Originally Posted by
feverishparade
Oh, alright.
Originally Posted by
Jean
...another favorite of everybody’s, Steven Spielberg...
Not quite "everybody," LOL.
Originally Posted by
Brice
…I think hack is a pretty extreme term when referring to someone's talents. You may as well call him talentless at the same time. It's equivalent in my mind to calling the work shit. I'm not opposed to criticism at all really, but yes, my objections here were all on principle. To clarify I wouldn't even seriously call Jane Austen a hack. She had talent. I just found her incredibly boring which seems to be your issue with Tarantino.
Well, I don’t know… I don’t see the word precisely as being so deep a personal condemnation. I mean, one might
have talent and not use it. Even if you do think that someone’s work is basically shit, you don’t have to assume that that person is incapable of anything else. Boredom might be Jean’s issue, but that too is not quite what I think. I love the plotline in the film
Little Murders where the main character becomes so fed up with the business side of his career as a photographer that he decides to start shooting actual turds as a protest. It’s a great scene, because those literal shit photos sell better than any of his earlier work.
Directors don’t always decide what the story that they have to work with is. It can be hard to distinguish what they contribute to theme, -- what meaning they might advance -- particularly when they don’t write. Eventually, though, IMHO, a good director’s career conveys different messages just by virtue of creative choices. The job requires having some interpretative vision in each project. Otherwise, they’re not artists, just technicians. (And of those to whom this may indeed apply, it carries a statement in its own right.)
So, I’ve finally voted, and had to pass over Woody, due to issues bordering those I’ve pointed to in Tarantino. It’s funny that, on the surface, it might be Scorsese who seems to have more in common with QT. But again, I’m more concerned with what remains once one scratches the surface. Allen ultimately is just too narcissistic. Scorsese has repeatedly demonstrated a capacity to empathize with strangers. He specializes in social commentary. What Allen has mainly shown, meanwhile, is desperation to
receive empathy. He continually bemoans his own sense of alienation. Coincidentally, tragic isolation of that sort is also one of the major preoccupations in Scorsese’s work. His approach, however, is to unobtrusively portray various figures of the fringe, pushing the envelope of our culture… without setting out to undermine its core, as Allen often does.
“See the turtle of enormous girth!
On his back he holds the Earth.
On his back all vows are made.
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
His thoughts are slow but always kind.
He holds us all within his mind!”