My Top Ten Movies of 2019

4 Comments

1. I cannot disagree with you more about “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. The film uses the actual torture and murder of 6 people (including Sharon Tate’s unborn baby) to add a sense of foreboding and gravitas to an otherwise pointless film. Essentially, Tarantino uses the real pain and suffering of real people to fuel an imaginary revenge fantasy for our entertainment (and his bank account). That “one over the top scene” is where the entire film leads; it’s the culmination of the film. I can’t believe you would recommend such a perverse film in a Catholic publication. It doesn’t celebrate Hollywood. It celebrates violence and vengeance.

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   • A different take on the film, by Catholic philosopher (and president of University of Dallas), Dr. Thomas Hibbs:

     In his recent revenge films, such as Django Unchained, in which the target is pre-Civil War slave-owners, and Inglorious Basterds, which takes aim at the Nazis, Tarantino has veered away from an amoral celebration of evil and violence. While still quite violent, these films demarcate good from evil characters and imagine a world in which the evildoers get what’s coming to them in spectacular ways.

     In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood there is indeed violence but it is more limited in scope and provides a kind of catharsis for those aware of what actually happened in early August in LA. Moreover, some of the best scenes in the film skillfully use the threat of violence to build tension and suspense. Finally, throughout the film Tarantino undermines any possibilities of glorifying the evildoers.

     Manson himself is nothing more than a side note making only one brief appearance. On the evening of the infamous Tate murders, the Manson devotees, who come across as deranged stoners, offer what the film treats as a lame justification for the attack. They will kill Hollywood stars whose films have taught them to kill. Tarantino exposes the hollow and cowardly nihilism that masquerades as moral purpose.

     Interestingly this justification is one that Manson himself often gave in interviews, taunting conventional society by saying that he was simply reflecting its own deepest values. A version of this response sometimes surfaces in Hollywood responses to criticism that its products are fostering a degenerate culture. Here at least Tarantino is having none of it.

     Tarantino instead reveals a degenerate culture for what it is. At the Spahn Ranch, the Manson clan lives in filth and neglect; the community is bound together by shrill tribalism, which the film tends to identify generally with the hippie lifestyle rather than specifically with Manson. Disturbing as it is, this sort of evil arises from ordinary human vices, not purportedly demonic characters beyond good and evil.

     Read his entire CWR review.

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     • I appreciate the other insight. I don’t know if I agree, but I appreciate it nonetheless. Thanks. 🙂

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       • You’re welcome! Reviewing and analyzing Tarantino movies are challenging, both because of the violence involved and because his first movies were so apparently relativistic and nihilistic in nature. Back in 2004, I watched both “Kill Bill” movies, and was quite fascinated to discover that while Part 1 was indeed a gory exercise in nihilistic excess, the second film was something quite different:

         Much can be said, but what struck me about the second entry (“Vol. 2”) in Tarantino’s latest mythology was how openly pro-life it was. It’s an odd statement, I know, since the “Kill Bill” movies (like all of Tarantino’s movies) are extremely violent, even sadistic, containing some very shocking and graphic imagery. But the heart of the story—the very catalyst for the entire mythology—is The Bride’s (Uma Thurman) realization that she is pregnant. This realization leads to her almost immediate decision to radically change her life, flee from the world of hired killing, and seek to disappear into the “normal” world as a mother, wife, and music store clerk. Of course, life isn’t so easy; instead of peace and quiet she is nearly killed, while all of her friends and fiancé aren’t so fortunate, dying at the hands of her former boss/lover, the mysterious Bill.

         Anyhow, “Vol. 2” is especially forceful in showing that the (initially) unborn and (later) born child is, in fact, just that: a child. Not a fetus, not a potential abortion, not even an inconvenience. No, the baby is the reason to change and to hope that life is not fatalistic and ultimately cowed by death, but actually involves free will and moral choice.

         For what it’s worth!

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