Quentin Jerome Tarantino (/ˌtærənˈtiːnoʊ/; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue including a pervasive use of profanity, and references to popular culture.
Tarantino's work has been subject to criticism, such as the depictions of violence and frequent inclusion of racial slurs. During Tarantino's career, his films have garnered a cult following, as well as critical and commercial success, he has been considered "the single most influential director of his generation". Apart from receiving the Palme d'Or and two Academy Awards, his other major awards include two BAFTAs and four Golden Globes.
Early life
Tarantino was born on March 27, 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee, the only child of Connie McHugh and aspiring actor Tony Tarantino, who left the family before his son's birth.[2] Tarantino identifies as having Cherokee descent through his mother, who is of Irish descent on her other side; his father is of Italian descent.[3][2] He was named in part after Quint Asper, Burt Reynolds's character in the TV series Gunsmoke.[4] Tarantino's mother met his father during a trip to Los Angeles. After a brief marriage and divorce, Connie left Los Angeles and moved to Knoxville, where her parents lived. In 1966, Tarantino returned with his mother to Los Angeles.[5][6]
Tarantino's mother married musician Curtis Zastoupil soon after arriving in Los Angeles, and the family moved to Torrance, a city in Los Angeles County's South Bay area.[7][8] Zastoupil accompanied Tarantino to numerous film screenings while his mother allowed him to see more mature movies, such as Carnal Knowledge (1971) and Deliverance (1972). After his mother divorced Zastoupil in 1973, and received a misdiagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma, Tarantino was sent to live with his grandparents in Tennessee. He remained there less than a year before returning to California.[9][10]
At 14 years old, Tarantino wrote one of his earliest works, a screenplay called Captain Peachfuzz and the Anchovy Bandit, based on the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit. Tarantino later revealed that his mother had ridiculed his writing skills when he was younger; as a result, he vowed that he would never share his wealth with her.[11] As a 15-year-old, Tarantino was grounded by his mother for shoplifting Elmore Leonard's novel The Switch from Kmart. He was allowed to leave only to attend the Torrance Community Theater, where he participated in such plays as Two Plus Two Makes Sex and Romeo and Juliet.[9] The same year, he dropped out of Narbonne High School in Harbor City, Los Angeles.[12][13]
Career
1980s: Early jobs and screenplays
Through the 1980s, Tarantino had a number of jobs. After lying about his age, he worked as an usher at an adult movie theater in Torrance, called the Pussycat Theater. He spent time as a recruiter in the aerospace industry, and for five years he worked at Video Archives, a video store in Manhattan Beach, California.[14][15] He was well known in the local community for his film knowledge and video recommendations; Tarantino stated, "When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, 'No, I went to films."[16][lower-alpha 1] In 1986, Tarantino was employed in his first Hollywood job, working with Video Archives colleague Roger Avary, as production assistants on Dolph Lundgren's exercise video, Maximum Potential.[17]
Before working at Video Archives, Tarantino co-wrote Love Birds In Bondage with Scott Magill. Tarantino would go on to produce and direct the short film. Magill committed suicide in 1987, after which all film shot was destroyed.[18] Later, Tarantino attended acting classes at the James Best Theatre Company, where he met several of his eventual collaborators for his next film.[19][20][lower-alpha 2] In 1987, Tarantino co-wrote and directed My Best Friend's Birthday (1987). It was left uncompleted, but some of its dialogue was included in True Romance.[23]
The following year, he played an Elvis impersonator in "Sophia's Wedding: Part 1", an episode in the fourth season of The Golden Girls, which was broadcast on November 19, 1988.[24] Tarantino recalled that the pay he received for the part helped support him during the preproduction of Reservoir Dogs; he estimated he was initially paid about $650; however, the episode was frequently rerun because it was on a "best of..." lineup, therefore received about $3,000 in residuals over three years.[25]
1990s: Breakthrough
After meeting Lawrence Bender at a friend's barbecue, Tarantino discussed with him about an unwritten dialogue-driven heist film. Bender encouraged Tarantino to write the screenplay, which he wrote in three-and-a-half weeks and presented to Bender unformatted. Impressed with the script, Bender managed to forward it through contacts to director Monte Hellman.[26] Hellman cleaned up the screenplay and helped secure funding from Richard N. Gladstein at Live Entertainment (which later became Artisan, now known as Lionsgate).[27]Harvey Keitel read the script and also contributed to the budget, taking a role as co-producer and also playing a major part in the picture. In January 1992, it was released as Tarantino's crime thriller Reservoir Dogs—which he wrote, directed, and acted in as Mr. Brown—and screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was an immediate hit, receiving a positive response from critics.[28][29]
Tarantino has had a number of collaborations with director Robert Rodriguez.
Tarantino's screenplay True Romance was optioned and the film was eventually released in 1993. The second script that Tarantino sold was for the film Natural Born Killers, which was revised by Dave Veloz, Richard Rutowski and director Oliver Stone. Tarantino was given story credit and stated in an interview that he wished the film well, but later disowned the final film.[30][31] Tarantino also did an uncredited rewrite on It's Pat (1994).[32][33] Other films where he was an uncredited screenwriter include Crimson Tide (1995) and The Rock (1996).[34]
Following the success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino was approached by major film studios and offered projects that included Speed (1994) and Men in Black (1997), but he instead retreated to Amsterdam to work on his script for Pulp Fiction.[35][36]
In 1995, Tarantino participated in the anthology film Four Rooms, a collaboration that also included directors Robert Rodriguez, Allison Anders and Alexandre Rockwell. Tarantino directed and acted in the fourth segment of "The Man from Hollywood", a tribute to the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Man from the South".[41][42] He joined Rodriguez again later in the year with a supporting role in Desperado.[43][44] One of Tarantino's first paid writing assignments was for From Dusk till Dawn, which Rodriguez directed later in 1996, re-teaming with Tarantino in another acting role, alongside Harvey Keitel, George Clooney and Juliette Lewis.[45][46][lower-alpha 3]
His third feature film was Jackie Brown (1997), an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch. A homage to blaxploitation films, it starred Pam Grier, who starred in many of the films of that genre in the 1970s. It received positive reviews and was called a "comeback" for Grier and co-star Robert Forster.[49] Leonard considered Jackie Brown to be his favorite of the 26 different screen adaptations of his novels and short stories.[50]
Tarantino went on to write and direct Kill Bill, a highly stylized "revenge flick" in the cinematic traditions of Chinese martial arts films, Japanese period dramas, Spaghetti Westerns, and Italian horror.[61] It was based on a character called The Bride and a plot that he and Kill Bill's lead actress Uma Thurman had developed during the making of Pulp Fiction.[62] It was originally set for a single theatrical release, but its four-hour running time prompted Tarantino to divide it into two movies.[63]:1:02:10 Tarantino says he still considers it a single film in his overall filmography.[63]:1:23:35Volume 1 was released in 2003 and Volume 2 was released in 2004.[64][65]
Tarantino in 2009
From 2002 to 2004, Tarantino portrayed villain McKenas Cole in the ABC television series Alias.[66] In 2004, Tarantino attended the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where he served as President of the Jury.[67]Volume 2 of Kill Bill had a screening there, but was not in competition.[68]
Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds, released in 2009, is the story of a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers in Nazi-occupied France in an alternate history of World War II.[74] He had planned to start work on the film after Jackie Brown but postponed this to make Kill Bill after a meeting with Uma Thurman.[75] Filming began on "Inglorious Bastards", as it was provisionally titled, in October 2008.[76] The film opened in August 2009 to positive reviews with the highest box office gross in the US and Canada for the weekend on release.[77] For the film, Tarantino received his second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.[78]
2010s and 2020s: Established auteur
Tarantino at the French premiere of Django Unchained in January 2013
In 2011, production began on Django Unchained, a film about the revenge of a former slave in the Southern United States in 1858. The film stemmed from Tarantino's desire to produce a Spaghetti Western set in America's Deep South during the Antebellum Period. Tarantino called the proposed style "a southern",[79] stating that he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to".[79] It was released in December 2012 and became his highest grossing film to date.[80][81] He also received his second Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.[82]
In November 2013, Tarantino said he was working on a new film and that it would be another Western, though not a sequel to Django Unchained.[83] On January 11, 2014, it was revealed that the film would be titled The Hateful Eight.[84] The script was then leaked in January 2014.[85] Aggrieved by the breach of confidence, Tarantino considered abandoning the production which was due to start the next winter and publish it as a novel instead.[86] He stated that he had given the script to a few trusted colleagues, including Bruce Dern, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen.[87][88] On April 19, 2014, Tarantino directed a live reading of the leaked script at the United Artists Theater in the Ace Hotel Los Angeles for the Live Read series.[89] Tarantino explained that they would read the first draft of the script, and added that he was writing two new drafts with a different ending.[90] Filming went ahead as planned with the new draft in January 2015.[91]The Hateful Eight was released on December 25, 2015, as a roadshow presentation in 70 mm film-format theaters, before being released in digital theaters on December 30, 2015.[92] The film received mostly positive reviews from critics.[93]
In 2001, he produced the US release of the Hong Kong martial arts film Iron Monkey, which made over $14 million worldwide.[103][104] In 2004, he brought the Chinese martial arts film Hero to the US. It opened at number-one at the box office and eventually earning $53.5 million.[105]
In 2006, another "Quentin Tarantino presents" production, Hostel, opened at number-one at the box office with a $20.1 million opening weekend.[107] He presented 2006's The Protector, and is a producer of the 2007 film Hostel: Part II.[108][109] In 2008, he produced the Larry Bishop-helmed Hell Ride, a revenge biker film.[110]
As a film exhibitor
In February 2010, Tarantino bought the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. Tarantino allowed the previous owners to continue operating the theater, but stated he would make occasional programming suggestions. He was quoted as saying: "As long as I'm alive, and as long as I'm rich, the New Beverly will be there, showing films shot on 35mm."[111] Starting in 2014, Tarantino took a more active role in programming film screenings at the New Beverly, showing his own films as well as prints from his personal collection.[112] In 2021, Tarantino announced that he had also purchased the Vista Theatre in Los Angeles, stating that he intends to keep it a first-run theatre, and that like The New Beverly it will only show movies on film.[113]
Film criticism
In June 2020, Tarantino became an officially recognized critic on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes where his reviews are part of the "Tomatometer" rating.[114][115] He has since published over 30 film reviews, including director essays, on his New Beverly Cinema website.[116]
Tarantino praised Mel Gibson's 2006 film Apocalypto, saying, "I think it's a masterpiece. It was perhaps the best film of that year."[121] In 2009, he named Kinji Fukasaku's violent action film Battle Royale as his favorite film released since he became a director in 1992.[122] In 2020, Tarantino named David Fincher's film The Social Network his favorite movie of the 2010s.[123]
Films that Tarantino has commented on negatively include Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy where he remarked, "... might be a piece of crap, but I doubt Alfred was bored making it". He also disliked two Robert Altman films stating, "Brewster McCloud is the cinematic equivalent of a bird shitting on your head ... and Quintet is just terrible, boring, and pointless".[124] Regarding David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me he said, "... Lynch has disappeared so far up his own ass that I have no desire to see another David Lynch movie until I hear something different. And you know, I loved him. I loved him".[125] Whilst not critical of the film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, Tarantino admitted he was unable to view the Mr. Creosote scene, "The only time I've ever had to look away, because I couldn't bear to watch, was ... when that fat bastard keeps being sick."[126][124]
In 2022, Tarantino stated that Steven Spielberg's Jaws is "the greatest movie of all time. Maybe not the best film, but the best movie ever made". He commented further on Spielberg's Indiana Jones films, "I think my favourite Spielberg-directed movie, again with Jaws carved out on its own Mount Rushmore, is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ... He pushes the envelope, he creates PG-13; a movie so fucking badass it created a new level in the MPAA."[127][128] He also favors The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when compared to The Last Crusade.[129][130]
In June 2021, Tarantino announced plans to start a podcast with Roger Avary. The podcast is named after Video Archives, a video rental store that both directors had worked at prior to their film careers, and will feature the directors, and a guest, examining a film which could have been offered for rental at the store.[135] The podcast premiered on July 19, 2022.[136]
A number of film projects have been considered by Tarantino throughout his career. They have included comic book adaptations (Green Lantern, Iron Man, Luke Cage, Silver Surfer),[137][138][139][140] sequels (Kill Bill: Vol. 3),[141] spin-offs of previous works (Double V Vega),[142] crossovers of his own work with other genres (Django/Zorro),[143] literary adaptations of well-known authors (Len Deighton, Bret Easton Ellis),[144][145] and campaigning to direct in major film franchises (James Bond and Star Trek).[146][147] Most of the projects he has discussed have been speculative, but none of them have been accomplished. In November 2014, Tarantino said he would retire from films after directing his tenth film.[148]
Tenth and final film
In 2009, Tarantino said that he planned to retire from filmmaking when he is 60, in order to focus on writing novels and film literature. He is skeptical of the film industry going digital, saying, "If it actually gets to the place where you can't show 35mm film in theaters anymore and everything is digital projection, I won't even make it to 60."[149][150] He has also stated that he has a plan, although "not etched in stone", to retire after making his tenth movie: "If I get to the 10th, do a good job and don't screw it up, well that sounds like a good way to end the old career."[148]
In March 2023, it was reported that Tarantino had completed a script titled The Movie Critic which was rumored to be about film critic Pauline Kael, although Tarantino debunked this later providing further details.[151] The protagonist is based on a movie reviewer who wrote for a pornographic magazine and a male American actor in his thirties will play the role. The character writes for a fictional magazine "The Popstar Pages" and the film takes place in California in 1977.[152] The project is currently scheduled to begin filming in the fall of 2023.[153]
In August 2007, while teaching in a four-hour film course during the 9th Cinemanila International Film Festival in Manila, Tarantino cited Filipino directors Cirio H. Santiago, Eddie Romero and Gerardo de León as personal icons from the 1970s.[162] He referred to De Leon's "soul-shattering, life-extinguishing" movies on vampires and female bondage, citing in particular Women in Cages; "It is just harsh, harsh, harsh", he said, and described the final shot as one of "devastating despair".[162] Upon his arrival in the Philippines, Tarantino was quoted in the local newspaper as saying, "I'm a big fan of RP [Republic of the Philippines] cinema."[163]
Style
Tarantino's films often feature graphic violence, a tendency which has sometimes been criticized.[164][165][166]Reservoir Dogs was initially denied United Kingdom certification because of his use of torture as entertainment.[167] Tarantino has frequently defended his use of violence, saying that "violence is so good. It affects audiences in a big way".[168] When questioned in an interview for Kill Bill: Volume 1 why his movies contained so much graphic violence, he responded, "Because it's so much fun!"[169] The number of expletives and deaths in Tarantino's films were measured by analytics website FiveThirtyEight. In the examples given by the site, "Reservoir Dogs features 'just' 10 on-screen deaths, but 421 profanities. Django Unchained, on the other hand, has 'just' 262 profanities but 47 deaths."[170] He often blends aesthetic elements, in tribute to his favorite films and filmmakers. In Kill Bill, he melds comic strip formulas and visuals within a live action film sequence, in some cases by the literal use of cartoon or anime images.[171][172]
Tarantino has also occasionally used a non-linear story structure in his films, most notably with Pulp Fiction. He has also used the style in Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, and The Hateful Eight.[173][174] Tarantino's script for True Romance was originally told in a non-linear style, before director Tony Scott decided to use a more linear approach.[175][176] Critics have since referred to the use of this shifting timeline in films as the "Tarantino Effect".[177] Actor Steve Buscemi has described Tarantino's novel style of filmmaking as "bursting with energy" and "focused".[178] According to Tarantino, a hallmark of all his movies is that there is a different sense of humor in each one, which prompts the viewer to laugh at scenes that are not funny.[179] However, he insists that his films are dramas, not comedies.[180]
Tarantino's use of dialogue is noted for its mundane conversations with popular culture references. For example, when Jules and Vincent in Pulp Fiction are driving to a hit, they talk about Vincent's trip to Europe, discussing the differences in countries such as a McDonald's "Quarter Pounder with Cheese" being called a "Royale with Cheese" in France because of the metric system. In the opening scene to Reservoir Dogs, Mr. Brown (played by Tarantino) interprets the meaning of Madonna's song "Like a Virgin". In Jackie Brown, Jackie and Max chat over a cup of coffee while listening to a vinyl record by the Delfonics' "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)".[181][182]
Tarantino has said that his films take place in one of two cinematic universes, one being the more realistically grounded world of films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and the other being a meta-fictional narrative which Tarantino says represents the kind of films the characters in his main cinematic universe would watch, which separates films such as From Dusk till Dawn and Kill Bill from Tarantino's primary narrative.[183] He also creates his own products and brands that he uses in his films to varying degrees.[184] His own fictional brands, including "Acuña Boys Tex-Mex Food", "Big Kahuna Burger", "G.O. Juice", "Jack Rabbit Slim's", "K-Billy", "Red Apple cigarettes", "Tenku Brand Beer" and "Teriyaki Donut", replace the use of product placement, sometimes to a humorous extent.[185][172] Tarantino is also known for his choice of music in his films,[186] including soundtracks that often use songs from the 1960s and 70s.[187][188][189] In 2011, he was recognized at the 16th Critics' Choice Awards with the inaugural Music+Film Award.[190][191]
A recurring image in his films are scenes where women's bare feet feature prominently. When asked about foot fetishism, Tarantino responded, "I don't take it seriously. There's a lot of feet in a lot of good directors' movies. That's just good direction. Like, before me, the person foot fetishism was defined by was Luis Buñuel, another film director. And Alfred Hitchcock was accused of it and Sofia Coppola has been accused of it."[192][193]
Tarantino has stated in many interviews that his writing process is like writing a novel before formatting it into a script, saying that this creates the blueprint of the film and makes the film feel like literature. About his writing process he told website The Talks, "My head is a sponge. I listen to what everyone says, I watch little idiosyncratic behavior, people tell me a joke and I remember it. People tell me an interesting story in their life and I remember it. ... when I go and write my new characters, my pen is like an antenna, it gets that information, and all of a sudden these characters come out more or less fully formed. I don't write their dialogue, I get them talking to each other."[194]
Appraisals
During his career, Tarantino's films have garnered a cult following, as well as critical and commercial success.[1][195] In 2005, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.[196] Filmmaker and historian Peter Bogdanovich has called him "the single most influential director of his generation".[197] Tarantino has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry.[198]
In 2013, a survey of seven academics was carried out to discover which filmmakers had been referenced the most in essays and dissertations on film that had been marked in the previous five years. It revealed that Tarantino was the most-studied director in the United Kingdom, ahead of Alfred Hitchcock, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.[199]
Controversies
Racial slurs in films
In 1997, Spike Lee questioned Tarantino's use of racial slurs in his films, especially the word "nigger", particularly in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.[200] In a Variety interview discussing Jackie Brown, Lee said, "I'm not against the word ... And some people speak that way, but Quentin is infatuated with that word... I want Quentin to know that all African Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick."[201] Tarantino responded on The Charlie Rose Show:
As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are, all right? And to say that I can't do that because I'm white, but the Hughes brothers can do that because they're black, that is racist. That is the heart of racism, all right. And I do not accept that... That is how a segment of the black community that lives in Compton, lives in Inglewood, where Jackie Brown takes place, that lives in Carson, that is how they talk. I'm telling the truth. It would not be questioned if I was black, and I resent the question because I'm white. I have the right to tell the truth. I do not have the right to lie.[202]
Tarantino said on The Howard Stern Show that Lee would have to "stand on a chair to kiss [his] ass".[203] Samuel L. Jackson, who has appeared in both directors' films, defended Tarantino. At the Berlin Film Festival, where Jackie Brown was screened, Jackson said: "I don't think the word is offensive in the context of this film... Black artists think they are the only ones allowed to use the word. Well, that's bull. Jackie Brown is a wonderful homage to black exploitation films. This is a good film, and Spike hasn't made one of those in a few years."[204] Tarantino argued that black audiences appreciated his blaxploitation-influenced films more than some of his critics, and that Jackie Brown was primarily made for black audiences.[205]
Django Unchained was the subject of controversy because of its use of racial slurs and depiction of slavery. Reviewers defended the use of the language by pointing out the historic context of race and slavery in America.[206][207] Lee, in an interview with Vibe, said that he would not see the film: "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me ... I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else."[208] Lee later tweeted: "American slavery was not a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them."[209]
In a 2003 Howard Stern interview, Tarantino defended the director Roman Polanski against charges that Polanski had raped then-13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977. He said that Polanski's actions were "not rape" and Geimer "...wanted to have it".[210] The interview resurfaced in 2018 and drew criticism, including from Geimer, who stated in an interview, "He was wrong. I bet he knows it... I hope he doesn't make an ass of himself and keep talking that way."[211] Within days of the interview resurfacing, Tarantino issued an apology, stating "Fifteen years later, I realize how wrong I was... I incorrectly played devil's advocate in the debate for the sake of being provocative."[212]
On October 18, 2017, Tarantino gave an interview discussing sexual harassment and assault allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein. Tarantino said his then-girlfriend Mira Sorvino told him in the mid-1990s about her experience with Weinstein. Tarantino confronted Weinstein at the time and received an apology.[213] Tarantino said: "What I did was marginalize the incidents. I knew enough to do more than I did."[213]
On February 3, 2018, in an interview with The New York Times, Kill Bill actress Uma Thurman said Weinstein had sexually assaulted her, and that she had reported this to Tarantino. Tarantino said he confronted Weinstein, as he had previously when Weinstein made advances on his former partner, demanding he apologize. He banned him from contact with Thurman for the remainder of the film's production.[214] In a June 2021 interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tarantino said he regretted not pressing Weinstein further, saying he did not know the extent of his misconduct before the 2017 scandal. He remarked on his "sad" view of his past relationship with Weinstein, saying he once looked up to him for fostering his career and describing him as "a fucked up father figure".[215]
Altercations with industry peers
In 1993, Tarantino sold his script for Natural Born Killers which was rewritten, giving him only a story credit. He later disowned the film which caused enmity; and the publication of a "tell-all" book titled Killer Instinct by Jane Hamsher—who with Don Murphy, had an original option on the screenplay and produced the film—calling Tarantino a "one-trick pony" and becoming "famous for being famous" led him to physically assault Murphy in the AGO restaurant in West Hollywood, California in October 1997.[216] Murphy subsequently filed a $5 million lawsuit against Tarantino; the case ended with the judge ordering Tarantino to pay Murphy $450.[217][218]
In 1994, Tarantino had an on-set feud with Denzel Washington during the filming of Crimson Tide over what was called "Tarantino's racist dialogue added to the script". A few years later Washington apologized to Tarantino saying he "buried that hatchet".[219]
In 1997, during the Oscars, Tarantino was accompanying Mira Sorvino who had stopped to speak to MTV News host at the time Chris Connelly when he called her from the media scrum. Before she could talk to him Tarantino grabbed Sorvino telling her, "He's the editor of Premiere and he did a story on my Dad," and pulled her away. Connelly, a former Premiere magazine editor-in-chief said, "No, I didn't." As they walked off, Tarantino gave the journalist the finger saying "Fuck you!" and spat at him.[220][221] The article that angered Tarantino included a 1995 interview from a biography by Jami Bernard with his biological father Tony Tarantino, someone he had never met, which he considered "pretty tasteless".[222]
In 2009, Tarantino was set to appear on the talk show Late Show with David Letterman to promote Inglourious Basterds. A few years prior to this event, David Letterman had interviewed a former "unnamed" girlfriend of Tarantino on his show. Letterman joked about the relationship questioning why a "glorious movie star" would date a "little squirrelly guy". A couple of days later, Tarantino phoned Letterman screaming angrily, "I'm going to beat you to death! I'm going to kill you! I'm coming to New York, and I'm gonna beat the crap out of you! How can you say that about me?!"[223] Letterman offered to pay for Tarantino's flight and let him choose the method of fighting, which Tarantino determined would be "bats". However, Letterman never heard from Tarantino again, until years later, when he came on the show to promote the new film. The host approached Tarantino in the make-up room, just before the show went live, and demanded an apology. Tarantino was not forthcoming, but at his publicist's urging, he begrudgingly conceded.[224]
In 2013, during an interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy on Channel 4 News while promoting Django Unchained in the UK, Tarantino reacted angrily when he was questioned about whether there was a link between movie violence and real-life violence. He informed Guru-Murthy that he was "shutting [his] butt down".[225] Tarantino further defied the journalist, saying: "I refuse your question. I'm not your slave and you're not my master. You can't make me dance to your tune. I'm not a monkey."[226]
In 2019, during the Cannes Film Festival, at the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood press conference, a journalist asked why Margot Robbie had so few lines in the film. Tarantino snapped back, "Well, I just reject your hypothesis", giving no further comment.[227]
Personal life
Relationships and marriage
In the early 1990s Tarantino dated comedians Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin. From 1995 to 1998 he dated actress Mira Sorvino. He was her date at the 68th Oscars ceremony where she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In March 1998 they separated with Sorvino releasing a statement that "[They] still love each other very much" but had reached a "mutual" decision to go their separate ways."[228] From 2003 to 2005, Tarantino was in a romantic relationship with filmmaker Sofia Coppola. The two have remained friends since their breakup.[229]
On June 30, 2017, Tarantino became engaged to Israeli singer Daniella Pick, daughter of musician Zvika Pick. They met in 2009 when Tarantino was in Israel to promote Inglourious Basterds.[230] They married on November 28, 2018, in a Reform Jewish ceremony in their Beverly Hills Home.[231][232] As of January 2020, they were splitting their time between the Ramat Aviv Gimel neighborhood of Tel Aviv, Israel and Los Angeles.[233] On February 22, 2020, their son[234][235] was born in Israel.[236] Their second child, a daughter, was born in July 2022.[237][238]
Faith and religious views
As a youth, Tarantino attended an Evangelical church, describing himself as "baptized, born again and everything in between". Tarantino said this was an act of rebellion against his Catholic mother as she had encouraged what might usually be considered more conventional forms of rebellion, such as his interests in comic books and horror films. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Tarantino was evasive about his religious beliefs but said he believed in God, whom he credited with giving him his writing ability.[239]
In the 2010s, Tarantino continued ascribing his talents to gifts from God but expressed uncertainty regarding God's existence. "I think I was born Catholic, but I was never practiced," said Tarantino. "As time has gone on, as I've become a man and made my way further as an adult, I'm not sure how much any of that I believe in. I don't really know if I believe in God, especially not in this Santa Claus character that people seemed to have conjured up."[240][241] In June 2021, Tarantino said he was an atheist.[242]
Views on gun violence and police brutality
Tarantino has said he does not believe that violence in film inspires real acts of violence.[243] In an interview with Terry Gross, Tarantino expressed "annoyance" at the suggestion that there is a link between the two, saying, "I think it's disrespectful to [the] memory of those who died to talk about movies ... Obviously the issue is gun control and mental health."[244]
In October 2015, Tarantino attended a rally held in New York protesting police brutality. The event aimed to call attention to "police brutality and its victims". At the event Tarantino made a speech, "I'm a human being with a conscience ... And when I see murder I cannot stand by. And I have to call the murdered the murdered and I have to call the murderers the murderers."[245]
As a response to Tarantino's comments police unions across the United States called for a boycott of his upcoming film at the time, The Hateful Eight. Patrick J. Lynch, union president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, said, "It's no surprise that someone who makes a living glorifying crime and violence is a cop-hater, too. The police officers that Quentin Tarantino calls 'murderers' aren't living in one of his depraved big screen fantasies — they're risking and sometimes sacrificing their lives to protect communities from real crime and mayhem."[245] The Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said Tarantino "doesn't understand the nature of the violence. Mr. Tarantino lives in a fantasy world. That's how he makes his living. His movies are extremely violent, but he doesn't understand violence. … Unfortunately, he mistakes lawful use of force for murder, and it's not."[246]
Tarantino's response to this criticism was, "All cops are not murderers ... I never said that. I never even implied that."[245] In an MSNBC interview with Chris Hayes, he said, "Just because I was at an anti-police brutality protest doesn't mean I'm anti-police."[247] He clarified his protest comments, "We were at a rally where unarmed people – mostly black and brown – who have been shot and killed or beaten or strangled by the police, and I was obviously referring to the people in those types of situations. I was referring to Eric Garner, I was referring to Sam DuBose, I was referring to Antonio Guzman Lopez, I was referring to Tamir Rice ... In those cases in particular that we're talking about, I actually do believe that they were murder."[248]
Filmography
Quentin Tarantino at Inglourious Basterds Premiere, Leicester Square, July 23, 2009
Tarantino has stated that he plans to make a total of just ten films before retiring as a director, as a means of ensuring an overall high quality within his filmography. He believes "most directors have horrible last movies," that ending on a "decent movie is rare," and that ending on a "good movie is kind of phenomenal."[249] Tarantino considers Kill Bill 1 and 2 to be a single movie.[250]
Tarantino has built up an informal "repertory company" of actors who have appeared in many roles in his films.[251][252] Most notable of these is Samuel L. Jackson, who has appeared in five films directed by Tarantino and a sixth written by him, True Romance.[253][254] Other frequent collaborators include Uma Thurman, who has been featured in three films and whom Tarantino has described as his "muse"; Zoë Bell, who has acted or performed stunts in seven Tarantino films; Michael Madsen, James Parks and Tim Roth, who respectively appear in five, four and three films. In addition, Roth appeared in Four Rooms, an anthology film where Tarantino directed the final segment, and filmed a scene for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood before it was cut for time.[254][255][256]
Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt have each appeared in two Tarantino films, the second of which, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, they appear in together.[257][258] Like Jackson, Pitt also appeared in the Tarantino-penned True Romance. Christoph Waltz appeared in two Tarantino films, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for each role. Waltz had been working as an actor since the 1970s in numerous German movies and TV shows but was a relative unknown in America when he was cast as Hans Landa in his first film for Tarantino.[259][260]
EditorSally Menke, who worked on all Tarantino films until her death in 2010, was described by Tarantino in 2007 as "hands down my number one collaborator".[261][262]
Tarantino and his films have received numerous nominations for major awards, including Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, and Saturn Awards. He has won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay twice, for Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained. He has been nominated four times for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, winning once for Pulp Fiction in 1994. In addition to his recognition for writing and directing films, Tarantino has received five Grammy Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. Known for his work in biographical and period films, he is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019, his films have grossed over $7.2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors.
Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American actor. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him the second-highest-grossing actor of all time. According to a more recent rating, he is the highest-grossing actor of all time. In 2022, he received the Academy Honorary Award as "a cultural icon whose dynamic work has resonated across genres and generations and audiences worldwide".
Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American neo-noir crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunker as diamond thieves whose heist of a jewelry store goes terribly wrong. Kirk Baltz, Randy Brooks, and Steven Wright also play supporting roles. It incorporates many motifs that have become Tarantino's hallmarks: violent crime, pop culture references, profanity, and nonlinear storytelling.
Bruce MacLeish Dern is an American actor. He has received several accolades, including the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and the Silver Bear for Best Actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Coming Home (1978) and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Nebraska (2013). He is also a BAFTA Award, two-time Genie Award, and three-time Golden Globe Award nominee.
Timothy Simon Roth is an English actor and producer. He was among a group of prominent British actors known as the "Brit Pack".
Jackie Brown is a 1997 American crime film written for the screen and directed by Quentin Tarantino, based on the 1992 novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. It stars Pam Grier as Jackie Brown, a flight attendant who is caught smuggling money. Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, and Robert De Niro appear in supporting roles.
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's leadership—one planned by Shosanna Dreyfus, a young French Jewish cinema proprietor, and the other planned by the British but ultimately conducted solely by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Christoph Waltz co-stars as Hans Landa, an SS colonel in charge of tracking down Raine's group. The title was inspired by Italian director Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 Euro War film The Inglorious Bastards, though Tarantino's film is not a remake of it.
Kerry Marisa Washington is an American actress. She gained wide public recognition for starring as crisis management expert Olivia Pope in the ABC drama series Scandal (2012–2018). For her role, she was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and once for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. Her portrayal of Anita Hill in the HBO television political thriller film Confirmation (2016), and her role as Mia Warren in the Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020), both earned nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Dennis Christopher is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in Breaking Away (1979), Fade to Black (1980), Chariots of Fire (1981), It (1990) and Django Unchained (2012). He has appeared in nearly 40 movies and made-for-television films since 1975.
The New Beverly Cinema is a historic movie theater located in Los Angeles, California. Housed in a building that dates back to the 1920s, it is one of the oldest revival houses in the region. Since 2007, it has been owned by the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.
Quentin Tarantino is an American filmmaker who has directed ten films. He first began his career in the 1980s by directing and writing Love Birds In Bondage and writing, directing and starring in the black-and-white My Best Friend's Birthday, a partially lost amateur short film which was never officially released. He impersonated musician Elvis Presley in a small role in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1988), and briefly appeared in Eddie Presley (1992). As an independent filmmaker, he directed, wrote, and appeared in the violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992), which tells the story of six strangers brought together for a jewelry heist. Proving to be Tarantino's breakthrough film, it was named the greatest independent film of all time by Empire. Tarantino's screenplay for Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) was nominated for a Saturn Award. Also in 1993, he served as an executive producer for Killing Zoe and wrote two other films.
Django Unchained is a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson in supporting roles. Set in the Old West and Antebellum South, it is a highly stylized, heavily revisionist tribute to spaghetti Westerns, in particular the 1966 Italian film Django by Sergio Corbucci. The story follows a black slave who trains under a German bounty hunter with the ultimate goal of reuniting with his wife.
Fred Raskin, American Cinema Editors is an American film editor. He is best known for editing three installments in The Fast and the Furious film series, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the Guardians of the Galaxy film trilogy. He graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts (1991–1995).
Django Unchained is the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's motion picture Django Unchained. It was originally released on December 18, 2012. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, though with an especially heavy influence from Spaghetti Western soundtracks.
The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American Western mystery thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern, as eight dubious strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover some time after the American Civil War.
The Hateful Eight (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (stylized as Quentin Tarantino's The H8ful Eight) is the soundtrack album to Quentin Tarantino's 2015 motion picture The Hateful Eight. The soundtrack includes the first complete original score for a Tarantino film and is composed, orchestrated and conducted by Ennio Morricone. Morricone composed 50 minutes of original music for The Hateful Eight.
Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, and Visiona Romantica and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it is a co-production between the United States, United Kingdom, and China. It features a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. Set in 1969 Los Angeles, the film follows a fading actor and his stunt double as they navigate the rapidly changing film industry, with the looming threat of the Tate murders hanging overhead. It features "multiple storylines in a modern fairy tale tribute to the final moments of Hollywood's golden age."
The following is a list of unproduced Quentin Tarantino projects in roughly chronological order. During his career, American film director Quentin Tarantino has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects were officially cancelled and scrapped or fell in development hell.
Star Trek 4 is the working title of an American science fiction film in development at Paramount Pictures based on the television series Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry. It is intended to be the 14th film in the Star Trek film franchise and the 4th of the franchise's reboot films. There have been several different iterations of the film in development since 2015.
QT8: The First Eight is a 2019 American documentary film co-produced and directed by Tara Wood. The documentary chronicles the life of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, from his start at Video Archives up to the release of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). The film features interviews from the frequent collaborators of his films.
References
Footnotes
↑ Actor Danny Strong describes Tarantino as "such a movie buff. He had so much knowledge of films that he would try to get people to watch really cool movies."[15]
↑ While at James Best, Tarantino also met Craig Hamann, with whom he would collaborate to produce his second film in 1987.[21][22]
↑ Robert Kurtzman hired Tarantino to write the script for From Dusk till Dawn in exchange for the make-up effects on Reservoir Dogs.[47][48]
↑ Goldberg, Jeffrey (September 1, 2009). "Hollywood's Jewish Avenger". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
↑ Fuller, Graham (1998). "Graham Fuller/1993". In Peary, Gerald (ed.). Quentin Tarantino: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. pp.57–59. ISBN978-1-57806-051-1.
↑ MacFarquhar, Larissa (October 13, 2003). "The Movie Lover". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on September 1, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
↑ Ebert, Roger (May 13, 1983). "Breathless (1983)". rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on September 1, 2022. Retrieved September 1, 2022.
↑ Curtis, Jamie Lee; Keach, Stacy; McLean, Greg; and Quentin Tarantino (2008). Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (Documentary). City Films Worldwide.
↑ Berg, Charles Ramírez (2006). "A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying the "Tarantino Effect"". Film Criticism. 31 (1/2): 5–61. ISSN0163-5069. JSTOR44019213.
↑ Allen-Taylor, J. Douglas (April 9, 1998). "New Word Order". Metroactive.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2011. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
