To say I am no fan of Tarantino is an understatement - and I suspect his legacy is already starting to degrade - so I won't be seeing
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But I will still read reviews of it, especially if I can find support for my disdain for him and his oeuvre. Hence, I was interested to read this in
the Slate review:
A revelation about Pitt’s character’s past midway through the movie
might change how you respond to the culminating orgy of violence, which,
as is often the case in Tarantino films, seems at once like a critique
of the vision of masculinity that’s imposed on us by TV and the movies
and like a celebration of it. (In fact, a character in the movie—to
reveal which one would be to say too much—at one point advances a theory
about our culture’s dependence on mediatized mayhem.)
Well, if you ask me, such ambiguity is a problem, not a feature. You don't critique something by celebrating it. Back to the rest of the review, confirming that it's not just me that wonders how shallow his motivations seem to be:
In choosing to
set a movie on Cielo Drive in the summer of 1969, Tarantino took on a
historical event that not only changed how Americans thought about fame,
violence, and the counterculture but also ended five innocent lives
(seven if you count Tate’s next-door neighbors the LaBiancas, who died
in a separate Manson-incited incident the following night). It’s fine to
walk out of this movie not quite sure what Tarantino was using his
story’s proximity to this real-life tragedy to say; that’s part of the
ambiguity inherent in making art. But it’s dispiriting to suspect that
part of why he wanted to stage a Manson-adjacent story was because the
accoutrements—the period cars and costumes and neon signs, the glowering
barefoot hippie girls, the acid-laced cigarettes and glowing movie
marquees—were just so cool.
"you don't critique something by celebrating it."
ReplyDeleteYep, for once I agree with you, you pussy. It should just be celebrated, not critiqued
Yeah, as if it needs "celebration" by gallons of blood and eye gouging/stabbing, Asian Latham.
ReplyDeleteCan't you just be satisfied with Ninja Warrior, boofheads boxing and giving themselves Parkinsons or other brain damage, and fictional fights that don't extend into butchering, brain splatters and decapitation?
In retrospect the Sharon Tate murders look like a faked event. Vincent, who brought Charlie in, is a proven agent. Sharon seems to have come back on television playing her own sister.
ReplyDeleteTarantino is particularly fantastic at the extended scene. These long scenes with many gear changes that could easily have been written for a stage play. He's been disappointing from time to time sure. But I suspect this one is going to be a good one.