How to Be True
I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching True Romance last night; it remains a sentimental favourite. Now, I'm not so much about Elvis in the bathroom, or the Sicily history lesson, or the kung fu. Most of that stuff typed by anybody but Tarantino just sounds like it's trying too hard.
No, I'm more about plain old storytelling. Here are some True Romance lessons that endure:
1. The characters have colour. I'm not just talking about Clarence and Alabama. I'm talking about guys like Floyd (the stoner played by Brad Pitt). This is a character who has nothing to do except inadvertently lead the bad guys -- twice -- to the good guys. Why does he do it? Because he's so far out of his head that he just wants to be nice and show how helpful he can be. Anybody want a hit from his honey-bottle bong?
2. Speaking of leading the bad guys to the good guys... the structure of this story is predicated on a big coincidence in the inciting incident: Clarence leaves his driver's license in Drexl's (the dead pimp's) hand. Without this "oops", there is no way the gangsters would've figured out who stole the coke, and where he might be. But you know, you buy it... Clarence just shot up the place and killed some dudes and he's just a guy who works at a comic book shop, and he's a bit... stressed, the moment he's actually running out of the place. A good reminder of how you can still make a must-have plot point credible.
3. There's a ton of characters. But we don't meet anybody until we need to. Thank God we don't spend an hour checking in on cops Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore before they come into play, eh?
4. The scene where the gangster (James Gandolfini, who has not been at all typecast in his career) beats the crap out of our heroine Alabama. This scene is so brutal it's hard to watch, but I have to give the filmmakers credit: this scene, unlike how it might be played in another movie, never turns sexual. There's no threat of rape. How refreshing! And why does this beating never go there? I'd guess it's because the gangster is a professional. He's here to do a job. Not all gangsters are psychos, and not all scenes of violence against women must be sexual violence. (Yeah, I said it, Andrea Dworkin! Eat it!)
5. And then, of course, there's the romance: "Baby... you have blood in your eye." Awww.
And those are some of the reasons I still love True Romance. Feel free to share yours.
No, I'm more about plain old storytelling. Here are some True Romance lessons that endure:
1. The characters have colour. I'm not just talking about Clarence and Alabama. I'm talking about guys like Floyd (the stoner played by Brad Pitt). This is a character who has nothing to do except inadvertently lead the bad guys -- twice -- to the good guys. Why does he do it? Because he's so far out of his head that he just wants to be nice and show how helpful he can be. Anybody want a hit from his honey-bottle bong?
2. Speaking of leading the bad guys to the good guys... the structure of this story is predicated on a big coincidence in the inciting incident: Clarence leaves his driver's license in Drexl's (the dead pimp's) hand. Without this "oops", there is no way the gangsters would've figured out who stole the coke, and where he might be. But you know, you buy it... Clarence just shot up the place and killed some dudes and he's just a guy who works at a comic book shop, and he's a bit... stressed, the moment he's actually running out of the place. A good reminder of how you can still make a must-have plot point credible.
3. There's a ton of characters. But we don't meet anybody until we need to. Thank God we don't spend an hour checking in on cops Chris Penn and Tom Sizemore before they come into play, eh?
4. The scene where the gangster (James Gandolfini, who has not been at all typecast in his career) beats the crap out of our heroine Alabama. This scene is so brutal it's hard to watch, but I have to give the filmmakers credit: this scene, unlike how it might be played in another movie, never turns sexual. There's no threat of rape. How refreshing! And why does this beating never go there? I'd guess it's because the gangster is a professional. He's here to do a job. Not all gangsters are psychos, and not all scenes of violence against women must be sexual violence. (Yeah, I said it, Andrea Dworkin! Eat it!)
5. And then, of course, there's the romance: "Baby... you have blood in your eye." Awww.
And those are some of the reasons I still love True Romance. Feel free to share yours.
Labels: character, gender, inciting incident, structure
posted by Jennica at 12:25 p.m.
2 Comments:
I've never seen it, but now I want to.
I really dig True Romance as well, but for the opposite reasons you do, Jennica. Elvis in the bathroom, the Sicily history lesson, and the meet cute at the kung fu double feature were at the time - and still are - like a blood transfusion to a tired old genre.
I believe this was Tarantino's first screenplay though, and a lot of the storytelling is suspect.
It never made sense to me why our hero's father would get blown away by Christopher Walken and neither character would award another mention in the film. I recall reading somewhere that Brad Pitt didn't understand that when he read the script either.
Clarence is a geek who's never had a girlfriend or been out of a comic book store, but as soon as he finds a half million dollars in cocaine, he's shooting down pimps and driving to L.A. to negotiate drug deals. Uhhh.
Also, I'm not sure the century it was invented, but the hooker who quits after one week to be a faithful girlfriend has got to be at least three thousand years old.
I remember going to see this at the multiplex because the guy who made Reservoir Dogs wrote it, and being blown away when the Hopper/Walken scene came up. I had never seen or heard anything like that in a movie, and that scene still stands as one of the greatest of all time.
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