There are many motifs in the films of Quentin Tarantino.
Trunk shots.
Black-and-white suits.
Dancing.
And...
Food.
And while it's common for characters to be eating and drinking in cinema,
no one does it quite like Tarantino.
"- Royale with Cheese."
This is "Motifs and Motives" - Tarantino and food.
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We're going to be spoiling many of the Tarantino's films.
And graphic content lies ahead.
You've been warned.
"- You know what this is?
It's the world's smallest violin playing just for the waitresses.
Most of the time when we see characters eating or drinking,
it's just busy work.
Something to do while the dialogue carries a scene.
"- Don't you ever raise your voice at me! I am your mother!"
- And Tarantino does that as well.
But it also gets much deeper than that.
"- What?
- I don't need you to tell me how good my coffee is, okay?
I'm the one who buys.
I know how good it is."
- There are layers to the ways Tarantino uses food and drink.
Each one more complex than the last.
We'll start with the most basic application of this motif.
How eating and drinking inform character.
"- May I have a glass of water please?"
- Like many filmmakers, Tarantino uses food for characterization.
"- I'm hungry. Let's get a taco."
- What a character eats or drinks gives us immediate insight into their personality.
"- Want some bacon? - No, man, I don't eat pork."
- Consider how Cliff eating Mac and Cheese adds to his character.
The same for Calvin's sweet tooth.
"- Where'd you dig him up?"
- Or Melanie eating noodles.
Our notion of Bill as the ultimate villain is complicated
when we see him lovingly make his daughter a sandwich.
Without any dialogue, we understand these characters just a little bit more.
Mmm.
"- The plot thickens."
- How and when they eat and drink gives us even more insight into these characters.
"- Got us a German here who wants to die for country.
Oblige him."
- The way Aldo casually eats a sandwich during a brutal execution.
How Lance dines on cereal in the middle of the night.
The sloppy way Bud makes margaritas.
All of these contexts build pure characterization.
But this is just the beginning.
"- Here you go. Wrap your lips around then."
- Not only do we learn about characters through their food,
it is also used to express the character dynamics between them.
"- I think it just always associated getting to know somebody.
It always happens over restaurants and dinners.
- Don't you just love it when you come back from the bathroom
to find your food waiting for you?"
- It can facilitate romance.
"- Would you like to go get some pie with me?
- I love some pie."
- It could create a bond between strangers.
"- Oh, yes.
Um, a bottle of warm sake, please.
- Warm sake?
Very good!"
- It can be used in celebration.
But more than anything in Tarantino's work, it is used for power and control.
"- I've always found restaurant scenes to be kind of ritualistic.
They have rituals play out and some of them are the rituals
of the balance of power shifting or being established.
"- Uhuh, I don't tip.
- You don't tip. - No, I don't believe in it."
Hans Landa controls Shosanna with a delectable strudel.
Food becomes a reward when a slave pleases his master.
"- You enjoy that, boy. You've earned it.
- Yes, sir."
- Or when obedient dogs are well trained.
Ordell uses the promise of fried chicken to deal Beaumont out of his house.
"- When we get through f*cking with these Koreans...
me and you go to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles on me."
- And to his death.
And of course, when Jules asserts his dominance.
"- Big Kahuna Burger!
That's that Hawaiian burger joint.
I hear they got some tasty burgers.
I ain't never had one myself. How are they?
- They're ― They're good.
- You mind if I try one of yours?"
- In every way shape and form Jules's coming in there
as this black, male's completely dominating
by taking a bite outta the guy's hamburger.
He took it from him.
"- Hmm.
This is a tasty burger."
- But perhaps the most interesting way Tarantino uses food
is to juxtapose it with violence and create tonal shifts.
"- Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?"
- If you've seen any of Tarantino's films,
you know, that they can change tones in an instant.
A theological conversation, suddenly it becomes a gruesome slapstick comedy.
"- I mean, do you think that God came down from heaven and stopped..."
- And these tonal shifts are intentional.
"- Aw, man, I shot Marvin in the face.
- Why'd the f*ck did you do that?
- I didn't mean it. It was an accident."
- I like things that can switch tones is being able to turn on a dime.
I love getting people to laugh at things that they would never laugh at."
- So what role does the juxtaposition
between food and violence play in shifting tone?
In the most direct way, food becomes a literal weapon.
"- You want some coffee?
- Yeah, sure."
- He lulls his character and the audience into an enjoyable experience
before shattering it with violence.
"- Very funny.
They might be savoring some white cake...
"- White cake."
...before all hell breaks loose.
Or a celebratory margarita when a black mamba strikes.
And these tonal shifts are a big part of Tarantino's playbook.
"- If I can pull off contradictory emotions, I wanna play you as an audience.
I want to be the conductor and you are my orchestra."
- Consider this shift we take in this scene.
"- There's a special rung in hell reserved for people who waste good Scotch."
- From scotch to slaughter.
"- Say auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls."
- The pleasures is brought by food destroyed by the pain brought by violence.
Pumpkin's line says it all.
"- One minute they're having a Denver omelet.
Next minute someone sticking a gun in their face."
- And Tarantino gets a lot of mileage outta this juxtaposition.
"- - Everybody be cool! This is a robbery!"
- Now, let's look at some of the ways Tarantino maximizes this contrast.
"- You let him go! You let him go!
- Let go of him, or I'm gonna kill you! - Tell that b*tch to be cool.
- Say, "B*tch, be cool!" Say, "B*tch, be cool!" - Be cool! Be cool!"
-The food itself is indulgent.
Hamburgers, shakes, nachos, pie.
The list goes on and on.
That's because when you combine indulgent food
with extreme violence you get maximum contrast.
"- That's why they call him big friend."
- Going a step further, consider how Tarantino
handles the presentation of the food.
"- I do like the fact that when you see my movies,
there might be one drink or one piece of food
that the audience fixates on
and the movie actually makes them hungry for that.
"- A donut. - That's for me."
- He does this in a couple of ways.
The characters discuss the food.
"- I'm gonna order a big plate of blueberry pancakes with maple syrup."
- They enjoy the food.
"- Goddamn, that's a pretty fuckin' good milkshake!"
- They make the food.
And how Tarantino shoots this is the topper.
"- Okay. And action."
- Notice how the sound and close-ups capture the exquisiteness of Django's first beer.
The strudel in "Inglourious Basterds" is a work of art.
"- I defy anyone to not want strudel when you see "Inglorious bastards".
It doesn't mean, you know, doesn't matter that just, this is Nazi guys eating it.
It's like it just, man, that strudel looks good."
- The lighting makes this steaming hearty stew the perfect meal
to enjoy during a blizzard.
He even writes this indulgence into his scripts.
His description of stuntman Mike's nachos
are just as excessive on the page as they are on the screen.
In other words, Tarantino goes out of his way
to make sure the food is as pleasurable as possible.
Making the inevitable violence that much more unpleasurable.
All in all Quentin Tarantino has found a multifaceted motif
that works on a number of storytelling levels.
"- It's okay, honey. It's a friend of Terry's."
- It builds character.
"- You promised yourself you're gonna stop f*cking drinking."
- Relationships.
- And helps manage the tone surrounding violence
in a way that no other filmmaker does.
Linked below is our blog post on the complete guy to food in Tarantino movies.
And if you're cooking up an idea for a script,
start writing with StudioBinder screenwriting software.
Now,
who's hungry?
What's your favorite food moment in a movie and why?
"- How's the pie?
- So good."
- Lets us know in the comments.
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Until next time.
Have an eggcellent day.
Thanks for pudding up with me.