Images Matter

From Thomas Merton’s A Vow of Conversation:

“The artist who recognizes and loves his own style to the great damage of his work, the style being imagined as himself. At this point he begins to know and will his style, as it were, without contact with the world outside, whereas, in reality, the style is only a by-product of that contact. Thus you get style without contact, style without communication which is nevertheless accepted as communication.”

One can’t resist placing the work of Tarantino within the framework of this passage. His films, while being hailed as innovative, and as being in dialogue with the genre of exploitation films actually read as nothing more than a closed system in which the only contact is between the filmmaker and his own cinematic monologue. Exploitation films carried social commentary. What message does Tarantino’s supposed dialogue with that commentary deliver other than “I like the style of exploitation films”? His films don’t reflect any contact with the world outside, but rather, a rigid contract with the knowledge of his own style, which communicates a singular appreciation of that knowledge, and, as Merton suggests, is nevertheless accepted as communication (with the spectator). If films can also be consumed as mere entertainment, and should not be held to the moralistic mandate of having “meaning”, isn’t being entertained by a Tarantino film the equivalent of giggling at the man on the street who gesticulates wildly and rants while deeply engaged with his own internal stimuli?

The question remains, why does the mainstream spectator seem so ready to accept, appreciate, and laud an artist who is suffering the damage of his great work, imagining it to be himself, and communicating with nobody but himself?