Feature: “I would empty the gun until you were dead.”
The thing about Tarantino is that there is no subtext to him. I don’t say this to diminish what he does. He’s quite clearly an accomplished filmmaker. He writes engaging dialogue, directs actors well, shoots scenes well, has good taste in music and throws a million cinematic references into every film that you will never fully understand. But what you see is what you get. There is never anything more. Take the requisite violence that you find in a Tarantino film. Tarantino is never “interrogating” screen violence in his films. He just likes violent films.
I saw Tarantino’s latest, Inglourious Basterds, as the third wheel of a friend’s date and after the movie found myself in a debate with the guy my friend was dating. (I suspect that my social role in this situation was to be charming rather than argumentative but I can’t back down from a good debate about cinema). My point at the time was that I was uncomfortable that Tarantino’s film encouraged the audience to revel in watching the slaughter of others in the context of an actual historical event. My friend’s date argued that Inglourious Basterds was at least self-conscious about that, pointing to the parallel between the audience at Nova watching a movie of Nazis getting slaughtered while the onscreen Nazis themselves watch a film by Goebbels glorifying Nazi soldiers. I was sceptical of this reading if only because of my memory of the audience at Nova – a cinema full of guys who would be frat boys if they were from the United States, guffawing at the scalping and machine-gunning being projected before them. I doubt that there was much reflection on the nature of screen violence going on in that audience.
As if to confirm my thoughts, Tarantino gave an interview to promote Inglourious Basterds where he said:
I was just even thinking about something the other day, there’s a lot of dualities going through it where there’s one thing on this surface and then a similar thing underneath here. The movie is about propaganda filmmaking, but you can even make a case that maybe my movie is a propaganda movie. They’re rewriting history, I’m rewriting history (laughs).
Inglourious Basterds has been dubbed a “men on a mission” film by Tarantino but it is really a revenge film. The titular basterds figure less in the story than you expect them to and what really anchors the film is Shoshanna, the beautiful blonde and blue-eyed Jew whose family is murdered and who finds herself in the position of hosting a Nazi event at her cinema where she will be able to wreak a magnificent cinematic vengeance upon the German invaders. And it’s certainly interesting to see where Tarantino’s film sits in the revenge genre.
I cringe a little that I’m about to use the term “post-9/11″, but that event figures greatly in the revenge genre. The war that ensued from 9/11 provoked a rethinking of revenge narratives amongst many prominent directors. You can see this in Spielberg’s Munich which saw the director 12 years after Schindler’s List making a movie about Jews losing their souls as they hunt down the terrorists who killed eleven Israeli athletes and coaches. You can see this in Hana, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s take on the samurai revenge film where the revenge narrative becomes forgotten as the protagonist becomes distracted by life. It’s even apparent in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, a film that Tarantino himself bestowed with the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. That film, despite wallowing in extreme violence, at least acknowledged how revenge can transform you into a monster.
Tarantino made his ultimate homage to the revenge film, Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2, in 2003. I enjoyed the hell out of that film, but still, it’s as if for Tarantino history hadn’t happened. As Japanese filmmakers updated their cinematic past in response to the world around them, Tarantino merely quoted it. Kill Bill’s revenge story played itself out fairly neatly just as the title suggested and the ending saw Beatrix Kiddo living a life of bliss with her daughter who appears nonplussed that this weird lady just sent daddy six feet under. Happy ending. No problems. Move on.
The problem with Tarantino is that his moral universe is determined by the vintage exploitation films he is so enamoured by. There’s a particularly great quote from Tarantino:
If I had a gun and a 12-year-old kid broke into this house I would kill him. You have no right to come into my house. I would empty the gun until you were dead.
Inglourious Basterds translates this Dirty Harry morality to WWII where Nazis are “vermin” who “ain’t got no humanity” and everyone else is a courageous resistance fighter.
Inglourious Basterds is first and foremost about the pleasure of screen violence and this is only enabled by Tarantino understanding Nazis as dehumanised villains: For Tarantino, a Nazi is in essence a Nazi and ideally will be branded so with a swastika on his forehead. This is the easily digestible view of history, conveniently forgetting that evil isn’t born as such but produced by a particular political situation. There is something scarily human about the way a nation easily comes to embrace fascism, the way many French easily became collaborators, the way many Jewish prisoners turned against one another, the way States turned away from the atrocities. But it’s much easier to take Tarantino’s version of things: that WWII was just this crazy time when all these Nazi people came out of nowhere but thank god they’re all dead now so we can have fun imagining them getting scalped through our pop culture.
Yosh
12/09/09 - 11:47 AM
I see parallels here with the way that Nazis have become the staple videogame bad guys. In a world of videogame (i.e. Dirty Harry) morality, “Nazi” is shorthand for “guy you don’t have to feel guilty about brutally killing”.
I guess that’s ok as far as it goes. Hell, I’ve shot a few virtual Nazis in my time, and I don’t think it’s turned me into a depraved misanthrope or anything. But when I think of a generation of budding frat boys, I can’t help but think that the more people are exposed to media that tells them “some human beings aren’t really human”, the easier it becomes to perpetrate the kind of mindless violence that has allowed us to re-brand the Nazi as the modern-day bogeyman.
Paul Martin
12/09/09 - 11:53 PM
Whether there’s subtext or not (and after three viewings, I think there is at least a little), Tarantino makes movies for entertainment. That’s what Hollywood sets out to do, but mostly doesn’t succeed like Tarantino. His films are just so damn funny, so damn entertaining and so damn re-watchable.
Luke
15/09/09 - 10:03 AM
“I was uncomfortable that Tarantino’s film encouraged the audience to revel in watching the slaughter of others in the context of an actual historical event.”
That is pretty much exactly to the word my reaction to the film as well. I have found myself to be pretty much the only one who seemed to have any reservations about it though. But the whole thing just made me lightly uneasy. The Holocaust requires pretty extreme amounts of irony to turn it into an enjoyable romp, and I’m just not sure if this film had enough.
Nicki
15/09/09 - 11:46 AM
I would agree with the sentiments of discomfort during the film – although I have to say that I almost like IB more retrospectively. It’s taken me a while to get past those feelings and accept the movie for what it is – a flight of fantasy. The politics of embarking on that in itself is easily something contentious, and I like where you’ve taken it in this piece, Brad. However, I don’t know about this whole “generation of budding frat boys” thing we’re all talking about – ok, so, maybe they were into the violence a little more, but does that really indicate that they are going to think of some people as two-dimensional villans and perpetrate mindless violence? Maybe they just accepted the fantasy element more easily than us?
This is so obviously a work of fiction through and through – I can’t imagine anyone, “frat boys” included, disregarding the bulk of film/historical fiction regarding WWII and taking this film on as some sort of accurate representation of Nazis/Hitler etc.
Jessie
15/09/09 - 11:32 AM
I think you’re probably right that Tarantino’s films don’t have a conscious subtext- but the way I tend to think about it is that a film maker doesn’t always sit down and go “Right, this will be the subtext of my film”. Also, I think the creation of Tarantino as some kind of auteur is largely the work of critics, not himself- I think he plays along with it.
Also- I need you guys to unpack for me who you think these frat boys are and why you assume they can’t contextualise screen violence?
Brad- I really liked your analysis of post 9/11 revenge narratives! Embarrassment about using that term notwithstanding!
Brad Nguyen
15/09/09 - 2:15 PM
Hey thanks.
Yeah I agree that the creative process of writing doesn’t have to start with subtext in mind. But in my opinion, the best writers would have an awareness of the subtext that develops organically from that process and let that shape the material.
I mean if you wrote something about a girl cheating on a boy and then she dies, ideally you would realise the potential for that to be a misogynist text and, if that troubles you, reshape what you are doing.
Brad Nguyen
15/09/09 - 2:17 PM
I also think Tarantino is very self-consciously an auteur. Remember the line from Shoshanna: “we respect directors!”
Jessie
15/09/09 - 2:08 PM
I think you just answered my question about frat boys- via Nicki- I think my comment came in late or something!
Jake Wilson
22/09/09 - 3:28 PM
I was troubled enough by that Tarantino quote – which has gained wide currency through a Newsweek article by Daniel Mendelsohn – that I went hunting for the source. Here it is, via Google Book Search, from 1996:
“I never liked fighting. I don’t fight by Marquis of Queensberry rules. When I fight, I fight like I’m trying to kill you, because I assume you’re trying to kill me. One of the reasons I don’t have a gun is, if I had a gun and a 12-year-old kid broke into this house, I would kill him. You have no right to come into my house. I have to assume the worst. There would be no holding you for the cops, no shooting to wound. I would empty that gun until you were dead.”
So: Tarantino has a big mouth and may be a little paranoid, but he’s not actually advocating a shoot-on-sight mentality — he quite explicitly says he dislikes fighting and doesn’t own a gun! Mendelsohn’s use of the passage as if it were meant literally is shabby at best.
Brad Nguyen
22/09/09 - 4:45 PM
That quote certainly has a different meaning in context! Thanks for that. I initially tried to track down the original quote but I obviously didn’t try hard enough.
I never thought Tarantino would actually kill a 12-year-old kid. What I took from the quote is that the morality of Tarantino’s movies have nothing to do with how things operate in the real world, and that quote – Tarantino’s IDEA of how he’d handle finding a pre-pubescent in his house – illustrates that nicely. Though maybe it’s entirely realistic that if Tarantino owned a gun and found a child in his house he would unload a dozen bullets into his body.
Maggie
30/09/09 - 9:50 AM
I just marked a pile of reviews for the writing class I tutor at uni. I can attest to the frat boy (or just plain scarily stupid) mentality in one student’s review of IB. This student thought it was really well-done and exciting hardcore action which perfectly complemented the accurate historical details of the film. For real.
Brad Nguyen
15/09/09 - 2:06 PM
Oh yeah “frat boys” is totally a loaded term. I think I just used that term to give a sense of the audience reaction in the cinema I attended. Really I just wanted to debunk the idea that the film is some smart meditation on screen violence. It’s really no different to a Michael Bay film.
And I agree that the large majority of people would be aware that what they are seeing is a fantasy. But I think what I was trying to say is that in order to enjoy the fantasy, you have to subscribe to a certain type of morality and a certain way of understanding WWII.
Jessie
17/09/09 - 4:03 PM
Oh that all directors/writers/artists were that conscious of themselves!
Is it possible that Tarantino is lampooning a typical hollywood response to history- that it is full of cardboard cut outs of good and bad guys? Saying that even the Holocaust will not be immune to the simplifications of Hollywood, will be fodder for cartoonish, violent entertainment? Maybe?
Brad Nguyen
18/09/09 - 1:04 AM
I doubt it.
But Michael Bay is definitely lampooning Hollywood’s objectification of women in Transformers 2. He’s way meta.