From: Tony Williams
English
SIUC
The Tarantino debate. reply to wilcox and Hennelly.
   I'll deal with the thorny question of references soon but I'll begin
by responding to the point by point questions in the Wilcox reply.
  1. Overating of Tarantino. He has, after all, only directed one film.
 But many journalistic articles abound raving about him as the greatest
thing which has happened to film. That's what i refer to as "hype." It's
early days yet. Let's see what else he can do before we go entirely
overboard. Is there anyone else around who remembers the similar raves
about Michael Cimino as director of "the greatest film ever made" when
THE DEER HUNTER appeared? Certainly, I think HEAVEN'S GATE much better.
But, as Tina Turner said, "Do we need another hero?" (or glamorized auteur
today).
2. In plain langauge, don't we have more style over substance, flash
film making, the celebration of the masculine soul (nobilty of pain,
redemption, and all the other dubious concepts in cinematic masculinity
as opposed to critically examining their very foundations? Did anyone
else find the ear-severing sequence highly gratutitous/
3. CITY ON FIRE is available on video. Try VIDEO SEARCH OF MIAMI, THREAT
THEATER INTERNATIONAL, your local Chinese video store if you live in a
city. Here, we come to the remake questions. Certainly, RESERVOIR DOGS
has no equivalent to the Chow-Yun Fat persona in the opening 1/3rd of
CITY ON FIRE. But the last half blatantly rips off Lam's far more nuanced
and better directed work. Sure, there have been remakes throughout cinema
history. But there is a distinction between remakes of STELLA DALLAS and
THE MALTESE FALCOLN where the directors do try something different and
works which merely imitate and self-indulgently borrow. If RESERVOIR DOGS does
not reach the level of the 1950s remake of the Colman PRISONER OF ZENDA, it sti
ll slavishly borrows motifs from the John Woo films and gives very little
differential reworking to them. For example, the black suits are borrowed
from the last third of A BETTER TOMORROW, Pt. ii. the gun pointing at heads
derives from CITY ON FIRE, A BETTER TOMMOROW, THE KILLER, and EASTERN CONDORS.
Tarantino uses ideas in a very gimmicky way. He never readapts and reworks in
an original manner. Remakes succeed when they are retranslations not blatant
transplants. THE MAGNIFICANT SEVEN, STAR WARS, and MY FAIR LADY belong to
the legitimate first category. RESERVOIR DOGS falls more into the latter
field, very similar to the James Arness TV movie version of RED RIVER.
  3. I still stand by my comment on shoddy direction. difficult to go
into detail here. But that whole film worked because of its actors -
Tim Roth, Keitel, Tierney etc who rarely give a bad performance.
It's really an actor's movie. Tarantino let them improvise and the
performances carried the film. Let's see what he can do with a lesser
talented acting ensemble. With that line-up, only a complete incompetent
(which T. is not) could fail. The jury needs to be out for more time.
4. "Superstar" is still relevant today. Oliver Stone, Arnie. "What
decade are YOU living in?" T. is basking in the same media glut as
the rest. The term was used ironically.
5. Yes, let's all await PULP FICTION. But the debate should go on.
Isn't it about time certain directors tried to be imaginative or
original instead of cannibalizing other people's achievements? Certainly,
there is a place for remakes which try aiming in different directions but
not films which lean entirely upon actor performances and borrowing bits
of other people's films?  Tonyw.