Why is Tarantino such a target for “woke” think pieces?

It’s definitely a thing that people “get over” Directors with this much output over time.

His methods are what keep me checking his stuff out. 35 mm film, incredible use of diegetic music, gorgeous locations and old cars, character actors, zero CGI, real stunts. It’s a dying art, and I’m here to watch the last gasps.

This used to be low budget, but now things have changed and these methods are high high budget. I struggle with feeling like the end product is fake low budget. I’m glad these are still the methods, but the actual low budget authenticity is gone. Especially with the A-list actors, who are great but not like the superstars of low budget movies that were cheap filler on afternoon pre-cable TV, like David Carradine, Pam Grier, Michael Parks, Sid Haig.

Pulp Fiction was good because the “non-linear” storylines were basically the experience of viewers who grew up flipping channels between different cheap movies on TV, working class kids who were starting to get to the age where we knew people who sold dope and couldn’t afford new cars, so they had old cars. The movies had a lot of stereotypes, and that was the default experience of people without educated or curated viewing choices.

Now if those stereotypes are being prioritized over the many real stories available to us it’s not a poverty or even a working class TV default. It’s a choice. People Have taken power over their own stories, and the reality shows the stereotypes to be unreal. The people who share those stereotypes are not awesome. Some are cops who shoot kids in the street, or creeps who want to gun down everyone at Walmart.

I keep hoping the filmmaking methods will remain, and the grounding in working class culture and escapism will remain, but that he will evolve to subvert some themes, like he did with the character of Shoshana. but now he has an audience of people who are waiting for the problematic stuff, and for unsavory reasons. He seems to want to both please and piss off everyone and the movies are confusing, often incongruent.

If he really wanted to make history he could team up to help produce some insurgent film collective who wanted to do some super badass black feminist gang movie that’s just fucking righteous, like Switchblade Sisters.

/r/Tarantino Thread Parent