I just figured I'd give a shot at this whole message board thing; to start off with, I guess I should say that I liked Death Proof. Rather than just say my opinion is according to my taste and that, if you did not like it (or hated it, as some have made perfectly clear), you did not like it because it did not fit your tastes. Maybe you don't like it but others did; so let's make no more argument of it. That sort of thing.
Yet such an argument lacks in any form of persuasion because it claims that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or the greatness of films is according to the viewer's taste); such is the same as saying one's perception is the only truth (perception is reality). These remind me of the liar who says he "always lies"; the statement must itself be a lie, much as the statements above are championed subjectivity yet are also subjective themselves; that is, these are subjective comments disguised as universal truths. So the real task remains for arguing why I believe this movie is great and worth watching.
What I like about this film is that it portrays a repetition of a series of events--conversations, interactions, and tragedies--yet changes the level of maturity and intelligence of the protagonist characters in the second repetition. The story works by parallels. Repetition is interesting in literature because it provides the viewer a second look at a situation, and then also a deeper penetration into the meaning of the work, while also revealing how small differences can change the overall fate and outcome of the characters involved. In this case, the theme is a group of females; in the first story, girls, and in the second, women.
Each character embodies a certain archetype that becomes matured within the second story. Each of the black girls are leaders, assertive and tough, though the younger has more bark than bite, for instance. These girls are paralleled within the film, along with all the conversations and incidents they encounter along the way. Each conversation--which some on this board have called "meaningless" and "random"--reveals the difference between true women and mere girls. However, treated, singly, in and of themselves, these conversations would be worthless, boring and stripped of any meaning. However, the parallels allow the viewer the opportunity to penetrate into the theme of feminity, and how the theme is addressed by the director and the film.
With the change in targets, from girls to women, stuntman mike has the situation reversed on him, and he becomes the target after his attack on the challenger. Even the idea of the battling cars as a type of rape (an idea opened by the sheriff after the girls are killed) is reversed when the stuntman mike gets shot...it is then that his status as an almost supernatural being--brought about by the connotations of his "death proof" car--is broken.
Some of the rest of the film I believe is self-explanatory in my mind, in the sense of aesthetic brilliance and depth. The car chase is fantastic, and the idea of Kurt Russell (dressed much like Snake Plisken from his Escape from... series) crying like a baby when shot, barely able to chug some Maker's Mark without gagging, was hilarious to me. With him I've always attached this idea of this irreducible badass, and to see Tarantino shatter that facade is both interesting as another wrinkle in the theme, and also hilarious.
What I've found with the film's dialogue is that it is better to interpret it like one interprets Hemingway; no cues are given by the director of what the dialogue means, but it is placed there, seemingly barren of meaning until someone reads between the lines (and then it has an appearance like an iceberg--10 percent above and 90 percent below--Hemingway's own allusion about his style). For anyone who has taken a class on Hemingway or reads him for pleasure, I am using a story like "Hills like White Elephants" as an example of how to look at Tarantino's, though the style of Tarantino's differs in that the meaning is mainly conveyed through diverging parallels. If one compares one conversation to its altered twin in the other story, differences emerge and a binding theme emerges along with interpretations of the differences.
So that's my argument...I will not pretend I've convinced anybody of this film's greatness, but at least I have given some reasons why I believe this movie to be great without resorting to arrogance or attacks. Disagree if you will, especially if my argument has not won you over.
Yet such an argument lacks in any form of persuasion because it claims that the beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or the greatness of films is according to the viewer's taste); such is the same as saying one's perception is the only truth (perception is reality). These remind me of the liar who says he "always lies"; the statement must itself be a lie, much as the statements above are championed subjectivity yet are also subjective themselves; that is, these are subjective comments disguised as universal truths. So the real task remains for arguing why I believe this movie is great and worth watching.
What I like about this film is that it portrays a repetition of a series of events--conversations, interactions, and tragedies--yet changes the level of maturity and intelligence of the protagonist characters in the second repetition. The story works by parallels. Repetition is interesting in literature because it provides the viewer a second look at a situation, and then also a deeper penetration into the meaning of the work, while also revealing how small differences can change the overall fate and outcome of the characters involved. In this case, the theme is a group of females; in the first story, girls, and in the second, women.
Each character embodies a certain archetype that becomes matured within the second story. Each of the black girls are leaders, assertive and tough, though the younger has more bark than bite, for instance. These girls are paralleled within the film, along with all the conversations and incidents they encounter along the way. Each conversation--which some on this board have called "meaningless" and "random"--reveals the difference between true women and mere girls. However, treated, singly, in and of themselves, these conversations would be worthless, boring and stripped of any meaning. However, the parallels allow the viewer the opportunity to penetrate into the theme of feminity, and how the theme is addressed by the director and the film.
With the change in targets, from girls to women, stuntman mike has the situation reversed on him, and he becomes the target after his attack on the challenger. Even the idea of the battling cars as a type of rape (an idea opened by the sheriff after the girls are killed) is reversed when the stuntman mike gets shot...it is then that his status as an almost supernatural being--brought about by the connotations of his "death proof" car--is broken.
Some of the rest of the film I believe is self-explanatory in my mind, in the sense of aesthetic brilliance and depth. The car chase is fantastic, and the idea of Kurt Russell (dressed much like Snake Plisken from his Escape from... series) crying like a baby when shot, barely able to chug some Maker's Mark without gagging, was hilarious to me. With him I've always attached this idea of this irreducible badass, and to see Tarantino shatter that facade is both interesting as another wrinkle in the theme, and also hilarious.
What I've found with the film's dialogue is that it is better to interpret it like one interprets Hemingway; no cues are given by the director of what the dialogue means, but it is placed there, seemingly barren of meaning until someone reads between the lines (and then it has an appearance like an iceberg--10 percent above and 90 percent below--Hemingway's own allusion about his style). For anyone who has taken a class on Hemingway or reads him for pleasure, I am using a story like "Hills like White Elephants" as an example of how to look at Tarantino's, though the style of Tarantino's differs in that the meaning is mainly conveyed through diverging parallels. If one compares one conversation to its altered twin in the other story, differences emerge and a binding theme emerges along with interpretations of the differences.
So that's my argument...I will not pretend I've convinced anybody of this film's greatness, but at least I have given some reasons why I believe this movie to be great without resorting to arrogance or attacks. Disagree if you will, especially if my argument has not won you over.
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