Quentin Tarantino is and probably always will be one of my favourite film directors, and probably the first ever director whose films I truly fell in love with.
Despite his popularity and success, largely gained through his two first films
Reservoir Dogs and
Pulp Fiction, the name Quentin Tarantino tends to divide the opinions of film watchers and critics. Whilst some are huge fans that thoroughly enjoy the director’s unmistakable style, others are less enthusiastic when it comes to his work, less impressed by his often used mixture of violence, comedy and pop culture references, some considering him a talentless hack, ripping off the work of others, a film geek that got lucky. Whilst I would be lying if I said I did not consider myself a ‘Tarantino Fanboy’, I am not here to argue with his critics over whether Tarantino is a con artist, whether his career has gone downhill since
Pulp Fiction, or various other topics I often hear discussed, I simply want to share with you the reasons that I love Tarantino and talk about the influence and impact his films have had on me personally.
The first ever Tarantino film that I saw was also the director’s first:
Reservoir Dogs, although this viewing was not until 20 years after the film’s original release. Before watching this film I never really considered myself to be a serious film watcher, I watched films purely for enjoyment, normally with friends and family and I certainly never read about films or discussed them with others fully or seriously.
This film was like nothing I had ever seen before, and completely changed my perspective of films. After watching it I was amazed, it was quite violent yet definitely one of the ‘coolest’ films I had ever watched, Tarantino’s combination of various elements hit all the right chords for me as a film viewer: a fantastic cast, a superb screenplay filled with tons of memorable dialogue that makes watching these characters who are stuck in a warehouse fascinating, great use of music in scenes ranging from ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ in the film’s most iconic scene to ‘Put the Lime in the Coconut’ at the films end, and a bizarre mixture of violence and humour as mentioned before that I certainly found entertaining.
I watched the film again within a week of first seeing it; I had to see it again, it was one of the most fun film experiences I had ever had. When this film was originally released, a video store worker, wannabee film actor and writer Tarantino become an instant hit with American audiences thanks to the funding of Harvey Keitel, if this film started a cult following of Tarantino back in the 90s then I can certainly see why as it had a similar affect on me, I was immediately swept into the world of Tarantino and just wanted to see more and more of his films. My next film was a natural choice for two reasons, it was his second directed feature and I also knew it was regarded as his strongest film:
Pulp Fiction.
Pulp Fiction had everything I loved about Tarantino’s first film and more, never had a two and a half hour film flown by so fast, an exhilarating experience to say the least, I thought
Reservoir Dogs was ‘cool’ but this film took it to another level once again in terms of film greatness. It became an instant classic for me, and will be a film I will always remember, whilst since watching it I have gone on to expand my film viewings to various countries, directors and decades across cinema, and although I have viewed many magnificent films, none of them come close to
Pulp Fiction as a first time film watching experience for me.
Watching Pulp Fiction gave me a greater insight into the mind of Tarantino and after watching it a few times I began to get a greater idea of his directorial style.
Pulp Fiction might just be the greatest ‘men’s’ film ever created, with the laid back characters bringing so much style and charisma to the screen. I had fallen in love with Tarantino the director, but also importantly, the writer.
One similarity I noticed between Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction was how their openings had me gripped from the very start, Reservoir Dogs opens with a fantastic conversation between the group of criminals discussing the meaning of Madonna’s song ‘Like a Virgin’ and in this conversation are many great and humorous quotes, then we see them walking down the street to the sound of ‘Little Green Bag’, the film kicks into gear to the sound of a fantastic energetic 1970s song. In Pulp Fiction we have a similar style opening, a strange but great conversation between two characters, Pumpkin and Honey Bunny in which Tarantino slowly builds up until the point where they stand up, get out their guns and tell everybody to get down, then the iconic tune ‘Misirlou’ hits to get the film going. These highly detailed, full of dialogue scenes in which Tarantino introduces his characters have remained as the opening formula for his films as I will talk about later.
I could write thousands of words per film when it comes to Tarantino, and whilst I want to individually review all of his films eventually, I won’t really do that here, and instead just talk about how the films made such a big impact on me and what exactly drew me towards Tarantino. With his first two films I think they appealed to me mainly because I am a young male, the films are driven by masculine characters, cool, laid back characters that are extremely likable and we wish we knew. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson remain two of the coolest on screen characters ever created, the latter is just brilliant and carries such a fantastic screen presence in his role as Jules, then in
Pulp Fiction you have Bruce Willis, one of the ultimate masculine male actors who was superb in such a role in
Die Hard.