Now, May We Talk About Quentin?

Some of us told y'all to watch ya boy.

So many folks are through with Quentin Tarantino over his vile behavior toward Uma Thurman on the set of Kill Bill. There is no more separating the art from the artist. That's the line, and you crossed it, dawg. If that's you, well then, get over here! Come sit with those of us who were done after we heard the dialogue in Reservoir Dogs about Madonna fucking niggers and therefore soiling herself too much to be of any use to a real man, read WHITE MAN. My own personal being-done-with-his-assness was reinforced when I was sitting in a darkened theater, giving him another chance, just to hear "Do I look like dead nigger storage?" Almost as if Tarantino could anticipate those of us in the theater looking at one-another, silently mouthing "da hell??," he delivers the line again, insisting the powerful Jules answer him, and likely informing those of us in the audience we heard him right. Samuel L. is directed to have his blackness on ten—all the way up—until Tarantino's no-acting ass deflates Jules, rendering him into a slew-footed, shuffling, deferent living nigger to the offending dead-niggers with which he continually inconveniences Tarantino's Jimmie.

The manner in which Pulp Fiction builds up Jules into a supernaturally frightening force for retribution, just to be humiliated and emasculated by a character played by the director himself is some serious hand-tipping on the part of its creator. This is before the other supernaturally vengeful Negro Marcellus is literally emasculated a few frames later. Why does Ving Rhames's Marcellus end his pursuit of Bruce Willis' Butch? On the unspoken trade that he'll keep silent about Marcellus's anal rape. His dogged determination to destroy Butch for double-crossing him is completely dissipated by the threat of everyone finding out he took it up the rear-end from another man and had to be saved by a white man he just so happens to own. Tarantino lives for putting black men in their place in the most viscerally-humiliating ways. His black women are layered, nuanced, complicated, beautiful, and deadly if pushed too far. Generally, deadly for black men. Perhaps he doesn't appear in the cast of Jackie Brown and Kill Bill because they're his proxies. I dunno. That's too hefty an analysis for writing no one asked me for.

When a director casts himself in a small but significant role, it's a statement about the consciousness the filmmaker intends to impart. M. Night Shyamalan casts himself in moments where he wants to hand us the twist before we arrive at it on our own, obviously to reinforce he's smarter than his audience, therefore we should trust him and relax. Tarantino casts himself when his black characters need to be deflated and revealed as weaker than white men. Me, I knew when Phil LaMarr's Marvin appeared what to expect. The guy's speech and mannerisms were far too white socially normative for it not to be some statement by the guy who wrote a debate about interracial relationships and white purity into the first ten minutes of his debut feature film. A debate that was a complete and total non-sequitur to the overall proceedings. Once the well-spoken, chill, affable, harmless Marvin is flat-blasted by Jules, that caricature of black virility complete with outdated Jheri curl, it's up to Quentin Tarantino himself to bring Jules to heel. I don't want to hear shit about Orson Welles casting himself instead of Joseph Cotton in "Touch of Evil," if you abide that nonsense.

Plenty of journalists made a living unpacking and assessing Tarantino's apparent anti-blackness, equally lambasting and defending his bigoted bullshit. Some of these defenders are black, in the case of Desiree Bowie, who, in a 2015 Salon piece titled (in part) "It’s not easy being a black Tarantino fan," wrote:

But I appreciated his films as much as I disagreed with his opinions. I never viewed Tarantino’s movies as anti-Black or grossly exploitative. To be honest, I don’t cringe when n-bombs get dropped in his movies because I feel as though I do understand his intentions.

Bowie musters the ability to compartmentalize Tarantino's anti-blackness because it's chiefly directed at black men and, when contrasted against his mature and admiring portrayals of black women onscreen, it's obvious his issue isn't with black folk, per say. I haven't been able to find an update from her about Tarantino's off-screen personal and professional misogyny, bullying and abuse. I looked.

That same year, Nicole Silverberg's piece in GQ titled "Maybe Skip What Quentin Tarantino Said to The New York Times" parsed all the ways QT plays himself out in bold-headed paragraphs such as 'TV is shit,' 'Tarantino is a Culture Savior,' and 'Backlash from black critics is annoying and doesn't matter.' Under that last tidbit, she writes:

"Though I'm sure Ellis would despair at my use of that word as part of the "language policing" he so detests, the truth is that Tarantino is coming just one step short of crying "reverse racism." He's doing the equivalent of "but why can't I say the n-word?" except that, oh wait, Tarantino has his characters say it 110 times in Django Unchained. Tarantino is saying, "Well, if I end up making movies that only white people enjoy, oh well!" and that sucks."

Sucks to be sure, and thanks for bringing that up, but why skip what he said? Why do we skip evidence he's that dude? Why do we forgive his anti-blackness to uphold his genius? Why doesn't the quality that compels his fans and admirers to shrug off the ways he uses his films and platform to arrest and antagonize black folk and excoriate his limited view of blackness not help him achieve exoneration over his abuse of Uma Thurman? I haven't been able to find anything from Silverberg covering this new flap against Tarantino. The indictment should most certainly stick. Physical harm, intimidation, and abuse of the trust she gave him is nothing short of dehumanization. I just wasn't the least bit surprised. I'm also not surprised many of his defenders and apologizers aren't writing follow-ups.

Tarantino's resentful bigotry and anti-blackness played out for all to see. Doubled and tripled down upon in all his interviews. Its pathologies played out on screen and in print to much acclaim.  Once Uma Thurman finally told the truth about his vile behavior, folks are shocked. Betrayed, even. But why? He kicked your neighbor, right in front of you. Time and again, he tipped his hand to his urge to dehumanize and marginalize others. There wasn't a black man in Pulp Fiction that wasn't broken by him. Why would he spare Uma? Sorry, but oh yes it is the very same thing. It is not a different problem. It's the underbelly to the overall problem, akin to the extreme metaphor of serial killer Jeffery Dahmer, who trapped and mutilated small animals as he worked his way up to trapping and mutilating small humans. In this case, Dahmer's small animals are the fictional black men Tarantino created just to torture and humiliate. Seems like he was working his way up to torturing and humiliating an actual human, who is blonde and beautiful and powerful and kick-ass. Just like Madonna, who had absolutely nothing to do with the plot of Reservoir Dogs, but an ad-libbed debate about her making love with Big Daddy Kane somehow made its way into that modern classic.

Perhaps now I don't have to walk out of the bar when peers bring up Tarantino's brilliance at the next writing conference. Perhaps we finally understand the folly of deferring exemplified bigotry as a problem that doesn't affect everyone. I mean, sure one can, but when we learn about the Uma Thurmans, we wonder why and how.

Then someone like me, for whom his blackness is a mounting inconvenience to his peers, points out the Madonna debate in Reservoir Dogs gave us every indication what QT holds in his psyche for blonde white women of personal power and self-determination.

Those of us who refuse to resolve and excuse his bigotry in order to enjoy the zeitgeist-influencing pop culture moments of his films weren't surprised at his misogyny and abuse. Bigotry isn't a personality quirk. It's an indicator of the risk of deeper depravity. Perhaps we're all finding a way to come to terms with the truth that separating the art from the artist sets us up for these letdowns. We ignored, excused, and justified his abject racism, eventually praising him for his uncompromising insistence upon doing what he wanted. We watched his depictions of black Americans and listened as he told us to go to hell if we don't like it. If you weren't black, it wasn't your problem. If you were black, but you loved being in with the in-crowd, you subordinated your problem and went to see those films anyhow. Maybe even wrote about them. As a result, he became more popular, and more powerful, eventually leading to his injustice against Uma Thurman. In fact, I find it completely upends the image of women's empowerment she worked so hard to give us. I can't think of The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo without thinking of what happened behind the scenes. It undercuts the value of the portrayal when the performance was wrenched from someone rendered so powerless.

I wonder if now I won't have to find a way to slink off to other environs when conversations turn to Quentin Tarantino at this year's crime fiction conferences. I'll save that energy for when I have to dart away as James Ellroy's shit is laughed off and explained away as lunacy and LA Confidential is upheld as a hallmark of modern film noir. Where I'm from, bring it up and you'll get "Oh, you mean that flick where they put the gun in the young black man's mouth like he's sucking on something big and black in order to get him to confess to a crime? That one where the brothas are in a cell crying and begging for mercy so the white LA cops can get a jones? Dood from Gladiator was in it back when he wasn't fat? Naw, I ain't watchin' that shit."

SHADOWS RISING - The Extended McLean Cut (Part 2)

By Russel D McLean

Okay, I promised you eighties and nineties, as per my choices for movies from the SHADOWS RISING panel at Bouchercon, and here we are. Yes, we have two films from the 90’s and only one from the 80’s, but again it was one of those areas where I had to do a lot of pruning. And let me remind you that its not just about my personal favourites, but more about movies we thought people at the panel had to see to get the full spectrum of crime movies. Which is a pretty difficult task all told.
Anyway, again here’s my three movies and a little blurb about why I chose each one.
And yes, my Sacred Cow I’d Love To Gore came from the eighties, but we’ll talk about that later.

Midnight Run

“Is that Moron Number One? Yeah, lemme speak to moron number two.”

“Smoking or non smoking?” “Take a wild fucking guess.”

“Hey, I got two words for you: shut the fuck up.”

Witty, exciting and plain under-rated, Midnight Run is my ultimate comfort movie. De-Niro’s effortless performance as a grouchy bounty hunter is perfectly complemented by Grodin’s turn as the accountant who pulled a scam on the mob and is now being called back as a witness. Together, they eschew that often elusive chemistry that buddy movies strive for, and that’s just one of the reasons to love this movie.

Throw in a brilliant supporting cast including the always reliable Dennis Farina and the under-used Yaphett Koto, and you have the ideal “action comedy” in a way that pretenders like the Lethal Weapon movies can only dream of. I come back to this movie at least once a year, and just let the script wash over me.



Shallow Grave

An odd choice for me in a way, but one I had to make as we were talking essential crime movies, and I felt I had to give some love to the low budget scots thriller that made a name for Ewan McGregor and director Danny Boyle who would later go on to bigger budget films like Sunshine and The Beach. But for me, Shallow Grave is pretty much perfect as a simple, dark little fable about three people and a bagful of money. Its kind of the Scottish answer to movies like A SIMPLE PLAN, and what I love about it is that it’s a crime thriller with no police, no procedural elements or anything like that. It’s a tale about temptation and greed and the fragility of friendship. And then there’s a brilliantly unhinged performance from Christopher Ecclestone.

It’s not a gamechanging movie, but its tight, its well handled and it launched the career of someone who would become a major movie star (McGregor). Not only that but I felt it would offer something a little different from what the rest of my panellists would select. I also think its perhaps the purest film Danny Boyle would make. While others would have higher budgets, there’s something in the nourish simplicity of the movie that makes you think of something like the Coen’s Blood Simple. I also think its been sadly overlooked in the shadow of many of Boyle’s later movies (Trainspotting, Sunshine, 127 Hours etc).



LA Confidential
How can one ignore LA Confidential? A film that managed the impossible by bringing James Ellroy’s novel to the screen in a tonally accurate and comprehensible fashion (to see how badly it can all go wrong just watch The Black Dahlia). It also has a cast performing at the top of their game and a top notch 1940’s soundtrack.

It’s a story about corruption in the LAPD in the forties and the three men who decide to stand up against the established order. Right from the start, with Danny DeVito’s tabloid editor giving an overview of 1940’s LA, the dream and the reality, you know you’re in for something special. It is pretty much a perfect movie. It never gives in to the temptation to go over the top, and yet there’s a real sense of danger and fear that permeates the frame. And while credit must be given to Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kevin Spacey for their electrifying performances, James Cromwell really stands out as he wipes every fond memory of Arthur Hoggett, the farmer from kids movie Babe in which he starred four years earlier.

On the QT and very Hush Hush

By Russel D McLean

Dig this:

One night only in Glasgow, the Demon Dog of crime writing is gonna reign supreme.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, malcontents and malingerers, pimps and perverts, Ellroy is here to save us from the death of publishing and the internet invaders.

I've been waiting for this for over a decade. Last time I had a chance to see the man in action, Ellroy cancelled his gig at the Edinburgh Book Festival for reasons that, to this day, remain shrouded in mystery (we were only told on arrival at the Box Office).

It was my dad who introduced me to the works of Ellroy. Like me, he thinks the ideal introduction is probably The Black Dahlia, being a prime example of his stripped down, stone-cold style in its earliest days. For sure, I dug the Dahlia, even if took me a while to understand what Ellroy was doing, how for the first time I could remember in the history of reading, every damn word counted.

Tonight's gig isn't just the man himself, of course. Oh, no, there's also a screening of what the Waterstones website described as “an Ellroy inspired film” which was vague, but intriguing. There were any number of movies they could have considered.

My fear, of course, was that they would choose The Black Dahlia. Of all the films they have made – inspired by and directly adapted from Ellroy's work – this one brings up the worst memories. A soul-searing work of purest, blackest noir that became, under the creative control of Brian De Palma, a parodic and melodramatic mess of a movie; the Batman and Robin of noir, if you will permit to indulge in some negative hyperbole (but seriously, I could hardly sit through The Black Dahlia, so overblown and obvious as it was with a talented cast turning in some of the most bored performances of their careers).

Luckily, the Glasgow Film Theatre chose to unveil their choice. I would have been happy with the Kurt Russell starring (and plotted by Ellroy) Dark Blue, set around the time of the LA Riots which was also, coincidentally, the time when I was visiting the US for the first time with my parents (and yes, we were in LA in the days before the riots started). I would even have been pleased to see Street Kings, again plotted by Ellroy and starring that master of underacting, Keanu Reeves (who is, given the chance, usually watchable if not usually stunningly good) as an amoral cop caught up in a political war between his corrupt Captain (Forrest Whitaker) and the head of IA (Hugh Laurie with his bizarre American accent). Not a perfect movie, but enough going on to keep things interesting.

Thank goodness, though, that they chose LA Confidential. I remember seeing this movie before reading the novel, and thinking, this is what I want from a cop movie. Layered, restrained and pitch perfect, it is a film made by people at the top of their game. Russell Crowe has rarely been as good as here, playing Bud White, all presence and anger and a sharp mind overshadowed by baser instincts. And Guy Pearce is twitchily perfect as the initially heroic but increasingly amoral cop who gives the audience their surrogate for the movie. Throw in Kevin Spacey and the farmer from Babe giving their all in what were at the time quite unexpected roles, and Danny Devito being incredibly sleazy as the editor of a tabloid gossip magazine, and you have a movie with a top notch cast working from layered script and under a restrained and still stylised direction that De Palma really should have paid more attention to when he came to make The Black Dahlia.

And it’s on the big screen. I haven't seen it in a couple of years, but its shot with the kind of rich textures that I remember making a huge impression on me when we went to see it on its initial release. We’re talking period detail, textured storytelling, nuanced performances, the whole lot. Seeing it on the big screen back when it was first released had a huge effect on me; made me realise the moral ambiguities inherent in the thriller, made me view the past as every bit as corrupt as the present.

By the time you read this, of course, I will have seen the Demon Dog, will have wowed at his words and his will. And I’ll have re-lived Confidential, too, there on the big screen, in all its glory. Yes, I have high hopes for this event, but Ellroy is one of those writers who sheer affect on me – even with the notoriously difficult The Cold Six Thousand – as a reader cannot be understated. Tonight I’ll have been a reader again, a true fan, someone there for the thrill of seeing one of their heroes do his thing, say his piece, give us entertainment (and from what I hear, Ellroy does just that).

So bring it on, tonight, and to whet my appetite (and yours), here’s a clip of the man himself in full flow: