Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

[Thomas Dukenfield]

Is Wes Anderson's style really influential though? It strikes me that he is simply the most prominent filmmaker within that style and that many people who were inspired by the same sort of people (Hal Ashby, Tati, Aki Kaurismaki, etc) came up around the same time.

He's hugely influential (as far as I can tell) on "quirky indie" American cinema of the past 10 years; Napoleon Dynamite, Juno, Igby Goes Down, Garden State, Tadpole, Little Miss Sunshine, Rocket Science, et al. I'd probably argue that he's the most influential American director of the aughts, unless I'm forgetting somebody. I think what you're saying might apply to Squid and the Whale, for example.

I mean, just the existence of more than a few movies that are blatant rips of Rushmore would seem to qualify him as influential.

[knives]

Outside of Johnson's work and Bored to Death I'm not sure if I'd call those Anderson inspired at least in the same way Tarantino clearly has inspired a lot of stuff.

Really? The connection from Royal Tenenbaums to Arrested Development seems pretty clear, in the character work and the use of color as well as the narrator and the underlying plot stuff.

Arrested Development was in development long before Tenenbaums was made and it seems only coincidence to me.

[matrixschmatrix]

Arrested Development was in development long before Tenenbaums was made and it seems only coincidence to me.

Wikipedia links an interview that says the initial discussions for the show didn't start until the summer 2002, which seems like exactly the right time for Tenenbaums to be particularly influential.

[oldsheperd]

Tarantino has really pigeon holed himself by the aesthetics everyone comes to expect in his movies. In my opinion that prevents him from moving up to a PT Anderson or David Fincher. I think those two, along with Wes Anderson could be considered *shudders* "auteurs" because they have themes running through their output. Tarantino is not quite there yet. Another thing that I think holds Tarantino back from being in the forefront of directing talents is that he's not a risk taker. He basically puts all the same elements into his films that one comes to expect Tarantino to deliver in all of his films. If Tarantino can make a film that is different from what he normally puts out, despite success or failure, then he would I would give him the props he deserves.
I would like to see if he can go back to the Reservoir Dogs style of movie where the laughs are used a bit more sparingly and the story is a bit more serious.
I mean after Coppola made the Godfather he didn't go running off to make the Godfather II right away. As a matter of fact he wanted to make more personal films along the lines of Antonioni and did so with the Conversation which in my opinion is the best film he ever made.
It would be interesting to see Tarantino go from this big movie filmmaker full of laughs and gore to see something a bit more intimate. I'm not saying he should make Interiors, but there's got to be a project somewhere in his head, where he wants to break away from those conventions that have defined him.

[knives]

That as an argument is very tired. If Tarantino of all people isn't an auteur than nobody is.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, I'm not sure of how someone can be simultaneously damned for being too self similar and for not having an auteurist stamp. Besides, as much as I love Wes Anderson, I don't know that any two of his movies are more different from one another than, say, Jackie Brown to Inglourious Basterds. He may be an auteur you find somewhat shallow- that's fair enough- but he has a specific aesthetic and style and it's one that's strong enough to make his movies all entirely clearly stamped with his persona, no matter how different in form or content.

[Jeff]

Arrested Development was in development long before Tenenbaums was made and it seems only coincidence to me.

Wikipedia links an interview that says the initial discussions for the show didn't start until the summer 2002, which seems like exactly the right time for Tenenbaums to be particularly influential.

Mitchell Hurwitz had definitely seen The Royal Tenenbaums when he created the final form of Arrested Development. He had come up with a similar idea around the same time, but tweaked it because of its similarity to Tenenbaums.

I had developed an idea that was fairly similar, and was kind of a rip-off of a J.D. Salinger short story–it took place in New York with this intellectual family. Then The Royal Tenenbaums came out, and I thought, "Well, that's it, I can't do that anymore."

Jason Bateman later described the show as "The Royal Tenenbaums shot like COPS." There is a piece here detailing the various connections.

Tarantino has really pigeon holed himself by the aesthetics everyone comes to expect in his movies. In my opinion that prevents him from moving up to a PT Anderson or David Fincher. I think those two, along with Wes Anderson could be considered *shudders* "auteurs" because they have themes running through their output. Tarantino is not quite there yet. Another thing that I think holds Tarantino back from being in the forefront of directing talents is that he's not a risk taker. He basically puts all the same elements into his films that one comes to expect Tarantino to deliver in all of his films.

The term "auteur" does not carry implications of "good" or "bad," it simply implies that the director is the primary author of the work -- that his style and sensibilities are evident from one film to the next. That's more true of Tarantino than it is just about anyone. Almost all of his films are about retribution on some level (overtly on the last five). His dialog, music use, pop-culture references, and mise en scéne are all pretty identifiable too. If you had never heard of Django Unchained before, and I showed it too you without the director credit, I think you would know exactly who made it -- probably within the first five minutes. That's an auteur.

EDIT: While I was composing that, Knives and Matrix said pretty much the exact same thing.

[oldsheperd]

okay, I'm wrong on the auteur idea, but retribution is note a theme in his work. It's more of a plot device. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown don't have strong elements of retribution in them and if Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained are about the theme of retribution then what about retribution is Tarantino examining? The only thing I gather is that he is saying that retribution is just fine as a means to an end which is pretty shallow.

[stroszeck]

Got a chance to catch this last night. Surprised at just how truly sloppy the editing was. Overall I enjoyed it, but since I'm too tired to write a full review, let me just post a video that someone sent me which basically summarizes mine and most people's biggest issue with Tarantino's work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuQtlrrWjCQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Surely if he was a novelist or a workman in any other artform he would have been sued or severely criticized/shunned for plagiarism by now.

[knives]

How is pastiche shun worthy?

[Mr Sausage]

Anyone else get a chuckle when they saw Tarantino criticized for sticking with his established style and then in the very next sentence see Wes Anderson and David Fincher, of all people, praised to the roof?

Tarantino takes a lot of risks on structurally odd narratives whose deepest lying subject is films the majority of his audience have never seen. Not only that, but unlike the two filmmakers above, his style has changed extensively. He went from a consistent visual style to one that's constantly shifting between different visual schemes.

In short, this whole discussion seems like madness.

Surely if he was a novelist or a workman in any other artform he would have been sued or severely criticized/shunned for plagiarism by now.

Well, both T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were criticized for their extensive use of pastiche. But that was eighty years ago or more, and those critics lost. Pastiche in literature has been an accepted practise for so long now that hearing these criticisms come up again in the exact same tones (and as if they were still valid) in relation to film is kind of funny.

[oldsheperd]

Anyone else get a chuckle when they saw Tarantino criticized for sticking with his established style and then in the very next sentence see Wes Anderson and David Fincher, of all people, praised to the roof?

Tarantino takes a lot of risks on structurally odd narratives whose deepest lying subject is films the majority of his audience have never seen. Not only that, but unlike the two filmmakers above, his style has changed extensively. He went from a consistent visual style to one that's constantly shifting between different visual schemes.

In short, this whole discussion seems like madness.

Yeah, I remember the Social Network and Curious Case of Benjamin Button being so dark and disturbing like all of his other films.

I would recommend you watch the end of Strozcek's youtube link and see how "inventive" Tarantino has been with his shifting visual schemes.
Read my first post. I never defended Anderson or Fincher and I owned up to my faux pas on the auteur theory. I actually said comparing Tarantino to other filmmakers is an apples and oranges argument. Here's my first post word for word:

I've been arguing with some others about Tarantino on another forum. One poster said Tarantino's output will truly cannonize him as an artist while Wes and PT Anderson's work will fade away. He also said Tarantino will be considered great and placed side by side with the likes of Kubrick and others of that caliber. It's an apples and oranges comparison, but I've never considered Tarantino a top tier artistic filmmaker.

But I guess that's what you do Sausage. It's not the first time you've come at me erroneously.

[knives]

The visual schema, which is what Sausage has talked about, is consistent within all of Finchers films such as the reliance on out of camera effects, filters, so and and so forth. The camera work of long roving takes is pretty consistent with Tarantino (though obviously the editing on this latest one is slightly different), but his use of colour and production design has radically shifted in part due to money, but also seemingly as an evolution to his visual storytelling. Pulp Fiction for instance has a texture which really reminds me of Lynch while Kill Bill just a few years later has this candy like look to it and an increased sense of openness within spaces (though that may in part be a genre requirement that he transfixed onto dialogue scenes for consistency). This latest film goes even further in a complex delegation of colour shifts and closed spaces utilized in an open way (seriously the production designer in the unsung hero of this film). That's a pretty clear evolution of visual concerns if there ever was one.

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, I remember the Social Network and Curious Case of Benjamin Button being so dark and disturbing like all of his other films.

I remember them looking like every other David Fincher movie.

Read my first post. I never defended Anderson or Fincher and I owned up to my faux pas on the auteur theory. I actually said comparing Tarantino to other filmmakers is an apples and oranges argument. Here's my first post word for word:

It wasn't your use of comparisons or the auteur theory in general that amused me, it was your choice of examples. They were literally two of the worst examples to use to prove that particular point. Was kind of bizarre.

But I guess that's what you do Sausage. It's not the first time you've come at me erroneously.

You sure got me pegged.

[oldsheperd]

Still, Sausage misses the point. I never compared Fincher or Anderson to Tarantino.
I think the video Strozcek posted is good if a bit heavy handed.
Of course all filmmakers take from other filmmakers. The Alka-Seltzer scene in Taxi Driver was inspired by the coffee scene in Vivre Sa Vie. The thing that kind of bugs me with Tarantino is that he takes a lot of stuff from other films, visually speaking, it's that he doesn't really do anything with those things. It's like he watches something like Lady Snowblood and says, "That looks cool, I'll put it in my movie."
I do think Tarantino's talent lies in his writing and not in his film making as evidenced by the editing issues with Django Unchained.

[oldsheperd]

It wasn't your use of comparisons or the auteur theory in general that amused me, it was your choice of examples. They were literally two of the worst examples to use to prove that particular point. Was kind of bizarre.

I don't know what your argument is with me, Sausage? I never said that being an auteur meant a strict personal adherence to any personal aesthetic cinematic style. If that were true then Kubrick and Scorsese wouldn't fit that mold.
I don't even know what you're arguing with me about since I never meant to include Wes Anderson in my argument. He's pretty consistent stylistically. I was talking about PT Anderson. He's changed a lot, like Tarantino.

I brought up one other filmmaker in my original post in comparison to Tarantino and that was John Waters. It was rather complimentary too in that only John Waters can make John Waters films and Tarantino can only make Tarantino films.

[Mr Sausage]

Still, Sausage misses the point. I never compared Fincher or Anderson to Tarantino.

Is that not what this is doing:

Tarantino has really pigeon holed himself by the aesthetics everyone comes to expect in his movies. In my opinion that prevents him from moving up to a PT Anderson or David Fincher. I think those two, along with Wes Anderson could be considered *shudders* "auteurs" because they have themes running through their output. Tarantino is not quite there yet.

Look, talking about someone "pigeon holing" themselves by "aesthetics everyone comes to expect" and then in the very same breath bringing up David Fincher and Wes Anderson is, well, strange. Because they are way more guilty of that than Tarantino.

I don't know what your argument is with me, Sausage? I never said that being an auteur meant a strict personal adherence to any personal aesthetic cinematic style. If that were true then Kubrick and Scorsese wouldn't fit that mold.
I don't even know what you're arguing with me about since I never meant to include Wes Anderson in my argument. He's pretty consistent stylistically. I was talking about PT Anderson. He's changed a lot, like Tarantino.

I don't think I'm really trying to argue with you, oldsheperd. I just think you used some pretty bizarre examples to make your point.

[oldsheperd]

Visually, I guess you can say Tarantino is an auteur albeit not a very good one, visually. He uses the same shots in everyone of his movies. Once again, I suggest you watch the end of the youtube video Stroszek linked.
He's an auteur when it comes to the dialogue and characterizations you'd expect him to make. The over the top gratuitous gore, is that an auteur quality? I guess. Does the fact that some of the over the top stuff he does take quite a few people out of the movie make him an auteur? If he's an auteur then he's an auteur. So is Kevin Smith.

[knives]

Yes, all of that is true. Pretty much any director nowadays can be an auteur.

[Grand Illusion]

I think Tarantino, more than other contemporary writer/directors, complicates the typical conceptions of the auteur as "director only." I see his work, as much as an Ingmar Bergman, to be authored by the combination of the writing and directing, not simply defined by the "auteur" direction.

If you want to see how Tarantino is the absolute author of his films, you look to his screenplays. Not just the dialogue and pop culture references, but to the allusions and post-modern elements. To the use of race and language. And if you want to see how he views the world, you need only look at the small absurdist elements in otherwise serious situations (all the way from the fast-food Coke that Michael Madsen appears with in Reservoir Dogs to the outfit that Django picks out).

These are things that appear on the written page first and are not created by (or absolutely controlled by) a director that has not written his own script. This isn't to minimize his direction (everything from his interesting casting choices to image selection to staging to performance to editing). It's only to re-emphasize that Tarantino is proof that the truest auteurs also write (or very heavily influence) their screenplays.

Sure, we all acknowledge that Fincher crafts a uniform look, tone, and performance style for all his films, but I still feel The Social Network is as much a Sorkin film as it is a Fincher piece. And that's not to mention directors like Clint Eastwood, who imposes the same classical, somber feel on all his stories but whose success is entirely based on the content and quality of the screenplay.

[Mr Sausage]

Visually, I guess you can say Tarantino is an auteur albeit not a very good one, visually. He uses the same shots in everyone of his movies. Once again, I suggest you watch the end of the youtube video Stroszek linked.
He's an auteur when it comes to the dialogue and characterizations you'd expect him to make. The over the top gratuitous gore, is that an auteur quality? I guess. If he's an auteur then he's an auteur. So is Kevin Smith.

I wasn't engaging you one way or the other in the idea of Tarantino's auteurdom.

I did watch the end of that video. If you had just plain said that there are some incidental visual motifs that run through his work, no one here would've disagreed with you. I don't actually know why this means so much to you since:

A. that's typically the marker of an auteur in auteur theory.
B. it hasn't prevented him from making abrupt switches between visual schemes in his films (in Kill Bill alone we go from B&W, to anime, to spaghetti western, to samurai swordplay, to HK style). This kind of shift in style within the same film is uncharacteristic of any other major filmmaker working in Hollywood right now.

[oldsheperd]

Tarantino, like Wes Anderson, is one of those filmmakers that I just feel gets more accolades than he deserves from the press and public.

It's like someone making a velvet painting of the Mona Lisa and people screaming that it's such a brilliant piece of work. Yeah, it's artistic, but it's still a kitschy copy of an original.

[mfunk9786]

*enters thread*

*leaves thread*

[oldsheperd]

Bottom line: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2; all good films.
Jackie Brown bored me, Inglorious Basterds was way too over the top.
I would like to see Django Unchained at least to watch DiCaprio and find out what's with all the Sergio Leone hub-bub.
Tarantino is a great writer and a good filmmaker.

[Mr Sausage]

Our current conception of originality and plagiarism is neurotic and silly, I think. By modern standards stuff like The Aeneid or Chaucer's Troilus and Creseyde would be considered plagiarized, and yet they remain among the greatest pieces of literature--to say nothing of art in general--in the world. And they're much more egregious examples, considering that Tarantino is not trying to hide his influences, he's trying to make you aware of them.

Also, considering the majority of the films Tarantino is alluding to are genre films and exploitation cinema, your Mona Lisa reference makes no sense. But I do have to ask: how do you feel about Godard? He's open to all of these charges, too.