Director's Spotlight: Quentin Tarantino

He was on the trail of being one of the great filmmakers after his first three movies. Unfortunately, he began to believe his own hype, and love the smell of his own farts too much (that happens when you live with your head up your own ass) to really make anything great since. He still has the talent, and that talent can shine through, but he was Quentin Tarantino up until Jackie Brown, and then after that he became QUENTIN TARANTINO, BEST FILMMAKER ALIVE!!! And he lost that special something that makes a great artist. He lost his sense of place and sense of self. Or probably more accurately, he didn’t lose his sense of self, but his sense of self changed.

There was this great series on the Sundance channel a few years ago called Iconoclasts. Essentially, two famous people from different fields would hang out and ask each other questions and talk. There was an episode with QT and Fiona Apple. In it, he talked about how he knew nothing bad would happen to him because God had put him here to make movies. He felt untouchable after Reservoir Dogs, because he knew that wasn’t the movie he was put here to make. But then after he made Pulp Fiction he thought, “uh oh, I’m not invincible anymore. That’s the movie I was put here to make.” I think he then took shelter in adapting an Elmore Leonard book, since Leonard was the writer/artist he stole more from than anyone else. He adapted Rum Punch into Jackie Brown and then I think he felt kinda lost.

Since then he has become a parody of himself, but he’s believed his own press too much to create something new because he’s enjoyed increased commercial success while continuing to have critical success. But he’s got nothing to say anymore. Even when watching a new movie of his, there’s nothing that feels new in it. He’s just repeating himself in different ways. Despite increased technical abilities and increased budgets, he’s not done anything exciting since Jackie Brown. Everything he does now is an exercise in style.

And he's very good at those exercises in style. Something like Django Unchained is a really good western movie. But even though it's different than a traditional western, it's not surprising, it's not exciting. It's just a good exercise in style. It's shallow, cheap. As Roger Ebert would sometimes say, there's no there there. There's nothing underneath the surface. QT isn't trying to get at anything deep. He's just exercising his style. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not something that will get someone on my list of favorite filmmakers.


My rankings of his work:

1. Pulp Fiction – 10/10
2. Jackie Brown – 9/10
3. Django Unchained – 8/10
4. Kill Bill (both) – 7/10
5. Inglorious Basterds – 7/10
6. Hateful Eight – 6/10
7. Reservoir Dogs – 6/10
8. Death Proof – 4/10