MY MOVIE SHELF: Thelma & Louise

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 156  Days to go: 112

Movie #282:  Thelma & Louise

They like to discuss Thelma & Louise in Women’s Studies courses. It’s not hard to see why. Here’s a film about two women (Geena Davis as Thelma and Susan Sarandon as Louise) — which, let’s be honest, is not all that common a thing in the first place — who have always just sort of lived under the shadow of what society expected them to be without really questioning it, but, when things take a terrible turn, wind up taking a turn themselves, and start doing things on their own terms, looking out for themselves, with no concern for what anybody else does or wants or says.

Some will no doubt say the film undermines any sort of positive feminist image it might have had by virtue of the fact that these women go on a crime spree and spend most of the film running from the law. I disagree, though. It’s true that they’re fugitives, but I think that’s kind of beside the point. They’re fugitives, yes, but only because they know how unfair the legal system is, and how unlikely it is that anyone will believe Harlan (Timothy Carhart) was raping Thelma or that she didn’t deserve it even if he was. Louise, especially, has lived through that system before and she fears more than anything having to face it again. That’s an indictment of society as much as it is the poor decisions these women make.

To be sure, they make some bad decisions. They make a lot of truly awful decisions, and the whole thing just snowballs as they get in tighter and tighter jams and keep making worse and worse decisions, but they’re their decisions. For probably the first time in their entire lives, Thelma and Louise are setting their own course, and there’s something incredibly liberating in that. No, I don’t think the movie is telling women to be criminals or to shoot at all the men who wrong them or anything like that, but I do think it’s saying how freeing it is to live your own life, to stand up for yourself, and to not take any fucking crap.

Of course, a lot of the film is feminist fantasy as well. Have a dump of a husband who patronizes you and/or condescends to you and doesn’t appreciate you and lords over you like your master instead of your partner? Have a vicarious affair with J.D. (Brad Pitt), the sexiest, most charming thief in three states. (“There he is, going. I love watching him go.”) His hot and heavy night with Thelma — and, more importantly, her manic, screaming, so-excited-she’s-vibrating reaction to it the next day (sporting the best sex hair anyone ever did see) — is another form of freedom, of Thelma liberating herself from the bonds of her unhappy marriage and her need to be demure in order to take the man she’s overwhelmingly attracted to and get rewarded for it in the form of, I’m guessing, forty billion orgasms. Yes, he turns out to be just as much of a shit as the other guys, just in a different, more thieving way, but he also opens up an entirely new world to her that, both she and Louise admit later, she has a bit of a knack for.

And speaking of feminist fantasies, if you think there’s a woman alive who hasn’t thought about putting the smack down on some gross fucker who can’t stop with the unwanted lewd remarks and comments while she’s just trying to go about her day, you are living in a dream world. I’m not saying we’d all like to blow up their trucks, but it’s not the worst idea.

On the other hand, I’ve also heard it said that the movie actually undermines a feminist viewpoint by having a “male savior,” in the form of detective Hal (Harvey Keitel), there to champion their cause, and to protect them from their fates — to protect them from themselves. I disagree with this as well, because, in the end, they’re not protected by him. They don’t choose his way. They choose their way.

Of all the talk about Thelma & Louise, however, the ending is the most discussed element in the film — usually in a negative light. I’ve heard countless people over the years praise the film “until the ending.” It’s been called stupid and disappointing and awful and everything else under the sun. But how is their ending different from the end of Bonnie and Clyde? How is driving off a cliff different from dying in a hail of bullets? How is refusing to be taken alive different for these criminals than it is for any other? If anything, it cements the point even further that Thelma and Louise, for better or for worse, have discovered a life in which they make their own choices, and they’re living it to the bitter end. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what feminism is all about.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Pulp Fiction

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 167  Days to go: 160

Movie #216:  Pulp Fiction

It was fall 1994. I’d been living in Columbus less than two months, and suddenly there was this whole wide world of independent films available. (When I visited Chicago ten years later, I realized that Columbus had barely a glimpse of the independent film market, but coming from nowhere in the middle of upstate New York, it was a treasure trove.) I became fast friends with a girl who shared my love for movies and the two of us hung out often with my boyfriend and his roommate. I don’t remember who suggested it, or how we got there (I assume my boyfriend’s car?), but we went out to one of the city’s independent venues — there were three all owned by the same family at the time, something of an oxymoron, an independent chain cinema — and stood outside in a line for the next showing of Pulp Fiction. The world was never really the same after that.

When the Oscars came around, my friend was definitely hoping for Pulp Fiction to pull an upset, but I didn’t really think it had a chance, given the Academy. Still, as enjoyable as I find Forrest Gump, there’s no denying it didn’t have the same cultural impact as Quentin Tarantino’s breakout. (Reservoir Dogs came first, but it wasn’t as big, as amazing, or as talked about.)

For one thing, a nonlinear timeline hardly seems notable today, but Tarantino’s fiddling with the sequence of events in Pulp Fiction had people obsessing for literal months, and it’s actually something I still think about whenever I watch: this is happening first, this happens later, this goes back to earlier, etc. In some ways, this structure feels like a novelty — self-indulgent, perhaps and almost certainly unnecessary — but in others, it serves to tell a very particular story in a very particular way. If the movie went from the morning hit, to Jimmy (Tarantino) and the Wolf (Harvey Keitel), to the diner, to the handoff of the briefcase,  to our night out with Vincent (Travolta) and Mia (Uma Thurman), to the fight, to the watch (the flashback featuring Christopher Walken would still be placed in this general area) , to the whole deal with Maynard and Zed (Duane Whitaker and Peter Greene), then the movie would actually feel less cohesive, I think. It would end on the down note of Marsellus (Ving Rhames) having just been brutalized, Vincent dead and Butch (Bruce Willis) leaving the city forever with Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) rather than the triumph of Vincent and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) over Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer). It ties the beginning of the movie with the end, so instead of being simply a series of almost unrelated vignettes, it’s an integrated and complete piece.

Secondly, Pulp Fiction is often touted for resurrecting Travolta’s career. This was certainly true at the time, but it’s overlooked how the movie gave a little boost to Bruce Willis as well, and what it really did was make household names of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman. (“Uma, Oprah.” NEVER FORGET!) Both had been acting for a while before this movie, and lord knows Jackson especially was in just about everything in the late ’80s in some sort of bit part or another, but this is the one that made them icons. There would be no Kill Bill without Thurman. There would be no “motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane,” (or a hundred other motherfucking somethings, including Capital One ads), without Jackson. These two are icons now, all thanks to Pulp Fiction.

The movie itself is iconic, too. The scene with Lance (Eric Stoltz) and the adrenaline shot is still one of the most exciting scenes in film, and I still jump when it goes in. (And Rosanna Arquette, pierced up to Jesus as Jody, saying “That was pretty fucking trippy” with this gleeful smile is a perfect way to close it out.) Then there’s the gold gleam of the inside of the briefcase, or Mia and Vincent’s dance at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, or the perfect, sad, wistful, intimate kiss he blows her as she walks away. Not to mention how all his crucial life moments are connected to being in the bathroom.  And that doesn’t even go into the dialogue: “Royale with cheese.” “Ezekial 25:17.” “Well look at the big brain on Brett!” “Garçon means boy.” “SAY WHAT AGAIN!” “Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.” “I’m pretty fucking far from okay.” “Will you give me oral pleasure?” “Catch up.” (I still tell that Fox Force Five joke, and I really wish that show was real.) “Bring out the Gimp.”

These are things that still are quoted and said in conversation and looked at as iconic moments in film to this day. Plus, the entire Beatles versus Elvis conversation is a cultural touchstone now. Are you an Elvis person or a Beatles person? It’s supposedly one or the other, never both. If that’s true, I’d have to go Elvis, but regardless, I am definitely a Pulp Fiction person. As we all should be.