A good Tarantino marathon is what a person, male or female, who possesses a hunger for violence, sharp wit, and killer soundtracks truly craves. Modern Western cinema’s recognizable auteurs include Tarantino, arguably one of the most prominent, revered by film buffs and students alike.
I’ve scoured the internet and dug through some of those “cult cinema” stocking fillers I’ve gotten over the years, all to bring you this fact file on Tarantino. This compilation includes fascinating tidbits about the man himself, plus a few intriguing or just plain bizarre facts about a selection of his films, all curated by yours truly.
The Man Behind the Camera
Born in Knoxville in 1963, Quentin Jerome Tarantino is 62 years old. At 15, he ditched school to fully immerse himself in acting classes. After a two-year stint at the James Best Theatre Company, he moved on, snagging a gig at the video rental store Video Archives. He famously declared, “I went to films, not film school.” His directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs, which Harvey Keitel significantly bankrolled, came at the age of 29.
While Tarantino is primarily celebrated as a writer/director, three of his penned screenplays were actualized by other directors:
- True Romance: Directed by Tony Scott.
- Natural Born Killers: Directed by Oliver Stone.
- From Dusk Till Dawn: Directed by Robert Rodriguez.
Unpacking the “Others”
True Romance features characters descended from the American guerrilla group known as the Basterds, from his later film Inglorious Basterds. Specifically, Lee Donowitz, the movie producer, is the great-grandson of Donnie “Bear Jew” Donowitz, and Floyd, the stoner on the couch, is the great-grandson of Lt. Aldo Raine.
Natural Born Killers saw Tarantino disown the final product, as it strayed so far from his original script. That is, until he crossed paths with Johnny Cash, who confessed to being a massive admirer of his work, particularly Natural Born Killers. The making of this film became the subject of a book by one of its producers, Jane Hamsher, who painted both Stone and Tarantino in a truly unflattering light. The other producer, Rn Murphy, slapped Tarantino with a $5 million lawsuit after a scuffle at the AGO restaurant in West Hollywood, a case that was eventually settled out of court.
From Dusk Till Dawn was a script Tarantino penned in exchange for Robert Kurtzman providing the gruesome effects for the ear-slicing scene in Reservoir Dogs.
Tarantino’s Quirky Cinematic Signatures
Tarantino has a knack for sprinkling a few distinctive cinematic trademarks throughout his films. He’s got a thing for prominently featuring actresses’ feet, which explains why Uma Thurman is barefoot in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, and why Diane Kruger and Christoph Waltz share a beautiful Cinderella moment in Inglorious Basterds.
His “Trunk shots,” where the camera gazes up at characters from the perspective of someone in a car boot, and “Body shots,” where the camera ascends to view a scene from the vantage point of a deceased or unconscious person on the ground, are practically staples in almost all of his movies. But perhaps his most demanding signature move is the “long shot,” where the camera meticulously tracks a character’s journey through an entire set without a single cut. Rumor has it that the epic long shot in Kill Bill Vol. 1, guiding viewers through the House of Blue Leaves, was so challenging to perfect that the camera operator actually passed out once it was finally in the can.
Behind the Scenes of the Blockbusters
Now that we’ve tackled the technical stuff, let’s peel back the curtain on some mind-blowing facts about his films:
- Reservoir Dogs: Tarantino proudly shared with the BBC in 2009 that he made a film considered one of the top ten heist movies, despite the fact that it never actually shows the heist. Mr. Blonde is, in fact, Vic Vega, Vincent’s brother. And for those keen observers, the original theatrical version has no dialogue spoken by women, though alternative cuts do feature female lines.
- Pulp Fiction: Jules’s memorized Bible passage was largely fabricated by Tarantino and Jackson themselves. Only the segment where he declares, “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee,” bears resemblance to the Bible, while the bits about the righteous man and the shepherd are pure invention. For all you fan theory enthusiasts, Tarantino insists that Marcellus Wallace’s soul isn’t in that suitcase; it’s meant to be an intentional blank, filled in by each viewer’s imagination. The plaster on Ving Rhames’s neck was simply to conceal a scar, and the briefcase’s radiant glow was a last-minute addition, intended to inject a touch of fantasy into the film – I’m still not sure why there had to be a gimp, though.
- Jackie Brown: This film is an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch, making it the sole film Tarantino has adapted from pre-existing material.
- Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2: These films sprang from the character of The Bride, dreamt up by Tarantino and Thurman during their work on Pulp Fiction. The script itself was a 30th birthday gift for Thurman. Talk about girl power: every character who bites the dust on screen (barring the anime insert) is taken out by a female. The Bride’s name is actually revealed before the audience is officially clued in during Vol. 2: her plane ticket to Okinawa bears her name, and Bill’s reference to her as “Kiddo” in the opening scene of Vol. 1, while seemingly a term of endearment, is actually her last name.
- Inglorious Basterds: To nail the scene, Tarantino himself, with Diane Kruger’s consent, actually choked her to the brink of unconsciousness. They nailed it in a single take, and those are definitely not Christoph Waltz’s hands.
- Django Unchained: During the filming of one of the dinner scenes, Leonardo DiCaprio needed to pause and compose himself, finding it incredibly difficult to utter so many racial slurs (this film, horrifyingly, holds the record for uses of a word I will never print, at 116). Samuel L. Jackson pulled DiCaprio aside and told him, “Motherf****r, this is just another Tuesday for us.”
According to the latest IMDb buzz, Tarantino is churning out The Hateful Eight and Kill Bill Vol. 3, so there’s plenty more to anticipate!
Beyond the Big Screen: Tarantino’s Other Directorial Endeavors
Some film fanatics might have noticed I skipped over a few of Tarantino’s directing credits. He helmed the season five finale of CSI, bagging an Emmy nomination for it; he directed one-quarter of the film Four Rooms; and he masterminded the car scene between Clive Owen and Benicio Del Toro in Rodriguez’s Sin City. He also directed Death Proof (aka Grindhouse with Rodriguez), but frankly, none of the facts about these films were compelling enough to make the final cut. And honestly, if you caught these omissions, you pretty much already knew everything you just read.
So, there you have it: Tarantino, a high school dropout with a foot fetish, and arguably one of America’s finest directors right now. If you haven’t delved into all the films I’ve chatted about here, I truly urge you to give them a watch. Now armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to spot his signature shots and his peculiar affection for feet.
