“Oh, I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?”
This video is brought to you by Mubi.
You know you’re watching a Quentin Tarantino film if…
It steals.
In the director’s own words,
“I steal from every single movie ever made.
Great artists steal; they don’t do homages”
“You want that gun, pick it up.
I wish you would.”
“You want that gun, don't ya, Zed?
Go ahead and pick it up.”
What sets Tarantino apart is his eclectic taste –
he draws on everything from spaghetti westerns, to B-movies,
to blaxploitation flicks, to samurai films, to cinema classics.
In a sense, he proves that -as an artist- you are your taste.
A director is defined by what he’s a fan of.
“Just a dirty son of a-”
“You uppity son of a-”
Even more than a cinephile,
you might call
this former Video Archives clerk the ultimate fan-fiction director –
his movie references spring from a pure love of cinema.
Often he’s not even really making a deeper thematic point
with all the referentiality beyond, “Isn’t this great?”
“It's just one of the best American movies ever made!"
It’s a bloodbath.
“I’m a cheerleader towards violence in cinema.”
So what is the purpose of subjecting us
to all this human suffering of Biblical proportions?
“And they will find the evidence
of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, and disfigured bodies
of their brothers we leave behind us”
Well, on one level, there isn’t a “purpose.”
The director rejects our impulse to ascribe a sophisticated external meaning
to the carnage.
“There are bits in Inglorious Basterds- really unsettling.
Is that because you never want people to forget the capacity for humans
to harm one another?”
“No, I think you are getting too heavy with it as far as I'm concerned.”
“I thought maybe I was.”
“Yeah, no, I don't have concerns or thoughts like that.”
For him, it ultimately comes down to entertainment value.
“I always said that it’s almost as if it’s one of the reasons that
Thomas Edison invented the camera was to film violence because it’s so good.”
This is violence for violence’s sake, unapologetically aestheticized.
“I love that stuff, you know, the killing.”
“Lotta killing.”
Tarantino’s violence is so memorable because it’s creative-
these scenes stick in our minds
because of their inventiveness and specificity.
And Tarantino’s characters evidently agree with him that
all this brutality is highly entertaining.
“Quite frankly,
watching Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies”
“That sure was pretty.”
The violence is also unabashedly gruesome-
“Aw man, I shot Marvin in the face.”
“What?”
Unlike so many action movies that border on bloodless,
Tarantino’s films revel in the gore
which is the physical consequence of fighting.
“If a guy is shot in the stomach, and he's bleeding like a stuck pig,
I want to see him bleeding like a stuck pig-
that is now the situation they're dealing with, alright?
He’s not ‘ooh, ow’ he’s got a stomach ache”
Ultimately Tarantino uses violence as a means of control-
he describes himself as a conductor,
with an orchestra made up of the audience’s emotions.
“So it’s like ‘laugh, laugh, laugh, stop laughing.
Stop laughing-
okay, now be horrified.’”
Tarantino has rejected criticism that the violence in movies leads people
to behave more aggressively in the real world.
He cites Japan as an example of a peaceful society
that produces extremely violent films-
and he views cinema and real-life as completely separate entities…
which might be one reason
he saw no problem with encouraging kids to see Kill Bill.
“I have absolutely
no hypocrisy or contradiction whatsoever to say that, you know,
I abhor violence in real life, and I can love it in genre.”
The characters are professional criminals.
…but Tarantino portrays their unorthodox careers
like any other line of work.
“You're actin' like a first-year f-[BLEEP] thief!
I'm actin' like a professional!”
Take the opening scene of Pulp Fiction:
Ringo and Yolanda discuss how to optimize their business.
“I'm not saying I wanna rob banks.
I'm just illustrating if we did, it'd be easier than what we've been doing”
And they eventually hit on an untapped market.
“A lot of people come to restaurants.”
“A lot of wallets.”
“Pretty smart, huh?”
Tarantino brings us into the business with characters
whose jobs aren’t so different from ours (most of the time)-
they share “water cooler” chat with the coworkers.
“Like a virgin's not about
some sensitive girl who meets a nice fella.
That's what true blue's about- No, granted, argument about that.”
and try their best to keep the boss happy.
“Marsellus Wallace don't like to be fucked by anybody
except Mrs. Wallace.”
Tarantino’s movies emphasize professionalism.
“What, are we on a playground here, huh?
Am I the only professional?”
“But your status as a Nazi killer is still amateur.
We all come here to see if you want to go pro.”
The guys conducting the heist in Reservoir Dogs
and hitmen Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction
evidently believe in the adage, “dress for the job you want.”
In Inglourious Basterds,
Aldo Raine prides himself on being great at his job.
“I think this just might be my masterpiece.”
We might read all this talk about professionalism
as reflecting
Tarantino’s own perfectionist motivation to be a master of his craft
(in a field that, likewise, can take him to some sick places.)
“You know how you get to Carnegie Hall, don't you?
Practice.”
The characters are acting.
Tarantino has said, quote,
“A theme all my characters share is that they’re all good actors
and use acting techniques.
They’re always playing a character to some degree or another.”
“Let's get into character.”
The characters often have to cover up their true identities
with a false persona- and this adds layers to the story.
“Mr. Brown, Mr. White, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink.”
“Look man, undercover cops gotta be Marlon Brando.
To do this job you gotta be a great actor, you gotta be naturalistic.
You gotta be naturalistic as hell.”
The tension and thrill comes from knowing
that someone is pretending and could be discovered.
“When we gain access to these plantations, we'll be putting on an act.
You'll be playing a character”
Because in these worlds
there are dire consequences for not performing your role perfectly.
“He ordered three glasses.
We order three glasses.
That's the German three.”
It’s wordy.
“Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit
in order to be comfortable?”
Tarantino willfully ignores the screenwriting convention
to include dialogue only if it succinctly advances plot or illuminates character.
His movies feature long conversations with no apparent relation to anything.
“You don't care they're countin' on your tips to live?”
“You know what this is?
It’s the world's smallest violin, playin' just for the waitresses.”
All of this talk gives Tarantino’s films their specific texture that fans love.
"Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.”
-and explains why most of them approach the 3-hour mark.
“They call it a royale with cheese.”
“Royale with cheese.”
The contrast between
the unhurried, idiosyncratic dialogue and the high-stakes scenarios
yields the irreverent tone that defines this director’s work.
“Silly rabbit.”
“Trix are for-” “Kids.”
“Who cares what your name is?”
“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say.
You’re Mr. White- you have a cool sounding name.”
Even though the characters tend to be in mortal danger
or engaged in the act of killing,
they’re never too busy for a lengthy conversation
dissecting the most trivial subject.
“You sure that's him?”
“Yeah.”
“Positive?”
“I dunno.”
“You don't know if you're positive?”
“I don't know what ‘positive’ means.”
“It means you're sure.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I'm sure that’s Ellis Brittle.”
It’s part of the Tarantino Cinematic Universe.
Tarantino’s movies are interconnected.
They feature the same fictional brands.
“Big Kahuna Burger!
That's that Hawaiian burger joint.”
“You've got a billboard by Big Kahuna Burger, don't you?”
And characters from different movies are related to each other-
Mr. Blonde is Vincent Vega’s brother.
The Hateful Eight’s Pete Hicox is an ancestor of Archie Hicox
from Inglorious Basterds.
And when the Bride is buried alive in Kill Bill Vol. 2,
the grave belongs to Paula Schultz,
who may be related to Dr. King Schultz from Django Unchained.
This isn’t all playing out in one universe, though-
according to Tarantino, there are two.
One is the “realer than real universe” that his characters live in,
and the other is the “movie universe” where stories like Kill Bill are set.
As he explains it, quote,
“when all the characters of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction,
when they go to the movies, Kill Bill is what they go to see.”
In Pulp Fiction, Mia tells Vincent about a pilot she was in-
the premise sounds a lot like Kill Bill.
“There was a blond one, Sommerset O'Neal.
She was the leader.
The Japanese fox was a kung fu master.
The black girl was a demolition expert.
French fox's specialty was sex.”
“What was your specialty?”
“Knives.”
So it sounds like this failed pilot went on to become a movie
with Mia Wallace playing the Bride.
On a less literal level,
Tarantino’s movies also feel they’re set in a connected story world because of
specific recurring artistic features-
from the familiar faces of actors like Samuel L. Jackson,
Michael Madsen, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, and Tim Roth…
to the use of playful code names or nicknames
“Her code name was Copperhead.
Mine, Black Mamba.”
to the trunk shots
“Man, you must be out of your f-[BLEEP] mind if you think
I'm gonna get in this dirty-ass trunk.”
to all the images of bare feet
that suggest Tarantino may have some sort of foot fetish.
“Now, look, I've given a million ladies a million foot massages,
and they all meant somethin’.”
It’s a secret Western.
“Line.”
His love of the Western genre
comes through in his fondness for outlaws, gunfights,
Mexican standoffs, Western-style music, and a general sense of lawlessness.
“How do you like the bounty hunting business?”
“Kill white folks, and they pay you for it?
What's not to like?”
Tarantino said Pulp Fiction is “a modern-day spaghetti western.”
He named Sergio Leone
as the filmmaker who’s had the greatest influence on his career,
and Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as his all-time favorite movie.
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, that’s a movie.”
The title of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
pays tribute to Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West,
which Tarantino called
“The movie that made me consider filmmaking.”
“I hired you to be an actor, Rick.
Not a TV cowboy.
You're better than that.”
It’s also a kind of musical.
When Tarantino is thinking about what story to tell next,
he turns to his vinyl collection for inspiration
“Either I’m looking for some pop songs or I’m looking for some soundtracks
and that’s going to give me the beat of the movie,
the rhythm of the movie.”
So it makes sense that his movies feature what he calls,
“the equivalent of what in a musical would be a big dance number
or a big musical sequence”
Tarantino understands music’s power to maximize the impact of a scene.
The song may perfectly echo the story.
Or it may be perfectly opposed to the action at hand.
Tarantino also likes to use anachronistic music.
In his view, historical accuracy is less important
than capturing the feeling of what’s happening.
There’s a sense of infinite possibility in Tarantino’s movies.
“The fact that anything can happen to my characters
or in the scenario of the story- that is the relish that I have.”
They’re full of random coincidences
and, at times, the sense of a higher power, too.
“God came down from Heaven and stopped these motherf-[BLEEP] bullets.”
It feels as if the hand of fate intervenes in the character’s lives-
not in a straightforward or moralistic way, though…
In a truly mysterious one.
It might even seem that Tarantino- as the God-slash-author of the film-
delights in being that unpredictable, unknowable force
intervening in his characters’ lives.
The sense that anything can happen also extends to Tarantino’s approach
to filmmaking.
He prides himself on breaking established rules.
“And there are no moral boundaries,
and there are no ‘oh, well, you can’t do that’
kind of boundaries.
That is exactly how cinema was when I came into it,
and I think I went a long way to knocking some of those walls down.”
You know you’re watching a movie.
“Action!”
Tarantino doesn’t concern himself with verisimilitude-
he’s perfectly happy for the audience
to know they’re in a story world of his creation.
“About fifteen minutes has passed since we last left our characters.”
He expresses this through visual flourishes
and the use of text onscreen
as well as by giving himself cameos in small yet memorable roles
And he’s not averse to playing pretty nasty personalities.
“Did you notice a sign on the front of my house that said
'dead n-[BLEEP] storage'?!”
Tarantino also plays on viewers’ pop culture knowledge.
“What’s the name of the chick who played Christie Love?
“Pam Grier.”
“No, it wasn’t Pam Grier.
Pam Grier was the other one.
Pam Grier did the film.”
It has a non-linear structure.
In Pulp Fiction, all the vignettes are out of chronological order,
but the movie feels cohesive
because each part contains references to the other story threads.
“Why you so interested in big man's wife?”
“Well, He's goin' out of town, Florida.
And he asked me if I'd take care of her while he's gone.”
Also, because of the way it’s structured, the main characters are alive at the end,
even though Vincent dies earlier on, adding to the comic, upbeat feel.
One reason for Tarantino’s love of non-linear structure
may be that he thinks of his scripts as literature.
“If I had written Pulp Fiction as a novel and I was on your show,
you would never even remotely bring up the structure.”
He often divides his films into chapters.
This chapter’s called…
Domergue's Got a Secret.”
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
This saying is the epigraph of Kill Bill,
but it could easily apply to Tarantino’s other works, too
So what exactly is Tarantino's take on “revenge?”
“And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”
The Bride makes it explicitly clear that the vengeance she seeks
isn’t an attempt to “get even,” as we might tend to think of it.
“Get even, even Stephen, I would have to kill you,
go up to Nikki's room, kill her, then wait for your husband,
the good Dr. Bell, to come home, and kill him.”
The idea of “getting even” falsely implies it’s possible
to make up for what she’s lost.
So instead, for her, revenge is a means of taking power back.
“When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge,
it seems proof like no other that not only does God exist,
you're doing his will.”
Tarantino often focuses on disempowered characters
who use violent revenge to regain control over their lives.
In Kill Bill, O-Ren Ishii loses everything
when her family is slaughtered by the Yakuza,
but violence is also how she avenges her loved ones…
and becomes the new Yakuza leader
“It was O-Ren Ishii and her powerful posse, the Crazy 88,
that proved the victor.”
As part of playing our emotions like an orchestra,
Tarantino shows innocent people being hurt
to make us crave revenge on behalf of his characters.
“I like the way you beg, boy.”
and then partake in their sense of empowerment
when they get it.
“I like the way you die, boy.”
Yet as good as it feels, once characters choose retribution,
they may be committing the rest of their lives to it.
In Inglourious Basterds,
Shosanna gets her vengeance on the Nazis that destroyed her family
but she has to die too,
and her body will burn in the flames of the fire she created.
After the Bride kills Vernita Green,
she accepts that Vernita’s young daughter may one day come after her…
so the cycle of vengeance is never-ending.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Tarantino has maintained that he will retire from filmmaking
after 10 movies,
and since he counts Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 as one movie,
that makes Once Upon a Time his 9th work.
So, as he nears the end of his career and we look back at his filmography,
we can see that Tarantino has created something bigger than a body of work-
his own multiverse
“You and I have unfinished business”
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