Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy Read Online Free
Author: Richard Greene, K. Silem Mohammad
Tags: Non-Fiction, Philosophy
the relevant impartial standpoint, but his arguing with his friend Jules about whether his boss should have thrown someone off a balcony at least shows that he “expresses sentiments in which he expects . . . his audience to concur with him.”
Still, even if Vincent has a morality, it does not follow that it is a sound or correct one. Whether it is would require a good argument for some account of what a sound or correct morality is and an application of that account to Vincent’s own morality. No such argument, or even discussion of what makes a morality sound or correct, is to be found in any of Tarantino’s films. So while his films raise interesting philosophical questions about what it is to have a morality, and a correct one, and what the nature of a miracle is, and whether it is possible for us to ever rationally believe one has occurred, they do not actually discuss these issues in any depth.
Like most fictional films, Tarantino’s at most raise philosophical questions and so can do a useful job, even if they do not provide support for any philosophical position.
2
Stuntman Mike, Simulation, and Sadism in Death Proof
AARON C. ANDERSON
Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007): four female characters, four cruel deaths, four short sequences. Several rapid close-ups of the girls rocking out to a radio song, a quick point-of-view shot from the front seat of the girls’s car. Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) pulls his headlights on. Slow motion as the vehicles collide. Slow motion as the bodies of Mike’s victims tear apart in repeated collisions of metal, rubber, bone, flesh. In an instant, the human body forcibly joins with technology and pleasure fuses with pain.
Death Proof hinges on its two major car crash sequences. The first crash, repeated four times, marks a distinct shift in genre, setting, and cast. You could easily argue that Death Proof fuses two very different films, the first part of the film being largely a horror movie and the last part an action movie. Tarantino frontloads the structure of this film with combinations of horror with action, reality with fiction, pleasure with pain, and references with nonreferences.
The U.S. theatrical cut of Death Proof opens with a disclaimer from “The Management”: “The following film may contain one or more missing film REELS. Sorry for the inconvenience.” From the beginning, with this sort-of-comical warning, Tarantino draws attention to his film’s status as a film , as a constructed work of fiction, and as a “simulation.” Nowhere is this film’s status as a fictional piece more obvious than in the countless references to other films that Tarantino plugs into Death Proof . Ultimately, however, Tarantino really references himself and his mental film library while constantly
drawing attention to what the French theorist Jean Baudrillard calls “hyperreality.”
In Death Proof ’s case, hyperreality is sometimes an unclear mixture of images with reality and sometimes an unclear mixture of images with each other. For example, Tarantino continually references his influences, such as Vanishing Point (1971) and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), both in dialogue and in image. These references to 1970s action flicks go on to become more “authentic” than Tarantino’s “original” work in Death Proof . Tarantino uses the camera to interpret and moderate reality, but at the same time, he uses it erase history by reducing it to movie and TV references.
Rewriting the History of Cinema
From the opening stroll through Jungle Julia (Sydney Poitier)’s apartment (a character whose alliterative name throws back to Vanishing Point ’s disk jockey Super Soul) to the pursuit of the “fuck-me-swingin’-balls-out” white 1970 Dodge Challenger (also of Vanishing Point fame), Tarantino’s characters constantly explore images, simulations of cinematic history, and simulations of these simulations. In Death Proof , references and images become
Still, even if Vincent has a morality, it does not follow that it is a sound or correct one. Whether it is would require a good argument for some account of what a sound or correct morality is and an application of that account to Vincent’s own morality. No such argument, or even discussion of what makes a morality sound or correct, is to be found in any of Tarantino’s films. So while his films raise interesting philosophical questions about what it is to have a morality, and a correct one, and what the nature of a miracle is, and whether it is possible for us to ever rationally believe one has occurred, they do not actually discuss these issues in any depth.
Like most fictional films, Tarantino’s at most raise philosophical questions and so can do a useful job, even if they do not provide support for any philosophical position.
2
Stuntman Mike, Simulation, and Sadism in Death Proof
AARON C. ANDERSON
Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007): four female characters, four cruel deaths, four short sequences. Several rapid close-ups of the girls rocking out to a radio song, a quick point-of-view shot from the front seat of the girls’s car. Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) pulls his headlights on. Slow motion as the vehicles collide. Slow motion as the bodies of Mike’s victims tear apart in repeated collisions of metal, rubber, bone, flesh. In an instant, the human body forcibly joins with technology and pleasure fuses with pain.
Death Proof hinges on its two major car crash sequences. The first crash, repeated four times, marks a distinct shift in genre, setting, and cast. You could easily argue that Death Proof fuses two very different films, the first part of the film being largely a horror movie and the last part an action movie. Tarantino frontloads the structure of this film with combinations of horror with action, reality with fiction, pleasure with pain, and references with nonreferences.
The U.S. theatrical cut of Death Proof opens with a disclaimer from “The Management”: “The following film may contain one or more missing film REELS. Sorry for the inconvenience.” From the beginning, with this sort-of-comical warning, Tarantino draws attention to his film’s status as a film , as a constructed work of fiction, and as a “simulation.” Nowhere is this film’s status as a fictional piece more obvious than in the countless references to other films that Tarantino plugs into Death Proof . Ultimately, however, Tarantino really references himself and his mental film library while constantly
drawing attention to what the French theorist Jean Baudrillard calls “hyperreality.”
In Death Proof ’s case, hyperreality is sometimes an unclear mixture of images with reality and sometimes an unclear mixture of images with each other. For example, Tarantino continually references his influences, such as Vanishing Point (1971) and Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), both in dialogue and in image. These references to 1970s action flicks go on to become more “authentic” than Tarantino’s “original” work in Death Proof . Tarantino uses the camera to interpret and moderate reality, but at the same time, he uses it erase history by reducing it to movie and TV references.
Rewriting the History of Cinema
From the opening stroll through Jungle Julia (Sydney Poitier)’s apartment (a character whose alliterative name throws back to Vanishing Point ’s disk jockey Super Soul) to the pursuit of the “fuck-me-swingin’-balls-out” white 1970 Dodge Challenger (also of Vanishing Point fame), Tarantino’s characters constantly explore images, simulations of cinematic history, and simulations of these simulations. In Death Proof , references and images become
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