Tarantino Movies Worth The Wait

By: Greg Pivarnik

Posted: 10/13/06

Quentin Tarantino needs to get to work, none of this four or five years between movies nonsense. His talent is distinct and cannot be imitated. He is still one of the few directors for which I am willing to pay the price of admission. For the sake of the public and movie fans everywhere he needs to start directing more often.

Tarantino restored my faith in movies. He showed me that there is still creativity and originality left in the art form, that I can still sit at the edge of my seat for every second of a two hour long film. So every time a movie such as "White Chicks" is released (or any other Wayans brothers' movie for that matter) I just think of "Pulp Fiction" and hold out hope for the future.

So far the number of movies Tarantino has directed can be counted on both hands whereas a director such as Steven Spielberg has directed almost fifty movies and produced over a hundred more. Yes, Tarantino has been a producer, a writer and an actor in other films, but he rarely gets behind the camera to be the main director of a major motion picture, which is where his true talent lies. His most notable films have been the "Kill Bill" series, "Pulp Fiction," and "Reservoir Dogs."

Whenever a Tarantino film is released it usually garners much attention with both positive and negative reviews from critics. What I find solace in while I watch one of his movies is his unique style. Tarantino takes the normal, linear story telling narratives of traditional film and turns it on its head. His films usually consist of many outlandish characters that follow different story and plotlines, but that all seem to tie together in the end. By concentrating on the characters instead of linear plotline, he is able to bring out the unusual, quirky and over the top personality traits that make his characters so memorable. Take Samuel L. Jackson's character, Jules, in "Pulp Fiction," for example. He is constantly advertising himself as a pious and religious figure by quoting the Bible, but that is only right before he ceremoniously kills one of his victims. Irony like this is littered through out Tarantino films.

An aspect of Tarantino's movies which has always been criticized is the excessive violence. His movies have a collective band of characters who are morally ambiguous and who would just as much shoot someone as say hello. His most recent forays into directing, "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," and "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" were noted for their graphic violence and were often criticized for it. The movie was not for the feint of heart. Limbs being chopped off and blood gushing in every possible direction were common images on screen.

One has to examine where this violence comes from. It is easy to cast it off as just another example of senseless violence and to acquaint his movies with the numerous slasher films that are released each year. But that would be a very superficial examination of Tarantino's films. In many of his films, Tarantino references previous movies he watched before becoming a filmmaker. He is a high school drop out who used to spend most of his time watching movies. After leaving school, he moved in with his mother in Los Angeles where he worked in as a video store clerk for five years before receiving his big break. Knowing this fact about Tarantino, it is easy to spot his movie influences in his films. In "Pulp Fiction" there is a scene frame for frame exactly as one that appears in Hitchcock's "Psycho." "The Kill Bill" series on the other is an ode to the over the top kung fu and martial arts movies he loved growing up.

There is also a dark sense of humor that I find enjoyable in most of Tarantino's movies as well. The humor goes hand-in-hand with the violence. The violence and brutality is so over the top, that it actually becomes comical. I don't know if I am desensitized or just crazy, but I often find myself smiling at situations that would otherwise not warrant it. In "Pulp Fiction" for example, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are riding in a car with a man in the backseat. Travolta is waving a gun around talking to the man while Jackson is driving, when all of the sudden, the car hits a bump, the gun goes off and the man's brains are scattered all over the backseat. Now this may seem disgraceful, but in context it is rather amusing. The argument that ensues between Travolta and Jackson is not about the life of the poor man they just shot, but about how to dispose of the body without getting caught.

Now I don't want to come off implying that Tarantino is the only director that makes decent movies. There are extraordinary movies released all the time. Tarantino in fact is not the only one that can interweave multiple plotlines. "Crash," which recently one an Oscar for Best Motion Picture, does this with extraordinary precision and entertainment. "Memento" was another movie that I thoroughly enjoyed because of its unique way of presenting a story. It's just that a Tarantino movie is like a van Gogh painting. When I see a van Gogh painting, I know it's a van Gogh. Similarly when I see a Tarantino movie, I know it is a Tarantino movie. The techniques of both artists may be employed by others, but the unique styles that come through in their original works cannot be copied.

The rate at which Tarantino directs movies is something I hope will increase. If there is a trade off between quantity and quality, I would gladly choose quality. If it takes him multiple years to finish a project that he deems worthy of release I am willing to wait because I know in the end, when I sit down in the theater to watch his next film, I will not be disappointed.

Weekly columnist Greg Pivarnik is a 5th-semester molecular and cell biology major.