The Chicago Way Saturday, October 18, 2003

For me, the turning point was "Die Hard II." Remember that one? They hijack the air-traffic control at an airport and keep a bunch of plains circling overhead, running lower and lower on fuel, and won't let them land unless somebody forks over. At one point, somebody pisses off the bad guys and they decide to show they mean business. So they blow up one of the circling planes.

I remember watching this and thinking, wait. We're supposed to accept that we just saw three hundred-odd people die. And now we're supposed to move on to the next plot point. The director had to show that the bad guys were ruthless--so there. Three hundred made-up people, poof. To advance the story.

There comes a point, even in a story, where you have to say, enough is enough. You can't do something that big and not blink at it. Three hundred people dead? The world of "Die Hard II" should have stopped and taken notice. But even worse than that is the fact that we didn't take notice, there in the theater.

It wasn't graphic violence, it wasn't anything that would make you wince or pull a sour face. It was a datum. The bad guys are bad. So we kept watching. Nobody wrecks the theater over stuff like that anymore; the days of Alfred Jarry are long gone.

I was thinking of those three hundred ciphers while watching "Kill Bill" this afternoon. It's gory and soulless, and feels like a two-hour facial. (Yes, the bad kind.) I don't know what's worse: The fact that Tarantino's imagination is so relentlessly aestheticized that he can glory in people getting brutalized; or that this is the most popular movie in the country right now. Not to mention that a certain segment of the Internet commentariat is exulting in the fact that this is the most violent American movie ever made and Tarantino slipped it past the ratings board, hee-hee.

It makes me think of Sherman, who was accused of bloodthirstiness or even lunacy. He spoke openly in apocalyptic terms, about crushing the enemy and destroying his home, and so forth. But in practice his marchers took pains not to kill civilians--Sherman's reputation was enough to send the people in his path into disarray. In other words: He talked big so he wouldn't have to act big. And in the end this big talker proved more merciful than the diplomatic generals who sent thousands into the grinder of trench warfare. When he used violence, it was for supremely moral ends.

He didn't love violence; but he knew what it meant and he knew how to use it to avoid even greater horrors. Watching "Kill Bill," it's obvious Tarantino has no idea what violence means, and because of that he loves it utterly; the way you'd fall in love with somebody you see at the bus stop every day but never work up the nerve to talk to.

At any rate, I came home after the movie and found "The Untouchables" on television. Directed by a guy who aestheticized violence as appallingly as Tarantino ever did; but just this once he was on a mission from God. Most of the time I'd like to be a writer, sometimes during the day I'm glad I'm an editor, but every time I watch that movie I wish I could've been a T-Man.

@ 11:50:00 PM,

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