Fully agreed.
“They think I should soften it, that I should lie, that I should massage,” the filmmaker said. “I would never do that when it comes to my characters.”
So Tarantino’s basic argument is ‘authenticity’, showing his characters unvarnished racism. I get that - but for one, making films is not the same as
making documentaries. There is no greater demand on fictional characters to be authentic within their tale than necessary for the audience, the readers to believe in them. We need not the entire range of their personality facets to understand them, just what it takes to follow their trajectory within the narrative.
Relating to this, intersecting perhaps, is the question of what it takes to draw a racist, or a racist society. Tarantino uses the N word as shorthand, but is it supporting his narrative after the fifth, the 12th, the 50st time - or merely feeding his fixation on it? What are the 120 times in DJANGO supposed to achieve or prove?
And since Tarantino subscribes to a distinct 60s/70s creed of making independent entertainment films, isn’t it odd that the directors and films he pays homage to often show a much more restrained use of this and similar language of profanity? Even if I pick out extreme examples, Russ Meyer films, or the SHAFT series, it would seem they all succeeded in bringing across their ideas without that amount of repetitive slurs Tarantino deems necessary half a century later.
Tarantino’s use of the N word doesn’t suggest to me a striving for authenticity. I feel it’s a schtick that may once have started out useful but long since turned into a travesty.
" Die Dosis macht das Gift " Paracelsus
Fully agreed.
And if he does not want to deny his characters that word - why does he always choose to depict only those kinds of characters anyway?
No, he thinks he is edgy and untouchable, and he wants to continue doing what he wants, ridiculously overrating himself.
And of course, he could not help embarassing himself…
And now that we stuffed our pockets let’s talk about cutting costs and jobs…
He is an ego on legs.
Demanding nobody criticize him while openly declaring actors „weak sauce“ puts him dangerously close to the orange menace.
From the article:
Knight has just completed the script for the new James Bond movie. (When I ask him about this, it’s the only time he clams up. “I honestly can’t say anything about it,” he says. “Not what stage it’s at, whether I’ve finished it, nothing. Let’s just say I’m in the process. I’m loving it, and don’t feel any pressure. How could I? If I worry about it I’m stuffed.”)
Weird they call it ‘completed’ when in the next line Knight is cited as not being able to say anything.
They probably mean a first draft.
Or they just don’t have a clue.
Not a first and very likely not the last occasion…
Guess “as deep as the grave” = “not very.”
Would he have wanted this?
“His family kept saying how important they thought the movie was and that Val really wanted to be a part of this,” Voorhees told Variety. “He really thought it was important story that he wanted his name on … Despite the fact some people might call it controversial, this is what Val wanted.”
Supposedly Kilmer has been in touch with this project for a time already and his role has been written with him in mind. Did he really express a wish to play this as avatar? Phew, at least it’s not impossible. Actors will probably have to put respective passages into their contracts and last wills.
Kilmer doesn’t strike me as typical candidate for a money grab publicity stunt though. So on balance it’s probably something he’d be okay with, especially since the production can use a little promo help from Kilmer’s name.
They do have it already, the studio and agencies just don’t want that clause remembered…
Here’s the thing, though: the assumption is that anything that looks like the actor is “good enough.” Simulated Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Val Kilmer are the same as the real thing because there’s nothing an actor can add to the role through craft and inspiration and improvisation that you can’t completely emulate by compiling a digital library of all the things they’ve done in past performances. Roger would’ve raised his eyebrow here: raise AI Roger’s eyebrow. Bette Davis would’ve cried here: average together all her crying scenes and paste in something similar here.
If you buy into the idea you can be replaced after death, you’re admitting you can be replaced while alive, because you’re nothing more than the sum of your mannerisms and schticks.
All valid points. There will certainly have to be a reassessment of why and how a human performance is not the same as an AI simulation. Why do actors earn revenue when their likeness is used on toys or comics (when there’s no ‘performance’ as such involved)? Why can Scarlett Johansson complain about ChatGPT using ‘her’ voice when it isn’t hers?
We instinctively get these and further similar problems around AI use/abuse - but it will be a lot harder to put that grasp into civil laws that are up to a technology moving so fast and producing social change as it moves forward. Meanwhile, there’s a generation now growing up that doesn’t trust any photographic evidence any more. People who may possibly have no issue with AI because they never lived without it and they don’t expect ‘authenticity’ (in the sense of a ‘real’ depiction) from their screens anyway.
Too many people still think that AI can do everything and better than human beings.
It’s just a giant mix tape, folks (I want to scream into their faces), and if we don’t contribute anything new in the next decades anymore, AI will remix the remixed and that’s it.
But sure, in the arts it‘s already been accepted with a shrug by the audience. The charts are filled with AI „performers“, music sounds like cobbled together with bits of past efforts. AI production entities get ready to flood the market with their „it’s only a tool“-philosophy (although they really want to use that tool to substitute all other crafts).
Amazon soon might offer Bond films which are AI generated, tailored to the wishes of the audience (hey, would you like Bond to look like Connery, Moore, Brosnan or Craig? No problem, press enter!).