Matthew Yglesias: Tarantino

« Anonymean | Main | Things I've Never Worried About Before »

Tarantino

Tyler Cowan remarks:

Director: Quentin Tarantino. He is overrated but Reservoir Dogs is a classic.

If you think Reservoir Dogs is a classic (and I agree that it is) then how much sense does it make to say that Tarantino is overrated? It seems to me that one classic film is sufficient achievement to merit a high rating. Think about it the other way 'round. Jackie Brown is incredibly awful. But fifty years from now, who would care if it had been slightly-above-average instead? Nobody would want to watch a fifty year-old slightly-above-average film anyway -- it wouldn't make sense. You try to watch fifty year-old classics. The people who make them are the great filmmakers, just as the people who write the classic novels are the great authors. Wildly inconsistent quality is problematic when you're looking at a contemporary figure. You see Pulp Fiction in the theaters and enjoy it. Then you rent Reservoir Dogs and love it. Then Jackie Brown is release, you buy your ticked, and you curse the name "Tarantino." But in the long view, it does't matter.

Which isn't to say that Tarantino is the greatest director of all time. Anyone who said that really would be overrating him. But I don't hear anyone saying that. He deserves to be rated highly, however, which is what he is.

October 8, 2005 | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8345160fd69e200d8345a14ca69e2

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Tarantino:

» Not This Time, Either from Opiniatrety
Just after posting the last post, I saw that Yglesias had claimed that Jackie Brown is incredibly awful, which is simply not true. Furthermore, the underlying claim that it's incoherent to claim that someone has produced a classic and is... [Read More]

Tracked on Oct 8, 2005 10:30:07 PM

» Underrating Jackie Brown from Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane
In a post defending Quentin Tarantino, Matt Yglesias Award Yglesias says this:If you think Reservoir Dogs is a classic (and I agree that it is) then how much sense does it make to say that Tarantino is overrated? It seems [Read More]

Tracked on Oct 9, 2005 12:24:03 PM

» Judy Miller doesn't want to hear bad news from technopuritanism.net
Terrorism-funding expert journalistJoe Trento just wrote on his blog that he's tried to pass on a warning to Judy Miller that her life would be in danger if she traveled to the Middle East, but she hung up on him:... [Read More]

Tracked on Oct 11, 2005 1:11:50 PM

Tracked on Oct 11, 2005 1:13:01 PM

Comments

Jackie Brown is incredibly awful. But fifty years from now, who would care if it had been slightly-above-average instead? Nobody would want to watch a fifty year-old slightly-above-average film anyway

Oh, I disgree. Jackie Brown is a wonderful film and may very well be his best work in terms of a film with Dogs a very close second. Tarantino usually makes clever movies but Jackie Brown is a true film and one of his better, if not his best, works. You may need to watch it again.

Also, the people who say that QT is overrated often cite his meager output (5 and 1/2 movies if you count Kill Bill as two and give him credit for one of the Four Rooms and his work on Sin City). However, he did write NBK, True Romance and From Dusk Til Dawn which I think have to be taken into account when evaluting him as an overall filmmaker.

Posted by: A. C. Kleinheider | Oct 8, 2005 12:03:53 PM

A must read film book is David Thomson's A Biographical Dictionary of Film. Why? Because his short (paragraph to three pages) entries on the career of a director or actor allows for the naturally varied quality of a lifetime career of an artist. He renounces the demand for consistancy that the auteur theory requires. It is also a wise book that lends itself to being read in dribs and drabs, which is a good thing to have around.

Jackie Brown simply awful? You are young, grasshopper, you are young. And what are you doing listening to people who fling around crap terms like overrated? Only listen to people with the balls/ovaries to admit whether they liked a thing or not and why. All overrated is really saying is that the speaker/writer feels themselves superior to the general taste, but is unwilling to try to sway it.

Think about it, what does overrated mean? Is an overrated film one that I think sucks, but everyone else was suckered by? Or is it a film that is actually good, but I'm too cool to admit I like?

Posted by: Violet | Oct 8, 2005 12:16:36 PM

Jackie Brown is actually a pretty-good movie.

Posted by: David Sucher | Oct 8, 2005 12:41:49 PM

I think it makes sense to talk about critically-praised or award-winning movies that aren't so great as overrated--most of Spike Lee's movies are in this category, in my opinion--but, used this way, the term pretty clearly has an expiration date; at least if not properly tensed. I liked Reservoir Dogs ok, back in the day, and don't dislike it now, but the way some of the characters are drawn (Harvey Keitel's character in particular) seems unusually unsophisticated to me in comparison with recent stuff. If RD is a classic, I think it's a classic in something like the way John Huston's The Misfits is a classic, despite the unintentional unlifelikeness of many of the characters.

Posted by: spacetoast | Oct 8, 2005 1:04:09 PM

Also, Jackie Brown roolz and Yglesias is a tool!

Posted by: spacetoast | Oct 8, 2005 1:06:08 PM

I also think Jackie Brown is pretty good. On first viewing, I didn't much like it because it wasn't Pulp Fiction 2. But on 2nd viewing and thereafter, it's hilarious.

Posted by: bg | Oct 8, 2005 1:19:16 PM

It's not that Tarantino is overrated, it's that he hasn't figured out how to use his enormous talent to really make films, rather than just show off. This comment is really about Kill Bill, as RD and PF are outstanding and JB is just fine.

Posted by: djw | Oct 8, 2005 1:46:44 PM

I don't see the contradiction between Cowan's "overrated" and Matthew's "merit[s] a high rating".

Someone can merit a high rating and still be overrated. Indeed, I think this is exactly the case. A lot of people seem to think that QT is an all-time great director - up there with, say, a Scorcese or a Spielberg. But that's clearly not the case - two great films (I think Pulp Fiction was also great) do not make an all time great. Moreover, people overrate Kill Bill merely because he directed them; they aren't great movies.

Posted by: Al | Oct 8, 2005 2:35:23 PM

Well, I think the KB movies are both pretty great (as well as Jackie Brown). The name of the director has nothing to do with whether I enjoy a movie or not; what he or she does with the movie is what counts.

Posted by: Haggai | Oct 8, 2005 4:37:24 PM

Tarantino is actually a bit underrated. The guy is one of the handful of best filmmakers of his era. Pulp Fiction is one of the most important film of his era. His annoying on-screen persona has had the effect of muting praise.

Kill Bill is his weakest work IMHO, and it's still damn tasty.

And as for Jackie Brown, either you caught it in the wrong mood, or your taste is more limited than one would suspect. It's immensely good. All the high notes are on the counterpoint, so if in the wrong mood it can play flat. Jackie Brown is to Tarantino as Barry Lyndon is to Kubrik.

----------

While disagreeing with Matthew about Jackie Brown, he's interesting about this:

"You try to watch fifty year-old classics. The people who make them are the great filmmakers, just as the people who write the classic novels are the great authors. Wildly inconsistent quality is problematic when you're looking at a contemporary figure. You see Pulp Fiction in the theaters and enjoy it. Then you rent Reservoir Dogs and love it. Then Jackie Brown is release, you buy your ticked, and you curse the name "Tarantino." But in the long view, it does't matter."

spacetoast mentions Spike Lee, who I think falls into the category of "inconsistent artist who's made classics". Some of his work will deservedly stand as classic, but as he's inconsistent, he's problematic as a brand for seeing new movies.

The really great artists like Tarantino and Kubrik are marked by both producing classics and by their consistency. Even their worst movies are still well worth watching.

Posted by: Petey | Oct 8, 2005 5:07:44 PM

I liked Jackie Brown too. The contrast between the inhuman and unkind Sam Jackson and Bob DeNiro characters against the kind and respectful bail bondsman and the redemptive Jackie Brown display the guts of what every crime drama is really about. It's spare and broken down to its purest form. I too disliked it the first time because it wasn't like Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. I was a teenager when I saw all three movies and what Jackie Brown lacks is that teenage energy, bloodlust and lack of consequence to destructive acts that the other two had. This is why it catches so many off guard and why you should try to watch it again. This is a truly mature movie in which the idiot youth are killed and exploited and it's only the older, worn out types who find success and prevail. You may think Reservoir Dogs is the classic and Jackie Brown is the dog but forty years from now you'll be thinking the exact opposite, as much because of your own changing tastes as because of the quality of the movies.

Posted by: jared bailey | Oct 8, 2005 5:15:14 PM

"The name of the director has nothing to do with whether I enjoy a movie or not"

But the name of the director has a lot to do with whether or not I see a movie in the first place, which is why the "inconsistent artist who's made classics" is always a bit frustrating.

Posted by: Petey | Oct 8, 2005 5:28:31 PM

"A lot of people seem to think that QT is an all-time great director - up there with, say, a Scorcese or a Spielberg."

Spielberg, Al? Now I finally understand why you vote Republican - it's all about the brain lesions.

Posted by: Petey | Oct 8, 2005 5:31:01 PM

But the name of the director has a lot to do with whether or not I see a movie in the first place, which is why the "inconsistent artist who's made classics" is always a bit frustrating.

Agreed, Petey, same with me. I just find it dumb when people say "this or that it is overrated because this or that person made it." It's another way of saying "my opinion on this is the only one that counts, and everyone who disagrees with me about it is letting other people decide for them."

This is a truly mature movie in which the idiot youth are killed and exploited and it's only the older, worn out types who find success and prevail.

Are we talking about the same "Reservoir Dogs"? I don't remember anyone finding success and prevailing in that movie.

Posted by: Haggai | Oct 8, 2005 5:36:37 PM

Er, with the second quote I put in italics...I understand that it was referring to Jackie Brown, but the contrast was being drawn with Reservoir Dogs, and my point is that nobody "finds success and prevails" in that movie, which (therefore) is hardly about "lack of consequence to destructive acts."

Posted by: Haggai | Oct 8, 2005 5:39:01 PM

Jackie Brown was good but Out of Sight was excellent. Soderbergh absolutely schooled Tarantino with that movie. It felt like a challenge: "if you really were the hotshot everyone claims, Jackie Brown would have been something like this". That scene where George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez "take a break" at the hotel bar is one of my favorites of all time.

Posted by: Becks | Oct 8, 2005 5:51:03 PM

I wouldn't say that Spike Lee's body of work is "uneven." I would say that She's Gotta Have It and Do The Right Thing are well-crafted and sensorily amazing movies indicative of a great director he never became. The rest of his catalog is so-so seasoned with awful. Jungle Fever is possibly one of the worst movies ever made.

Posted by: spacetoast | Oct 8, 2005 6:17:12 PM

There's a good bit of distance between "highly rated" and "greatest director of all time," and along that distance exist many different levels of high-ratedness. The statement "Tarantino is overrated" doesn't imply that Tarantino is being placed undeservedly at the top of that scale - it merely implies that Tarantino is being rated more highly than he should be. A good or even great director can still be overrated, just as a bad one can be underrated; "rating" is a function of the judge, not the judged. Weren't you a philosophy major or something?

And yes, "Jackie Brown" is an excellent film. "Kill Bill" is the awful one.

Posted by: Iron Lungfish | Oct 8, 2005 11:49:42 PM

Do the Right Thing was pretty incredible; somewhat overwhelming, even. The rest of Lee's stuff I could do without.

Posted by: TJ | Oct 9, 2005 2:52:03 AM

Hmmm.

You ever seen Jaws, Petey? Raiders of the Lost Ark? Yeah, he's done crap for a while now, but those are two of my top, say, 20 movies of all time. People seem to rate Spielberg down because he did Jurrasic Park and such, but he was a pretty damned good director there for a while.

A lot of directors do really good work at the beginning of their careers and then coast along trying to recapture the glory ever after. Tarantino is one, so far. So is Spike Lee. Woody Allen (movies like Sleeper rock, but what has he done for the last 20 years?).

The arc is usually that a director's best movies are all in the first few, and then it is all down hill from there. Tarantino is following this same pattern.

Why is this? I suspect it is because, early on, everyone gets an initial idea of what types of movies the director makes. An archetype of that director's movies is formed in the viewers minds. Then all the subsequent movies are judged against that archetype, and, like most things judged against an abstraction, come up short.

Posted by: Al | Oct 9, 2005 8:55:01 AM

Yikes!

If I knew how to turn off the Itals, I would.

Posted by: Al | Oct 9, 2005 8:56:57 AM

"You ever seen Jaws, Petey? Raiders of the Lost Ark? Yeah, he's done crap for a while now, but those are two of my top, say, 20 movies of all time. People seem to rate Spielberg down because he did Jurrasic Park and such, but he was a pretty damned good director there for a while."

He was a damn good director there for a few years, which abruptly ended with the break between the second and third acts of Close Encounters. It's all been treacle and worse ever since.

To understand Spielberg,divide 60's French cinema up into its two polar opposites. Tarantino worships at the shrine of Godard. Spielberg worships at the shrine of Truffault. It should be clear as to who got access to the one true god out of that bargain.

Jaws is a major accomplishment, but not quite the epochal one you seem to see it as. Duel, Sugarland Express, and the first two acts of Close Encounters are all above average films, but nothing worth writing home over. And after that, his work falls into a big schmaltzy abyss.

By virtue of Spielberg's outsize reputation in the popular mind, he's certainly worth thinking about. I always used to think the analogy was DeMille, who also made some small smart pictures early in his career, and after he'd been made larger than life, crafted lumbering epics everyone went to see and no one really enjoyed.

But on further reconsideration, I think the better analogy may be with Elia Kazan, who also made some small smart pictures early in his career (Baby Doll), and as his reputation grew, created very well crafted, modern lumbering epics that everyone went to see and no one really enjoyed (Splendor in the Grass).

At the end of the day, it all comes down to taste. Some folks like Kraft Singles, and some folks like Spanish Manchego. Of course one of those tastes is better than the other, but as long as you buys your tickets, everyone is happy.

Posted by: Petey | Oct 9, 2005 10:24:41 AM

Well, that's ignoring Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List, both flawed but good films.

Look, who do you think are the best directors of the current generation? So many of them have gone on a downward arc after an initial burst: Spielberg, Scorcese (disclosure: I havent seen Aviator), Allen, Lee, Tarantino, Coppola, Ridley Scott...

There are a few directors that I seem to be getting better - Almadovar, say - but not many.

Posted by: Al | Oct 9, 2005 11:40:15 AM

I think the Coen brothers have continually made terrific movies since they started.

Posted by: spacetoast | Oct 9, 2005 12:26:03 PM

Wong Kar-Wai is one of my favorites working today, but his movies are definitely an acquired taste.

Posted by: Haggai | Oct 9, 2005 2:07:51 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.