Death Proof - revisited

As already occurred to me yesterday, Crash and Death Proof would make a nice double feature: Crash is about people turned on by car crashes, and Death Proof is about one man for whom car crashes are a form of sexual aggression. He's a rapist, in a way: in the first part he his successful, and in the second, the girls take back the night.

I already discussed Death Proof at length before. This post is merely to contemplate the differences between the version I saw as part of Grindhouse a month ago, and the longer, stand-alone version I saw tonight.

To be honest, I'm not quite sure which I prefer. I do know I'm happy I saw both.

The main advantage of seeing Death Proof in it's originally intended form is that a) it doesn't really need to be longer than 1.5 hours, b) the fake trailers rule and c) Planet Terror is a lot of fun, and puts you in precisely the appropriate mood to be able to appreciate Death Proof.

However, there are things to be said for the longer version, too, and luckily, in the arthouse theater I went to see it, it was preceded by the trailer for Planet Terror, and that one only. The lenthening of the dialogues is not really necessary, and makes some drag on a bit too long, in fact, and the many more shots of feet and legs are somewhat superfluous, but two of the three extra scenes are definitely worthwhile. The first one is, of course, the "missing reel": Vanessa Ferlito's lapdance, which is all you'd expect it to be, and set to music worthy of Tarantino. But the second one, which was a surprise to me, is a long, mostly black and white, opening scene to the second half. It features something creepier even than the lapdance, and it also makes for a wonderful little moment when the color gets "switched on": the colors jump out at you, the yellow of the car, the pink of Rosario Dawson's shirt. It signals that this half is going to be different. That these girls are different.

Aside from that, the films are very similar: you still get the scary/funny moment when Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike suddenly looks into the camera and grins, telling you that now the action's going to start, the brilliant moment with the beat-up Dodges spilling out into our world is still there, and at the end, you still walk out feeling like kicking the air, humming "Laisse Tomber Les Filles" and yelling yeah.

I wonder though: the triumphant feeling I got again tonight walking out of this film, do guys have it too? Is it gender-dependent that this fighting back feels to empowering? There's often criticism about films, for example about this new "torture porn" genre, that act like they "deserve" to degrade and abuse women as long as the women get the upper hand in the end, but truthfully, is that really so bad an attitude? As long as I get to be in the second batch of women, I'm not sure I think it is.

I'm still pissed Grindhouse was split up. I still think it's underestimating the viewer, and ripping off film lovers. But the longer version definitely has some things to recommend it.