Happy Birthday, Quentin Tarantino.
Happy Birthday, Quentin Tarantino.
My journey with the Maestro of Cool, who turned 60.
Quentin Tarantino turned 60 yesterday. Jesus, that makes me feel old. From the handful of directors that had a permanent impact on my movie-watching life, Tarantino is among the most important. I’ll never forget the day I saw Pulp Fiction (1994) for the first time.
It was 1996 or 1997 and I was way too young to be watching a film featuring heroin overdose, rape, blown-out brain bits and over 260 mentions of the word fuck. But watch it I did, and my impression of movies changed forever.
Before that day, I never understood their boundless power. I never knew stories could be told this way. I never knew movies could be this fucking cool. When the end credits of Pulp Fiction rolled, for the first time ever in my life, I rewound the VHS tape and immediately watched the whole thing again.
That was the day Quentin Tarantino became Maestro of Cool for me. The roots of my obsessive cinephilia dug in deeper and coiled themselves into an inextricable knot. For many, many years after that hallowed day, Pulp Fiction was my unblinking reply to the perennial “what’s your favorite movie?” question, and a massive black-and-white poster of Jules and Vincent pointing their guns went with me wherever I moved. Watching Reservoir Dogs (1992) a year later (in fitting, non-linear, Tarantino-esque style), and then Jackie Brown (1997), only furthered my allegiance to the Maestro.
What hooked me was his endlessly quotable dialogue that’s somehow hyper-realistic but also only possible in movies; his endlessly listenable soundtracks featuring the most obscure songs with the catchiest, most familiar sounds; and his larger-than-life characters that became icons before my very eyes thanks to the most seamless union of performance and screenplay I had ever seen.
Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winfield, Uma Thurman as Mrs. Mia Wallace, John Travolta as Vincent Vega, Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde, Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink, Pam Grier as Jackie Brown, Robert Forster as Max Cherry, Robert De Niro as Louis Gara. Those are some of the biggest MVPs, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that Tarantino’s collective cast from these three films feature the greatest acting ensemble of the 90s. And most definitely the coolest.
In the 2000s, my taste in movies evolved, acquiring a deeper, more serious disposition. Being cool was no longer enough, it wasn’t as important. While I got more and more interested in cinema as a philosophical avenue and psychological artform from elder masters (Tarkovsky, Kurosawa, Kieslowski, Malick, etc.), Tarantino unleashed his inner movie geek to the fullest, unapologetically nerding out on pastiche martial arts (Kill Bill Vol. 1 in 2003 and Vol. 2 in 2004), exploitation (Death Proof in 2007), and WWII (Inglourious Basterds in 2009).
In some weird way, as I was pulled towards arthouse, and Tarantino embraced grindhouse, it felt like I was growing up and he was doing a Benjamin Button and becoming more of a kid. Coincidentally, in that same decade, Jackie Brown dethroned Pulp Fiction as my favorite Tarantino film, in what felt like a most natural selection.
I still ranked him among my favorite directors, and of course every new Tarantino film was more than just a film, it was an unmissable cultural event. But as much as I loved the Kill Bill films, as much as I defended Death Proof to the critics around me, and no matter how entertained I was by Inglourious Basterds and QT’s latest discovery in Christoph Waltz, something was noticeably different.
I didn’t have the urge to rewind the tape.
Quentin was still the Maestro of Cool, undoubtedly, but my loyalties had clearly shifted.
The final line of Basterds hit me like a dump truck, when Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine kneels down to reflect on his latest handiwork and says straight to the camera that very cheeky, very meta, “this just might be my masterpiece” line. My gut told me what I just watched was most definitely not a Tarantino masterpiece. I knew it was one of the most entertaining films I’d see that year, it has scenes that need to be on a Tarantino career-highlight reel (the tavern!) and it’s got Hans Lands, one of Tarantino’s greatest creations, but deep in my bones I knew that Basterds didn’t hold a candle to his three 90s masterpieces or even Kill Bill.
My disenchantment with Tarantino continued and hit rock bottom by the mid 2010s, even though I rate Django Unchained (2012) quite highly. As his second “history revenge” film to come out after Basterds, Django’s more compelling and focused story - with a side of deliciously evil Leonardo DiCaprio - is pound-for-pound better. But it’s the movie that came after that truly shook my belief in QT.
The Hateful Eight (2015) featured a reunion of some of Tarantino’s greatest actors – Jackson, Roth, Madsen etc. – and the Daisy Domergue character (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) reminded me of what a brilliant example of genuine feminism Tarantino is, with his natural knack for writing some of the most memorable and engrossing female characters in the history of mainstream cinema.
This was a purer Western than Django, shot in eye-watering 70mm, with original Morricone music, and focused on a cast of deplorables stuck in a house armed with Quentin Tarantino dialogue. It’s every fan’s wet dream. And yet, somehow – I’m still not sure how this is even possible – I think it’s Tarantino’s worst film.
I will most definitely be watching it again to make sure I haven’t completely lost the plot, but The Hateful Eight was the first time I felt physical struggle instead of total (or near-total) immersion while watching a Tarantino film.
My confidence that I was still watching a movie by the Maestro of Cool was shaken to the core.
In 2017, at this lowest of ebbs in my relationship with Tarantino’s movies, his 9th film was announced. It was to be a love letter to Hollywood, with the trifecta of superstars in Pitt, DiCaprio, and Margot Robbie. I began to anticipate the film with the fervor of a rabid dog, but I felt something I never felt before. I was skeptical. I was worried about whether I would like a new Tarantino film. It would be a compliment to Basterds and Django as his third “revenge history” film, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence since Basterds was the origin of the first big crack.
So, when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood premiered in 2019, I walking into the cinema fearing the worst.
About three hours later I walked out feeling recharged. My gut was telling me that I just saw one of Quentin Tarantino’s greatest films. Everything I love about his style of cinema – the dialogue, the characters, the way his actors perform, the music, the story construction, the magic of cool – got resuscitated by some inexplicable defibrillator, held by Pitt and DiCaprio who deliver career-best work.
Extra add-ons come in the form of perfectly constructed set pieces that transport you back to 1960s Los Angeles and an undercurrent of extra love poured into the world of the film, propelled by the fact that it’s a personal ode to a time in Hollywood that was foundational for Tarantino as a person and as a filmmaker.
When I walked out of the cinema, the first thought that came to my mind was: I want to see that again. For the first time, in a long, long time, I wanted to rewind the tape. A big love that was ignited over 20 years ago, and laid dormant for a patch in the middle, suddenly came rushing back like blood to the head.
The Maestro was back.
Now, we’re well into the 2020s and Tarantino has stuck to the promise he made decades ago. He will be directing only one more movie before retiring from feature filmmaking, and his 10th film - simply titled The Movie Critic - has been announced as a possible critique of modern Hollywood, loosely based on Tarantino’s (and everyone else’s, really) favorite film critic, Pauline Kael.
Hollywood would’ve been a good swan song for Tarantino, but this upcoming one sounds like it could be even more apt. Although my taste in movies shifted away from Tarantino's directorial style in the 2000s, today I admire him under a whole new light.
The movie landscape has changed dramatically in the last decade, becoming more and more tied to political and gender identity concerns. Too many filmmakers are more concerned with avoiding offense than creating authentic art, and too many critics are quick to praise mediocrity if it ticks a lot of diversity boxes.
It’s not a landscape for someone like Quentin Tarantino, a man with an inflated ego who might have indulged from time to time, but someone who always stayed true to himself and his vision, and who to this day gives a grand total of zero fucks if someone takes offense to his ways.
It feels bittersweet to anticipate Tarantino’s next film. On the one hand, I’m not skeptical anymore because Once Upon a Time in Hollywood made me realise that the Maestro never even left. On the other, I’ll be anticipating a new Tarantino film for the very last time.
Happy Birthday, Quentin Tarantino. Thank you for everything.
I will forever be in your debt.