Linear story-telling would be a story that starts at the beginning and ends at the end. an increasingly common story-telling trope in movies is non-linear storytelling, where the story is told in different sections, with the chronological sequence of events being distorted. Sometimes this is just an interesting idea to tell stories in different ways but for some films, this very idea is crucial to the film.

Memento

Undoubtedly the film where this is most important is Memento. Christopher Nolan’s first full-length film has a narrative that is almost impossible to put in some sort of chronological order. This is because we follow the character of Lenny – a man investigating the murder of his wife. The problem is that in the attack that killed his wife Lenny is also injured and suffers from anterograde amnesia. This is a kind of amnesia where the memories before the injury remain but new ones are unable to be made. You could meet Lenny for the first time, leave the room, come back two minutes later and he wouldn’t remember you, once his short-term memory has moved on nothing is saved. This means Lenny himself has a hell of a time trying to navigate life and solve a crime. We learn at the end of the film just how disjointed the narrative is. The confusion that the viewer has in trying to keep track of what is happening gives them just a small glimpse into Lenny’s life. In the way that the audience can be manipulated into making certain conclusions or assumptions by someone who has control over how the information is relayed so can Lenny.

Pulp fiction

Perhaps the most famous example of this is Pulp Fiction. While this purely a storytelling choice unlike some of the other films mentioned, if one were to simply rearrange Pulp Fiction and put it in chronological order it would be a worse film. The film opens in a diner about to be held up and ends there as well – in between a lot happens, including the death of one of the people in the diner. Pulp Fiction tells several interconnected stories – a diner holdup, two gangsters going to reclaim their boss’s property, the same two gangsters accidentally killing someone and having to clean that mess up, one gangster taking the boss’s wife out on a platonic date and a boxer being paid to throw a fight who instead takes that money bets on himself and wins. The stories weave in and out of each other and it is not entirely clear when they place in relation to one another. Famously in one scene John Travolta’s Vincent Vega is killed by Bruce Willis’ Butch and then appears in the next scene – as chronologically his death is still in the future.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Like Memento the brilliant Eternal Sunshine focuses on memory. But in Eternal Sunshine the hook is a company will delete painful memories, so bad breakups and so on. Joel finds out his girlfriend has chosen to delete him from her memory and so decides to do the same thing. Most of the film takes place within Joel’s mind while he sleeps and the memories are deleted. There is a handy trick in the film – similar to one used in Memento – of Clem’s hair changing colour, she mentions she dyes it often and so this can be used as a rough measure of “when” we are. As the film progresses we learn that some of what we are seeing is not the setup of their relationship but that they meet again AFTER both have deleted each other from their respective memories. The time spent in Joel’s mind is inherently disjointed especially when to avoid the memory deletion Joel goes to memories that do not contain Clem.

In Television

There are a number of TV shows that have used non-linear narrative or at least elements of it. So there is Rick and Morty, a tv show featuring time travel, memory manipulation, inter-dimensional travel, literally the Devil, we have absolutely no idea who is a clone, a robot, from another dimension, what year it is, is this in our universe, is the universe simply a car battery? We don’t know. Inside No. 9 has an episode where we start at the end and jump back every scene, each time learning new things and different identities of the character, like Pulp Fiction to simply reverse the film it wouldn’t be as good. Doctor Who makes fantastic use of time travel to present a non-linear relationship, the character of River Song was the Doctor’s wife but when we first meet the character the Doctor doesn’t know who she is and over the course of several seasons and different Doctors their relationship is filled in. They often talk about “spoilers” – saying things the other doesn’t know about yet.

Also Read: ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Can Open For More Indigenous Storytelling and Talent

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The most recent iteration of their machine learning-based natural language processor, ChatGPT3 has recently generated furore on the internet as to the possibilities of A.I. In order to test out the A.I tool, we asked the programme to define itself, giving the prompt “What is Chat GPT“? Here’s what it responded with:

“ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text in response to prompts. It is trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet and is able to understand and respond to a wide range of topics and questions. It can be used for various natural language processing tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and chatbot development.”

With that out of the way, it was time for a movie-related question. We asked the question “In your opinion, what are the 10 best movies ever made and why?” The response below is directly from Chat GPT:

“As a machine learning model, I do not have personal opinions or preferences. However, I can provide a list of some critically acclaimed films and a brief explanation of why they are considered to be among the best ever made.

“The Godfather” (1972) – Considered a masterpiece of filmmaking, the film explores themes of family, power, and corruption through the story of a New York crime family.
“The Shawshank Redemption” (1994) – This film tells the story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder and his friendship with a fellow inmate. It is praised for its performances, direction, and themes of hope and redemption.

“The Godfather: Part II” (1974) – A continuation of the story from the first film, this movie explores the early life of Vito Corleone and the rise of Michael Corleone, while also depicting the fall of the Corleone empire.

“The Dark Knight” (2008) – A psychological thriller that explores the theme of good vs evil through the story of Batman and the Joker. It is widely praised for its performances, direction and its exploration of the human psyche.

“Schindler’s List” (1993) – This film is based on the true story of a German businessman who saves the lives of more than a thousand Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. It is praised for its powerful performances, direction and its unflinching portrayal of one of the darkest periods in human history.

“12 Angry Men” (1957) – This film tells the story of a jury deliberation in a murder trial. It is widely praised for its performances and its exploration of themes of justice, bias and the human condition.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003) – The final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is widely praised for its visual effects, action sequences, and its exploration of themes of love, sacrifice, and friendship.

“Pulp Fiction” (1994) – This film is widely considered a masterpiece of modern cinema. It tells a number of interconnected stories that explore themes of love, violence and redemption.

“Goodfellas” (1990) – This film tells the true story of a mobster’s rise and fall. It is widely praised for its performances, direction and its unflinching portrayal of the criminal underworld.

“The Matrix” (1999) – This groundbreaking film explores the theme of reality and perception through the story of a hacker who discovers that the world he knows is a simulation. It is praised for its visual effects, action sequences, and its exploration of deep philosophical ideas.”

The above is the full transcript of ChatGPT’s response. It is interesting to note that the machine learning tool clearly states it has no personal opinion. Current A.I chatbots (from ChatGPT to Amazon’s Alexa) function more as a development on Google search i.e. providing information to human prompts than they do as conscious humanoids who develop their own opinions in the way that we do (at least for now). However, it’s still interesting to see ChatGPT’s response. Firstly, it’s very well written and contains films that regularly feature on different movie lists. What is fascinating is why ChatGPT chose these films in this order. How did Chat GPT weigh up what a “critically acclaimed” film was? Why did it only respond with 9 movies? Furthermore, in the future when we look at such programmes to analyse critical acclaim, how do the human biases in the data that are used to train the A.I model play out in its response?

Also Read: A.I Generated Art & Movies: A Collision Course

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Given The Matrix’s themes surrounding the “metaverse”, the franchise seems primed to take advantage of a growing NFT space. The digital collection will feature both “red pill” & “blue pill” collectables. Fans of Pulp Fionction will be able to get their hands on seven uncut scenes from the movie, which will be available via auction on the NFT Marketplace OpenSea. This isn’t the first time a film company has entered the NFT space as Lionsgate has already released a series of NFTs for the Saw franchise earlier this year.

What are NFTS?

NFTs stand for Non Fungible Tokens. Much like cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) and crypto tokens (like Enjin), NFTs use Blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to provide digital proof of ownership. If you’re old enough to remember the Pokémon card craze of the early 00’s it’s the equivalent of being able to create digital collectables: they can be of pictures, videos, even VR/AR art, which can be accessed via your crypto wallet. Even the NBA has already “minted” and released their own NFT collection: NBA Top Shot. Blockchains are very much in their infancy, NFTs even more so, therefore it will be interesting to see how the minting of these collectables is received.

Whilst protocols that govern how information is shared across the internet is standardised, Blockchains operate on a number of different protocols, often without interoperability with each other, additionally, they often lack wallet solutions that are both secure yet easy to use for the wider public. So whilst fans of Tarantino and The Wachowski’s may want to get their hands on the digital collectables on offer, it may be a while before we see true broader public adoption.

Are NFTs Here To Stay?

Whilst it can be easy to dismiss Cryptocurrencies as a passing phase (and there are undoubtedly some outright scams in the crypto space), The crypto space has exploded since Bitcoin came onto the scene in 2009 to now a total market capitalisation of £2 Billion / $2.8 Billion (at the time of writing). Film studios are always looking for ancillary revenue; as merchandise sales and licensing provide additional revenue (MCU Merchandise generated $41 Billion for Disney in 2020) so digital collectables can be seen as part of the merchandising offering. Additionally, Blockchains are also starting to address environmental concerns of critics: Ethereum’s 2.0 upgrade will reduce the second-largest Blockchain’s energy consumption by 99.95% and carbon-neutral blockchains such as Wax.io have been developed to address environmental concerns – like those expressed by the billionaire Elon Musk.

The possibilities of blockchain use within the film industry are not limited to just NFTs; applications in film licensing and even crowdfunding can allow filmmakers to have better ways to track their work and help to avoid “Hollywood Accounting”. With Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, we can also expect more companies will make use of digital tools and environments to create new ways of engaging fans in the new virtual space. For example, one of the biggest media blockchains currently in the broadcast space is the Theta Network, which acts as an alternative to YouTube, the blockchain network has hosted a number of live stream screenings in collaboration with distributor Lionsgate Films. We’ll continue to see what the future holds for Blockchains & the film industry.

Also Read: Research Shows How Cinema Therapy Helps Reduce Anxiety

The post NFTs For “The Matrix” & “Pulp Fiction” Announced As The Film Industry Embraces Blockchain appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Bloody Violence

Star Trek films have typically shied away from much of the possible blood and gore of fight scenes. Even when featuring Klingons, whose favour sword-like weapons, there was little blood. But even if you know next to nothing about Tarantino you will probably know his films are bloody. Kill Bill 1 and 2 are horrific limb slicing, blood spurting rampages. Reservoir Dogs has THAT scene involving Stuck In The Middle With You. At times Django Unchained is drenched in blood and one would expect Star Trek: Tarantino would be too. The traditional weapon in Star Trek, phasers, have never seemed to do too much damage but I’m sure Tarantino would have them blasting off arm and leaving gaping holes in people. I would have said at some point there would have been a samurai fight but with Star Trek already having done a sword fight maybe not.

Swearing

There has never been much swearing in Star Trek. Certainly, at times it has been seen as a broadly family show. I watched it as a young child and only learning a few Klingon insults. Obviously, with a show running over decades, the idea of what they can and can’t be said has changed, the original series was usually restricted to Bones shouting dammit. I distinctly remember being shocked at Data’s use of the word “shit” in Generations. Quentin Tarantino, however, fills his films with profanities, The Dallas Observer went through his films and totalled up the swearing, Tarantino dropped the f-bomb 269 times in Reservoir Dogs, and throughout all his films has used that word 901 times. While it does point to a downward trend in swearing within Tarantino films we could expect Bones to be far more aggressive when explaining what he can’t do.

Star Trek Further Into Darkness

The single biggest change would simply be the tone of Star Trek. Traditionally, it has been a “nice” show, Earth and the Federation were beacons of justice, prosperity and equality. The original series was praised for its diverse cast and over the years it has become a near-utopian vision of the human race. They journeyed through space as explorers and scientists, never looking for a fight. The more recent films have tried a grittier and darker view of the universe they inhabit and I think it’d be safe to say Tarantino would raise this 1000%. In Tarantino even the good guys aren’t that good, in Inglourious Basterds, the heroes explicitly go out to torture, maim and do everything they can to terrorise the Nazis. In Kill Bill The Bride seeks revenge on those who wronged her but she spent years doing exactly the same work, hardly a hero. Would Captain Kirk go a revenge rampage? Is Spock using the science labs to make drugs? Has the ultimate epitome of Federation-niceness Captain Picard started mutilating captured Klingons? You dread to think what the actual villains might be like.

The problem with auteurs…

Ultimately the problem with having Tarantino direct Star Trek is that it wouldn’t be a Star Trek film, it would be a Tarantino film. I think this is what happened with Star Trek directed by J.J. Abrams – he is a director with a very particular style that I don’t think he could relinquish for the good of the franchise. On top of that a director like Tarantino would want to make his presence felt, much in the way Abrams did, starting over and rewriting what happened so he could tell the story he wanted to tell.

At the time of writing, it seems like this film won’t happen and another director will take over, which I think is broadly a good thing. Of course, there is a perfect Star Trek vehicle for Tarantino – the Mirror Universe, the alternate reality where all the main characters are evil. This is the origin of the trope of evil versions of good characters having beards, referenced in everything from South Park to Community. In the Mirror Universe, the director could have the characters go full Tarantino without spoiling Star Trek itself.

Also Read: What Makes A Tarantino Film?

The post Quentin Tarantino Directing A Star Trek Film? Here’s What It Would’ve Been Like appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Interesting Dialogue For The Sake Of Interesting Dialogue

Tarantino has a very particular style of dialogue. A lot of filmmakers would say dialogue that doesn’t move the plot on is unnecessary, but many of Tarantino’s films contain long conversations that are just people talking. They aren’t setting up for something later in the film or giving important exposition; they just talk. The best scene in Reservoir Dogs is the discussion between hardened criminals about whether or not they should tip in restaurants. Inglourious Basterds opens with a harrowing but mesmerising scene of a French farmer being interrogated by an apparently very polite Nazi, and while this does set up a lot of the plot, I would argue you could do that in ninety seconds. Later in the film, characters play a version of the Rizla Game, which is equally riveting. Many people have tried to imitate Tarantino’s dialogue and failed, and he is probably one of the most quotable writers working in Hollywood today.

The Actors

Like many auteurs, Tarantino likes to use the same actors again and again. Samuel L Jackson has featured in seven Tarantino films (eight if we include True Romance), and actors like Michael Madsen, Tim Roth and Uma Thurman pop up again and again. Tarantino also has an odd trait of casting actors who perhaps wouldn’t be on most directors’ wish-lists. Who will get a small role in one of his films – someone like Oscar-nominated Christopher Walken, who gave a great performance in Pulp Fiction or someone like Don Johnson, star of Miami Vice, who certainly managed to say his lines in the right order in Django Unchained? These unusual choices are all the more mystifying when Tarantino’s credibility and budget would allow him to hire just about anyone.

Music & Sound

Tarantino soundtracks are usually very, very good. Not only in picking good songs like Misirlou by Dick Dale and Del-Tones or Woo Hoo by The 5.6.7.8’s, but also in picking short bursts of music and sound. Songs that get featured in Tarantino films can lose all other context. Stuck In The Middle With You is a very good song and has a very pleasant sound, but for millions of people, it will bring back one of the most brutal scenes in Tarantino’s work.

It doesn’t even have to be whole songs; it can just be a snippet of music – in Kill Bill: Vol 1, the character Elle Driver whistling as she calmly walks down a corridor to murder someone, and after watching it, the sound will be stuck in my head for days.

Tough Women

Tarantino does have a habit of including tough, strong women in his films. Obviously, four of the five Deadly Viper Assassination Squad in Kill Bill are women (as well as one member’s bodyguard, Go-Go). Shoshanna in Inglourious Basterds is an unstoppable force of nature, Daisy Domergue is as dangerous a villain as anyone, and, of course, Jackie Brown is a much more toned down and realistic portrayal of a strong woman. The shot of Uma Thurman wearing the yellow and black jumpsuit holding a samurai sword is already an iconic image.

However, Tarantino’s sensitivity is not always what it could be, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 has a very distressing rape scene which I don’t think needs to be in the film at all and I have heard people say they were disgusted at the violence meted out against Daisy Domergue in The Hateful Eight; as they felt it was being played for laughs. With all that being said, I do think Tarantino shows women in roles they often don’t get to play.

Adult Themes

Tarantino films are violent, and characters swear a lot. There’s lots of sex and drugs. Sections of Kill Bill are blood-drenched massacres. A YouTube edit of Pulp Fiction in which every word apart from the F-bomb is removed is almost four minutes long. If you make films about gangsters, drug dealers, assassins, slave-owners etc then you’re going to have to include unpleasant things. I’m not complaining about this as such, but it’s something to be aware of. Jackie Brown, a film about drug dealers, is probably the tamest, with the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) only giving it a 15 certificate, practically a family-friendly film in Tarantino’s world.

The Problems

Tarantino is by no means a perfect director and there are many problems with his work. Tarantino makes long films, and I think even the biggest fan of his work would admit he needs an editor, or more accurately, someone to tell him not all of his ideas are brilliant, and you can cut bits out. The Hateful Eight was over three hours long, and bear in mind, nearly all of that film takes place in one building.

Then there is his other notorious problem – he keeps casting himself in his own movies when he can’t act. Sometimes it’s tiny, almost unnoticeable roles, like Answering Machine Voice in Jackie Brown, but in Reservoir Dogs, he was one of the gang, and in Pulp Fiction, he has the utterly bizarre role of one Jules’s friends. Not only did he cast himself in Django Unchained, but he also made the unwise decision to adopt an Australian accent. Tarantino may well be a filmmaking genius, but he’s been told that far too many times.

As I have mentioned, Tarantino is a fan of strong language, and he is very loose with using certain words – racial epithets – that he should think more about whether he really needs to use them.

So there is a brief overview of Tarantino’s work. How will Once Upon A Time In Hollywood fit in with it?

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