Jackie Brown
I
think Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown is one of the best examples out
there of a serious mature movie wrapped in an entertainment movie. On one level you’ve got one of those movies
where a bunch of colourful characters all try to screw each other over for a
bag of money. Everybody likes those
types of movies. Cross, double cross,
James Woods, triple cross, it’s a good time at the movies. But then on another level you’ve got this
really great drama about gettin’ old and what you
have to show for your life and pullin’ through and the such.
Think of it as
a sandwich. The entertainment movie is
like the bread and the serious movie is like the peanut butter. Now there’s people
who are allergic to peanut butter, both for real and in the sense of this analogy
in that they’d say that they didn’t like the serious parts of this film. Well, I think in both the cases of literal
and the figurative allergy to peanut butter, a certain degree of Darwinism has
to be applied to these folks and they should just be grateful that we humour
them and make concessions such as me going and eating my peanut butter sandwich
outside of the lunchroom at work, and in the figurative sense we give these
people movies like The Big Bounce or Confidence or Get Shorty.
What I’m saying
is that the film Jackie Brown is exactly like a sandwich in that you get
both the levels together. Unless you’re
some sort of freak who eats his sandwich bread first, in which case you can go
hang out in the staff room with that peanut allergy guy watching The Big
Bounce on the laptop with the projector while I eat my peanut butter
sandwich out on the stoop with the smokers talking about Jackie Brown.
As far as
sandwiches go, and I’m now speaking in the literal sense again, I like peanut
butter with banana. I know most folk go
for peanut butter with jam, but I’m a banana man. There aren’t as many banana men out there,
but we recognize each other. We like our
sandwiches chewy and our cross-double-cross movies with plenty of sass and
substance, which brings me back to Jackie Brown.
This is
definitely Quentin Tarantino’s most mature movie. It’s kinda strange,
because right after this milestone movie, Tarantino as a flimmaker
seemed to regress into some latent childhood only wanting to watch
cartoons. He hung out doing episodes for
some cheesy shows and did some silly movies that just kinda
felt like a grown man playing with an action doll. I liked Kill Bill and all, and I see
how it was an entertaining way of depicting a child custody battle, but it didn’t
have that whole two layers thing that I’m trying to get at.
This movie has
some of his usual coolguy dialogue that has the
benefit of not being referenced to death.
After Pulp Fiction everybody and his brother went around quoting
it and naming their kids Royal With Cheese and doing
that two-fingers-across-the-eyes dance thing that Travolta busted out. So the hip dialogue in this film can kinda sneak up on you with a bit more effect. Plus a lot of the characters in this movie
are clearly beyond coolguy hiptalk. They’re older and no longer see the need for
catchphrases, they’re comfortable in themselves, and don’t need to hide behind
rhetoric. I appreciate that.
A lot of this
film rests on the main character (Jackie Brown who was named Mrs. Rum Punch in
the book). So what kind of woman is
she? The kind
who spends a night in jail, gets out, flirts with her bail bondsman, swipes his
pistol and presses it to Sam Jackson’s dick and tells him to fuck off. A real stand up gal. You don’t meet many women with that kind of
resourcefulness. If you browse
matchmaking website profiles you’ll find that few women describe themselves as
the type who would get out of prison and swipe a pistol and aim it at Sam
Jackson’s dick. Most of them just say
they “like watching movies” but not even good movies like Jackie
Brown, just a bunch of this Princess Bride stuff. Jackie is a lady who can look life in the eye
and love it for being the cold-assed hard bargain-driving motherfucker that it
is, because there’s no other choice. And
that makes her my type of lady.
Quinty gets a great
performance out of Pam Grier as Jackie Brown as well as the rest of his
cast. On the DVD they have interviews
with him talking about how after the success of Pulp Fiction every big
name wanted to work with him, but he turned them all down in favour of washed
up 70s actors that he knew were right for the parts.
It’s funny
because in an interview he specifically mentions defending his casting of
Robert Forster saying that the studio said he could have a big name like Robert
DeNiro but that he didn’t want Robert DeNiro, he wanted Robert Forster. What’s funny is that Robert DeNiro actually is in Jackie Brown. But he’s in a different type of role, not big
enough to be a main character and not small enough to be some vanity
cameo. This is more of a smaller
supporting role as a dumbassed handlebar-moustached
premature ejaculator. And DeNiro really sells this role for some big laughs and
legitimately plays the character giving one of his better performances in my
opinion. I never doubted his lack of
intelligence or ejaculatory restraint for one second. Even though this isn’t a comedy movie per se,
DeNiro is a million times funnier than in any of his
full-on comedy ventures like Here Comes The Little Focker or Analyze My Balls, Bitch or whatever.
He also gets
Sam Jackson to play a different type of character than your standard issue Sam
Jackson character. There’s actually a
bit of a character arc, something Sam Jackson doesn’t usually get unless you
count the character journey from one use of the word ‘motherfucker’ to
another. Tarantino also triumphs where
Luc Besson faltered and shoots Chris Tucker plenty
dead. Good call. I don’t know how Jackie Chan put up with that
dude for three whole movies.
Bridget Fonda
is in there too, and I always feel like she didn’t get a full career. One of those actresses like
Winona Ryder who they kinda put out to pasture way
too early. I figured she’d at
least have gotten a Point of No Return sequel with some redundant title
like Point of No Return II: No Turning Back, before washing up to sparse
supporting roles but alas, no. She just kinda stayed semi-famous but rarely shows up in a movie.
As usual
Tarantino knows his music. But there’s
one song that depending on how you react to it might change how you interpret a
little piece of this movie. There’s a
part earlier on where Max Cherry (played by Robert Forster, not DeNiro at the director’s insistence) is hanging out with
Jackie and he’s growing pretty sweet on her.
She plays a Delfonics song that I find kinda cheesy and don’t really like. Later Max buys that album and drives around
listening to it. My theory is that
Tarantino chose kind of a weaker song to show how when you’re in love you want
to love all the tastes of the object of your affection. I think everybody tries to get into something
just because their girlfriend loves it, or they project their feelings for the
girlfriend onto the stuff she likes. To
me, having Max drive around singing along to this song was to show what a fool
for love he was. Or maybe it’s just me
that doesn’t like that song. Anyway,
making it seem natural for a bail bondsman to be softly singing along to the Delfonics with mist in his eyes while Sam Jackson holds him
hostage is another great achievement of this film.
The other main
song is Across 110th Street performed by
Bobby Womack. Although Jackie Brown is
not the third brother of five like the lyrics say, this song is her power song
and its themes are also the themes of this film. It’s a good struttin’
song and I think after this movie it became the struttin’
song of many more people.
The DVD edition
I got also included a Jackie Brown special poster designed to look like
an authentic Blaxploitation movie poster, and I
really liked that little goody. Like I
said, this movie draws on Blaxploitation and delivers
a pot boiler crime story but also slides in a lot of soul and maturity. We’ve seen other dramas about getting’
old. And I liked About Schmidt
and all, especially when Nicholson writes to that poor African child and
Nicholson tells him about how his deceased wife was a cocksucking
whore, but Taratino has found a way to deliver these
themes in an enjoyable package and a tone that really suits my sensibilities. Sam Jackson gets a good line about the
compromises we make with life as it gradually gets us over a barrel. Jackson is talking about his girlfriend
played by Bridget Fonda and says:
“Sure,
she ain’t as pretty as she used to be. She sure complains a lot more than she used
to. But she’s white. (bursts
into happy chuckle).”
And I guess
that’s what life is. Life is white, and
it takes maturity to love it for that.
And that’s the core / peanut butter of this film. This is very strong film and I highly
recommend it as a classic of the 1990s.
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