Influence - Jackie Brown (Tarantino, 1997)

At the weekend, I watched ‘Jackie Brown’, a crime drama directed by Quentin Tarantino. Whilst watching, I found many key aspects of the film that I thought would provide notable inspiration for our opening sequence.

Tarantino is well known for his influential direction in the genre of crime films, in ‘Jackie Brown’ particularly, many steps have been taken that challenge preconceived representations and stereotypes that may be held by the audience.  The film’s cast is made up of mainly people of colour, and includes multiple inter-race relationships. Considering the film was produced in 1997, this film was way ahead of its time when tackling the controversial subject of race.

As well as this, the protagonist of the film is a strong, well-developed female character, which is a rare occurrence even today, in the modern film industry. Jackie Brown is an intelligent, cultured, independent woman with an intricate and complex backstory that Tarantino makes clear throughout the film, which will provide some good inspiration for our group if we decide to pursue the idea of casting a female police officer. We had this idea when discussing how we could make our film different from those already on the market, as crime drama is an increasingly popular genre of film. We decided that the best way to do this would be to challenge the stereotype that only men work in the police force.

The plot of the film revolves around arms dealing on the black market, and the trafficking of money that comes with it. However, as well as this, drugs play an important role in the story of the film. People of colour are usually associated with recreational drug abuse, and many stereotypes generalise the entire black population to be typically Rastafarian and therefore, partake in the use of illegal drugs. This stereotype is successfully challenged in ‘Jackie Brown’, as the only characters to get high on screen are a white, middle-aged man, and a young, white woman. These are two types of people that are not typically associated with drug use, and Tarantino creates quite a shock factor with this direction.

Whilst also thinking of character development, the use of camera movements in Jackie Brown will be of great aid when we work out how to film our sequence. As you can see from the clip below, the opening sequence consists mainly of continuous tracking shots and very little else. Another notable aspect of filming in Jackie Brown is that throughout the entire film, not one establishing shot is used. The only way a sense of place and location is provided to the audience is through the use of onscreen text and subtitles that clearly state where each scene is set.

Jackie Brown will provide many sources of inspiration for the crime drama opening sequence we will create, especially as we begin to further explore the topic of representation in our film.