Quentin Tarantino
Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction sent a generation of filmmakers back to the video store. Tarantino writes dialogue people quote for decades and splices genre history, kung fu, westerns, exploitation, into something entirely his own.
Start here
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
An assassin is shot by her ruthless employer, Bill, and other members of their assassination circle – but she lives to plot her vengeance.
Defining films
Keep following
Oldboy shares Tarantino's operatic violence and obsessive formal control of genre.
Longtime creative collaborators, Grindhouse; the same love of genre elevated to pure cinema.
Both deploy extreme violence as aesthetic, Audition mirrors Kill Bill's shattering operatic final act.
Both Miramax breakouts of the 90s, Lock Stock shares the same kinetic editing DNA.
In their own words
What I tried to do with Kill Bill was capture that [era of martial arts filmmaking]. Lau Kar Leung films like Dirty Ho, Heroes of the East, and 36th Chamber of Shaolin are masterpieces.
Leone is probably my favourite director... The way he builds up characters, the way he builds up moments... For a Few Dollars More is almost like a play, with its tension and performances.
What I tried to do with Kill Bill was capture that [greatest era of martial arts filmmaking]. Dirty Ho, Heroes of the East, 36th Chamber of Shaolin, those are masterpieces.
Leone is probably my favourite director... I just adore the way he directs. The way he builds up characters, the way he builds up moments... For a Few Dollars More is almost like a play, with its tension and performances.
Critical context
Were it not for Quentin Tarantino’s unassuming background, his meteoric rise to filmmaking fame would probably not itself have been so exceptional. But as it happened, the story of this high school drop-out turned self-educated movie geek who made good in a big way gave Tarantino a legendary standing almost immediately. Fuelled by a canny skill at self-promotion, a boundless enthusiasm – for his own movies and those by others – and an undeniable talent, Tarantino assumed rock star status and…
