yeah i would agree that there are underlying wistful and elegiac feelings or themes in OUaTiH (looking to the past, loss, feeling washed up, the subversion of history as wish fulfillment), and i think it’s fair to view these as being conservative-coded or having conservative-valences. i’m of the feeling that it’s his most textured and mature work (I think the violence with in it is much more complicated, esp of course with the dialogue with the Manson kids before the climax), so i guess i’d disagree that it’s indistinguishable from a chud screed because i don’t think the film is really that cut and dry, as being primarily didactic or being a vessel for a “message” (and because of course QT is a formal and technical master or w/e).
more broadly, my dismissive post above is simply an expression of skepticism, from, like, that famous Susan Sontag essay, at the contention that art is or supposed to be reducible to a series of statements, which are to be unearthed by interpretation. i’m not sure that’s how we should engage with art, and by doing so it cuts off a lot of what’s valuable.
and, more so, to your comment, and this is more a personal disposition, but i’m not of the feeling that a work needs to align so completely with my political convictions. i think in OUaTiH, there’s room to have a bit of empathy for this loss of a cultural moment, for the loss of these old cultural gods (pre-New Hollywood heroes), without also disclaiming that this loss still wasn’t necessary or a good thing or whatever. (having said that, i think Django is a good example of a film which has a very intentional and pointed view of the world that is very different from my own (that Django is good and correct to only lookout for himself), to the point that i think much less of the film because of it. whether or not i can insist you be open to OUaTiH while discarding Django for myself, I’m not prepared to argue here.)
No I’m not saying everything we watch should only reinforce our political views or anything, it’s that out of all his movies I think it’s pretty easy to pick out the symbols and meaning, but with OuaTiH it was easily the hardest to understand for me (which makes sense I went in expecting a movie about the Manson family, when in reality it was a movie made for people who love movies, which I’m not really). My point being i think for QT, but more broadly libs can’t really do deep cultural analysis well and when they do it’s surface level at best or pretty much a lib screed at worst.
yeah i would agree that there are underlying wistful and elegiac feelings or themes in OUaTiH (looking to the past, loss, feeling washed up, the subversion of history as wish fulfillment), and i think it’s fair to view these as being conservative-coded or having conservative-valences. i’m of the feeling that it’s his most textured and mature work (I think the violence with in it is much more complicated, esp of course with the dialogue with the Manson kids before the climax), so i guess i’d disagree that it’s indistinguishable from a chud screed because i don’t think the film is really that cut and dry, as being primarily didactic or being a vessel for a “message” (and because of course QT is a formal and technical master or w/e).
more broadly, my dismissive post above is simply an expression of skepticism, from, like, that famous Susan Sontag essay, at the contention that art is or supposed to be reducible to a series of statements, which are to be unearthed by interpretation. i’m not sure that’s how we should engage with art, and by doing so it cuts off a lot of what’s valuable.
and, more so, to your comment, and this is more a personal disposition, but i’m not of the feeling that a work needs to align so completely with my political convictions. i think in OUaTiH, there’s room to have a bit of empathy for this loss of a cultural moment, for the loss of these old cultural gods (pre-New Hollywood heroes), without also disclaiming that this loss still wasn’t necessary or a good thing or whatever. (having said that, i think Django is a good example of a film which has a very intentional and pointed view of the world that is very different from my own (that Django is good and correct to only lookout for himself), to the point that i think much less of the film because of it. whether or not i can insist you be open to OUaTiH while discarding Django for myself, I’m not prepared to argue here.)
No I’m not saying everything we watch should only reinforce our political views or anything, it’s that out of all his movies I think it’s pretty easy to pick out the symbols and meaning, but with OuaTiH it was easily the hardest to understand for me (which makes sense I went in expecting a movie about the Manson family, when in reality it was a movie made for people who love movies, which I’m not really). My point being i think for QT, but more broadly libs can’t really do deep cultural analysis well and when they do it’s surface level at best or pretty much a lib screed at worst.