Sally's theme

While watching the new Criterion DVD of Brian De Palma's Blow Out, I was struck by a piece of music from Pino Donaggio's score. It plays often in the scenes between Jack (John Travolta) and Sally (Nancy Allen). I couldn't remember where I'd heard it before, and then it hit me: this same theme plays in an early scene of Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof.

Nancy Allen as Sally in Brian De Palma's Blow Out

Tarantino is famous for this sort of thing: filling his movies with hyperlinks to other movies. Often, the references will fly right over my head. (His knowledge of film lore is formidable to say the least.) But when I know where he's coming from, rather than distracting me, the reference will serve to deepen my appreciation of the film and the experience of watching it. That was certainly true in this case.

In Death Proof, we hear Sally's theme in a scene at the Texas Chili Parlor. Austin DJ/would-be record producer Jungle Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) is texting the guy she likes, a movie director we never see named Christian Simonson. As the two flirt, the music blasting from the bar's awesomely eclectic jukebox fades away and Donaggio's score takes over.


Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike: "I ain't stalkin' y'all but I didn't say I wasn't a wolf."

If you happen to know the movie Tarantino is quoting here, then this scene works on a few different levels. Blow Out and Death Proof both feature sex killers who mercilessly stalk and butcher women: Burke in the case of Blow Out (played by John Lithgow, even scarier here than he is on Dexter) and Stuntman Mike in the case of Death Proof (played by Kurt Russell in his greatest latter-day role). But, at this point in Death Proof, the audience hasn't been let in on Mike's M.O. So on one level the music serves to build suspense: we wonder if Jungle Julia will share the same fate as Sally, Burke's final victim.

Uma Thurman wearing Bruce Lee's track suit in Kill Bill: Vol. 1

It's the same dynamic that's at play when Uma Thurman dons Bruce Lee's famous yellow-and-black track suit, thus solidifying our image of The Bride as an unstoppable killing machine in Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Or when Tarantino quotes John Ford's The Searchers in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds, depicting the Nazis as savage marauders and introducing themes like hunting, scalping and familial retribution that will recur throughout the rest of that scorching WWII masterpiece. Unlike many of the filmmakers who imitate him, Tarantino chooses his references very carefully.

On another level, the music brings an element of tragedy to the whole Jungle Julia/Christian Simonson subplot. Earlier in Death Proof, we heard Julia complain about how Christian is never around and he doesn't call her on her birthday. And, sure enough, he never shows up (as promised) to the Texas Chili Parlor. Things might have turned out differently for Julia if he had. He could have saved her – just like Jack could have saved Sally if he'd been there when she was in danger.


The savage marauder as polite Nazi in the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds

That's fairly reactionary, and indeed much of the first half of Death Proof is shown from Stuntman Mike's POV. Tarantino indulges his villain's predatory male gaze, climaxing in a series of incredibly gory money shots where we see a head-on collision from four different perspectives, one of which shows Jungle Julia's leg being ripped off. But the director turns all of that on its head in the second half of the film, when the female victims become the perpetrators. De Palma never gave us Sally the Avenger, but Death Proof does. That's a major part of Tarantino's genius: not to borrow from the past, but to *expand* on it. His movies don't require you to be a film geek to enjoy them, but you'll certainly get a lot more out of them if you are one. And they encourage film geeks to keep the faith. There's another scene in Death Proof where Stuntman Mike is talking to a group of girls about the TV work he's done ("You know the show The Virginian?"). When he realizes the girls have never heard of any of the shows or actors he's talking about, his reaction is one of withering disappointment. It's the only moment in the movie where the filmmaker is completely sympathetic to his villain.

Pic of the day, 05/01/2011

Movie within a Movie: "Vanishing Point"

In the new Green Hornet movie, Seth Rogen makes a joke about the considerable age difference between his character and Cameron Diaz’s. You look “kinda Cocoon,” he says.

Today’s movies are filled with this kind of stuff – movies talking about movies. It’s become so prevalent that IMDb devotes an entire section to “movie connections,” while TV shows like Family Guy are basically nothing but pop culture references. I thought the whole movie-reference game might be a fun way to write about classic/underground films. The rules are simple: I’ll take a fairly recent movie (released in the last 10 years or so), and then write about whichever classic film is being referenced. Appropriately enough, I’ll start with a filmmaker who thrives on this sort of thing…

Set in Lebanon, Tennessee, the second half of Quentin Tarantino’s underrated Death Proof covers a fateful day in the life of Zoë (Zoë Bell) and three of her friends. A Kiwi stuntwoman, Zoë believes “there’s no reason to be in America if you can’t drive a Detroit muscle car.” She wants to test drive a 1970 Dodge Challenger with a white paint job. Her friend Kim (Tracie Thoms), a fellow gearhead, recognizes the car from the 1971 cult classic, Vanishing Point; the other two friends, up-and-coming actress Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and makeup artist Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), have never even heard of the movie. (“Actually, Zoë, most girls wouldn’t know Vanishing Point,” Kim explains.) The girls eventually get to test drive the Challenger, culminating in a show stopping high-speed chase with Zoë riding on the hood of the car while a madman batters them with his “death proof” Chevy Nova.

Like Lee and Abernathy, I’d never heard of Vanishing Point before I watched Death Proof. While I’m not sure I agree with Zoë’s assessment that it’s one of the best American movies ever made, Vanishing Point is a standout among muscle car movies and an indispensable time capsule of the post-Woodstock era.

In his career-defining role, Barry Newman stars as Kowalski, a car delivery driver who plans on driving a 1970 Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in record time. His motivation for doing this is left unexplained, and indeed we don’t really get to know a whole lot about Kowalski. This allows the filmmakers to portray him as a mythic figure: “the last American hero, the electric centaur, the demigod.” With its romantic outlaw hero, spectacular police chases and fuck-the-pigs mentality, the movie is an obvious descendent of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. But Vanishing Point also brings to mind Terrence Malick’s Badlands, which combined an unmotivated crime plot with beautiful, contemplative scenes of rural life in the American Southwest.

By the end of the movie, Kowalski has achieved almost total freedom, literally smiling in the face of death. (Tarantino quotes this shot at the end of Death Proof, when Abernathy watches in awe as Zoë plays “Ship’s Mast” on the hood of the Challenger.) The film’s idyllic depiction of the flower child generation – there’s a shot of a beautiful woman riding naked on a motorcycle that today would look out of place almost anywhere but at Burning Man – makes you pine for that brief moment in American history when total freedom seemed within reach. Too bad the filmmakers’ vision of utopia doesn’t extend to the gay community; a totally unnecessary scene where Kowalski encounters two limp-wristed stickup artists is the only serious flaw in the movie’s otherwise gleaming exterior.