Tarantino is the Pynchon of film

If I like Tarantino will I like Pynchon?

Thomas Pynchon has a social consciousness as well as philosophical underpinnings that Tarantino lacks.

There's nothing really postmodern about Pulp Fiction or any other of Tarantino's work. It's all literally chronological except that they have a prologue that comes at the end and a bunch of scenes that aren't important to the main story that aren't in order.

Tarantino's films are empty. There's absolutely nothing but surface to them.

pulp fiction is postmodern as fuck ya moron

probably not. pynchon is complex, writes mostly about history from varying perspectives, through varying sociological and philosophical lenses, draws his stories together with narratives that lead nowhere, all bound together with a hippy dippy sense of humor
tarantino rips off movies people used to watch ironically and repurposes them in bad collages of juvenile violence and smug one note characters. i see absolutely no parallel and my guess is a tarantino fan is going to be predisposed to not like serious literary fiction but of course you can like whatever the fuck you want

Why do you think this?

>muh nonlinearity
This isn't some Alain Resnais meditation on memory or the impact of war on the human psyche.

It's not done for any thematic purpose. It's simply done as a gimmick and like I said, it isn't even committed to seeing as everything following the beginning few scenes is chronological and a contained story while the final section is simply a separate chronological story that happened to take place prior to the first part.

Seriously, it's all just a cute gimmick for Tarantino. It's entertaining but not much else.

everything today is postmodern, if not in theory in form. family guy, the simpsons, fight club, burger king advertisements, internet memes. being "postmodern" is not enough to warrant praise.

nonlinearity is in the literary tradition more aligned with modernism anyhow.

Stop ascribing ideologies to everything.

These words have specific meanings. Just because something comes out in 2017, that doesn't make it automatically postmodern.

but pop culture has adopted what was once the tools of a select few fiction writers. we are always submerged in postmodern art, intertextual, extratextual, metafictional, parodic, pastiching art. it has nothing to do with it being 2017, it has to do with the fact that sitcoms and saturday morning cartoons have become relativist dialogues with the audience - and that this in itself is worthy of no particular praise.

For coming out in 1994 it was ahead of its time in terms of how postmodernism is used in film. Irony and unreality do not carry well in film because we assume things that are photographed are completely real, I think thats a big part of why Synecdoche New York was poorer on the screen than in the script - the satire and surrealism are just very hard to show on camera. I do not think Tarantino is an intentional, self aware genius like Pynchon, I just think hes a massive fucking film nerd in an almost idiot savant way, and just by making something that felt right to him he happened to make a milestone film. I'll copy paste this from wikipedia:

The film is also self-referential from its opening moments, beginning with a title card that gives two dictionary definitions of "pulp". Considerable screen time is devoted to monologues and casual conversations with eclectic dialogue revealing each character's perspectives on several subjects, and the film features an ironic combination of humor and strong violence ... The film's self-reflexivity, unconventional structure, and extensive use of homage and pastiche have led critics to describe it as a touchstone of postmodern film. It is often considered a cultural watershed, with a strong influence felt not only in later movies that adopted various elements of its style, but in several other media as well.

Before you say muh wikipedia and tell me to formulate my own opinions, know I just cant be fucked to write them out right now, especially when wikipedia already has a fairly good summation of why its postmodern and how it was important.

Remember that film is absolutely shite artistically speaking when compared to literature, which is why its so far behind in terms of catching up with artistic movements and why we are actually discussing whether Tarantino is comparable to Pynchon.

Tarantino is pop culture and very basic, he's for idiots

Pynchon is the best living writer and one of the best of all times, delete this thread

>Remember that film is absolutely shite artistically speaking when compared to literature

You literally have no idea what you're talking about. Tarantino is a comic book.

You can't slag off all of film if you're going to assert that Tarantino is some standard of it.

Here is Pierre Kast on film vs literature:
>The relationship between literature and Cinema is neither good nor clear. I think all that one can say is that literary people have a kind of confused contempt for the cinema, and film people suffer from a confused feeling of inferiority.

Cinema has come a long way since 1959 when that was written and there are works in cinema that equal the greatest achievements in literature. It's important to respect though that they are completely different mediums with different strengths and weaknesses.

Film is held back by being driven by commercial interests, being highly limited in the amount of genuine auteurs that the industry can support, far shorter lengths of narrative, shorter overall history of the medium.

Name me one film on the level of hamlet, ulysses, divine comedy, canterbury tales, Gravity's Rainbow, Middlemarch etc.

of course, protip you cant, but can you even really say any film approaching literature, i mean what do you consider to be the greatest film yet made, or a few films that could contend for that title?

>but can you even really say any film approaching literature
Throne of Blood is a favorite of both TS Eliot and Harold Bloom. Bloom also loves Ran.

Films I personally consider exceptional and nearing the best of literature include:

A Brighter Summer Day - Edward Yang - which is a story of social and political pressures on both the youth and adults in 60s Taiwan and is just absolutely gorgeous.

Persona - Ingmar Bergman - In fact much of Bergman's work fits this bill. Shame, Autumn Sonata, and the Winter light trilogy.

Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another - Hiroshi Teshigahara - existential modernism written by Kobo Abe and dealing with quite a lot.

L'Avventura, L'Eclisse, La Notte, Blow Up - Michelangelo Antonioni - These are mostly about the the concept of Eros and the problems that modern society creates for the human psyche.

I could go on if you like. Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, Agnes Varda. But I don't really think I need to.

It's important to note that reading high level cinema is a learned skill in the same way that reading high level literature is and that while you may be good at one, you won't necessarily be good at the other. They're different skills and not totally isomorphic.

Fair enough, its 2am in UK so I'm not going to argue with you as you obviously do have good taste in film. I havent seen all the films you listed. I obviously agree for all the ones I've seen to be considered great cinema, and better than middle brow literature, say, Jonathan Franzen or Zadie smith, or the minor works of great authors like The Reivers or A Fable by Faulkner, but i honestly dont think bergman or antonioni are on the same level as Sound and the Fury, Bleak House, or whatever. maybe I am too young, but its more likely that its film that is still too young (by a few centuries or so).

out of vague interest how old are you user, and do you live in the states? I dont even know how i would get films by varda in the uk without shelling out a decent amount of money, or do you use mubi or something similar.

this post is shit desu

I'm 24. Live in the states. NYC for 4 years, currently living in Ohio because it's so cheap. I'm studying both literature and film.

For things that are oop, I use rutracker and if it's not on there sometimes I'll shell out the cash by buying it on eBay.

Antonioni is quite good. The way he works with film is extremely impressive.

If you haven't seen A Brighter Summer Day or Sans Soleil, I would say you should watch those. A Brighter Summer Day is relatively straightforward but long. Sans Soleil is masterfully structured.

I agree that cinema has room to grow still but I think it is much closer to literature than you suppose.

if you say so desu
thanks desu

Tarantino is mostly garbage.

>everything today is postmodern, if not in theory in form. family guy, the simpsons, fight club, burger king advertisements, internet memes. being "postmodern" is not enough to warrant praise.
yeah, i also watched the DFW interview where he describes postmodernism, get an opinion of your own

opinion doesn't come into it.

Ironically this post convinced me to read Pynchon even though Tarantino is my favorite director

>Tarantino is my favorite director

>the Mozart of basket weaving
This is the site to find out!