Quentin Tarantino talks to himself

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 20:00:00 +0000

The eccentric Russian intellectual Mikhail Bakhtin, writing on literature and semiotics from around 1919 until his death in 1975, had this crazy idea: Stories talk to one another. Bakhtin theorized that authors cobble narratives together from various “languages,” combining and juxtaposing familiar motifs, images and tropes from other stories as well as cultural associations, history and even clichés to tell a new tale. An active “listener-reader,” to use Bakhtin's term, simultaneously senses many levels to each story – the characters talking to one another within the story, the narrator telling us the story and the author speaking through the story. These levels engage in dialogue with one another, and the listener-reader constructs meaning by eavesdropping on their conversation. The different levels also address the artworks and narratives from which they have been created. They talk back.

In many stories, the author, like a magician, tries to hide his or her hand. But Bakhtin's ideas prove especially helpful in talking about stories where the author's presence comes through strong – like the movies of Quentin Tarantino.

Tarantino is the baddest black filmmaker working today

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:44:00 +0000

There are some folks who won’t like to read these words: White guy superstar director Quentin Tarantino may be the baddest black filmmaker working in big-time Hollywood movies today.

That is a possibility which angers some, frightens others and disgusts a few more, saying as much or more about the sorry state of movie audiences today and the still-closed world of big-time filmmaking than any tart provocation Tarantino has managed to splash on the screen.

The reason we’re having this conversation — again — is thanks to the latest addictive confection of revenge film, spaghetti Western, Blaxploitation movie and anti-slavery fantasy Q.T. dropped on us all to close out 2012: "Django Unchained."

Beyond the fact that it is gleefully bloody, luxuriating in crimson-splattered shootouts at a time when America is deeply conflicted over how much it loves this stuff, "Django Unchained" uncorks the perfect revenge fantasy for black people descended from slaves and living in a still-white-dominated society.

Salon.com > pulp fiction

Quentin Tarantino talks to himself

Tarantino is the baddest black filmmaker working today