Why has it become "fashionable" to hate Tarantino?
I don’t believe in elitism. I don’t think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience.
- Quentin Tarantino
Art forms of the past were really considered elitist. Bach did not compose for the masses, neither did Beethoven. It was always for patrons, aristocrats, and royalty. Now we have a sort of democratic version of that, which is to say that the audience is so splintered in its interests.
- David Cronenberg,
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
- Lord Acton
“Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered, but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bobby,
Miramax, under the Weinsteins, did in fact have a history of buying the rights to films and then either extensively re-cutting them, sitting on them for years, or shelving them outright. It’s not a conspiracy to suppress good movies, it was a conspiracy to force films to confirm to Harvey and Bob’s vision of what a good movie was. They basically hamstrung the theatrical release of Jarmusch’s Dead Man when the director refused to cut the film. They also re-cut Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine and Temptress Moon, and wanted to make cuts to Princess Mononoke, just to name a few. They shelved Zhang Yimou’s Hero for two years before releasing it with Tarantino’s name on poster and DVD art but not the director’s:
They changed the ending of Wisit Sasanatieng’s Tears of the Black Tiger, then shelved it for five years before selling the rights to Magnolia.
“Admire without limits the simplicity and modesty of the great artists of the past, exposed to the arrogance of the nobility.” – Bresson
“Efficacity and sobriety are the characteristics of great film-makers.” – Godard
“…you have to design your film just as Shakespeare did his plays – for an audience.” – Hitchcock
“If it be fatal for a general to underrate his foe, so is it fatal for an artist to underrate his audience.” – Sickert
Who is an elitist’s audience? Himself? Fellow elitists? His financiers? We know it’s not people on the street, because, you know, elitists don’t like people on the street (correct me if I’m wrong).
Elitism is underrated….
People often confuse simplicity and being simplistic. Simplicity is one of the roads to art and truth, but being simplistic is the dead end.
- Carney
Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.
- Flannery O’Connor
It is the spectator, and not life that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.
- Oscar Wilde
Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art.
- Pablo Picasso
Spence: I hardly think Cronenberg was bemoaning the current state of art in that quote, but rather talking about how art has splintered off in a number of directions from its former incarnation as something just for the elite (which probably, in his view, makes art more interesting).
I love how you seem to assume that it’s either “hate and destroy mass culture” or “bow to mass culture entirely.” As though there couldn’t be a place somewhere left of center, where we question it, but at the same time realize that its existence makes it possible for us proles to even conceive of watching something like Sans Soleil.
I don’t know, maybe you’re a multimillionaire and you’d be able to secure a private print and screen it in your own personal full-sized movie theater. I hadn’t considered that possibility.
“If it be fatal for a general to underrate his foe, so is it fatal for an artist to underrate his audience.” – Sickert
Exactly
“I love how you seem to assume that it’s either “hate and destroy mass culture” or “bow to mass culture entirely.” As though there couldn’t be a place somewhere left of center, where we question it, but at the same time realize that its existence makes it possible for us proles to even conceive of watching something like Sans Soleil.”
Yes and slavery produced a lot of cotton and some of those experiments in germany during WW2 may have produced important medical findings. Sorry bro, I’m not gonna celebrate a broken system regardless of the bones it throws my way. And yes, I realize films are nowhere near as important as my examples but either way “hate and destroy mass culture” is a very good place to start as a filmmaker or viewer.
Mike Spence makes total sense to me, I believe there is absolutely no sense and it is almost ironic to search for meaning and purpose in the “art” that is being created or fed to us.
I believe in elitism of a sort. But I’ll be damned if I don’t enjoy me some Tarantino.
This is just me, but I believe the man is one of the precious few right now well deep into the Hollywood funnel that has the ability to write for himself, and that is priceless. I also believe he is also maturing as an artist, bad word, not maturing, but evolving into something else…and personally I would love to see where this evolution takes him…
You know, I was just thinking about what someone said on the Reactions to IB thread. They were praising the opening scene for it’s following of Hitchcock’s notion of suspense being greater when the audience knows that a bomb is under the table and the characters don’t. Why do we need more of this kind of suspense. I personally think suspense is overrated as entertainment but even if I didn’t i would want someone to create a new kind of suspense and not just another homage to the freakin’ “master.” Why do we like seeing the same films over and over again. Where is the joy in this?
Edit: Thanks Diego
Another thing, I believe that being an artist in this society carries with it the connotations of irresponsibility, laziness, adolescent romanticism, parasitism, and a pervasive lack of funds. Tarantino has one thing going for him as an artist, he doesn’t lack the funds…
rotflmao !
Whoever suggested that the first scene in IB was a good example of the “bomb under a table” theory is a little off anyway. While I was watching the scene, I didn’t find it suspenseful for the most part. What interested me in that scene was the interaction between the two characters.
But I can tell you where the joy is. Describing good entertainment in terms of a roller coaster isn’t a bad idea. When I go to Cedar Point, I love to ride the roller coasters. I’ve been there more times than I can remember, and I’ve ridden many of those coasters dozens of times. I know what to expect, but it never fails to bring me pleasure. The same thing applies to films. I know what to expect in a Tarantino film for the most part, but it never fails to please me.
Well, there you have it, I live in the theme park capital of the world and coasters tend to bore me. Granted we don’t have anything as fast as the ones in Ohio’s Cedar Point but when I ride the coasters at Universal Studios, Busch Gardens or Seaworld I could probably go to sleep. The twists and turns are so familiar I really don’t get anything out of them. I think even if I rode one of the crazy Cedar Point 100 mile an hour ones the same feeling would set in after about 3 rides and then I would be done with coasters forever.
Somehow we’ve drifted back to QT….
G’nite
Sorry Robert!! :)
I also enjoy swimming, sunsets, driving, watching sports, listening to the same albums over and over, and drinking Pepsi. All of these things I have repeated in my life more times than I can count – and I know exactly what I’ll get the next time I do em.
Spence:
Yes and slavery produced a lot of cotton and some of those experiments in germany during WW2 may have produced important medical findings.
Wow, and there you were posting quotes about the evils of being “simplistic.”
Sorry bro, I’m not gonna celebrate a broken system regardless of the bones it throws my way.
It doesn’t have to be about “celebration” or “eradication.” That’s my point.
And yes, I realize films are nowhere near as important as my examples
Your “examples” aren’t even examples. Would that they were…
Why do we need more of this kind of suspense. I personally think suspense is overrated as entertainment but even if I didn’t i would want someone to create a new kind of suspense and not just another homage to the freakin’ “master.”
Hitchcock didn’t invent dramatic irony.
Diego: it is almost ironic to search for meaning and purpose in the “art” that is being created or fed to us.
The problem with your argument is that you believe this “bad” art is being “fed” to you. If you experience it, you make the conscious decision to do so. Nothing is being forced down your throat.
“It doesn’t have to be about “celebration” or “eradication.” That’s my point.”
Yes, it does. Or you can just sit back and keep getting excited every time you see the Miramax logo because you’re going to see a new “independent” film from a “visionary” like Tarantino.
“A wonderful emotion to get things moving when one is stuck is anger. It was anger more than anything else that had set me off, roused me into productivity and creativity.”
- Mary Garden
Does anyone here like Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels?
Mike Spence’s argument: A bunch of influential elitists have made statements about how art should be only for the elite classes of society, so therefore I agree with them.
Nice argument!
Or you can just sit back and keep getting excited every time you see the Miramax logo because you’re going to see a new “independent” film from a “visionary” like Tarantino.
And plenty of other “true independent artistic quality films” will come out at your local art house theater in the meantime, regardless. So who cares?
I mean, I’m all for high art and everything, but sometimes it’s nice to be entertained. Hollywood sometimes does a good job of that for me. I Love You, Man isn’t a masterpiece of world cinema, but I laughed, and had fun for about two hours.
And Spence:
In any case, I’m not really convinced that your separation between good/bad movies is really anything more than what you happen to think is good, and what you happen to think is bad. At the end of the day, I don’t even think it’s a mainstream/non-mainstream argument with you. It’s just your own little fascist subjective opinion. I’m sure you’re quick to cast aside even bad art house movies as not being “true art” or some such thing. So couching it in terms of capital and mass culture, or whatever else, just feels like a big copout on your part.
But we can agree that considering Tarantino films not to be “high art” is not the same thing as “hating” him, right?
Matt Parks: Tarantino isn’t trying to be “high art.” It’s only idiots like Spence who think he’s trying to be that.
Bobby Wise
hmm. i understand now. and i guess thats why miramax is a shell of what it used to be. oh well. in any event, we can blame disney, or as some call it, the evil empire.