I suppose it’s natural enough, in the face of disagreement regarding some subjective artistic point, to relegate the asserted “flaw” to the critic himself. I.e., “I do not see this as a flaw; thus, your expectation is itself the flaw.”

This is the dilemma of any art criticism to me; the blurry dividing line between assessing the raw material on its merits, and the psychoanalyzing of the assessor himself.


K

That's an intepretive problem to be sure, but I think the critic in question is understanding T's goals and style. If he's wrong about whether a particular element fits into the film, he's not wrong about Tarantino.

"I suppose it’s natural enough, in the face of disagreement regarding some subjective artistic point, to relegate the asserted “flaw” to the critic himself. I.e., “I do not see this as a flaw; thus, your expectation is itself the flaw.”"

Well, holding your expectation of what an artist "should" be doing against a work that differs from that "should" IS a flaw in a critic. A very basic and important one. It's plain ol' rigid, blindered criticism if a critic can't look at a work and judge it for what it is without saying that it "should" be something or other because of who created it. It's simply ignint.

The only question, therefor, in my mind is whether a critic has truly shown an artist to be attempting something she or he can't achieve -- or at least presently haven't achieved... or whether they're letting their notions of the artist's supposed "real forte" blind them to various strengths of the work at hand.

In this case, I think we're talking the latter. Obviously not everyone will agree with that assertion.

Matthew

But that "should" stems from ideas about art and one's approach to it; and hey, some people are better at one thing than another. It seems rather cynical to simply assume it stems instead from, what? -- some blind and irrational notion that Quentin is only allowed to make movies according to a certain formula and if he doesn't, nyah nyah, Critic in Question shall raise a stink about it.

It's tough though. To the critic, Kill Bill is itself evidence that Tarantino can not effectively employ a dramatic cliche such as the Sacredness of Motherhood or what have you as effectively as he can subvert those same cliches. (if Kill Bill seems weak to him, it helps him better demarcate Tarantino's strengths from his weaknesses.) And to you, it is itself evidence that Tarantino can. I guess I just don't see why you'd jump to any conclusions about the critic bringing in all this extra baggage with him and assume he's spouting off without having given it a certain degree of measured critical thought first. I mean, that's what critics do; or, are supposed to. The professional ones especially.

Anyhow, I really don't have the time to be on here right now ... internet is too addictive ....


K

I'm not jumping to conclusions -- I'm regarding what the writer said. I think the whole "not playing to Tarantino's strengths" thing is suspect. It's not the same as saying "this doesn't work." It goes beyond saying that the work in question is the evidence; it betrays a preconceived set of expectations forming the criticism itself.

Obviously I could be wrong. This could not be the writer's motivation/mindset/whatever. But that's the odor my honker is picking up.

Matthew

Just watched Elephant and I'd place myself somewhere in the middle of the earlier discussion. That is to say, Crime & Punishment it ain't, but then, I didn't dislike it, and there are probably some things to be said in its defense. A few thoughts and belated comments:

I think Elephant functions pretty effectively as a kind of minimalist suspense picture. The shot of the two killers entering the school early in the movie and the knowledge of what's to follow interacted cleverly with the subsequent series of overlapping non-narrative tracking shots. The movie begins to arrange a foreboding geometry and timeframe in your head; I found that interesting on its own terms. Three shallow girls gabbing at lunch, and we catch a subtle glance through the window of the blonde-haired kid passing the dog, which we already know just barely precedes the killers' entrance; and the scene continues on in its pointed banality, this slipped-in background element toying with you now, as you wonder how much time these characters have, and possess full awareness that gunfire could interrupt things at any moment. Additionally, the varied one-feigning-three-dimensional cast scattered about the school on their individual intersecting orbits leaves room for another layer of suspense, a simple but still reasonably effective one, to wit: Who gets it first? Who gets away? Etc.

Viewed from this angle (minimalist suspense film) the focus of the technique and aesthetic become more interesting, and (I think) functional; that focus being on 1) the (literal) environment in which the slaughter will occur, and 2) the spatial relationships within that environment. The characters (victims) themselves are too utterly, superficially normal (though that isn't to say unconvincing per se) to evoke a significant degree of sympathy (with the exception, for me, of the nerdy girl) and I think this ties in to Matthewwave's use of the term "unknowable terror." If we don't care all that much about the characters themselves, the terror isn't supported by dint of empathy for the victims' plight, at least within the film – so what is it supported by? To me, it directs attention to more (for lack of a better word) existential considerations, and I think this is intentional. I took a moment to jot down the science teacher's comments to his class, early in the film:

"When the electrons jump from one orbital to another one, what does that do, I mean, what's the difference between the orbitals? Well, the orbitals differ in energy, the orbitals which are areas of space around the nucleus; the ones that are closer to the nucleus, those are low energy; and the ones that are furthest away are high energy. So when we put energy into the atom, it kicks these electrons out further away from the nucleus and produces a ...."

(Jock interrupts with a question about running out of energy.)

"What they do is, they will shift up an entire energy state, and then they will drop down again. And when they drop down they will emit light." **

I mean, to me, that's Van Sant's thesis, insofar as one exists. He's interested in pure energy, observing its nature and movement in an artistic manner, utilizing our knowledge of the human outcome of this figurative atomic violence to create a relatively unique sense of sociopolitically empty dread. It's comforting to anchor and rationalize our dread by way of simplistic sociopolitical analysis; and Van Sant is, I think, working to remove that pathway, rather than play into its hands.

That said, this is somewhat arguable, and Van Sant may not even be fully cognizant of it – because, there are certainly gestures, and pretty stupid ones; and certainly as sociopolitical commentary, the movie is every bit as vacuous as Charles contends. Is Van Sant including these gestures to mock them, or are they simply intellectually tepid missteps? I lean towards the latter, and it is from this that I think Charles' comments on half-heartedly raising the questions and providing no answers stem. However, Charles' analysis begins with the assumption that the film's foundation is its very weakest and most disposable element, and that anything the film might have to say is to be extracted from what are, to my mind, the obvious fumbles.

It comes down to the quality of the "space" Van Sant works so hard to evoke; is that aesthetic space sufficiently charged with an energy that allows the movie to work effectively on its own artistic terms, drawing some kind of dramatic strength out of the particular and somewhat unusual techniques it employs? I think so. An absolutely mundane 5-minute tracking shot of a pretty teenaged kid moving through his day becomes far more electric when surrounded by foreknowledge of an inevitable and horrific destination which it remains startlingly blind to, our attention as an audience quite suddenly diverted in a reasonably powerful way to the quiet tragedy of that blindness itself, and perhaps giving us pause while we note that such blindness afflicts us all, the violence of tragedy being the only (or at least most effective) antidote to our existential slumber. **

Haha; too much credit? Perhaps, perhaps. I didn't think the movie was "all that," but I think it's due a little more credit than Charles allots. I'd be interested in an articulation of his view on what makes a movie like Gummo more sophisticated. To me, Gummo is somewhat like Elephant, but with ugly hicks instead of pretty upper-class highschool kids, and with the dramatic center and spatial consciousness removed. Admittedly, it suffers less from lame cliches; but, to me, it leaves the audience with little more than a series of gritty images which say nothing in particular. I'll grant they're arguably more interesting, or at least more idiosyncratic and personal, images than Van Sant's are. I'm unpersuaded that I ought to grant them a heightened level of sociopolitical or moral import however, and whereas there's obviously a method to Van Sant's madness, I see Korine more as a "let's toss a bunch of random shit together and enjoy the mess" sort of fellow.

K

Finally saw both movies, 1 after the other, and I have to say I agree with this assessment, not only about Kill Bill, but any Tarantino film. Beyond that---well, it's nice to see a "chick flick" that someone like me can actually get into. I didn't have any problems understanding The Bride or O-ren's motivations. They got fucked with and they wanted to deliver a payback to whomever did it. Maybe not profound, but good to see. And the DVD comes with 5678's footage, which is also good.

Yeah that's true, all that stuff pretty much sucked and annoyed me. Even Bill points out something to that effect while she's under the truth serum.