Quentin Tarantino

[Cinesimilitude]

would anyone here be able to tell me what the Eskimo/Inuit cartoon playing in the background of the Cpt. Koons and Young Butch Coolidge scene in Pulp Fiction is?

[teddyleevin]

Clutch Cargo

[Fletch F. Fletch]

The L.A. Times interviews QT about his love of old grindhouse movies and the festival of rare cult movies from his private collection.

[Antoine Doinel]

Here's a half hour program with Tarantino talking about the career of Robert De Niro.

[exte]

HELP ME!

I've read this incredible playboy interview Quentin did in 2003, and he mentions this horrible article Premiere magazine did about his biological father. So, I'm guessing it's not on the internet since nothing turns up on Google.

It appeared in Premiere Magazine, was written by Jami Bernard, about Tony Tarantino, and Quentin Tarantino. Does anyone have a copy? Is there an online library system to retrieve it?

[John Cope]

A really great dialogue between Matt Zoller Seitz and Keith Uhlich at The House Next Door.

[Len]

Great link, thanks!

After my high school years (I had my few years of being a Tarantino devotee), I've grown increasingly disillusioned with even the better films in Tarantino's filmography, and Matt Z Seitz articulated alot of the things I find troubling and/or annoying in Tarantino's work much better than I ever could. Especially recent viewings of Res Dogs and Pulp Fiction made me seriously reconsider how I view Tarantino as an artist. After seeing Kill Bills, I tried to find something in them that felt genuine, something that didn't just take me back to the same scenes done better in earlier films, but I came up with nothing. Looking back to Tarantino's earlier work, I often feel like I'm just totally alienated from what's happening on the screen. There are moments of heart in both Pulp Fiction and Res Dogs (I'm not going to go as far as some and totally condemn Tarantino, as I can still enjoy the simple visceral thrills to be had from the undeniable energy of both films), but I can't connect with the films on an emotional level any more. While I do enjoy reading film criticism and analysis alot (that's why I do love this forum), I'm personally not too interested in analysing film too much and my appreciation of cinema tends almost to be Colbertian (Colbert-ish?) in the sense that I'm pretty much a gut thinker when it comes to cinema ("I feel that Stray Dog is Kurosawa's greatest film"). Watching Tarantino's films makes me feel like a character from an Antonioni film.

Jackie Brown was left out from the earlier chapter due to it still being the only Tarantino film that does actually move me. It's not perfect, it's a bit rough around the edges and features some horrible choices made by Tarantino concerning the direction of the film, but (possibly due to the source material) it also has many moments where it actually feels genuine, where it doesn't feel like an Tarantino film as such. I really hope Tarantino would at some point take another shot at adapting an existing literary work, but I guess that won't be happening in the near future.

Trying to watch Death Proof (as a low quality internet stream, as I've little interest in waiting for the chopped-in-two film getting released months later here) later this week, I'm actually looking forward to it now after reading that discussion (which prolly wasn't too great of an idea, seeing how it did spoil the storyline of the film quite well).

[Dylan]

A really great dialogue between Matt Zoller Seitz and Keith Uhlich at The House Next Door.

A terrific, insightful discussion/debate. I love how Death Proof has inspired such a strange range of interpretations from its viewers. I too think it's a good deal more complex and tremendous than people are giving it credit for, and once the severe hyper energy it inspired within me had settled, it resonated strongly as a piece of filmmaking in addition to the cinematic and drunkenly visceral girl power that rendered me so gleeful in the theatre.

One of the most interesting points in the discussion (beware of spoilers):

"Death Proof" is deadly serious, but I have a theory about its structure. A buddy of mine suggested that "Death Proof" is actually two halves of two different movies spliced together. He got the idea from a Tarantino interview where he said that sometimes actors would go to a foreign coutry for four weeks and make like three or four movies of different genres. The first half of "Death Proof" is a slasher movie. The second half is an entirely different movie. It's as if someone spliced two movies that just so happen to star Kurt Russell and involved cars. The Russell character is never reffered to as Stuntman Mike in the second half of the movie. Aand the car doesn't seem to be as deathproof as it was earlier in the movie. If you read the movie this way then it becomes something entirely different and possibly quite brilliant. It's as if Tarantion took the "Missing Reel" gag and broughti it to its natural conclusion.

And here's a terrific response to the above quote by Geoff from the 24 Lies a Second forum (more spoilers, of course):

It is true that during the second half of DEATH PROOF, I kept looking at the car and trying to see the "death-proof" aspects of it, but they seemed to have disappeared. I also kept thinking that there must have been a scene missing where Russell's character had some kind of conversation with Rosario Dawson's (a conversation that, if it was indeed a totally separate film, would make sense to have been cut out). So this theory that it is two films spliced together to make one seems to hold a lot of weight.

But then this makes the single-shot diner conversation in the latter half even more interesting, because during the initial pan toward Dawson, we see Russell looking over at the women's table from the bar behind them. Having witnessed Stuntman Mike become psycho in the first half, we automatically presume he is stalking these women (and of course the photos we see snapped of them at the beginning of the film's second half). But if this is in fact a separate movie, the shot may have "originally intended" to mean something completely different. It is interesting that we don't have any real conversation with Russell in the second half, after he has been such an intriguing vocal presence in the first half.

In any case, the long take shot I mentioned above is brilliant because we keep waiting, WANTING the camera to go back so we can see what Stuntman Mike is doing at the bar, or if he is still there. After passing him by with the camera one more time, Tarantino stretches it out for what seems like forever before the camera finally passes the spot again, and we see that Stuntman Mike is no longer sitting at the bar.

The first pass by, where Stuntman Mike is sitting with his face turned, looking at the women's table, reminded me of the scene in De Palma's DRESSED TO KILL, where we have not yet met the killer, but De Palma's camera passes him/her by as it moves outside the museum from the glove and Kate's face, across to the cab where the mystery man is dangling the other glove out of the open car door. It is not until we see the film a second time that we are able to identify that this is a character we will come to be involved with. I wonder, if the second half of DEATH PROOF is indeed its own film (slapped onto the first half of DEATH PROOF), if the original "second" film wasn't trying for a similar foreshadowed glimpse of a killer character...?

I'm not sure this is an interpretation I wholly subscribe to, but I can't deny that it's one of the most interesting.

I wonder how wide of a release the extended Death Proof will receive? I'm guessing it won't reach beyond the big cities, although at this point it's pretty difficult to tell.

[keeproductions]

That is an interesting theory that may or may not hold up to any real scrutiny. But something occurs to me that may lend it a bit more credence (it an admittedly far-fetched way)

There are two instances in Grindhouse that I can remember that tie the world of PT and DP (first half) together. The first and most obvious is the ever-appreciated presence of Earl McGraw in both movies. The exchange he and "Son Number One" have with Dakota in DP place it in a period of time shortly before the zombie events of PT. Previously during PT when Fergie is heading for her rendezvous with Dakotah she turns on the radio and you hear a quick snippet from the DJ sending out the next song to the recently departed Jungle Julia (R.I.P).

Now, if the second half of DP was indeed the same movie, I guess I would find it hard to believe that these women would be out gallavanting around the south making a movie when we should expect that the world (or at least the southern United States) was recently taken over by radioactive zombies, especially when many of the few remaining survivors headed to Mexico or wherever that was.

Admittedly this is giving a lot of "credit" to QT and smacks of me trying to make this a better experience that the one I had in the theater. And yes, I did see it twice.

Keith

[ranaing83]

Looks like Tarantino's got a remake on his upcoming slate. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he's going to do a remake of King Hu's "Come Drink With Me." They don't mention when he'll do it, but given his past few films have been remakes in a loose sense, seems like the next step.

Original article @ Hollywood Reporter

[Barmy]

This over-interpretation of Death Proof is truly laughable. Or it would be if it wasn't so sad, grim and pathetic.

[scalesojustice]

holy hell, what is it about this hack job that requires such discourse!

with that out of my system, i think the major problem isn't the film's tarantino makes, but what they represent. the guy is the poster-child director for all those who like cool movies. Godard, Leone, barely B-movies, the list goes on and on, and he is so passionate about his interests that you couldn't possibly fault the guy.

I think that many admire him for being able to a piece of every movie that has ever meant something to him and put it up on screen for other to admire, as something that might mean as much to those people as the films he's "homaging" mean to him. there may also be a bit of envy as Tarantino is talented enough to pull it off. We've all seen many of the same movies, and yet no one will give us free reign to make a film. But tarantino pulls it off.

in the end, what we have is films that are the equivelent to the Quentin Tarantino baby book. no one is going to slap the movies tarantino clutch like a baby blanket out of his hands and call it crap. It clearly means something to tarantino and gives his life a purpose. But when you add up all the parts on a critical level, you get nothing more than a series of films that have no other importance other than to the guy who is making them. important american director? think not. passionate self-indugent fanatic who won the lottery and gets to make whatever movies he wants for a living? sounds a bit more like him.

[John Cope]

But if he does something sophisticated why are we at fault for giving him credit for that?

[scalesojustice]

what's so sophisticated about ripping off (sorry, "homaging") other filmmakers? the fact that he can do it and then sell it back to the masses as if he owned it?

(keep in mind that i'm not specifically talking about DP, i haven't seen it, just about tarantino in general)

[John Cope]

What!!?? You haven't seen it yet!!

[Barmy]

You are layering "sophistication" onto a blank canvas. It's not hard to do. It's also a waste of time.

And now that I've read some of Keith Uhlich's ludicrous natterings in that article I'm almost embarrassed to be in the same species as him.

[John Cope]

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. Of course I've been accused of this before.


And, of course, it's also easy to be dismissive.

[keeproductions]

his over-interpretation of Death Proof is truly laughable. Or it would be if it wasn't so sad, grim and pathetic.

I find it pointless, ridiculous and fun.

As I stated earlier, it's giving Tarantino too much credit and also, for me, trying to make a purse out of the pig's ear the movie turned out to be, but still a hoot to read about.

[Mr Sausage]

You are layering "sophistication" onto a blank canvas. It's not hard to do. It's also a waste of time.

Not nearly as wasteful as this irrelevant little gem.

You're very successful at coming up with non-arguments and flippant generalizations, Barmy, but your success will not earn you any admiration.

[Suzukifan]

I find it telling that Jackie Brown is generally considered a good film but only discussed in comparison to L'il Quentin's other stuff.

Facts seem to be that he's run his course and snickering up his sleeve while he made a living quoting better film makers can last only so long.

The last straw with L'il Quentin came while he was all over PBS pushing "Death Proof" and talking not about his next film but :the next mountain he has to climb" (he wants to remake the Dirty Dozen). Enough of this silliness.

Seijun is pushing 90 but I think he has the chops to grab L'il Quentin and give him a good slapping to shake him out of it. I wish Don Siegel were around to do the same.

Tell me the hit team in Pulp Fiction wasn't modeled after Gulager and Marvin in The Killers. Come to think of it, I'd love to have Lee Marvin come back and slap him around a litle, also.

[toiletduck!]

Ah, yes.

Let's hear it for new traffic from the On Five link! (P. Becker, I kid!)

-Toilet Dcuk

[exte]

I find it telling that Jackie Brown is generally considered a good film but only discussed in comparison to L'il Quentin's other stuff.

Facts seem to be that he's run his course and snickering up his sleeve while he made a living quoting better film makers can last only so long.

The last straw with L'il Quentin came while he was all over PBS pushing "Death Proof" and talking not about his next film but :the next mountain he has to climb" (he wants to remake the Dirty Dozen). Enough of this silliness.

Seijun is pushing 90 but I think he has the chops to grab L'il Quentin and give him a good slapping to shake him out of it. I wish Don Siegel were around to do the same.

Tell me the hit team in Pulp Fiction wasn't modeled after Gulager and Marvin in The Killers. Come to think of it, I'd love to have Lee Marvin come back and slap him around a litle, also.

Thank goodness I'm a member of this board, otherwise I would've entirely missed this post...

[lord_clyde]

Tell me the hit team in Pulp Fiction wasn't modeled after Gulager and Marvin in The Killers. Come to think of it, I'd love to have Lee Marvin come back and slap him around a litle, also.

Quentin is on my list of 'Hollywood Filmmakers who need a smack in the mouth', I suppose.

[DrewReiber]

Seijun is pushing 90 but I think he has the chops to grab L'il Quentin and give him a good slapping to shake him out of it.

Suzuki's age also qualifies him under Tarantino's pointlessly jealous, empty criticism of directors who make films while over the age of 50. Maybe Quentin should spend less time copying everything Seijun did in the 60's and take a look at the far more accomplished work he did *IN* his 60's and beyond. Then again, he's probably only able to grasp or enjoy anything that Nikkatsu put out because it has gangsters and pop songs in them.

[skuhn8]

Is there an article or interview somewhere where Tarantino claims to come up with all his ideas himself? From what I gather he makes the kind of films that he likes to watch, and if these pay homage and follow a tradition built by his betters and predecessers I can't see why that's a failing. DePalma has made a career out of mimicing/copying/paying homage--take your pick. Is it because of the amount of press he gets for such a small output that puts a bee in so many bonnets? It sounds wanton and not unlike the reviewer who slammed Lynch because he recognized the Yojimbo (or was it Sanjuro?) reference when the dog runs out with a hand in it's mouth. Lynch wasn't trying to put one over or sneak one past; it was an homage--watch enough films and you see them everywhere. I know this has become a straight-forward Tarantino-thrashing thread--much as I'm sure in the early sixties there were die-hard film buffs who spent most of their time roasting Godard and Truffaut et al because they 'stole' so many ideas from HOllywood films--but what's with all the vitriol? Is it because his films actually suck or because you know of filmmakers who do much the same but better and before?