Each of these three movies is legitimately great. I swear, the second half of this list has been way more interesting than the first half, and it now looks like AFI saved some of the best for last.
One of the things that makes Pulp Fiction so hard to discuss in any sort of meaningful way beyond "Yeah, dude, that part was great!" is that it's a film that has almost completely separated the medium's form from its content. That's a boring, academic way to talk about the movie, but here's the gist of what I mean: We engage movies in two major ways, one way being aesthetic or formal (i.e. the components that make the film function—camerawork, dialogue, etc.) and the other being social or content-based (i.e. the elements that help us connect those aesthetic pieces to a larger context within our own experiences—for example, Schindler's List takes place during the Holocaust and features characters we are supposed to care for as we would people in real life). Or, to put it another way, you could say that one way concerns how a movie is about, while the other concerns what a movie is about. Pulp Fiction is a movie that manages to be almost completely about the how. I mean, really, there's almost no content in the film. I don't mean that nothing happens, per se, but rather that none of the things that happen have any real meaning except as they relate to the pure technicalities of the movie. Pulp Fiction is full of crime, but it's not really about crime (or violence, or race, or foot massages, or burgers, or the metric system, for that matter). It's about the dialogue that happens as that crime plays out, it's about the blunt composition and the jokey, referential way the camera moves, the elegance of blood splatters and men in black suits. That's the genius of Quentin Tarantino; he's figured out exactly what it is that makes certain kinds of movies fun to watch and boiled that down into a pure distillation of that aesthetic, with none of those pesky real-world emotions or social contracts to get in the way of the fun. Pulp Fiction isn't the first movie to do this (Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 comes to mind, as does Tarantino's previous feature, Reservoir Dogs), but it's arguably the most famous and influential one. Even if it isn't, it's still one heck of an entertaining movie. It's got a chemistry that even Tarantino hasn't been able to replicate since (though he tried his darnedest with Kill Bill), and it remains the single most quotable movie in a filmography full of quotable movies, which seems appropriate for a movie that's most interested in quoting the "good parts" of other movies.
So, it looks like it's time to eat crow. I mean, not a whole lot of crow, but crow nonetheless, because, as it turns out, I've been attributing something to the wrong movie. For most of this blog, I've been citing American Graffiti as a sort of ground zero for the modern wistful coming-of-age film. Now that I've seen The Last Picture Show, that crown most definitely needs to be taken from American Graffiti and given to this stellar Peter Bogdanovich feature (though it remains a tentative giving, since, who knows, maybe there's some other ur-coming-of-age that I'm not aware of). Unlike American Graffiti and its progeny, The Last Picture Show doesn't take place over a single night (its action unfolds over several months), but the rest of it's here, right down to the period setting and near-constant soundtrack (this time, old country). Dazed and Confused in particular is indebted to The Last Picture Show all over, not the least of which in the way that they both demonstrate the effects of social pressures and limited opportunities in a small town on teens. But enough about influence. The Last Picture Show is an amazing film in its own right, a small, quiet movie that builds to a climax that, paradoxically, feels even smaller than the rest of the film and also somehow titanic and profound. There's a palpable feeling of encroaching mortality hovering over the movie, and this is only reinforced by the way the cast size begins to shrink alongside the population of the town as the film progresses. In its early stages, this work feels crowded and observational, a slice-of-life document of teen life in 1950s rural Texas. But as the minutes tick by, the setting becomes more and more abstract when characters and pieces of scenery fall away until, at the end, it feels as though Sonny is walking through a physical manifestation of his adolescence's empty husk. If I'm nitpicking, I'll say that this transition into increasing emptiness makes the back half of the movie a little less interesting than the first half, and if we're just talking Peter Bogdanovich, I'll add that I do prefer Paper Moon to this one. But nitpicking's no fun and not altogether useful when a movie is already fantastic. And yes, The Last Picture Show is fantastic.
Man, oh man oh man. Where to even begin with this movie? How about how it's a lovingly, beautifully, searingly rendered evocation of place? Spike Lee's Brooklyn (and specifically the neighborhood this film focuses on) is depicted with a kaleidoscopic intensity here, vibrant without being cartoonish, panoramic while still maintaining intimacy with each of its dozen or so primary characters, gorgeously poetic without sacrificing the film's essential realism. Or how about how the movie is a stylish, ecstatic celebration of music, from the opening dance number to the DJ stylings of Samuel L. Jackon's Mister Señor Love Daddy to the use of Public Enemy to the way that every line of dialogue and every piece of camera work feels alive with a musical lyricism? Or how about how the film takes the tropes of traditionally white, traditionally nostalgic coming-of-age tropes of films like American Graffiti[1] and adapts them into a distinctively diverse, distinctively modern, distinctly original context that feels both of a tradition and completely free from all tradition? Or how about how the movie is the great cinematic portrayal of racism in American society, full stop? The sensitivity, nuance, rage, sorrow, and conviction with which Do the Right Thing paints racial relations is unparallelled in the history of American movies, and what's more, it feels contemporary in an absolutely damning way. This isn't To Kill a Mockingbird's 1930s or 12 Years a Slave's antebellum years; this is now. Do the Right Thing is a member of that depressingly small class of films that actually examines racism in its own current society, and the horrifying, heartbreaking fact is that Do the Right Thing is just as relevant to 2014 as it was to 1989. So do the right thing and watch Do the Right Thing. Now.
Also, do the right thing and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear back from y'all! Until next time.
You can read the previous post, #s 91-93, here.
Update: You can read the next post, #s 97-98, here.
1] Or, I guess I should say The Last Picture Show now, though of all the children of American Graffiti, Do the Right Thing feels the least like a grandchild of The Last Picture Show.
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