This week, I was able to see two excellent films on a big screen, which I had never been able to do before. An art house theater presented 1976's Taxi Driver, and our large chain theaters in town showed 1992's Reservoir Dogs. Because of my age, I had only seen these films on DVD, but I had seen the former probably 5-7 times overall and the latter around 20 times over the years. But seeing them on a full screen with fellow viewers was an excellent and uncomfortable experience. The language and the blood and the psychological implications of these classics can be hard to take in, but the cinematic energy, through expanded and intensified image and sound that simply cannot be replicated on a home television, is powerfully palpable and an experience not to be missed.
As I grow older, and hopefully wiser, I find myself more understanding and empathetic toward characters like Travis Bickle. For many, his name is synonymous with sociopathy--he's a loose cannon who wants to take vengeance on everything he sees. While this is true, to a degree, he is also a man who simply has a hard time fitting in and understanding his place in New York City specifically and the world in general. He's a war veteran with stunted social skills and insomnia who doesn't understand why the world is as filthy as it is, all the while participating in some of it himself. Is it surprising that he's frustrated? He's a man torn between what he would like to do and the bounded structures of his cultural environment. It's an excellent clash of id and superego, and what ego emerges at the end is one in which Scorsese and Schrader brilliantly identify: we are all balancing on an edge, and the line between hero and villain can not only be blurry, but sometimes indistinguishable. For Bickle, violence is a method for reigning terror and for providing salvation. And the media that report such violence can never, ever provide the entire context. There's hardly anything more true than that.
For the colorful characters of Reservoir Dogs, violence is a learned behavior, shaped by media portrayals of iconic and supercool fantasy. The gangsters riff on their favorite shows and actors from the 1970s, and they model their personas on memories of Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Tony Baretta. They look tough and they talk tough, all the while pretending to be someone else--just like their beloved actors. Tarantino shows us what's it's like to be a child of an era of television and film when morals shifted, anti-heroes ruled, and being a professional badass seemed like a legitimate career goal. What I think is brilliant about the conclusion of Reservoir Dogs is that no one makes it. They are all punished, either by one another or by the police, for their actions. And Mr. Orange is a sacrificial hero who helps bring down the criminals. It's as if Tarantino gives us a delicious and decadent desert while delicately mixing in a medicine we don't realize we've taken. "This is what happens," he might be saying, "when you try to live your life like a TV character." And though we have to endure a lot to get there (police torture, buckets of blood, Madonna songs, and a bazillion f-words), the journey is well worth it, for me at least. And Mr. Pink's opening rant about restaurant tipping is one of the most brilliant expositions on economics and socio-politics you will ever see on film.
As I reported a few months ago after seeing The Silence of the Lambs on the big screen for the first time, seek out opportunities to see movies as they were originally intended, on huge screens with the volume cranked and with a crowd. While I love watching films in the privacy of my own home as much as anybody, there really is no substitute for the theatrical experience.
As I grow older, and hopefully wiser, I find myself more understanding and empathetic toward characters like Travis Bickle. For many, his name is synonymous with sociopathy--he's a loose cannon who wants to take vengeance on everything he sees. While this is true, to a degree, he is also a man who simply has a hard time fitting in and understanding his place in New York City specifically and the world in general. He's a war veteran with stunted social skills and insomnia who doesn't understand why the world is as filthy as it is, all the while participating in some of it himself. Is it surprising that he's frustrated? He's a man torn between what he would like to do and the bounded structures of his cultural environment. It's an excellent clash of id and superego, and what ego emerges at the end is one in which Scorsese and Schrader brilliantly identify: we are all balancing on an edge, and the line between hero and villain can not only be blurry, but sometimes indistinguishable. For Bickle, violence is a method for reigning terror and for providing salvation. And the media that report such violence can never, ever provide the entire context. There's hardly anything more true than that.
For the colorful characters of Reservoir Dogs, violence is a learned behavior, shaped by media portrayals of iconic and supercool fantasy. The gangsters riff on their favorite shows and actors from the 1970s, and they model their personas on memories of Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Tony Baretta. They look tough and they talk tough, all the while pretending to be someone else--just like their beloved actors. Tarantino shows us what's it's like to be a child of an era of television and film when morals shifted, anti-heroes ruled, and being a professional badass seemed like a legitimate career goal. What I think is brilliant about the conclusion of Reservoir Dogs is that no one makes it. They are all punished, either by one another or by the police, for their actions. And Mr. Orange is a sacrificial hero who helps bring down the criminals. It's as if Tarantino gives us a delicious and decadent desert while delicately mixing in a medicine we don't realize we've taken. "This is what happens," he might be saying, "when you try to live your life like a TV character." And though we have to endure a lot to get there (police torture, buckets of blood, Madonna songs, and a bazillion f-words), the journey is well worth it, for me at least. And Mr. Pink's opening rant about restaurant tipping is one of the most brilliant expositions on economics and socio-politics you will ever see on film.
As I reported a few months ago after seeing The Silence of the Lambs on the big screen for the first time, seek out opportunities to see movies as they were originally intended, on huge screens with the volume cranked and with a crowd. While I love watching films in the privacy of my own home as much as anybody, there really is no substitute for the theatrical experience.