Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino - 1997)

Jackie Brown (1997) - Quentin Tarantino


Info:
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Release: 1997

A female flight attendant becomes a key figure in a plot between the police and an arms dealer. - IMDb

The Introduction of Jackie Brown

At the beginning of the scene, Quentin Tarantino introduces a character called "Jackie Brown" (actress Pam Grier). Non-diegetic sound has been edited into the film at the beginning. The non-diegetic sound is a soundtrack which is called "Across 110th Street" by  Bobby Womack.


(Here is the non-diegectic soundtrack for your listening pleasures.)



The soundtrack is very upbeat and powerful. The lyrics begin when Jackie Brown enters the scene in a medium close up. This immediately establishes the character of Jackie as being upbeat, glamorous, powerful and confidant - the lyrics support this. Because of the soundtrack, Jackie Brown is represented as being a "Femme-Fatal". This is a thriller convention that establishes the genre.

For the first opening minute, the camera constantly tracks Jackie Brown as she moves throughout the scene. The costume which she is wearing is a Flight Attendant's uniform. The costume is bright blue and white. This colour choice can support the fact that Tarantino is trying to represent Jackie as a Femme-Fatal as the colour is bright, eye-catching and glamorous.


Throughout the opening scene, the camera cuts between medium, extreme and close ups of Jackie Brown each differentiating between low angles and "shoulder" height angles. This signifies that the audience should constantly keep an eye on Jackie Brown. Especially as Tarantino has established her as being a Femme-Fatal - a deviant and dangerous woman who looks innocent. On top of this, within the mise-en-scene of the extreme close ups, Jackie Brown is the only figure who is in the camera's focus. This also suggests that the audience needs to keep a close eye on her, or even that everything around Jackie is insignificant. She is above everyone else, more important and can do anything she wishes - another common characteristic of a Femme-Fatal. 

This is also backed up by the fact that Jackie Brown walks past a crowd of people queueing to scan luggage. Scanning luggage is a protocol in Airports encase of an attack on an aircraft - they search for dangerous weapons or bombs. Because of the fact that Jackie Brown walks past this important protocol, it can suggest that she is going to do exactly the same, but this time, to the police. No one will suspect her committing a crime, or helping anyone who does.

The Shooting of Beaumont 

During "The Shooting of Beaumont", Quentin Tarantino uses the representation of the character's clothing to establish power within the scene. The mise-en-scene shows that one character is dressed and the other 'bare' or even shown as being 'naked'. By doing this, Quentin Tarantino establishes that the character wearing clothes is far more superior then the character without.

As this is a Quentin Tarantino film, he's used his iconic low angle shot. The low angle shot shows the two characters looking into a car boot. Again, the low angle show can represent having superior power as the characters are towering above the camera. 


Quentin Tarantino uses this low angle shot in many other films. This can be seen as an intertextual reference. The reference is that characters, who have more 'power' in the scene tower above the camera. These films include:

Kill Bill Vol.1:

Reservoir Dogs:

Pulp Fiction: