His name is known all over the world. He managed to become one of the best directors of all time. Thanks to his work, viewers saw the films Pulp Fiction, From Dusk till Dawn, Desperado, Kill Bill and many others. His directorial style is special. It combines unconventional dialogues, fights, violence, humor and many cultural references. Critics and cinema lovers recognize that Quentin Tarantino is not just a director, but a true master of cinema who changed the idea of what a film can be. Despite the thorny path to success, he managed to reach the top of Olympus. In addition, learn about the composer John Williams, who wrote iconic soundtracks for films. Read more on los-angeles.pro.
Biography
Quentin was born on March 27, 1963 in Knoxville, USA. His mother was only 16 years old at the time of Quentin’s birth. She was a nurse. The future director’s father was a musician. His mother, Connie, was born in Knoxville and has Irish and Cherokee origin. His father, Tony, was an Italian-American born in Queens. Quentin’s mother was a talented and intelligent student. She graduated from high school at 15 and married Tony to become an independent woman. However, the marriage did not work out. They divorced. Connie found out about her pregnancy after the divorce. She decided not to tell the father of the future child about this fact and did not try to contact him. A few years after Quentin’s birth, Connie packed her things and went to live with her son in Los Angeles. The boy grew up without a father. He lacked parental care and attention. He sought it from people who influenced his development as a person. Later, Quentin’s mother remarried. Then, musicians and movie fans appeared in the boy’s life. Mum often took her son to the cinema. He fell in love with this art. Mother’s second marriage lasted only 8 years. Quentin’s passion for cinema, on the contrary, increased every year.
Quentin studied at a private high school. However, he did not show much desire to study well. At some point, the problems at school became so unbearable that the boy began to skip classes. At the age of 15, he left school. Then, his mother set her son a single condition. He could leave school only when he could earn money for his needs. Young Tarantino did that. He got a job as a ticket agent at a movie theater, which semi-legally showed pornographic films. The mother knew where her son worked, but had absolutely no idea what films he had to sell tickets for. In addition, Quentin went to acting classes every evening.
At the age of 22, Quentin got a job at a video archive. It was a very happy time for him. There, he actively researched what films people liked, what genres, what scripts were in demand and recommended certain movies to clients. Later, Tarantino used the experience gained while working at the video archive in his work as a director.
Professional career
At the age of 23, Tarantino wrote his first script for a film. The first attempt turned out to be quite successful. A year later, a film based on this script, My Best Friend’s Birthday, was released. After that, he quit his job at the video archive. He chose a different career for himself – the path to Hollywood. It was a thorny way. He started working as a janitor, found time to study and accumulated all his efforts. All this was not in vain. In the late 1980s, he first appeared on the screen and played the role of Elvis Presley in the TV show The Golden Girls. This was only the beginning. Quentin did not dream of an acting career, but of a full-length films’ creation. Reservoir Dogs became such a movie, work on which the director began in 1987. The script was written in three weeks. Later, the project received financial support from Live Entertainment. The film was received ambiguously by the public. At many cinemas, the audience left the hall right in the middle of the session because of the scene with the ear being cut off from a captured policeman. Despite the doubts of the audience, critics highly appreciated the film and were surprised by such a powerful work of the young director.
Pulp Fiction
This cult film has won several prestigious awards and has many fans. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s special style began to emerge. Among its characteristic features: showing scenes not in chronological order, dividing the film into chapters, signature dialogues, references to pop culture and references to old films. An interesting detail is that Pulp Fiction seems to be a film in which there is no main character, around whom the entire narrative moves in a chaotic order. The director focuses both on a multitude of characters and on various details of the cinematic plan. In addition, Pulp Fiction received many awards, such as Academy Award, Palme d’Or and others. The film became a turning point in the careers of many actors. The leading roles of Uma Thurman and Samuel Leroy Jackson were included in the list of leading actors in Hollywood. John Travolta returned there after the unsuccessful period during the 1980s. All three actors were nominated for an Academy Award.
Ups and downs
After success, there can always be a fall. This happened with Tarantino. His film Jackie Brown did not receive favorable reviews from the audience. Critics did not perceive it very positively. However, the director was not upset. He simply continued to do his work as he considered it necessary. The reward in the form of another recognition came six years later.
The new film Kill Bill was released in 2003. It impressed all the fans of the director. Perhaps, this success prompted the master to shoot a sequel the following year, Kill Bill: Volume 2. Another Tarantino film became a cult – Inglourious Basterds. This is an alternative history of World War II, which became a real blockbuster and received numerous awards. In the film Django Unchained, the director raised the topic of slavery in the United States. The film combines elements of a Western and an action film. For this work, Tarantino received his second Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Another cult film was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For Tarantino, it was important to show a nostalgic look at Hollywood in the late 1960s. The film received two Academy Awards. The script presents an alternative version of the terrible events that took place in Roman Polanski’s house in 1969. He did not just rethink what happened, but created a new version that is different from the real one. Maybe, this is the version of events that he himself would like to see. In this sense, the term parallel reality can be used. The people, events and facts to which the author refers are mostly real, which cannot be said about the reality of his film in general. The film is interesting due to its main characters, the comparison of their worlds, so different and similar at the same time. Each subsequent film by the director was successful and expected. Fans of the maestro’s talent continue to follow his work and are waiting for his new movies.