My movie-watching habits changed some 18 years ago when, having seen and laughed through much of Quentin Tarantino’s comic-violent second movie, Pulp Fiction (1994), I backtracked to his debut film, the less comical, more violent Reservoir Dogs (1992). Alas, so nonchalantly, relentlessly violent was the latter that I found myself in the movie’s aftermath wishing I could hit the reverse button in my brain and thus wipe clean all the imagery from my consciousness. Those thoughts occurred because I knew the opposite would actually happen: the images of brutality and casual carnage would stay with me forever.
And so they have, with the only consolation being that I haven’t seen a Tarantino movie since. Ditto for Martin Scorcese and other directors whose affection for highly stylized, almost romantic evocations of human flesh being sliced, battered, bulleted and otherwise violated usually left me with the feeling that something similar had been done to my soul.
Humanity’s d...
Read More
Recent Comments