Quentin Tarantino is a lover of cinema, in every sense. He believes that if you truly love cinema then you can’t help but to make a good movie. With this in mind, we’re able to see that Tarantino created his own rules for filmmaking. He has watched an incredible number of films and can recall shots from obscure films that few others have ever heard of let alone seen. The magic in all of this is that Tarantino was able to create a totally unique style of filmmaking simply by watching films and taking from them what he loved, understanding why he loved them and piecing them together to create the shots he wanted for the script that he had written.
It’s said that Tarantino took Reservoir Dogs to the Sundance Institute writing and directing labs and while there he was able to work with Terry Gilliam, who’d directed such films as Brazil and Times Bandits. Quentin asked Gilliam how he was always able to get his vision on the screen. Gilliam told him, “As a director...your job is to hire talented people who can do that. You hire a cinematographer who can get the lighting you want...you hire a production designer...your job is explaining your vision.” This demystified the process for Tarantino and he went on to direct Reservoir Dogs himself after he became a realistic candidate once his script for True Romance sold. It’s said that Tarantino’s choice of shots was influenced by particular films for this, his directorial debut. They included Band a part (Jean-Luc Godard), The Killing (Stanley Kubrick), Bloody Mama (Roger Corman), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent - this is where the color coded names came from) to name a few. Tarantino even named his production company, A Band Apart after Godard’s film.
Tarantino’s style can also be attributed to that of a novelist, as he writes screenplays in chapters, even naming them within the film. Many people said he was creating flashback films when that wasn’t the case. He was telling the story the way that he wanted to tell it, and many times that turned out that past events come after events that have already happened. He has said multiple times that his next professional venture when he’s done making films will be writing novels as this form is how he creates his screenplays, writing them all out by hand. And, he calls himself a stenographer as the dialogue he writes is all him simply writing down the conversations the characters are having in his mind. Tarantino stands apart because he did it his way, he earned it because he simply loves cinema. Another trademark of Tarantino is his ability to work with actors as he studied as an actor for 6 years. His ability to get great performances around all of the violence within this film shows that he was able to speak to an actor and help bring out the best performance. Because without these great performances, the movie would still be very good, but it’s great because he was able to get the best from them on set.
