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!@#$%! · 03.11.2018, 09:42 PM

no, the coens have their style of course but they rely mainly on story. the story is always the same: an evil or questionable deed that blows up on the face of the perpetrator and opens the door to a greater evil.

that’s the story the coens always tell.

more or less. with variations, and some exceptions, but mainly.

their great style always has a moral core. not moralistic, just moral. it has almost a metaphysic, like there’s some improbable randomness that causes things to go that way. like an avenging god.

the taratino stories however are pretty hollow, and that’s okay. they’re more about the spectacle. they’re about entertainment. and that’s okay.

but i find the ultraviolence in peckinpah more appealing for example. at the end of the wild bunch, for example, there is an existential embrace of their path and a transcendence of their criminality and self-interest and everything else.

at the end of pulp fiction samuel l. jackson realizes he’s the baddie and does not shoot a guy. and they walk away. big woopty i guess. even though before that (after that) travolta dies gutshot in a crapper. which is like, hilarious and terrible.

the tarantino universe is more random and nihilistic. which is fine, and postmodern, and all that. but what comes to the forefront is not some sort of meditation on the absurdity of it all, no— what comes to the forefront is the style itself, which is the point itself of the film. the looks. the attitudes. the walks. the lines. the suits. the music. the coffee.

early tarantino was very much a master of style. the latter i am not sure. i have not thought much about the stuff he did after kill bill. but i can see this trajectory. reservoir dogs was the prelude. pulp ficttion was perfection of the form. kill bill was the decadent overladed abuse of the form where the dog chases its tail over & over & over & over.

i suppose the latter ones about ‘revenge” use a schlocky motivation for this most righteous revenge paths: the holocaust, or slavery. hey, who can argue for the holocaust. who can argue for slavery. now the aestheticized violence is justified.

but yeah i’ll take peckinpah’s violence because the spectacle points to something greater than the spectacle itself, even if the spectacle is just a consoling fiction like “the meaning of life.”

somehow the taste i get from tarantino is that life has no meaning, and not that he addresses that, just covers it up with things.

03.11.2018, 09:42 PM	#22271
!@#$%! invito al cielo Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: mars attacks Posts: 42,731	no, the coens have their style of course but they rely mainly on story. the story is always the same: an evil or questionable deed that blows up on the face of the perpetrator and opens the door to a greater evil. that’s the story the coens always tell. more or less. with variations, and some exceptions, but mainly. their great style always has a moral core. not moralistic, just moral. it has almost a metaphysic, like there’s some improbable randomness that causes things to go that way. like an avenging god. the taratino stories however are pretty hollow, and that’s okay. they’re more about the spectacle. they’re about entertainment. and that’s okay. but i find the ultraviolence in peckinpah more appealing for example. at the end of the wild bunch, for example, there is an existential embrace of their path and a transcendence of their criminality and self-interest and everything else. at the end of pulp fiction samuel l. jackson realizes he’s the baddie and does not shoot a guy. and they walk away. big woopty i guess. even though before that (after that) travolta dies gutshot in a crapper. which is like, hilarious and terrible. the tarantino universe is more random and nihilistic. which is fine, and postmodern, and all that. but what comes to the forefront is not some sort of meditation on the absurdity of it all, no— what comes to the forefront is the style itself, which is the point itself of the film. the looks. the attitudes. the walks. the lines. the suits. the music. the coffee. early tarantino was very much a master of style. the latter i am not sure. i have not thought much about the stuff he did after kill bill. but i can see this trajectory. reservoir dogs was the prelude. pulp ficttion was perfection of the form. kill bill was the decadent overladed abuse of the form where the dog chases its tail over & over & over & over. i suppose the latter ones about ‘revenge” use a schlocky motivation for this most righteous revenge paths: the holocaust, or slavery. hey, who can argue for the holocaust. who can argue for slavery. now the aestheticized violence is justified. but yeah i’ll take peckinpah’s violence because the spectacle points to something greater than the spectacle itself, even if the spectacle is just a consoling fiction like “the meaning of life.” somehow the taste i get from tarantino is that life has no meaning, and not that he addresses that, just covers it up with things.
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