Quentin Tarantino loves women. Of the six films he’s made to date, four of them have female protagonists who star in films that deal very directly with womanly plights. Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997) expresses the frustration of an aging black woman who has bared the brunt of society’s turmoil and builds a better life for herself. Kill Bill vol. 1 (2003) makes a woman’s choice to retire from her job in the manly world of professional killing to raise a family seem wrong because she is so skilled at her job. And, in Kill Bill vol. 2 (2004), the main character realizes she can have both her job and her family and still be happy. However, it is in his latest venture, Death Proof (2007), that Quentin Tarantino both out-do’s and out-don’ts himself by juxtaposing eight different women with each other under the watchful eye of both feminism and the road movie genre conventions. Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof is a kick ass woman’s picture that has a lot to say without a lot of ways of saying it.
The only clues we get as to why he takes it upon himself to teach the girls a lesson by trying to kill them occurs at the very beginning of the film - the first image we see is of Shanna’s foot dangling on the dashboard of a car with red nail polish. The second is of Stuntman Mike’s death proof car with the sterling silver duck emblem on the hood going extremely fast down a narrow highway. The third and fourth images, that of Julia’s sultry bottom in cheetah-print panties walking down a hallway and Butterfly holding her crotch when she has to go to the bathroom are also cut in-between the Stuntman Mike moments. The forward motion of all the fetishized female images when compared with the forceful nature of Stuntman Mike’s car going down the highway eludes to two things - one) Mike is chasing them and two) Mike wants to be inside their bodies. The fast speed of the car contrasted with the fragmented female images implies that Stuntman Mike only sees them as sexual objects, objects that need to be conquered with his phallic-car. In fact, throughout the rest of the film, Stuntman Mike only talks and interacts with the girls on an objectified level, such as making remarks about their hair or licking their feet when they’re not looking.
Julia, Butterfly, Shanna, and Pam all fall prey to this type of misogyny from the stuntman and the rest of the men in the segment because they find it flattering. For instance, there’s a moment in the film where Julia essentially forces Butterfly to perform a lap dance on Stuntman Mike at a crowded bar. Instead of opting to not do it and keep her dignity, she performs because he was the only person to ask her all evening, telling her “there’s nothing more beautiful than an angel with a bruised ego.” The other gals’ have similar experiences with the men at the bar, specifically Shanna and Julia who drink vast amounts of alcohol given to them by Eli Roth and another fellow because, as Roth so eloquently puts it: “those fuckin’ bitches will drink anything as long as the guy’s are buying it."
And, unlike the second segment, the first group of girls don’t appear to have any personal boundaries. Aside from Julia, none of them speak about having jobs or responsibilities. Nor do they emit the sense of sisterhood the second set of girls’ has. These women seem to be friends because they enjoy being catty to one another. These conventions are most appropriate to the road movie genre, that of not having an important job and/or responsibilities or, in some cases, a sense of companionship on the road, but it is certainly unusual for a woman’s picture to have such a segmented window for one to look through, almost as if it were a “before” and “after” type of scenario.
The “after” occurs fourteen months after the “before,” - Stuntman Mike is hospitalized for the murderous car wreck that brutally maimed and destroyed the first set of girls. In fact, he fetishized them to death. All of Julia’s limbs went flying off, Shanna’s entire body went through a small, circular hole, and Butterfly’s face was rubbed off by a tire. He’s back on the road again tracking down the second set of girls and finds them after they find one of the most masculine cars of all time - a 1970 Dodge Challenger with a white paint job. The same car Kowalski drove in his cross-country journey in Vanishing Point (1971).
The biggest jump the gals’ in the second segment have over the first set is their ethical nature. They’re still fun, sexy, and beautiful like Butterfly, Julia, Shanna, and Pam, but they have more than pretty faces. They’re hard-working gals (two stunt-women, a make-up artist, and an actress to be exact) who are surviving in the very male-dominated industry of Hollywood filmmaking. And, yet, they’re all still capable of being in loving, fruitful relationships with men, friendships with women, and of even having children, like Abernathy does. Most importantly, the girls’ are able to utilize these tools when Stuntman Mike starts to fetishize them on the road.
While playing a game of ship’s mast with the Challenger, Stuntman Mike smashes into the car and tries to veer it off the road so that Zoë, and perhaps the rest, dies and he keeps spouting off dialogue like “why don’t you suck on THAT for a while” and then rams his car into the side of theirs. Kim is able to keep the car steady enough to ensure that Zoë doesn’t go flying off of the hood and Abernathy does her best to dissuade the stuntman. The tables turn after Zoë survives the incident and the girls form a female phallic unit of sorts inside the Dodge Challenger and go after the stuntman. Each woman takes on the same mindset, they become a trio of revenge-filled ladies who all want to destroy the man who did this to them! Kim starts screaming bits of sexual dialogue like “I’m gonna tap that ass” in reference to the Challenger smashing Stuntman Mike’s car. Thankfully, they destroy both Mike’s phallus and Mike himself - in fact, the last time we see him, Abernathy is kicking his skull in.
The second part of Death Proof is a little less faithful to the conventions of the road movie because its characters have their acts together so well. Typically, a road movie will feature one or perhaps two characters who are loner types of people that don’t really care about daily life. They don’t care about jobs, money, or responsibilities. Characters in traditional road movies are on kind of a listless mission to get from one place to the other and experiencing life through that mission is the key concept in their journey. The second set of women in Death Proof sort of set-out on that type of journey when they play ship’s mast, but any feelings for that sentiment are quickly resolved when Stuntman Mike comes into the picture because they are all on such a designated mission to destroy him.
Quentin Tarantino is one of the few male filmmakers in this day and age who is willing to experience female problems and plights through his own creations. His beloved filmography speaks for itself. Death Proof is just another layer of icing on the cake - another pro-female film that, while not his most popular, is certainly fitting amongst the rest of his womanly film history. Part road movie, part feminist propaganda, Death Proof is an unusual mainstream film that all too clearly dictates between the good female wrong and the bad female wrong.
Oh, Hollywood. Why do your contemporary ways always disappoint me?
Belle is working hard to stay beautiful.
Jasmine is fighting...something?
Little Red isn't so little.
Chemo has taken its toll on Rapunzel's long golden locks.
Cinderella lost her slipper in that shot glass.
Snow White should have stayed with her little friends in the forest.
And yet, despite the scrumptious catharsis one feels while watching these dillies do their dallies, Cukor also manages to make us feel empathetic for their plights as well. He was the best woman’s picture director in the business because he, as a gay male working in the industry, understood the feeling of being an outsider housed in polite casings for mass consumption. Though he clearly dislikes most of the women in The Women, he still recognizes their own brand of persecution at the hands of patriarchy. For instance, if the film had been placed in the hands of any other director, I think the character of Crystal Allen would only have hit the “slut” note and backed away. Cukor admires her sexiness and daring for going after what she wants and he and Joan Crawford make her a three-dimensional character. Like Scarlett O’Hara, Crystal Allen isn’t afraid of ambition and hunts for success the only way she knows how: by conniving and clawing her way into a solid, wealthy marriage. I think the real threat she instills in the rich bitches around her isn’t that she’s going after Mary’s husband. No, they hate and tear her down because she uses those jungle red nails to grasp what they did once upon a time, except she’s doing it from a lower social status and succeeding all the same.
Diane English doesn’t understand that.
No, the remake fails to live up to the original’s bite because it’s just too nice. Too nice and too phony. While it’s always a pleasure to see women on screen get their groove on in the workplace and bond with one another, there’s just nothing earnest or potent within the film’s narrative to make it worthwhile. These modern women may pursue goals when they’re not around their men, but the male characters are still the driving force of their actions. By taking out the apparent satire of the original to make her version more friendly, Diane English has also taken out the emotional resonance and chemistry of the characters as well. The original film’s tagline may be “It’s all about men,” but it’s really about the women and how we use society’s perceptions of ourselves to manipulate certain situations and ideas. The women in the remake have little to no original thoughts and only pursue life by bouncing off the invisible male characters dealings.
On one of the documentaries included in the DVD, Diane English gives a guided tour through the history of her relationship with the remake and why she wanted to do it in the first place. She thought it was a good story, but “women don’t act that way anymore” and the original’s “camp value” detracted from its social message. How can someone so passionate about a project miss the point so thoroughly? Many terrible remakes have been created by modern Hollywood to eliminate the so-called camp/antique feel of classic cinema. How is the original campy? Just because they wear big hats and yell occasionally? It’s truly ironic and sad that a female director and mostly female crew managed to be just as unfeeling and convoluted about the female role as everyone else in Hollywood these days.
What might have been a golden opportunity to update a classic was truly wasted with English’s The Women.
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 Though I’d glanced at the corpse beforehand, watching A Woman in Berlin truly brought this idea to my attention. My cynical, jaded eyes made me think it was another dime a dozen World War II picture the first time I saw it. However, upon my second viewing, I realized my mistake and acknowledged that it’s actually one of the more distinctive films to be released about the fray in many years. One of the last taboos of the Second World War occurred as it was waning down in 1945. The Russians took hold of Germany for seven months and made Berlin their headquarters. Unfortunately, the Russians also demonstrated their clout by forcing the remaining German women, children, and elderly to do their bidding. Though it’s hard to estimate, it’s been said that thousands, perhaps even millions, of German women were raped during this short Russian occupation. One of them, a worldly journalist who calls herself Anonyma, wrote her experiences in a diary that was later published across the globe. She is one of the few surviving women to ever tell this story because, according to the film and press notes, it affronts German women to even mention this time period. A Woman in Berlin is an adaptation of her personal saga. Before the war, the German-born Anonyma (played by Nina Hoss) lived a life of cultural refinery as an educated writer. She used her fluency in five languages to report on stories from around the world. Both her diary and the film itself utilize her journalistic instincts to present her story in an unsentimental, objective fashion. There’s no apple pie Americana or tragic GI romance to make us feel for the characters—just realistic human reasoning for us to connect with and understand. The romance between Anonyma and the Russian officer is seen purely as solace and not as the end-all-be-all romantic awakening like it is in films like Pearl Harbor and Black Book (Zwartboek). Despite the brutality she endures, Anonyma never sees herself as a victim. Why should we?
 The film’s strongest scenes occur when Anonyma and the other afflicted women sit around and converse about their lives. Without shame or remorse, they candidly talk and even laugh about how many times they’ve been raped, the effects of syphilis, and their fears for Germany after the war is over. By excluding men from these scenes, the women are able, probably for the only time in their lives, to discuss their situation without feeling ashamed or disgraced. These parts of the movie are more harrowing than any battle scene ever could be. Much like Fassbinder’s Maria in The Marriage of Maria Braun and Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, the anonymous, enigmatic Anonyma is a resilient German heroine who demands survival at any cost. The unsentimental view with which she observes and writes about her current circumstances also applies to her fearless persona. In more than one scene, she gallantly walks up to a hoard of catcalling, threatening Russian officers and demands that attention be paid to the rape crisis. While she’s met with outright hostility and callous attitudes, it doesn’t stop her from trying again and fighting back. Even without a real name, Anonyma resonates because her mission for survival is so direct, hard-boiled, and sincere. German filmmaker Max Färberböck, famous for his highly acclaimed Aimée & Jaguar, is devoted to portraying the situation fairly and accurately. For the most part, he does not present the Russian officers as faceless monsters or the women as nameless victims or statistics (which makes the plentiful rape scenes even more traumatic to watch). Though Färberböck clearly sides with the women in the film, he also creates an underlying political ambiguity between all of the characters. The movie is neutral and sympathetic to both German and Russian beliefs. It never takes the easy route by exploiting the circumstances for a political agenda. Aside from the brief, generic battle scenes on the streets of Berlin, the film soars in articulating Anonyma’s inspiring endurance tale. After her book was met with an astounding amount of controversy, Anonyma refused to take credit for her work and demanded that her real name never be printed, even after her death. To this day, her book is seen as the pivotal source for information about the Russian’s stay in 1945 Germany. A story like this could never really have a happy ending, but Anonyma and lots of other women survived the ordeal and quietly rebuilt their lives from the bottom-up. Anonymously or not, Anonyma bravely spoke against injustice when nobody else would. I can only hope that she used her objective reasoning to recognize what an impact she made in the world by sharing her experiences as both a rape and war survivor. |
The Last Mistress (2007, Catherine Breillat)
Mad Detective: Johnnie To is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest treasures. Like Exiled and the Election duo, The Mad Detective addresses masculinity and male kinship in a sensitive, almost trusting fashion that is really unique. There’s no useless dick-swagger or one-upsmanship in the To world, just a lot of sweet bad ass guys and (some) gals who know how to use weapons effectively and purposefully. Plus, the film is really funny, bat-shit insane, and full of weird mythology.
Let the Right One In: As a bit of a vampire fiend, I applaud Let the Right One In’s ability to simultaneously distance itself from traditional vampire fare through the relationship of the main characters and somehow stay true to its mythological roots by simple integration. The fact that Eli is a vampire is secondary to the essential building blocks of their coming of age tale. Sadly, this flick is already slated for a remake by the likes of JJ Abrams – a film that will no doubt take away all of the mystique and sensitivity of the original. Plus, Eli will undoubtedly be a girl and the tender gender-bender angle will be lost in the process.
The Cheese Stands Alone
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008, Marina Zenovich)
I’ve already written about this one here. Similarly to The Thin Blue Line, Zenovich dissects the entrails of this chaotic court case and unravels the truth entangled within it. Her efforts may have allowed Polanski to come back to the US if he wants to as well.
The Weird and the Whimsy: Two Underrated Gems
Boarding Gate (2007, Olivier Assayas)
Be Kind Rewind (2008, Michel Gondry)
Boarding Gate: Dirty-pretty is the term I’d use to describe Boarding Gate. It’s messy, kind of slutty, and chockfull of Assaya’s jet-setting, sleek aesthetics. While it lacks the soul of Clean and the cinematic pulse of Demonlover and Irma Vep, I’m somehow more passionately drawn to Boarding Gate than any of his other flicks. Go figure?
Be Kind Rewind: Sadly, earnest cinema is mostly a thing of the past. Films today are either too self-aware of their intentions or too auto-fellatious (I’m looking at you, Quentin Tarantino) to pull it off. That’s why it’s so remarkable that a big-budgeted flick that references countless blockbusters and starring Jack Black succeeds so admirably. It also celebrates history and the importance of a close-knit community in this otherwise commercial world. Plus, it’s absolutely whimsical! The references and good-natured feelings practically bounce off the screen with vivacity and warmth.
I Promise They’re Not Porn
Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2008, Jamie Babbit)
Midnight Meat Train (2008, Ryuhei Kitamura)
Itty Bitty Titty Committee: This is what Jessica Valenti’s rant-happy Full Frontal Feminism should have felt like. I wish I could have seen a movie like this when I was a teenager because it would have made the “f” word seem much more tangible and realistic. It’s a great introduction to feminism because it’s not pandering or self-conscious about its intentions and makes feminism appealing in a fun, political fashion. It would have played much better on the festival circuit and on DVD if it didn’t have such a terrible name. Many video stores refused to carry it because they thought it was porn. Hopefully it’ll become a classic much like Babbit’s other film, But, I’m a Cheerleader.
Midnight Meat Train: A contemporary horror film with a social conscience? Get out of here! Based on Clive Barker’s short story of the same name, Midnight Meat Train is a taut thriller with lots of amazing, eye-popping gore (snicker, snicker) that also acts as a scathing critique of the modern art world. Plus, the relationships existing between each of the characters feels genuine and human, unlike other recent horror flicks where all of those assets are taken for granted.
Socially Conscious without being Self-Conscious
It’s a Free World…(2007, Ken Loach)
Frozen River (2008, Courtney Hunt)
It’s a Free World…: Speaking of scathing critiques, this Ken Loach picture doesn’t let anyone off the hook with its wise look at our capitalistic system. I don’t really want to talk about the story because it’s such an impacting experience all the way through, but the film really is a forceful sledgehammer of intentionally exploitive circumstances.
Frozen River: Unlike Wendy and Lucy or even The Wrestler, Frozen River understands that poverty, while it certainly sucks, isn’t an entirely black and white situation. Being poor forces you to be creative and grateful for what comes. No one in this movie just sits around and mopes because they’re unfed, poorly paid or flat broke, they go out into the world and try to make their lives better. Alas, some of their choices aren’t always the right ones, but they don’t wriggle out of their mistakes either. It’s refreshing to see characters facing everything in their lives head-on. I can’t wait to see what Courtney Hunt does next.
Honorable Mentions:
Shotgun Stories, Girls Rock!, and Caramel.
Mainstream Flicks I Loved:
Wall-E and Milk.
Ones I Liked:
The Dark Knight, Happy-Go-Lucky, Rachel Getting Married, Encounters at the End of the World, Reprise, Mother of Tears, The Wrestler, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Body of Lies, Flight of the Red Balloon, Christmas Tale, Paranoid Park, etc.
Biggest Disappointments:
Wendy and Lucy, Changeling, Sex and the City, and though my expectations certainly weren’t very high to begin with, Iron Man. Ugh.
Shit List:
The Reader, Gran Torino, Australia, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and too many more to mention.
Sad I missed:
Duchess of Langeais, Synecdoche, NY, Fear(s) of the Dark, The Pool, Sparrow, Bachelor Machines, Chop Shop, In The City of Sylvia, Quantum of Solace (kind of…), Sylvia Scarlett at the Gene Siskel Film Center, The Tenant at the Music Box, Last Year at Marienbad at the Music Box, Lola Montes at the Music Box, and probably more.
Archival/Retrospective Highlights of 2008:
- An American in Paris & Meet Me in St. Louis (July, The Music Box)
- The Young Girls of Rochefort (April (?), Rosenbaum’s Transition series at the Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (April, Wisconsin International Film Festival)
- The Big Country (April, Wisconsin International Film Festival)
- Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (May, Rosenbaum’s Transition Series at the Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Max Ophuls retrospective (Fall, UW-Madison)
- Text of Light (March, White Light Series at La Salle Bank Cinema/Bank of America Cinema)
- Posthumously Yours: The Films of Zack Stiglicz (January, Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Insect Woman (Imamura retrospective, Gene Siskel Film Center)
- 4th Annual Horror Movie Massacre (October, Music Box). Highlights: Old Dark House, Dead Alive, Phantom of the Paradise, Keaton’s The Haunted House, and the aforementioned Midnight Meat Train.
- Day of Wrath (December, Music Box)
Favorite DVD Releases/Discoveries:
Releases:
- Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women (Street of Shame, Sisters of the Gion, Osaka Elegy, Women of the Night), Eclipse Series #13
- Ernst Lubitsch’s Musicals (Smiling Lieutenant, Monte Carlo, Love Parade, One Hour with You), Eclipse Series #8
- Bette Davis Collection vol. 3 (Old Maid, In this Our Life, All This, And Heaven Too, Deception, The Great Lie, Watch on the Rhine), Warner Bros.
- An American in Paris SE, Warner Bros.
- Gigi SE, Warner Bros.
Discoveries:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series
- The Quiet (2005, Jamie Babbit)
- Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2006, Jennifer Fox)
- Pilgrimage (1933, John Ford)
Movies I’m Looking Forward to Most in 2009:
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Public Enemies, Bronson, Tree of Life, Up, Bright Star, Puffball, Summer Hours, Bad Lieutenant: The Port of New Orleans, and lots more.
Favorite Actress: Asia Argento for The Last Mistress, Boarding Gate, and The Mother of Tears.
Favorite Actor: Michael Shannon for Shotgun Stories and Revolutionary Road.
Lastly, I'd like to thank all of the following cinematic institutions for showing all these great movies:
Music Box Theatre
The Gene Siskel Film Center
Doc Films
Landmark Century Centre Cinema
White Light Cinema Series
The Nightingale
Bank of America Cinema
AMC River East 21
Facets Cinematheque
Please, do your best to support these Chicago institutions by attending their movies. Aside from the AMC and Landmark, they’re all (mostly) independent venues that would certainly benefit from your attendance.
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