Jackie Brown Analysis

Jackie Brown is the first thriller to be directed by Quentin Tarantino after his first independent Thriller 'Reservoir Dogs' gained large publicity. The film centres around a middle aged black air hostess, who helps the police to take down an arms dealer, Tarantino does this in order to develop the thriller genre. Throughout the film racial and sexist stereotypes are portrayed in several different lights depending on the character. In many ways the character of Jackie Brown confirms racial stereotypes whilst contradicting typical thriller conventions. Race and Gender are linked throughout 'Jackie Brown' because the main character is a female african american therefore is an easily discriminated character. 

The opening shot is a tracking shot which shows Jackie Brown from waste up as she walks through an airport, this is longest tracking shot in film history and it lasts a full 3 minutes. We instantly notice that she is agitated, this shows us that she is worried about being late somewhere, this tense body language shows instantly that she is used to being a victim of discrimination. The soundtrack is called "Across 110th Street" and the lyrics reference to life on the streets in america, it mentions pimps and drug dealers which links back to the fact that Jackie Brown gets herself into trouble with an Arms Dealer. She gets caught smuggling drugs through the airport which confirms the deviant stereotypes already held against african american women. When watching the character of Jackie Brown we notice that she is walking much faster than everybody else, this links to the idea that she has to follow different rules than everybody else due to her ethnicity and gender. The shot then changes to a low angle tracking shot, this makes her seem more dominant within the shot, which could be because she has been toughened by a harsh life or because she is more visible to the public as a threat. In the shot above we also see that she is the only character within the shot to be in focus, this could link to her significants or the earlier idea that she is being watched because the public believe her to be a threat.

the above clip shows the shooting of 'Beaumont Livingston', within Jackie Brown. It begins with an establishing shot in which both the characters are having a conversation they then enter Ordell's car. Ordell is the lethal arms dealer that Jackie Brown later gets involved with. We see instantly that Ordell is used to being in control of situations and getting his own way, we see from the body language of both men that Ordell is very demanding whereas Beaumont is very limp like a puppet, this links to his willingness to do what Ordell tells him. During their conversation the two charters use very racist language, this is done so that they both fit into their racial stereotype that people would put them into.

The next important shot we see is Tarantino's classic boot shot. This shot is used in all of Tarantino's films and creates vulnerability of the character whilst also confirming the dominance of the person standing above the camera. Within this scene Ordell Trick's Beaumont into climbing inside the boot of his car. He then slowly walks back to his car and starts to put his gloves on. This is very sadistic behaviour and links Ordell to Bill in Tarantino's later film Kill Bill, this is because both characters put a lot of detail into their actions in order to perfect the deviant actions that they commit. Another Link between the two characters is the flashy jewellery that they both wear, this is too symbolise the characters arrogance and create the idea that they come from working backgrounds and are badly attempting to look rich. The close up shots of the gloves being put on connotes crime and automatically makes the audience think that Ordell is about to do something where he doesn't want his hands to get dirty, for example, the murder of Beaumont.

The next scene shows Ordell taking Beaumont out into a large desolate field.  Tarantino uses a long shot in order for the audience to see the whole location and to understand how alone Beaumont is in his situation. The shot is extremely dark creating an enigma of not truly knowing what is happening, this helps to create suspense within the scene. This scene introduces us to Ordell's sadistic personality, his actions show that he is quite psychopathic, this once again links too the character of Bill. This is because both characters have very long calm conversations with their victims before suddenly shooting them without any real signs of remorse. 

The final clip takes place in a mall car park and contrasts completely with the murder of Beaumont. Louis, who is Ordell's long time friend, takes Melanie, a female character who lives with Ordell, to a mall in order to collect a lot of money from Jackie Brown, Louis is very agitated and has obviously taken some form of drug before the trade off. Melanie is very careless about being desecrate with the trade, which leads louis to become extremely angry and shoot her in the middle of a car park. These actions contrast well with the Ordell's discrete murder because where Ordell murders at night in an empty location, Louis just shoots without preparation and in the open with witnesses much more likely. The tension however was build more with louis' murder than Ordell's because there was much less warning before the murder, the actions are so erratic that louis seems to be the single most dangerous character in the film, that is until Ordell shoots him in a later scene.