The genius of clinical insanity

I had the pleasure of seeing Pulp Fiction, directed by the infamously splendid Quentin Tarantino. It was not the first time I had seen the film, but it was the first time in a long time that I had seen in its entirety. This film has special significance in my life and I will tell you why. When this groundbreaking film came out in theaters my father took my squeamish mother to see it. My father is a fairly smart person, however, despite the fact that he had been married to my mother for a little under 20 years it didn’t seem like he knew her too well. It was either that or he just wanted to make her squirm in her seat and Uma Thurman overdosed on some crazy heroin. Anyway, they go to see the film and as the needle of adrenaline is being pierced into Thurman’s heart, my mother begins to scream and runs out of the movie theater like a bat out of hell. She goes on to call her mother-in-law to tell her how crazy her son is and, granted, my grandmother agrees. So, let me get back to the movie. Having experienced my mother’s reaction to the film I was dying to see it even as an elementary school student. This film intrigues me so much. I just can’t wrap my brain around how Tarantino, in all of his films, makes gruesome, vulgar violence and dirtiness so compelling and beautiful. The one thing that I love so much about Tarantino is that his plots are so simple yet so complex. Many of his movies have to do with some bad guy getting revenge on another bad guy (Kill Bill), or one day or a few days in the life of a gangster (Pulp Fiction), or one job that a group of gangsters have to pull off (Reservoir Dogs). That simplicity ties into the beauty of his violence. He gives you a topic that focuses on bad, violent characters, so you assume from the beginning that it’s not going to be a happy film or a family film. One goes into a film like that with certain expectations. One can assume that there will be cursing and violence and blood. The thing that Tarantino does is amp up the language, the violence, and the blood to outrageous levels that it just floods the audience to a point of submission. One can’t help but admire his ability to create a wonderful cocktail of constant swearing constant blood and constant violence that isn’t distasteful but artistic and is beautiful and ingenious, in a twisted way. I give Tarantino great credit and admiration for having the chutzpah (balls) to expose his insanity to an entire world, or at least an entire world that had multimedia capabilities.