One of the most inventive and controversial young directors of the 1990s, whose reputation rests mainly on two groundbreaking features, Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino helped to define the movement toward independent features during that decade.
He seemed to come from nowhere, an autodidact who claimed to have learned his craft by watching movies, especially while working at Video Archives, a rental operation in Los Angeles, rather than following the conventional route of attending film school and then serving as apprentice in the industry. Like ORSON WELLES, another wunderkind, he has demonstrated a certain flair for self-promotion, which has endeared him to his fans and alienated some in the film business who are skeptical about his staying power.
Although born in Tennessee, he moved to Los Angeles with his mother when he was two. Bright but not suited to formal schooling, he was a rebel with a contempt for authority (he once spent nine days in jail because of unpaid parking tickets). His mother was partly responsible for his addiction to film, which was further developed by his stint working first as an usher at the Pussycat Theater in Los Angeles and then at Video Archives. "My Best Friend's Birthday," an unrealized project, was his first attempt at filmmaking (writing and directing).
While working at Video Archives, he wrote True Romance, a film eventually made and directed by Tony Scott in 1993, remarkable for its crazily inventive and energetic script. Another screenplay, this one for OLIVER STONE, was Natural Born Killers (1994). Clearly Quentin Tarantino had gotten the attention of established Hollywood directors at this point.
All the while, he continued working on his own projects, writing Reservoir Dogs, which he financed independently with the aid of actor HARVEY KEITEL, who was also in the cast with Quentin Tarantino and the unique Steve Buscemi. Released in 1992 at the Sundance Film Festival, Reservoir Dogs caused an immediate response because of its extreme violence and hip dialogue.
Although it earned less than $2 million at the box office, it brought international attention to Quentin Tarantino and was the basis for the fan base that began to form around him. Miramax distributed Reservoir Dogs and agreed to finance his next project. Quentin Tarantino knew that he would have to come up with an even more startling film, and he was up to the challenge with Pulp Fiction, released the same year as Natural Born Killers and creating a powerful industry buzz.
The film had a powerhouse cast led by JOHN TRAVOLTA (reenergizing his career with a Best Actor Oscar nomination) and SAMUEL L. JACKSON (Best Supporting Actor), supported by Ving Rhames, BRUCE WILLIS, HARVEY KEITEL, Uma Thurman, Amanda Plummer, Tim Roth, and Quentin Tarantino, but its major innovation was in its idiosyncratic narrative design, with plots and counterplots interweaving and intersecting. With reason, the picture earned Academy Award attention for Best Editing. Quentin Tarantino won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Clearly, then, Quentin Tarantino had arrived, but could he continue to amaze and dazzle audiences? He has appeared in films directed by others as himself, as in Intimate Portrait: Pam Grier (1999). Like any successful screenwriter, he has done uncredited work on scripts directed by others, such as Past Midnight (1992), Crimson Tide (1995), and The Rock (1996). His next two efforts, Four Rooms and From Dusk to Dawn (both 1995) were disappointing.
He next directed Jackie Brown, adapted from the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch in 1997, and it was more on target. It starred BLAXPLOITATION superstar PAM GRIER in the title role, as an airline stewardess and courier for arms dealer SAMUEL L. JACKSON. The cast included Bridget Fonda, ROBERT DE NIRO and Michael Keaton in secondary roles, but it was the charisma of costar Robert Forster that gave the picture a distinctively cynical edge.
Quentin Tarantino hedged this bet by using the Leonard novel as his source to guarantee a strong story. Quentin Tarantino is indisputably clever and innovative, but his work can also be too cute and is always in danger of sliding into sleaze. Even so, he was the stand-up young writer-director of the 1990s. He returned to the screen with Kill Bill: Volume I (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume II (2004).
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