Title: Pulp Fiction, Thelma & Louise, Dead Man
Author/Artist: Dana Polan, Marita Sturken, Jonathan Rosenbaum
Publisher: bfi Publishing
Media: Book
Reviewer: James Marriott
BFI Modern Classics: Pulp Fiction by Dana Polan, Thelma & Louise by Marita Sturken, and Dead Man by Jonathan Rosenbaum
More curious entries in the BFI's Modern Classics series - others include Independence Day, Titanic and Seven. I'm not sure whether the BFI are deliberately courting critical controversy by focusing almost exclusively on mainstream films in their Modern Classics series, or whether they are seeking to appeal to a broader audience than that normally found by critical works - who knows. Whatever the aim, I'm afraid that these three titles can't really be considered a success by most criteria. I have no problem with the packaging: they're all beautifully designed, and boast a large number of well-chosen stills printed on glossy, thick paper. The content, however, as with most of the subject matter, falls far short of the presentation.
Why the BFI haven't taken this opportunity to focus on less well-known films is a mystery to me, unless it's simply for commercial reasons - but most of the audience for Titanic or Independence Day simply won't buy books of film criticism, no matter how glossy. These books probably won't even appeal to your average Empire bore, and are simply too uninspiring for anyone used to intelligent film writing. The problem isn't solely with the choice of films for the series - mainstream cinema is in many ways a far richer source of critical interpretation than anything more leftfield. But none of these authors have anything approaching an angle; the razor-sharp arguments you might expect from a series of such apparent prestige are missing. Instead there is waffle, dull, second-rate Media Studies theorising, stilted political correctness and a distinct lack of verve.
Of the three, Dead Man is the most entertaining read, but only because the author quotes Jarmusch himself, eloquent as ever, heavily. Infuriatingly, most of the more interesting avenues pointed to in the book are never explored - Rosenbaum posits the idea of the 'acid Western' but, beyond listing films for inclusion in such a sub-genre, fails to explore the idea at all. Similarly, in Pulp Fiction, there is a look at the fan culture surrounding Tarantino, but as soon as this gets interesting the focus shifts to Samuel L Jackson's hair. For sure, the format of the books probably encourages such a dilettante approach - a desire to skim over all of the ideas and, in so doing, cover none satisfactorily - but authors from the sister 'BFI Classics' series seem to cope better.
Special vitriol is reserved for Thelma & Louise, a terminally woolly study in which the author's critical faculties appear to have been irreversibly skewed by her painstaking efforts to cause no offence to her 'sisters'. Don't get me wrong - this is not an attack on the feminist angle inevitably taken here, but rather on the author's inability to commit throughout, or to follow any idea past a surface, glib expression. I had to read some Jim Goad rants afterwards to get the endlessly dithering tone out of my head. I hope that these are at the lower end of the quality spectrum for this series - Iain Sinclair's 'Crash' study is superb - but these haven't really inspired me to check out any of the others.