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Kaufman and Tarantino: the Importance of Being Earnest
Posted by R. E. Pierson on Jun 27, 2004, 22:07
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This is not intended to be a review, just a series of ten random remarks. Some of them concern "Kill Bill" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," some do not (at least, not directly). Put together, I hope they sum up my feelings about the ongoing argument of style v. substance, with Quentin Tarantino ("Kill Bill") and Charlie Kaufman�s ("Eternal Sunshine") most recent work as test cases. I am not a journalism student, I do not write for easy reading.� I hope to discuss key elements of Tarantino and Kaufman in detail, and in so doing will reveal major spoilers for those who have not seen �Kill Bill� and �Eternal Sunshine.�
1) In my dramatic writing class last semester, there was a student who had written a play about a 20-year-old struggling to come to terms with his sexuality.� The playwright tried to be inventive and funny, and he succeeded.� He started with a direct address to the audience, split his main character up into five different personae (ranging from "Flamer Me" to "Metrosexual Me" to "Military Me") who argued with each other onstage, segued into a stand-up comedy routine about the main character drawing on his penis with a marker, then segued into the personae yelling offstage at the author.� The play was very clever and had a number of good ideas, but after page two it stopped being about a 20-year-old struggling with his sexuality and started being about how clever the playwright could be.� It became a string of stunts with nothing to hold it together; without anything to hold it together, I had nothing to grasp on to, to care about.� It lacked earnestness.
2) Propositions:
A. Earnestness is a genuine emotional investment an author has in his work.� It lets the audience in (so to speak), and allows them to care about what is happening.
B. Earnestness can be applied to characters, situations, themes.� It cannot be applied to technique, style, genre rules.
3) Propositions:
A. Watching a film is a passive process, simply processing all the information onscreen on a literal level.
B. Reading a film is an active process of engaging a film, putting things together to create meaning.
Generally speaking, the more a film encourages you to read it rather than just watch it, the better.� The more one reads a film, the more active one is, and literally, the more meaningful the experience becomes.
3) "Kill Bill vol. 1" tries to apply earnestness to style and genre rules.� I am supposed to care about the Battle at the House of Leaves, not because I want the Bride to succeed in her goal, but because it looks cool, because it is a well-done fight and because it recalls old Kung Fu movie fights.� I am supposed to care because Uma Thurman is wearing the same outfit Bruce Lee wore in his last film.�
It does look cool, but the pleasure is momentary.� Pure style gives me nothing to grasp on to.� I can potentially have something invested in her survival, I cannot have anything invested in quick cutting and buckets of blood on the screen.� By ignoring the former, Tarantino ignores any real impact the quick cutting and the buckets of blood can have.� Or: How can I have any real investment in the use of a zoom lens if it is only done to look cool and refer to Kung Fu movies?
4) "Kill Bill vol. 1" tries to encourage me to read it not with its characters, situations or themes, but with the references it makes to other movies.� "Oh, a zoom lens!� What does that mean?"� It means, "Tarantino is making a references to Kung Fu movies."� But what does the reference mean?� Tarantino gives us nothing more.
The stylistic devices and references in vol. 1 are not there to give the film meaning.� They are there for their own sake.� I have watched vol. 1 twice, but have no reason to attempt to read it.
5) Resonance was a term often used by my creative writing teacher.� It is not quite empathy or pathos (though it can be either), just a moment or an element in a work that absorbs the reader into what is going on.� It is also known as striking a chord.
Earnestness creates resonance.� If something on the screen resonates in me, I have an emotional investment in it.� Something clicks in the work, and I find myself inside, absorbed, empathizing with the suffering of a character instead of being wowed by watching them suffer.� When the Bride suffers a slice on her back fighting O-Ren Ishii, I am wowed by watching her suffer.� Tarantino emphasizes the spectacle of the bloodied bodies, the movement, the snow.� In vol. 2, when the Bride bloodies her hand trying to get out of the coffin, I empathize with her suffering.� Tarantino emphasizes her strength, her tenacity, her resourcefulness, and how hard she is fighting to achieve her goal.� This is the primary difference between vol. 1 and vol. 2: one creates spectacles that become more and more elaborate, the other emphasizes characters with choices, in which the stakes are continuously raised. (At least until the end.)
Unlike the O-Ren�s flashback in vol. 1, the Pai Mei flashback helps create the resonance in the moment. By showing the Bride�s history and letting us in to her character, he lets his audience have something invested in her struggling to get out of the coffin. We actually see the Bride�s character evolving, from a wide-eyed girl to a well-honed machine; she becomes interesting as a character in herself, and the stylistic breaks are more subtle and assured. We actually see her struggle, and that makes all the difference in the world between a real character to empathize with, and an object on the screen to be watched. I get the sense that I am watching a character worth investing in.
O-Ren�s flashback doesn�t work, because even though it attempts to give the character a history (which is one way of letting the audience care about her), the flashback drowns in its own style and becomes meaningless. I am not given a chance to care about O-Ren�s loss, because the style is so demanding of my attention: �Her father is being killed, she�s crying, that�s so sad�Oh my God, look at all that blood! And it�s made to look like Anime! That�s so cool!� On top of this, the content itself is so �revenge flashback� clich� that it only succeeds in calling attention to the genre clich�, and not anything unique or personal about her character. We never see O-Ren struggling or making any choices; she simply goes through the motions without any effort. She is never really acting as if she has anything invested in what is doing; she is there to look good, kill people, and spout off snappy dialogue. Even when she dies at the end, she doesn�t seem to care; she merely says, �It really is a Hatori Hanzo sword,� and expires.
The same can be said of the Bride in the entirety of vol. 1: she goes through the motions, but save for one moment (in the hospital when she wakes up and finds her baby is gone), she is never really shown feeling anything human (and thus, nothing worth empathizing with). She always acts as if what happens is happening as a matter of course, and not as the result of any choices or struggles she is making. This sucks any possible tension out of the film, and the film becomes a stunt show: fun to watch and to be wowed by from moment to moment, but lacking any long-term impact. If the Bride had been killed at the end of the battle at the House of Leaves, my reaction to the film would have been exactly the same. The film gave me no reason to react any differently.
6) "Adaptation" tried to have earnestness, making all its stylish breaks come naturally from the central conflict of the film (Kaufman�s writer�s block). This gives the stylish breaks the opportunity to mean something and to say something about what it means to create and write; if Charlie Kaufman is earnest in letting us in to the conflict of Kaufman the character (not Kaufman the screenwriter of the film), his pain of being stuck and his joy of finding the right ending can really resonate, and the cleverness becomes a tool used in aid of making the film more resonant and meaningful. This is the difference between Kaufman and Tarantino, as clever as they both are: for Tarantino, the stylish breaks (zoom lens, subtitles, etc.) are toys to be played with for his own amusement. For Kaufman, the stylish breaks are tools to be used for strengthening the overall concept of what he is trying to say.
"Adaptation" ultimately fails, because Kaufman fails to let us in to Kaufman as a character: we don�t get a real character, we get a manifestation of the writer�s self-loathing. On top of all the potshots taken at him, he has absolutely no concerns outside himself, and it is difficult for an audience to invest anything in a character so solipsistic. If I am supposed to regard him as pathetic and solipsistic, I will not care when he struggles or succeeds; the stylish breaks become not earnest attempts to absorb me into the film�s world, but clever tricks the writer is playing on his material.
7) "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," above all, succeeds because it lets me in as a viewer. Without the anchor of Joel, I would have nothing invested in what is happening, and the stylish breaks would lose their strength. When Mary recites Alexander Pope while Joel is in a memory with Clementine and suddenly cannot find her, the film is transcending its cleverness and stylishness, into a moment of real power. The moment�s power is enhanced by the style and the Pope quote, but it has that power in the first place simply because I don�t want Clementine to disappear.
This is indicative of the larger impact of the entire film: Kaufman deals with characters who struggle and make choices, and lets the stylistic breaks naturally come from those conflicts. It builds tension over time, and creates a long-term impact. The stylistic tricks are amazing not simply because, for example, I can see titles of books disappearing before my eyes: they are amazing because it means that Joel�s memory fading away before my eyes, and I can have something invested in his struggle to not let go of his memory of Clementine. It is a stylistic trick that is not put there for the sake of style; it is put there because it means something.
8) Use of quotes in "Eternal Sunshine" v. "Kill Bill":
�How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.� � Alexander Pope
�Revenge is a dish best served cold.� �old Klingon proverb
One of these quotes is used meaningfully within the larger context of the film, one is not. Tarantino�s quote provides a quick laugh, and sets me up for the pop culture references to come. Nothing more. Kaufman�s is used to add a deeper tension into the film (questioning the desirability of a �spotless mind,� quoted as Joel is trying desperately to hold on to his memory of Clementine).
9) Best thing about "Eternal Sunshine": not the clever ideas, but the backstory: how Joel and Clementine had met. They talk idly at a party, and he is lured by her into an empty beach house, then runs away. There is something magical about meeting a girl this way, something ephemeral. The childlike spirit of continuing his night with someone he doesn�t know, just to see what will happen next. The danger of getting caught. The allure of a stranger who so strongly and unmistakably wants him. The moment is capitalized on perfectly when the memory is shown: the memory itself already makes the moment ephemeral, and to see the memory literally crumble before our eyes creates an even stronger dramatic effect. The stylistic break (in this case, the crumbling beach house) accents the content. The moment resonates.
10) Best thing about the "Kill Bill" saga: Beatrix steals into Bill�s house, ready to do battle, when she finds her daughter. She plays along in a fake battle her daughter is doing. Over a sandwich, Bill explains how she killed her goldfish. No stylish breaks.
The moment brings into scope everything we have previously seen, and shows it in a new light. Suddenly, the act of killing is not just a mass of references, camera techniques and spectacle: it is real, it hits home, and it has consequences. Bill is no longer He Who Must Die At All Cost, he is the father of her child, who has spent four years raising her. Beatrix cannot just go through the motions, as she has for the past three hours plus: she must make a choice. For the first time, Tarantino has fully placed us right there in her position.
However, the moment is promptly thrown away a few minutes later when Bill, after saying how much he loves Beatrix and all but implying that they could be a real family now, says in so many words, �So, I guess this is the part where we try to kill each other now.� Beatrix says in so many words, �Yup.� No consideration of the consequences for the characters (especially her daughter, who might be slightly horrified waking up to find her mother had killed the man who had raised her all her life). They no longer struggle, or make choices; they go through the motions. Accordingly, I no longer care about what happens.
That is the difference between the style of Tarantino�s style, and the substance of Kaufman�s style.
Send feedback, arguments, discussion, etc., to [email protected].
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