Directing legend

Quentin Tarantino, born March 27, 1963 in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a director, screenwriter, producer and actor. He became known as a director of independent films with his first two films, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) and won it for the Golden Palm in Cannes. After a third film in 1997 (Jackie Brown), he made his return with both parts of Kill Bill (2003 and 2004). Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012) are his biggest international commercial success. His second western, The Eight Salopards, was released in late 2015.

The work of Tarantino denotes an encyclopedic knowledge of film. His style is recognized by its postmodern, non-linear narration, dialogues worked often interspersed with references to popular culture, and highly aesthetic but scenes of extreme violence, inspired by exploitation films, martial arts or Western spaghetti. Having received training as an actor, he often interprets small roles in his own films, like Mr. Brown in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction Jimmie in Warren in Death Proof or a mining company employee in Django Unchained .

Tarantino for Pulp Fiction has created the production company A Band Apart, whose name is a tribute to the film Bande à part of Jean-Luc Godard as his logo resumes for its characters in black suits of Reservoir Dogs. He regularly collaborates with his friend director Robert Rodriguez.

Quentin Tarantino was born March 27, 1963 in Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the son of Connie McHugh, a nurse, born September 3, 1946, and Tony Tarantino, actor and amateur musician born in New York. The latter is of Italian origin by her father; his mother has Irish ancestry and cherokees1,2. It is named after Quint Asper, the character played by Burt Reynolds in the Gunsmoke3,4 series, and Quentin Compson, character of the novel The Sound and the Fureur5. His father left home before his birth. In 1965, his mother moved to Torrance, in the southern suburbs of Los Angeles, and marries Curtis Zastoupil, bar3 a pianist. The couple divorce the young Quentin ten years6.

Film Discovery

From an early age, he looks at will of cinema films. The first films that are deeply marked the Issue and The Wild Bunch. He spent the following years watching movies, especially those of blaxploitation and kung fu. It has little taste for study and committing some small délits7. After repeating the third, he abandoned his studies in California at the age of fifteen and to earn some money working as a projectionist in a cinema porno8. In 1981, he enrolled at the James Best Theatre Company in Toluca Lake8, but it does not integrate well and leaves to take acting classes with Allen Garfield9. This period will mark his future career as a director. He used to play some scenes with her fellow actors, he draws from their favorite movies, and rewrote the replicas they do not remember, embroidering more and more new things each time. Tarantino then realizes his talent writer. He never went to film school but his acting classes have really helped apprehend the middle of the seventh art10.

In 1983, after doing some odd jobs, he worked at Video Archives, a renowned video rental store in Hermosa Beach, California. There he discovered the French cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville, Jean-Luc Godard and Eric Rohmer, but also the films of John Woo and Shohei Imamura, and shares his passion for film with Roger Avary, co-writer of Pulp Fiction and True Romance10. Tarantino spent more than five years working, and almost live in this store before leaving in 198911.

Career [edit | modify the code]

First steps in the cinema [change | modify the code]

Craig Hamann, another employee of the club video, wrote, in 1984, a first scenario of thirty pages of a movie titled My Best Friend's Birthday. With Quentin Tarantino, they rewrite the script that develops eighty pages. They then found a budget of five thousand dollars and begin to turn sixteen millimeter camera with a rented Los Angeles on Friday, the price of a day and turning the whole weekend. Quentin Tarantino takes three years to develop the film and judge the end result disappointing but in hindsight, think it was a rewarding experience. Part of the film was burned in a fire, so it remains unfinished.

Later, Roger Avary offers him another script, The Open Road. In 1987, Quentin Tarantino rewrites completely and it turns into a long story that becomes the backbone of the story of True Romance, while integrating scenes that will later in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Killers nés12. Tarantino and Avary refine the True Romance script and vainly trying to produce for several years before deciding to sell it for 40,000 dollars13. Tarantino also wrote the screenplay born killers and also trying to achieve but can not raise the necessary budget. So he sells this script with Jane Hamsher and producers Don Murphy 10 000 dollars14. True Romance is made in 1993 by Tony Scott, with whom Quentin Tarantino has meanwhile linked to amitié13. The True Romance scenario is the most autobiographical account written by Tarantino, who defined the character of Clarence after his own taste and his own passé15. Natural Born Killers is directed by Oliver Stone in 1994 but he rewrote the script so that Tarantino disavow this version16.

Disappointed not to have been able to make these two films, Quentin Tarantino wrote in October 1990, three and a half weeks, a new script titled Reservoir Dogs17. He thinks first make a film in 16 mm with employees of the video store. Nevertheless, through Lawrence Bender, a young producer who became friend Quentin Tarantino, the scenario arrives in the hands of Harvey Keitel. It is packed with history, agrees to play in the film and also to be the coproducteur18. In June 1991, Tarantino is participating in laboratory filmmakers of the Sundance Institute and toured with Steve Buscemi a rehearsal of a scene from the film. Terry Gilliam, which operates as an advisor during this laboratory, appreciates and encourages Tarantino19 scene. Other actors, like Tim Roth and Michael Madsen are recruited and the film was shot in August 1991. It is planned for the first time at Sundance in January 1992. This ultra-violent behind closed doors between hooligans are sensation and then out of competition at Cannes and many other festivals where he won several awards. The creativity of the film in its narration and its influence violence indépendant20 cinema.

Start of Fame [edit | modify the code]

While traveling in Europe and Japan to present at festivals Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino takes an old project conceived with his friend Roger Avary. This is Pulp Fiction, consisting of three stories but shifted in time in which the same characters intersect. He finished the screenplay in January 1993.21 Tarantino and Bender use the money paid by Jersey Films to participate in the project to create their own production company, called A Band Apart22. Miramax Films finance the bulk of the film and the shooting takes place from September to November 199323.

The work is surprisingly non-linear narrative, its unique structure film skits and way of mixing ultra-violence, humor, irony and situations offset through a series of vignettes in which gangsters and mobsters are also typed as in Pulp magazines. Pulp Fiction is an international success which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994. The award ceremony in Quentin Tarantino won him the whistles of some of the audience to which it responds with a finger honneur24. This film also marks the return to the screen by John Travolta, and the consecration of other actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman. Pulp Fiction received seven Oscar nominations in 1995 including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Travolta) and second best female and male roles (Thurman and Jackson). Finally, Tarantino won with Avary, the trophy for best original screenplay. The film quickly became a cult film, cited by experts as one of the most influential years 199,025.26. Moreover, it propels the outset at larger its young director of 31 years. Nevertheless, it causes a deep feud between Tarantino and Avary, the first having asked the second to give up being cocrédité for scenario and accept instead a credit for histoire27.

Pulp Fiction allows Tarantino to be recognized in the movie. The same year he produced Killing Zoe Roger Avary, and then play in Desperado Robert Rodriguez. In 1995, he directed an episode of the series ER and wrote and directed one of the four segments of Groom Service, sketch film which is a serious and commercial28 critique29 failure. In 1996 fate Dusk Till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez and Tarantino writing or at the time he worked in the video store. Tarantino has a leading role alongside George Clooney. The film was a commercial success and raisonnable30 receives criticism rather positives31 but Tarantino is nominated for a Razzie Award Worst Supporting Actor.

Crossing the desert [change | modify the code]

In 1997, Tarantino makes his comeback to the realization in Jackie Brown, tribute to the blaxploitation films of the adapted from the novel Punch Creole Elmore Leonard32. With a cast of stars composed of Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson (awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actor at Berlin) and Robert De Niro, the film won however less successful than the previous.

After Jackie Brown, Tarantino is more discreet on the media scene and puts more than six years before making a new feature film. For some it has retired and others speak of a creative block. Asked about the issue, Tarantino says he "felt the need to get out of the celebrity" and spend time living real life, "the one who is experienced," to rejuvenate and nourish his art33. It also has a relationship with the actress Mira Sorvino from 1996 to 1998 before having a brief affair with Julie Dreyfus34. He also participates in the production of several films (including two follow-up to From Dusk Till Dawn) and spends a lot of time working on the script for a war movie, which will become years later Inglourious Basterds35.

Return [change | modify the code]

In 2000, Tarantino reviewing Uma Thurman, actress in Pulp Fiction. They decided to resume a project mentioned in Pulp Fiction36, a film about revenge inspired by spaghetti westerns, kung fu films and sabers films (chanbara) Japanese, entitled Kill Bill. Tarantino gives priority to this project and spends most of the year writing the script for a film to initially take place in 2001.36 But Uma Thurman is pregnant and filming is lagged one year, starting in June of 200237. Scheduled first in one film, he was finally released in two parts, volume 1 in November 2003 and volume 2 in May 2004, due to difficulties in cut scenes that the film is reduced to a raisonnable38 length. Both films are successful as well as business critical. Previously, Tarantino plays in 2002 in two episodes of the series Alias ​​before found in two other episodes in 2004.

Tarantino finds the taste of achievement and finds himself involved in several projects. In 2004, he realized his dream of becoming young filmmaker the jury president of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, awarded the Palme d'Or Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore. In 2005, Tarantino makes a Sin City director Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, the one in the car between Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro a stamp against a symbolique39 dollar. The same year, he made the final double episode of season 5 of the series CSI, which he imagines himself the story. The episode makes one of the biggest audiences of the series being watched by over 30 million téléspectateurs40. It also produces Hostel Eli Roth. On the private side, it has a romantic relationship with Sofia Coppola's directorial 2003-200434.

In 2007, he returned with a new project with his friend Robert Rodriguez. This is Grindhouse homage to exploitation films of the 1970s where everyone carries a separate film of fake trailers. While Rodriguez directed Planet Terror (where Tarantino plays a small role) Tarantino directs the second film, Death Proof, in competition at Cannes 2007. Gathered in a movie in the United States, these films come out separately in non anglophones41 country. This project was a commercial failure, though Death Proof receives criticism rather positives42.

In 2008, Tarantino is chosen to give cinema lesson at the 61st Festival Cannes43. On this occasion, he announced that his next film will Inglourious Basterds and that this framework is to World War II. He started writing the script of this film before you even realize Brown44 Jackie and planned for a long time to realize it before setting it aside in favor of Kill Bill45, then Boulevard mort46.

Filming begins in October 2008 in Germany and ends in December in France. The film, which takes a total freedom with historical reality and a tribute to the cinema in general and the spaghetti western, war films of the 1960s and the German cinema of the 1920s and 1930s in particular, is in competition at the Festival Cannes 2009. Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Diane Kruger and Christoph Waltz are among the headliners. The film was a commercial success and enjoys generally positive reviews. Inglourious Basterds is nominated eight times for an Oscar in 2010 (particularly in the categories of "Best Film" and "Best Director"). It is also the Best Actor Prize at Cannes and the Golden Globe and the Oscar for best supporting actor for Austrian Christoph Waltz, unknown in non-German-speaking land before its delivery of Hans Landa, cultivated Jews hunter, polyglot and sadistic.

In 2010, Tarantino chairs the 67th edition of the Venice Film Festival. His jury awards the Golden Lion to Somewhere by Sofia Coppola, a close friend and ex-girlfriend of filmmaker. The latter has also touted the evening of the fence, the artistic qualities of his film47. The Italian press charges on this occasion favoritism director since two other close friends of Tarantino, Álex de la Iglesia and Monte Hellman, are rewarded at the end of festival48.

Django Unchained [change | modify the code]

In 2011, Tarantino announced his new film, Django Unchained, a tribute to spaghetti westerns, including Django Sergio Corbucci, lying in the deep south of the United States at the time of slavery in which he made an important research work . He finds the Austrian actor Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson. Jamie Foxx plays the lead role of Django, a freed slave, while Leonardo DiCaprio plays the antagonist. Announced a time, Kevin Costner finally gives up the project, replaced by Kurt Russell, who leaves his tour49.

The film was released in the US on December 25 and 201250 16 January 2013 in Belgium and France51. On 24 February 2013, the work, which is a critically acclaimed in Europe and America, won two Oscars: Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Best Supporting Actor for Waltz. The director and the actor then count each their second trophy in these respective categories after winning the same two BAFTA and Golden Globes. Django Unchained China holds the record in the shorter theatrical release, the film is finally removed by censors after a minute projection despite the cuts already subies52.

Reginald Hudlin then adapts comics the first version of the script of Quentin Tarantino. It was published in the US by Vertigo in 7 small volumes53,54,55,56,57,58,59. Quentin Tarantino then announced his desire to write a cross-over between Django and Zorro, with the collaboration of Matt Wagner60.

"By reading the stories of Zorro I was convinced it was a good idea to combine these two icons. And the idea of ​​history that came to me is really exciting, and I think it will be an exciting new chapter for both personnages61. "

- Quentin Tarantino

The first volume Django / Zorro # 1 released by Dynamite Entertainment in November 2014 in the United Unis62.

Eight Salopards [change | modify the code]

In November 2013, Tarantino announced that his next film will again be a Western. Unrelated Django Unchained, he is entitled The Eight Salopards (the hateful eight) nod to western The Magnificent Seven (The Magnificent Seven). The start of filming is scheduled for summer 2014 for an output suivante63 the year.

But in January 2014, just completed the script leak. Tarantino, very depressed by what he considers a betrayal, he renounces direct the film to move to another projet64. A few days later, the director makes a complaint and demanded a million dollars in damages to the website Gawker Media who helped circulate the scenario on the Internet, all broadcast links have been deleted since lors65. US court however rejected the complaint in April, arguing that copyright infringement is evidence insuffisantes66.

Nevertheless, the project is not abandoned. A public reading of the script is organized April 19, 2014 in Los Angeles by the actors announced for the western, in the presence of Harvey Weinstein, the producer of Tarantino faithful. Also, Tarantino says he rewrote the script in several versions, with fine différentes67. In October 2014, Jennifer Jason Leigh joined the cast for the lead roles féminin68. On 7 November 2014, it was announced that Bruce Dern, Walton Goggins, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Channing Tatum and Demián Bichir complete the main cast and will start shooting in Telluride, Colorado, to an outflow in December 201569. the filming starts on December 8 201 470.

The film is shot with 70 mm film format, a first for a film distributed worldwide for Far Horizons (1992) 71. The completed film, Tarantino reveals that he uses Ennio Morricone to compose the original music for the film. The promotional campaign of it is disturbed by a boycott from several police departments in major US cities as a result of a declaration of Tarantino violently condemning police brutality at a rally of the Black Lives Matter72 movement. On 21 December 2015, shortly before the international release of the film, Tarantino gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame73.

The Tarantino style [change | modify the code]

Recurring themes and motifs [change | modify the code]

Tarantino wrote the script of all its features and pays particular attention to the dialogues. They are abundant and his characters often deliver long monologues that make up the highlights of his films, "the piece of verbal bravery [supplanting] the scene of action." 74 The filmmaker regularly uses a non-linear narrative structure. He manhandled indeed the chronology in his scripts, built more like a novelist than a screenwriter. He prefers the way the term "chapter" to that of "flashback" to name the many round trips in time. The mixture of temporality giving him key information to viewers when they wish, without the need for a dramatic increase verticale75,76. Nevertheless, he still cleaning some suspense. Tarantino likes to put on the same plane spectacular actions, particularly bloody, and careful discussions, long, mundane and floods, marked by the use of slang. The familiar conversations are characterized by the gradual emergence of a threat that concludes an outpouring of violence77.

His style is both admired and criticized by the press: some media accuse him an unhealthy fascination with violence, ideological contextualization of problematic political or historical topics (the Holocaust, American slavery etc.), an amoral taste " cool "and a search of the immediate pleasure for spectateur77,78. He also criticized a taste for flashy virtuosity, an art close summons looting, a dizzying mix of genres and sub-genres that remain on the surface of things or a reductive vision of history, a view only through the prism of history cinéma77,79,78.

He created a universe of extreme violence that magnifies and stylized to compose a sophisticated aesthetic. The violence of Tarantino films it has often been alleged by film critics but this violence, sometimes disturbing, is mostly defused by humor or artificiality of action which sometimes borders on parodie80,81. His films all refer to a film mythology, revisiting the archetypes of blaxploitation, westerns, film noir and gangster, the slasher film kung fu and sword or the war movie to play on codes the cinématographique82 representation. This postmodern process that breaks with all likelihood because returns exercising its realization spectacle of nature and illusion83. Thus, Tarantino claims he liberating power of cinema which he uses to create the world and histoire84 (elimination of Hitler in Inglourious Basterds or slavery in Django Unchained ...). Through this, it also makes several tributes to those that motivated his desire to be a filmmaker, be they directors or ambitious pop scene objects (thrillers, comics, cartoons, funk ...) 77.

Note indeed in him a taste for popular culture as well as for black humor, offset, the absurd and the parodique77. He and his dialogues enameled many references to pop culture, often in order to entertain the viewer or to challenge him to understand his allusions but mainly because it is a "universal language" that connects its personnages85. It also practice self-citation, creating a universe found in several of his films through such fictitious brands like Big Kahuna Burger or Red Apples cigarettes or the character of Earl McGraw86. Some of his characters from different movies have the same surname and officially established relationship between Vic and Vincent Vega, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction87, and Lee and Donny Donowitz from True Romance and Inglourious Basterds88.

Tarantino pays particular attention to the choice of music that support action; the soundtracks of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill thus a great success outside the film. His style is also characterized by the recurrent use in his films of Mexican Standoff, that is to say, a confrontation where no one can win, as in the final scene of Reservoir Dogs and the scene in the bar in Inglourious Basterds.

Tarantino also enjoys a lot with graphic identities of the cinema, for example alternating black and white and color or using the split screen, as in the first part of Kill Bill. Also, is it often refers to defects in production of low-budget films, like those of exploitation films, by using jump cuts, scratches on film or parasites on picture like Boulevard mort89.

Tarantino has granted a place increasingly important women in his films, his world becoming increasingly feminized until reaching a climax in Kill Bill and Boulevard mort89. The characters of strong women dotting his films as Jackie Brown in the homonymous film or the bride in Kill Bill, are mostly inspiration to her mother Connie who raised seule90. It is also one of the most famous representatives of the female foot fetish, with allusions in several of its films84 (eg close-ups of barefoot Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction or those of Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown, foot massage narrated by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, the drugstore scene in death Proof, Christoph Waltz removing the shoe Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds and the top of this fetishism in from Dusk Till Dawn, where Tarantino drinking whiskey on the feet of Salma Hayek).

Influences [change | modify the code]

Tarantino makes numerous references more or less visible in countries action cinema (especially Asian movies like kung fu movies and Chinese martial arts or the Japanese sword movies). We note, in addition, several analogies with the kind of movies, series B, and also erotic works, including Russ Meyer. It is sometimes criticized an art close summons looting, and has even been called "cinema kleptomaniac." 91

Tarantino has a huge film culture and gained tremendous enthusiasm for the cinema since its enfance92. It is a fervent admirer, among others, Sergio Leone, he cites as his préféré93 director, Howard Hawks, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, John Woo, Jean-Luc Godard94, Jean-Pierre Melville, Robert Aldrich, Samuel Fuller and Sergio Corbucci93, and since he was video store clerk at video Archives.

In 1996, From Dusk Till Dawn, their fantasy thriller, released in cinemas. Originally, it was Tarantino who proposes to his partner to make this film he wrote years ago and that they will co-produce together. Faced with George Clooney and Juliette Lewis, each summons familiar actors in his universe as Salma Hayek and Danny Trejo Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino for Harvey Keitel, who himself plays the most important role of his acting career. Follow two suites outputs directly to video in 1999 and 2000, again co-produced by the two friends but written and directed by others, and a television series adapted in 2014.

In 2004, Robert Rodriguez has composed the original music of Kill Bill vol.2 film for a symbolic dollar. In exchange, the following year he asked Tarantino to come perform a sequence of his Sin City movie adapted from the comic book by Frank Miller (this scene takes place in a car with the actors Benicio Del Toro and Clive Owen). According to Rodriguez, it was also a way to demonstrate the practical value of a digital film location for his friend who agrees to turn that film. On the poster of the film, Quentin Tarantino is quoted as Special Guest Director (Special guest director).

In 2007, they co-produce and co-directed a project in homage to exploitation films and doubleheader of their youth sessions. Titled Grindhouse (referring to grindhouse type movie theaters), this double bill begins with a zombie movie: Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez, followed by a slasher: Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino. Several actors appear in both films (as Michael Parks and Marley Shelton who hold the same roles or Rose McGowan and Tarantino himself) and between each film is disseminated false trailers for horror movies produced by regulars kind (Rob Zombie, Eli Roth and Edgar Wright). Following the failure of Grindhouse in US theaters, the two films Planet Terror and Death Proof were distributed separately and long versions internationally. Since Robert Rodriguez adapted his fake trailer aired at the beginning of Grindhouse, Machete, genuine film, and in turn, Quentin Tarantino has produced a grindhouse genre film, Hell Ride, directed by Larry Bishop he had already committed as an actor in Kill Bill vol.2.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez met at the 1992 Toronto International Film Festival film while they had their respective first film, Reservoir Dogs and El Mariachi. Their film cultures and sensitivities relatives bring them quickly to establish a friendly and professional relationship.

The first collaboration is carried out in 1995 on the second film of Rodriguez, Desperado, where Tarantino appears the time of a scene (in which his long monologue was written by him). The same year, each carries one of the four segments (or short) the anthology film Groom Service, while the other two are directed by Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell.