{"id":2727,"date":"2019-10-12T11:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T15:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/curtsiesandhandgrenades.com\/?p=2727"},"modified":"2019-10-12T11:00:24","modified_gmt":"2019-10-12T15:00:24","slug":"on-max-cherry-and-jackie-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/curtsiesandhandgrenades.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/12\/on-max-cherry-and-jackie-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"On Max Cherry and Jackie Brown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) and Max Cherry (Robert Forster)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Max Cherry (Robert Forster) and Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) only share a handful of scenes in the movie bearing her name, but those moments cast a shadow over the entirety of this story. When Jackie gets into trouble carrying Ordell Robie\u2019s (Samuel L. Jackson) money he got from selling illegal firearms across the border she\u2019s sent to jail. Max is a bail-bondsman hired by Ordell to help get Jackie out of prison. Max probably thinks this is going to be just another job, but what he doesn\u2019t expect, what no one can really ready themselves for, is seeing someone and hearing music. People talk a lot about \u201cbutterflies\u201d when they see someone they fall for, but in movies that shit is always soundtracked, and when Max sees Jackie he hears \u201cNatural High\u201d by Bloodstone. Jackie\u2019s silhouetted in a wide shot. She\u2019s got broad shoulders, gorgeous hair, and killer legs that run down into a comfortable flats that click on the concrete. It\u2019s the only sound that can be heard other than a guitar plucking an orange note that\u2019s practically visible across the screen. The song is warm and signals to us that this love is immediate, classic, and perfect. Jackie keeps walking closer to Max, and he\u2019s stuck right there, dead in his tracks. There\u2019s a cutting back and forth and he just keeps looking at this woman he just fell in love with. Robert Forster plays it cool, knowing he has a job to do, but if you pay attention to his eyes you can see he\u2019s weak in the knees for Jackie Brown. When she\u2019s finally right there at the front gate he introduces himself, and she to him. The song keeps playing. Might as well keep playing through the rest of the movie. There\u2019s a heist to pull off, and government agents to hoodwink, but all of that is icing on the cake when you\u2019ve got a scene like this one. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Max and Jackie don\u2019t really know they\u2019re living through a perfect night they\u2019ll remember forever. None of us really realize those moments are happening, until you\u2019ve got the context to understand what happened was important. There\u2019s a small tragedy in not knowing what you\u2019ve got when you have it, but that too makes the memory all the better. When Jackie gets in the car the camera hovers a bit around her facial features. We\u2019re looking at her through Max\u2019s eyes and it\u2019s the easiest thing in the world to fall for this woman. She pushes her hair behind her ears and her cheekbones pop. It\u2019s the kind of close-up that would leave you breathless if you saw it on the gigantic screens of a multiplex, but even at home it does the job nicely. The movie wouldn\u2019t work if Max and Jackie\u2019s romance didn\u2019t feel real, and while Jackie takes a bit longer to fall for Max, and doesn\u2019t even realize she\u2019s in love until she\u2019s riding off into the sunset, decked out in the latest fashion with a killer soundtrack blasting behind her, Max loves her immediately. The soundtrack tells us this. Quentin Tarantino always underlines with whatever music cue he introduces into the story and \u201cNatural High\u201d can only ever evoke love. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0The night goes on as they drive on by. Max could take her home, but they\u2019re having an easy enough conversation getting to know each other while looking for some place to get a drink. It\u2019d be kind of like a date if Jackie didn\u2019t rightfully have her defences up, but even those eventually slip away. Everything does when you\u2019re really falling for someone. Nothing else is important. Only the vulnerability it takes to give yourself over to what could be something special. Our bodies end up knowing before our heads do. Max and Jackie make all the excuses in the world to stay together on this night and later that morning. They get a drink, they have a cup of coffee, they talk about music. Anything just to keep talking to one another, and it\u2019s perfect for Quentin Tarantino, because he likes nothing more than writing scenes where characters just talk. Max smiles when Jackie finally suggests a place to get a drink, because he knows the night won\u2019t end in that moment. It\u2019ll keep rolling forward with perfect harmony, where two people can be the whole world. Quentin\u2019s got to get across a lot of exposition and move the plot forward in this conversation over a drink and a smoke, but there\u2019s an easyness to the way Grier and Forster converse that makes it feel natural. They talk about gaining or losing weight while smoking cigs and anxieties about their own jobs inbetween the business of dead bodies and jail time and all of it feels just as romantic as that initial encounter. The red light from the bar is like a cocoon for them, a warm place where they can talk about anything with comfort, and as an audience it\u2019s easy to fall in love with the way they speak to one another, the way they trade glances or sit in silence. Max and Jackie are tied together from this point forward. We know it, even if they don\u2019t. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Max doesn\u2019t know when he finally drops Jackie off at her house is that she took his gun out of the glove compartment to protect herself from Ordell, But more important than protection, it gives him an excuse to go see her again, and she knows that too. Two birds. One stone. That morning they have a drink again: this time coffee, and like last time they just talk. Jackie puts on some music and they go back and forth just like last night, the only difference being the topics at hand. She plays The Delfonics and Max likes the music. The camera frames Jackie lighting a cigarette as the music starts up, underlining once again through song that Max loves her. My favourite conversation in the movie revolves around aging. Jackie asks Max how he feels about getting old and he says he feels okay about it. He was losing his hair at one point, but he did something about it and now he\u2019s comfortable, but the question was a huge smoke-screen for Jackie to open up about a bigger topic: her own fear. With this arrest hanging over head she\u2019s afraid she\u2019s going to lose everything and she ain\u2019t got much to begin with. Max listens. He really listens<\/em>. The image cuts back to him multiple times during Jackie\u2019s conversation just hearing her. He may not realize it, but that\u2019s all she needs right now. She\u2019s made her mind up on what she\u2019s going to do about the government and Ordell hanging over her head, and she just needs him to hear her speak, and tell her that he\u2019ll be there for her. He does as much with a little bit of flirting thrown in for good measure. Partners in crime. Partners in love. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later there\u2019s a scene where Max buys a Delfonics cassette. In day to day life we make memories through song. When couples dance at their wedding they tend to have a song picked out, because it has greater weight or meaning for the people in question. No one else at the wedding needs to know the context of this song or how it got to be important. These things just happen organically. For Max he\u2019ll never be able to listen to the Delfonics the same way again. They\u2019ll always be Jackie Brown, and for me, Jackie Brown <\/em>will always be the relationship these two characters had. \u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Max Cherry (Robert Forster) and Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) only share a handful of scenes in the movie bearing her…<\/p>\n

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