AN: originally posted on July 6, 2016, on my old blog.

During a class on the Renaissance, a history professor of mine once started talking about the concept of artificiality. He said that the word artificial originally comes from the word “artifice”, which means “craftiness”, or “making art”. In the Renaissance, “artificial” was a compliment. It meant you had created something great.

Today, we’re surrounded by artificial things, so they’re not that impressive. We strive for naturalism. In film, in acting, in writing. We criticize actors who don’t play their characters “like real people”. We want the seams hidden, the effort disguised. But Quentin Tarantino doesn’t make himself invisible. Like the kino pravda films of early 20th century Russia, Death Proof is a movie about movie-making. In Death Proof more than any other movie of his I’ve seen, he reminds you of the artifice as you’re watching.

I liked Death Proof, even if I spent a lot of the movie wondering what the point of it all was. Was it building to something more than what it seemed? It wasn’t, really. It was a pretty straightforward movie. Which comes from its roots as an homage to the 1970s driving exploitation films that were common then. Tarantino faithfully copies the style of these films, down to the rough edits and fuzzy-looking film. One of the issues with this film might be that driving exploitation movies just weren’t very good, so copying them isn’t going to get you that far. The crime, martial arts, and romance movies that previously inspired Tarantino were often excellent. Exploitation movies, meanwhile, were known for not being very good. The name “exploitation” comes from “exploiting” the popularity of a genre- filmmakers would capitalize on the success of car movies or prison movies or whatever it was and make their own cheap version of the same thing to make money. Not exactly a thing you associate with incredible artistic integrity. So aside from being, perhaps, doomed to badness, Death Proof is also a copy of a copy of a copy. From driving movie to exploitation driving movie to Death Proof.

The story is simple enough. A Hollywood stuntman named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell, and yes, that is the character’s name, ask anyone) hunts down a group of young women in his death proof car and kills them. Later, when he tries to do the same with another group, those girls fight back. Most of the characters are defined by their jobs in the entertainment industry. There is, obviously, Stuntman Mike, who meets his end at the hands of real stuntwoman Zoe Bell, playing herself. Of the first group of girls, Julia, aka Jungle Julia (Sydney Poitier), is a semifamous local radio personality. Of the second group, Abernathy (Rosario Dawson) is a makeup artist for films and Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is an actress, while Zoe and Kim (Tracie Thoms) are both stuntwomen. The first group- Julia, Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), Shanna (Jordan Ladd), and Pam (Rose McGowan)- are murdered. The second group survive.

This film was shown as a double feature with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, and the films interconnect in several ways. In one scene in Death Proof, for instance, the camera lingers on a doctor for a moment too long to be insignificant. We don’t see her again. But it turns out that she was also a character in Planet Terror. It’s not like these movies belong to the same timeline- Rose McGowan has a machine gun for a leg in one and certainly not in the other- but they refer to each other. Death Proof also opens with the type of cartoon that was shown between double feature grindhouse movies. It’s a construction that misses no detail.

Within the narrative, the movie ties together these external elements with themes of masculinity and filmmaking. The artificiality of one reflects the artificiality of the other. Stuntman Mike tries to be the masculine ideal but is just posturing to cover up his weakness. In a cocky moment, when he knows he is about to succeed with his whole plan, he actually looks into the camera. And smiles.

He, like the filmmaker, has succeeded in creating his ideal scenario. So he looks at us and smiles. But the story’s not over yet. What he doesn’t realize is that it’s not his story.

Although Kurt Russell gets title bill this is a movie that belongs to its women.Death Proof, like Tarantino’s other female-centric movies, takes a close look at misogyny.It’s said that Stuntman Mike kills women because it’s the only way he can get off; their lives are worth only as much as his orgasm. He’s all vicious and full of masculine bravado until the women finally come for him. When they do he is immediately teary-eyed and apologetic, begging them to stop. While Abi, Kim, and Zoe recover quickly from his attack and immediately are out for revenge, Stuntman Mike bawls loudly when a bullet grazes his arm. He can dish it out but he can’t take it. Stuntman Mike presents himself in a multitude of ways- as a creep, as an aw-shucks humble guy, as a savage killer. This mask is tied to his car, to his strength. The car is Death Proof; it makes him immortal. The movie ends immediately after he’s forcibly pulled from the car because there’s nothing left. He’s nothing without it. Once the women get him out of the car they pull off his mask, force him to stop posturing, and then punch the living shit out of him. They win.

The stuntman is supposed to go unnoticed. They’re doing a bad job if they aren’t. They’re supposed to be invisible, seamless, disappearing into the fabric of the film. Death Proof shows the seams.