civic values.  That's a message which Hollywood, with only occasional exceptions, has largely given up on, or completely forgotten how to tell.    >>

Posted by: CKMacLeod at 05:17:11 | No Comments | Add Comment
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