Jackie Brown knows your greatest weakness and exactly how to play it against you. Jackie Brown shows us how little we know about how much other people know.
Quentin Tarantino is widely known for over-the-top, hyper-violent, profanity-ridden films that push the viewer’s comfort through long, almost tedious scenes that reflect better than most, the humanity in conversations.
In Jackie Brown, Tarantino’s third feature film, the hyper-violence was dialed back in exchange for amped-up “realness.” Every scene of Jackie Brown is long and full. There is, however, the usual Tarantino level of profanity, which for those unfamiliar, is a lot.
How Real is Real?
Jackie Brown features the kind of moments that are usually reserved for real life and left out of entertainment. Jackie (Pam Grier) accidently turns on a sink while talking to Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson) and makes him repeat himself for her. Melanie (Bridget Fonda) trips over her words trying to pronounce a Japanese man’s name. There is even a great, subtle moment of realness at the end of the film as Ordell tosses Max Cherry (Robert Forster) his car keys but Max misses and has to bend over to pick them up.
All throughout the film, there are brief cuts of characters doing everyday things often skipped by the camera. There is a shot of coffee as it is being brewed. Characters are shown at length pacing back and forth repeatedly or looking nervous under pressure. With Jackie, there is even the opportunity to see her practicing the faces she is going to make during her next lie. It is each of these short moments that taken as a whole makes the two and a half hour long experience of Jackie Brown so engrossing. They reflect reality more so than most films allow themselves the room for in their run time.
Switcheroos on Switcheroos on Switcheroos
It is this realness in Tarantino’s work that makes work. The long drawn-out scenes are so because they are rich with character building. After more than an hour’s worth of character exposition, Jackie Brown is a story about a forty-four-year-old airline stewardess on her last chance in the industry who finds herself stuck in the middle of an investigation into the man, Ordell, she runs money over the Mexican border for. Rather than going quietly or taking the easiest way out, Jackie concocts a plan to walk out the real winner.
This movie is no average sting affair. Jackie weaves a complex knot of events that plays on each player’s most fatal flaws. She manages to cheat Ordell, the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (A.T.F.) agents, and Max all at once by honing in on a particular piece of their senses of masculinity to exploit and use against them. Ordell is trapped in a fantasy of guns, drugs, money, sex, and power. The A.T.F. agents, especially Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) are ensnared by their desire to play the role of police over doing real, good police work. Max is tragically manipulated into helping Jackie pull it all off by taking advantage of his amorous affection towards her. Each man has their weakness and Jackie plays them all in a way few others could have.
Chicks Who Love Guns
The very first scene of Jackie Brown after the opening credits begins with a television infomercial called “Chicks Who Love Guns.” Ordell’s entire world revolves around making himself seem like the biggest and badest gangster there is. This opening scene does the framing for the entire film to follow. Ordell is not the gun runner he makes himself out to be. His life is a mere imitation of the things he sees on TV.
Melanie points it out to Ordell’s old partner, recently released convict Louis Gara (Robert De Niro). “He ain’t any more smart than I am,” she tells Louis after explaining that everything Ordell ever says is repeated back from a movie or a friend. Pictures of marijuana hanging from the wall and long dialogue of over-sharing details about his business conquests are most of all Ordell ever talks about.
When he is not going on about 9mm guns being better than 45’s, Ordell is working to shape the fantasy he lives in by carrying on beyond a conversation’s natural expiration to boast. He asserts his sense of dominance by asking leading questions that can be answered only the way he wants them to be answered. That is why Jackie does not answer Ordell’s question. She only answers the questions she tells him to ask.
You Didn’t Call the Cops?
A.T.F. agents Ray Nicolette and Mark Dargus (Michael Bowen) are not standard police. They do not often get to make exciting arrests or have the same glory as the kind of police in the shows Ordell watches. So when presented the opportunity to make a huge bust, these agents will scrape for every scrap they can.
Jackie knows this all too well. Maintaining the agents’ illusions of playing cop is all too easy. Jackie never has to actually give Nicolette and Dargus what they are specifically looking for to convict Ordell. She only has to give them the bare minimum to let them feel like they have done their job. They get to run the sting they are so excited about. They get to put away the bad guy. Getting to fire a gun at an armed criminal in the defense of a seemingly defenseless woman is the cherry on top for Ray.
Doing Whatever I Had to Do to Survive
Clearly a lonely man, Max Cherry is the most self-aware victim of Jackie’s scheme. Nonetheless, he is lovestruck the moment he meets her, as made evident by the love song playing as she approaches him. In fact, it is one of the few times a song from the film’s impeccable soundtrack is heard independently of an on-screen cue for music such as a car cassette player, a record player, or ambient bar music. The way he watches Jackie slowly approach from afar. The camera slowly zooms in towards Max’s eyes. No facial expression is given, but it is clear that he is awestruck and deeply enamored.
Jackie is in a line of work that has likely made her quite attuned to come-ons from men. She can sense instantly his attraction towards her as Max offers to stop at a bar on their way home. Whether Jackie genuinely reciprocates these feelings and if so, to what degree, is left intentionally ambiguous. It could be seen either way. The fact that she is entirely aware of this tension is made clear by masterful acting.
Whether the acting is by Pam Grier or by Jackie Brown is unclear, but there is a sense that something is disingenuine about how Jackie treats Max. Her adjustments in the department store mirror and the practicing of drawing Max’s gun show she is skilled in the art of deception. The question is whether she is deceiving Max, the audience, or herself while appeasing Max’s wooing.
I’m Not Saying What I Did Was Alright
Ruthlessly, Jackie swoops into the unbeknownst fantasies of each Ordell, Ray and Mark, and Max and comes away the ultimate victor. By unmasking each of these idealized notions of masculinity, Jackie finds a way to fulfill them each while still making them all the losers.
There is a dynamism to Jackie Brown. She is far from just a cold and calculated woman. She clearly has a sense of regret for how she strings Max along. Jackie would not be so willing to trust him with the final steps in her escape plan and invite him to reap as much of the rewards as he likes had she not cared for him somewhat. But there is one thing that is entirely clear. Jackie Brown is out to protect herself above anyone else, no matter how much she makes them feel like she wants to help.
The genius of Jackie Brown is in how it utilizes non-linear story telling to keep the audience as uncertain of Jackie’s actions and motives as those she is duping. As the story continuously loops back on itself, so do perceptions of the characters. With each new iteration of the same scene from a different perspective comes a new facet of Jackie’s moral predicament. Only in the final moments of Jackie Brown does each angle Jackie played become apparent. Only in the final moments is it apparent that she saw each man for the fantasy they were trying to live out. Jackie Brown leaves Los Angeles with more money than imaginable and one burning question: if somebody cracked into your fantasies, would you be left a sucker for it?
Jason wants to tell you about his current job, but he’s afraid that it might be more trouble than it’s worth. When not writing, Jason works on food justice and sharing music with communities throughout the region. Or he’s unlocking Xbox achievements.