Fire birthday for Quentin Tarantino. The master of the pulp celebrates 60 years with a high cinephile rate. Son of a nurse and an amateur actor of Italian descent, the Knoxville director he devoured every genre of film ever since he worked as Video rental clerk in Manhattan Beach, California, where he moved with his mother Connie at the age of 2. It was she who called him Quentin, in homage to Burt Reynolds’ character in the TV series Gunsmoke. From the first film seen as a child (Bambi) together with his stepfather to Leone’s obsession with spaghetti westerns, with that gunslinger that his mother liked so much, up to the huge collection of oriental DVDs. Quentin Tarantino has rewritten the history of contemporary cinema thanks a style that mixes violence, cult dialogues and quotes from pop culture.
Winner of two Academy Awards (for the screenplays of pulp Fiction and of Django Unchained), the Italian-American filmmaker is ready to make Hollywood tremble with his tenth and final film which will be entitled The Movie Critic; for now, we have the (armored) script. Today, we want to celebrate the exaggerated 60 years of the king of pulp with all his 9 movies (from worst to best). From Jackie Brown at the bottom of the ranking up to Kill Bill which competes for the podium with «Jack Rabbit Slim’s».
9. Jackie Brown (1997)
1970s blaxploitation icon Pam Grier embodies the flight attendant who smuggles money for a crime boss. Tarantino’s third film is an underrated gem that, today, some critics consider among the director’s best work. Jackie Brown it is also the only one in his filmography based on a novel: Rum punch by Elmore Leonard. Tarantino wanted to find out what the audience’s reaction was to key moments of the film, therefore, he spent a month after the release of Jackie Brown to look at it again and again in the halls: «I saw that movie like 13 times at the Magic Johnson Theater and for four weeks I basically just lived there».
8. Grindhouse – Death Proof (2007)
It is part of one of the two segments of grindhouse (the other is signed by Robert Rodriguez) and refers to the cinema of the “double shows” of B-movies of the seventies. Tribute to cult films such as Point zero And Convoy – Asphalt trench, Death proof is a 113-minute horror film starring Kurt Russell as a homicidal stuntman. Tarantino came up with the idea of Death Proof (in original Death Proof) during a drunken night in a hotel with friend Sean Penn. Quentin wanted to buy a Volvo because «I didn’t want to die in a car crash like the one in Pulp Fiction». Penn replied, “Well, you could take any car and give it to a stunt team who, for $15,000, can make it death-proof for you.». The phrase “death proof” conquered the Italian-American director.
7. The Hateful Eight (2015)
As the storm rages, eight shady strangers find themselves confined to a saloon deep in the brooding mountains of Wyoming. Tarantino shoots in the very expensive Ultra Panavision 70, using the same lenses used for the chariot race in Ben Hur (1959). While not ranked among the director’s best works, The Hateful Eight features Ennio Morricone’s first western-themed score since 1981. The partnership with Tarantino earned the legendary composer his first Oscar after six nominations.
6. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Tarantino cites Enzo G. Castellari’s 1978 international headline to revisit, in his own way, World War II and imagine a (successful) plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Despite a formidable cast led by Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds remains iconic for having transformed the little-known Austrian actor Christoph Waltz into a star (and Oscar winner). Its ruthless Colonel Hans Landa (who is fluent in four languages: English, French, German and Italian) appears, for the first time, in the interrogation scene that opens the film. Without a doubt, the best character written by Tarantino to date.
5. Django Unchained (2012)
Another title in honor of an Italian cult: in this case Django by Corbucci. Tarantino’s highest-grossing to date is a revenge western that stars Jamie Foxx as a slave who teams up with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to kill the Brittle brothers. Waltz won his second Oscar, as did Tarantino (for his screenplay). Leonardo DiCaprio who plays a rare villain role was injured twice while filming the dinner party. The first, with a hammer that broke and hit him on the head. For filming, therefore, he handled a fake one. The second injury happened in the scene where the actor slams his hand on the table: a real glass broke causing Leo’s hand to bleed and he ignored the injury, remaining in character.
4. Hyenas (1992)
Tarantino wrote, directed and even starred in his crazy debut: a violent gang movie about a robbery gone wrong, which has become a classic. The director originally intended to do it himself on a minuscule budget, but star Harvey Keitel signed on as producer after reading the script, in turn attracting more funding and more stars (Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen), and the film eventually passed through Sundance, Cannes and TIFF before hitting theaters. The public at the time did not know how to react to the grotesque brutality to which the director has accustomed us, especially the scene in which Mr. Blonde tortures the policeman. That infamous sequence, often renamed Stuck in the middle with youfrom the title of the song that accompanies it, Michael Madsen did not want to interpret it due to his strong aversion to violence.
3. Once upon a time in… Hollywood (2019)
On the lowest step of the podium, the penultimate film. Self-quoting and melancholic, Once upon a time in… Hollywood is set in the twilight of the golden age of cinema. We find Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt (Oscar winner), and the new entries Margot Robbie in the role of Sharon Tate and Damon Herriman in those of Charles Manson (having also played him in the series Mindhunter). But don’t be fooled into thinking you know the story, for Tarantino once again rewrites it to suit his own mad purposes.
2. Kill Bill (2003-2004)
An epic of violence and revenge three and a half hours long. It took ten years and four hundred and fifty liters of fake blood for Tarantino’s most ambitious project to see the light; such a great work that had to be divided into two films. Kill Bill was the brainchild of Quentin with muse Uma Thurman, during the filming of pulp Fiction.
1. pulp Fiction (1994)
The second work is a triptych of three noir/crime shorts that still remains, today, the director’s best film. For better or for worse, pulp Fiction it revived the career of John Travolta (who replaced Michael Madsen) but also turned Tarantino into an icon himself. Palme d’Or at Cannes and Academy Award for best original screenplay, shared with old friend Roger Avary, a former colleague at the Manhattan Beach video rental. Curiosity: Travolta’s dance routine would be inspired by Batman by Adam West in the cult series of the 60s.
Other Vanity Fai stories that may interest you:
- 80 years of David Cronenberg in 10 cult scenes from his films
- Dario Argento, 80 years of “thrill” with the secrets of his masterpieces
Source: Vanity Fair
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