Into The Mystic

Does it make me officially old if I say that I'm more intrigued by Clint Eastwood's new drama Mystic River than by the bloody glitz and glam of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 1? Eastwood's looks (and sounds, from the reviews I've read) like a mature, atmospheric study of the human relationships with (and responses to) evil (among other things), while Tarantino's, at least from the preliminary reviews, seems to emphasize a point I made about Pulp Fiction some years ago, that it was all style and no bloody substance. Of the Tarantino, the review from the NY Times seems on-point. Ouch. Rereading back two sentences, I see a strange statement: perhaps Tarantino in his new film is all style and too much bloody substance.

I have to say, Eastwood has really developed his won style as a director, and at his best (as I hear he is at with Mystic River) he makes films that almost no one else would or could make.

The same can be said of Tarantino, but Tarantino is a director I don't quite know what to do with. Reservoir Dogs was brilliant, but Quentin is a director who desperately needs to control his tendencies toward self-indulgence: he very often seems to be in love with his own film-making, with his own cheeky (and somewhat superior) sense of humour. I'll acknowledge his brilliance, and his capacity to make brilliant films, but there comes a point at which one wonders if stylistic ingenuity becomes a mask for something else, the inability to create or engender an emotional centre. I realize I'm in the minority when I write that Pulp Fiction was a lesser film than Jackie Brown, and, that, in fact, I think Pulp Fiction a deadly bore that constitutes one of the most vastly over-praised films of the 1990s. I wonder what sort of film Tarantino could make if he could put his monumental ego aside (apparently within the credits to Kill Bill he trumpets the movie as "the 4th film from Quentin Tarantino," as if it were a Messianic return), or at least put it in reasonable check. That's a movie I'd like to see.

Sadly, though, it looks like Kill Bill Volume 1 will be a huge hit, and that no one will see Mystic River. I'm hoping, though, I'm wrong in this prediction. I'm a-okay with everyone and their brother enjoying Kill Bill, but I hope a true attempt at an American tragedy doesn't slip through the cracks.