Honestly, I despise this man. He should be banned from making films.

I'm not sure since I'm not exactly in the habit of seeing all of his movies, but has anyone ever gotten laid in one of his movies? If not, maybe he's just a case of arrested development who understands film technique and his own responses to the violent B movies he rips off enough to make the movies he makes.

Dana says, "But Tarantino's signature nastiness and his juvenile delight in shocking the audience undercut the movie's larger purpose. Which is what, again? Watching someone get beaten to death with a baseball bat, or having a swastika carved into their flesh in tight closeup, is sickening whether the victim is a Nazi or not."

Really? I think any Nazi has it coming, actually. I've never been a fan of Tarantino - which made me remarkably uncool in high school, and not in the cool way :P - but he may have won me over when, referring to the Nazis and how they're portrayed in film, he said he was sick of all this hand-wringing bullshit.

I haven't seen the film yet, so I don't know who exactly gets tortured in it for being nazis, but it might be useful to remember that not all German soldiers were members of the National Socialist Party. Indeed, whether one was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler or an avowed pacifist with Communist leanings, conscription into the Wehrmacht was compulsory. So to say that any German solider tortured and killed sadistically "had it coming" is pretty wide of the mark. It's also pretty much besides the point. To take pleasure in inflicting pain on another human, however sickening his crimes, is pretty damn atavistic. And morally speaking, it does a lot to eradicate the distinction between the two sides. How can one condemn the Nazis for their brutality and sadism, if one is only too willing to employ their methods? Israel understood this, and knew the importance of adhering to humane principles when dealing with enablers of genocide such as Eichmann.They didn't need to torture him to see that justice was done, and in not doing so, by giving him a fair trial, they further highlighted the depravity of the Nazi regime and ideology.

Honestly, I despise this man. He should be banned from making films.

Candidly, I agree. The right to free expression should only be extended to those of whom justmesuzanne approves.

Don't worry--if this movie flops, like Grindhouse did--the man will be headed for something worse than censorship: oblivion.

Einhard,

Fair enough. I know that enlistment was compulsory, and I too haven't seen the movie, but I don't think we're talking about foot soldiers here. The movie seems to deal with the people in charge, per se. If that is the case, again, I have to side with Tarantino and appreciate the fact that there's not hand-wringing and the bad guys get their asses kicked in a bad way. And gimme a break, I know that torture is a very big moral evil. I'm not condoning it, but we're not talking reality, we're talking catharsis. Would I have tortured a Nazi? No. Is it fun, exciting and satisfying to fantasize about those pigs getting what they deserve? ABSOLUTELY!

From the two reviews that I have read so far, I get the sense that the voyeuristic glee of torturing Nazis is kind of supposed to turn to ashes in your mouth - that QT is sort of luring the public into getting thrilled by the notion that killing Nazis is somehow an acceptable form of violence because they are the ultimate 'bad guys' of history (particularly in film history), and then indulging the public a bit to much for their own comfort zone. That it is a sadistic and cynical, but perhaps needed, lesson for us all. Note: this could all be BS as I have not seen the film. But I have charmed myself a bit with this explanation!

. . . I agree. But I tend to take an amoral view of aesthetic enterprise, whether high art or lowbrow entertainment. Without a playground for the unacceptable, our enmity turns to cancer.

And morally speaking, it does a lot to eradicate the distinction between the two sides.

Mightn't that be part of the "message" of Tarantino's ouevre, however? That the worst of us aren't really much worse than the rest of us? Moral distinctions are useful, but I also think they're constructs; we create them for utilitarian purposes precisely because they don't exist in nature.

thelyamhound:

Mightn't that be part of the "message" of Tarantino's ouevre, however? That the worst of us aren't really much worse than the rest of us? Moral distinctions are useful, but I also think they're constructs; we create them for utilitarian purposes precisely because they don't exist in nature.

To tell you the truth, I don't think Tarantino puts an awful lot of thought into loading his films with messages. They may be there, and no doubt some of his afficinados will say purposely, but I don't think he cares to much what we read into his films.

You're right that moral distinctions are constructs. But we don't create them. They've evolved, and became integral to humanity over the millenia. Lots of things don't exist in the wider natural world; to state that they thus don't necessarily play a role in human affairs is incorrect.

@ jimiwiz, I'm actually looking forward to the film. I went to see it last night but my hokey local cinema was sold out. I wasn't implying that violence in films is wrong, or that the idea behing the film is inhernetly offensive. I was replying to the earlier poster, who seemed to be suggesting that there are particular categories of people for whom the inflction of torture is appropriate.

To tell you the truth, I don't think Tarantino puts an awful lot of thought into loading his films with messages. They may be there, and no doubt some of his afficinados will say purposely, but I don't think he cares to much what we read into his films.

I don't disagree. I imagine less that he plans or places such messages; rather, I imagine that these are the foundational assumptions with which he starts the process of making the films. Again, I think that he makes entertainments. But just as Nora Ephron's films operate on the presupposition that women are more complex than men, for example (or at least that's how I read them), I think it's fair to suggest that Tarantino's begin with the supposition that there might be better and worse causes to get behind, but in the end, we're all violent savages.

Whether he intends that, by the way, is almost immaterial. There are ideas one attributes to the author-function that mightn't apply to the author-in-fact.

You're right that moral distinctions are constructs. But we don't create them. They've evolved, and became integral to humanity over the millenia. Lots of things don't exist in the wider natural world; to state that they thus don't necessarily play a role in human affairs is incorrect.

I agree with you to a point. I think they evolved up to, and a good way past, the point where we developed language, community, and religion; after that point, they became subservient to our intellectual and theological presuppositions, and therefore became more malleable, more based on subjective understanding. I don't suggest this is either a good or bad thing.

And I don't think I ever suggested that they don't play a role in human affairs. Rather, I suggest that this role is somewhat fluid, dependent on presupposition (theistic premises vs. naturalistic premises, individual good vs. collective good, categorical imperatives vs. strict utility).

lump516:

Don't worry--if this movie flops, like Grindhouse did--the man will be headed for something worse than censorship: oblivion.

Deservedly so. Except for SuperNova, I haven't seen a movie that is so spectacularly unsuccesful in integrating

• Sound
• Plot
• Dialogue
• Composition
• Lighting
• pacing
• action

in the telling of a story. Frankly Genesis has fewer acts of Deus Ex Machina in its "plot".

It doesn't turn to ashes. Nor is torture on either side particularly believable.

The lighting, pacing, dialogue and composition is so in conflict that it is very hard to maintain a suspension of disbelief.

To tell you the truth, I don't think Tarantino puts an awful lot of thought into loading his films with messages. They may be there, and no doubt some of his afficinados will say purposely, but I don't think he cares to much what we read into his films.

Respectfully I disagree. I think Tarantino sees himself as the next Orson Welles. A cinematographic wunderkind.

But Tarantino lacks Welles' talent. So the "messages" Tarantino puts in his films have the deftness of a Clay Golem juggling Waterford Crystal Goblets

I'm not sure since I'm not exactly in the habit of seeing all of his movies, but has anyone ever gotten laid in one of his movies?

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Well, I do recall the black thug getting a hell of go over from the two pycho redneck rapists in Pulp Fiction.