Kill Your Idols: Quentin Tarantino

You can definitely read some of that sentiment in the original thread here when the film came out.

A masterpiece!

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/72466/

 

He's made a career out of high-gloss B movies.

 

Art is open to interpretation ...

So, I haven't read this anywhere and don't know if Tarantino ever explains how and why the idea for a Basterds remake came to be, but for me the genesis of the idea is this: For all of the bloody awfulness Hitler did and for everything he represented, suicide in a bunker was the pussiest of pussy ways out. You don't get to slaughter 6 million Jews then go and hide and put a piece of shit pistol to your temple and pull the trigger.

In the real world of war, gets his head blown off by the very Jews he wanted to annihilate. (For a modern-day equivalent, look what we did to Osama once we found him -- blew his fucking brains out.) To top it off, Tarantino's Hitler burns in the theater.

This is why I would love to know if Tarantino ever screened the movie for a theater full of Holocaust-era Jews even if it was just to get a reaction for the 5 or 10 seconds Roth annihilates Hitler's head with bullet holes the size of my fist. Very powerful moment for any Jew.

Was it the best scene in Basterds? Not by a longshot.

But as it was happening the first time I watched it I thought "This is how Hitler really should have died."

I've always wondered if that's the way QT began the 10-year process of writing the script and everything else sprouted and bloomed.


Edit: Not to mention, it's the Jewish French woman whose family was wiped out in the first scene (the angle for France's "revenge") who ignites the explosion that leads to Hitler and a theater full of Nazis burning.

 

So he's still waiting to be convinced?

 

Thread raises some interesting questions about where Tarantino fits in the scheme of things. What's the ratio of entertainment to art? And is it high art? Low art? Is he making self-reflexive postmodern mashups so knowing and smart that we mistake their bright high-gloss surface for superficiality? Or is it a series of live action cartoons?

 

What are you talking about? Ever and ever? The list is long under those circumstances. A full basketball roster.

QT's made two great films, several perfectly professional exploitation flicks, whatever you want to call Django Unchained (I've heard many things) and Basterds, which I think is best remembered as...uneven.

Django is the keystone. I was personally disappointed in it, and to me it reflects poorly, in retrospect, on Jackie Brown.

 

Songbird skewed the average review score.

He and George Lucas could form a club.

 

QT: I write the words. You just fucking read them. Unless you're Samuel.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/moviesnow/la-en-quentin-tarantino-django-unchained-20130207,0,3735869.story

 

That is insightful and well said.

 

Thanks, Buck.

 

Finally saw Django.

Too long. Could have ended with them walking out. Found that more surprising. But Tarantino just had to have his cliche shootout BS. By the time it cut to Django taken prisoner upside down, I thought, "Wow, are we still here?" Thought up until then it was a rather enjoyable Western.

Did like it more than Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino is too formulaic now, to beholden to what he thinks the audience wants and expects.

 

You think Tarantino is basing his movies off his audience? If anything, I would say he focuses too much on his only likes and dislikes.

I do agree wholeheartedly with your criticism, though. Having Dr. Schultz shoot Calvin Candie then walk out with everyone stunned would have been incredible.