The Legend that is Quentin Tarantino

Once upon a time in a small town called Knoxville, Tennessee, a mastermind mind screenwriter, director, actor, and producer was blessed into the world. I take you back to March 1963 when Tony Tarantino and Connie Zastoupil gave us Quentin Tarantino.

Quentin Tarantino did his schooling at Fleming Junior high school. He took up drama classes and dropped out of education at the age of fifteen. He attended the Best Theatre Company for two years before following his lifelong dream of working at the local video rental store – ‘Video Archives’.       

“When people ask me if I went to school, I tell them ‘no, I went to films.” From this job, Tarantino directed thorough attention to films that were popular, classic and had blaxploitation.

The process of scriptwriting has evolved into a collaborative effort with a talent-to-trouble ratio of commissions at the end. Within this process, everyone will have an opinion of your script which essentially boils down to the cheapest option to create with the largest resulting income. This includes 1) script editor. The script editor has responsibilities of finding new script writers, developing storylines, and ensuring scripts are suitable for production.  2) A development executive who handles the acquisition and development of stories, scripts, and screenplays. This typically takes a minimum of three years and can take as long as ten years. 3) The producer who approves/ disapproves the script writer and script to forward to production.

Tarantino’s writing development method is a classic – paper to pen. He views his movies as if they were novels. In an interview he stated, “I can’t write poetry on a computer, man!”

His script development process takes time. He creates an initial idea for a novel and then decides how to approach each scene with dialogue. Tarantino has many friends in the industry. His ‘Pulp Fiction’ film was helped funded through Danny DeVito (an actor in the movie) with his production company – Jersey Films. Other Tarantino films have been produced by his own production company ‘A Band Apart’ which include his sole productions ‘Jackie Brown’, ‘Inglorious Bastards’ and ‘Django Unchained’.

Even in the most supportive writer/ publisher relationship, there is always tension as the writer wants to be paid as much as possible and the publisher wants to pay as little as possible. Writers can be paid through commission or speculation. Commissioned screenplays are those that are written by authors that producers hire for a specific show or franchise. An example of this would be the Marvel franchise. Speculative script is an unsolicited screenplay that you write in hopes of selling.

The legal and ethical issues concerning scriptwriting include copyright, libel, and censorship. Writers must copyright their work otherwise other authors can steal it. To use other writers work, you must ask for consent from that specific writer. Censorship includes restriction as it is doubtful a film will be released that shows real sexism and racial intolerance. The libel issue is worse for a writer as it could finish their career – this can affect fiction and non-fiction writers. When a writer writes about a person, they must do it with care and honesty as it could heavily harm the person.  

The screenplays of Quentin Tarantino raise profound comic and ethical dilemmas. He is a writer who does not fear showing violence how it really is with his signature wit accompanying it. The infamous scene in ‘Reservoir Dogs’ shows Mr. Blonde – part of the criminal gang – torturing a policeman while he derides him with dancing to ‘Stuck in The Middle with You’. He hacks off his ear and threatens to burn him alive. The film was band in Britain for several years, yet this did not stop Tarantino from mocking suffering. From ‘Pulp Fiction’ to ‘Kill Bill’, he encourages his audience to relish in the pain of torture, mutilation, and anal rape.

Quentin Tarantino’s passion for film and screenplay show in his utilisation of dialogue. Before special effects, filmmakers relied on characters to describe the scene along with the audience’s imagination. Tarantino writes in the same imaginative way. When watching a Tarantino film, one evident aspect is the amount of dialogue we hear. He uses dialogue as a tool and disguises it. With too much dialogue, a film can become dull and boring – erasing the suspension of disbelief if the audience see’s through the facade. Therefore, it is vital to create dialogue that hides its purpose. In Tarantino films, the audience allows it as every character interaction holds a hook.

His brilliant use of dialogue makes his characters more realistic. Quentin Tarantino is evidently an intelligent and witty man…so are his characters. In many character conversations, the audience are able to almost guess the ending of the characters sentence. This allows a lot of room for subtle storytelling. Storytelling is more than a method to introduce a character and plot. Tarantino provides the character telling their own story which becomes a film having a story within a story. His dialogue has many past scenes, future, and hypothetical. This creates the classic non-linear narrative that Tarantino films have. This also keeps the audience engaged and excited.

The opening line of ‘Pulp Fiction’ is “Forget it, it’s too risky”. The audience is immediately trying to figure out the enigma the script writer has set out. Another example is the “Hateful Eight”, in the opening scene, the characters are giving us an overview of their personalities and backgrounds. 

Vengeance is a common theme throughout all of Tarantino’s scripts. Movies he directed, wrote, and produced carry vengeance in both heavy and light-hearted ways. This is evident through criminals trying to find the rat in ’Reservoir Dogs’ and in ‘Pulp Fiction’ when Marcellus Wallace promises to get “Medieval” on Zed’s ass. Vengeance is common theme in spaghetti westerns which has highly influenced Tarantino’s overall film style.

An interesting aspect of Tarantino films that reflect his passion for the film industry are how he writes his characters job roles. Mia Wallace from ‘Pulp Fiction’ is a failed actress, Joseph Goebbels in ‘Inglorious Bastards’ is a fussy filmmaker desperate for Hitlers approval. The ladies in the second half of ‘Death Proof’ are a makeup designer, an actress and two stuntmen.

A Tarantino screenplay finesse includes three protagonists all pointing guns at each other. Although this can result in different outcomes, e.g. ‘Reservoir Dogs’ compared to ‘Pulp fiction’s’ ending, at least two characters are targeting weapons at one another. This allows the dialogue to be interesting as there has to be reason these characters are in this position. It makes the audience intrigued to understand what each character is saying as they were previously promised within the screenplay that something dramatic will take place. In many Quentin Tarantino films – it is the Mexican standoff.  

Throughout Tarantino films, there is constant reference to pop culture. The dialogue in his films talk about TV shows, music and films that are current in society. ‘Reservoir Dogs’ has an extended inquiry into Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ and ‘Inglorious Bastards’ includes a sidelong analysis of King Kong as “The story of the Negro in America”. This personalises Tarantino’s script to his personality. These characters could be expressing characteristics of Tarantino himself in terms of music he likes/dislikes and risky sarcastic remarks. Tarantino loves characters and spends concentrated time on creating a real quality for each character. This results in protracted conversations and standout monologues.

Quentin Tarantino is first and foremost a film lover. He takes elements from classic film work, blends them together and creates something new. This enables him to have ease in convincing the audience of his storylines. His ideas are not necessarily new but repurposes of old ones. His characters feel familiar from classic influences which also make his films timeless.

Quentin Tarantino has become known for his unusual and sinister films which created a signature aesthetic in the early 90’s of juxtaposed violence, long sequences and fantastic dialogue. The films e writes and directs are most unique. In 1994 ‘Pulp Fiction’ was released and among many awards, received two Academy Awards for ‘Best Writer’ and ‘Best Original Screenplay’. ‘Django Unchained’ has received a Golden Globe for ‘Best Screenplay’.

Tarantino’s dialogue has inspired many imitators. Most of his memorable dialogue scenes are pointed interrogations – one party having to keep information from another. Every character interaction has a purpose, and every character sentence has a reason. This makes Quentin Tarantino a strategical, well crafted screenwriter.

References

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