Shorts and T-Shirts

A signed letter posted by Quentin Tarantino for Instagram and Twitter, May 20, 2019

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Dear Alex,

If we could be honest about cinema casting the complexity of our lives, we would ask ourselves:

Why do we resist “the journey of discovering a story for the first time”, things original and unknown?

We’d rather slurp and snuggle on things fragrant and familiar, not squirm, not discover. Something new and original needs to be tested first but not on me. Let me see what happens first to others before I get a jab of 0.3-mL vaccine.

When my kid was younger in LA, I often took her to science and dinosaur museums during the weekends. She would be strapped in her booster at the back of my old Honda Fit as I drove in intense morning traffic for over an hour from our 1-bedroom studio rental to Downtown. By the time we landed at the entrance hall, we were well primed and prim to experience what we had paid for: a ticket to a maze of multi-interactive stations, each choreographed to simulate an original experiment, all boosters of fun and high-fives. You did it! You got it! You can!

But our daily clockwork of work, tasks and tests are more commonly pitted with the old and odious, things recurring, half-broken and quarterly irritating. Still we push forward through our routines, forward our emails and bills through the right slot, flush the toilet and sanitize our countertops. We are not looking out for new narratives when our domestic drama is exhaustive.

For my first time at the local theatre last Friday, I watched a selection of short films nominated for the 2021 Oscars, each squeezed to about 20-30 minutes including credits, each sorted as documentary, live action or anime, half with minimal or no spoken words, all “shorts” revealing of the fierce frailty in human relationships. I was spared of the spoiler bite Tarantino has warned of. Of light and flutter the shorts stripped the screen, reversing our role from viewer to director, bystander to offender.

To the streets and world protested the masses in shorts and T-shirts in the breeze of last week. It was a cinematic outcry against the superpowers of major soccer leagues, who were staging a permanent contract to bind the best European soccer clubs into a single competition, the Super League. The proposal would dissolve broad contests among smaller domestic and underdog teams, overturning a century-old sport played in dusty alleys and neighborhood fields to the cult of branding.

In his speech against the rebels, FIFA President Gianni Infantino warned:

“If some elect to go their own way, then they must live with the consequences of their choice - they are responsible for their choice. Concretely this means, either you are in or you are out. You cannot be half in and half out. This has to be absolutely clear.”

I think he’s talking about the cinematic experience - in our homes and streets, cathedrals and cemeteries. You are either in or out to discovering this journey, every moment of it minced to meaning.

Yours, Kate