Quentin And The Women

"I mean, my wife hates everything, and she couldn't get enough of Death Proof. As the credits rolled she turned to me and said, 'Quentin Tarantino loves women.' That's how she processed the movie." So reports my impassioned commentor Chris Goldstein in the post below. I can see it, sorta. Some critics thought the trash talk parlayed by both sets of female characters in Death Proof—the four victims of Stuntman Mike, then his eventual avengers—was some kind of drooly male fantasy on Tarantino's part. But Quentin, and myself, and maybe even Mr. Goldstein's wife, can only pity such fools, as we understand that there are indeed a whole bunch of women in this world whose patter is just as profane and sharp. No, they don't land the zingers as consistently as the women of Death Proof do, but that's the movies for you.

Now, the manner in which Tarantino dispatches the victims of Stuntman Mike honors, if you will, the unflinching sadism of such pictures as Night Train Murders and Avere vent'anni (don't ask), minus the sexual perversity. This could, I imagine, be cited as evidence of the opposite of loving women. Or of just living up to the prerequisites of his genre of choice. As it happens, the expanded Death Proof—the version that showed at Cannes and is on the recently released DVD—mostly adds more "girl" stuff, from Vanessa Ferlito's "missing reel" lapdance (above) to Rosario Dawson's discovery of an issue of Italian Vogue at a most unlikely convenience store.

But the best ballast for Mrs. Goldstein's observation is found in the image below, of stuntwoman Zoe Bell, playing a character named Zoe Bell, strapping herself, as it were, to the hood of a 1970 Dodge Challenger.

Tarantino has said that he wanted Death Proof's climactic car chase to be the best ever filmed, and while it might not be that, it is genuinely revolutionary in its continuity alone. When Bell climbs out onto the hood, there's no cutaway to an identically dressed double; it's her all the way, and the fact that it's her all the way allows Tarantino to shoot it for a kind of impact that no other film could achieve, on account of having to cheat for the stunt person. That it happens to be a woman doing the stunt just makes it more bad ass. Here, Tarantino creates an iconic image of female empowerment that Nancy Meyers wouldn't dream up in a million years. So he must love women. Or something.

For those who are interested, my initial review of Grindhouse is here.

Comments

[Tim Lucas]

I was sure that my wife would have no use for DEATH PROOF, though she liked KILL BILL 2 somewhat more than I did. I was sure the extreme violence, the sadism, and the rude camera angles would turn her off. But, because she wanted to see something "new", I showed it to her and, to my surprise, she liked DEATH PROOF more than I do, too -- and I think the extended version works better than the theatrical version.

What I got out of the movie is not that QT loves women, but that he loves a lot of ass and sass, and has the most pronounced foot fetish of any director since Doris Wishman (who, of course, was the successor to Luís Buñuel). But then, I can't think about JACKIE BROWN without thinking of Bridget Fonda's tanned legs -- because I love women, too.

Women. Full of surprises.

[Yuval]

Actually, it's not Bell all the way. Only in the beginning. Tarantino used a stunt double. Read the issue of Cahiers du cinéma that came out when the movie was scrrened at Cannes, it has an interview with Tarantino. The interviewer made the same mistake you made and Tarantino was extremely happy that she thought so, but corrected her.

[Glenn Kenny]

The Tarantino interview in GQ left such a lousy taste that I might have willingly skipped the Cahiers one, which of course was a mistake. I stand corrected, but I still think those initial images of Bell say plenty.

[Steve]

Is Kill Bill 2 not the most female-empowering American movie in quite some time?

[abbas]

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