This guy has a lotta nerve. He describes Elmore’s story presentation MO, then says, “when I did Jackie Brown I found out that Elmore Leonard works in a very similiar way.”  My ass. Tarantino has known full well since high school how Elmore does it. Tarantino himself tells the story of getting caught as a kid shoplifting an Elmore book, then going back later and stealing it.* He studied Elmore closely, like Elmore studied Hemingway.

This revisionist crap is designed to leave the impression that he became an Elmore-like genius on his own, then by happenstance discovered that this other fellow, this guy Elmore Leonard, does it the same way.

Bullshit. If it weren’t for Elmore’s writings, it’s possible Tarantino might still be successful; but it’s also possible he’d be flipping burgers in Torrance.

*From the age of 15, when Quentin Tarantino first shoplifted from a local K-Mart, then read THE SWITCH, Elmore Leonard has been a key influence upon the writer-director’s thinking about storytelling. Known for creating comedic dialogue, ironic and offbeat stories and colorful yet believable lowlifes, Leonard is one of America’s most popular crime writers. Curiously, THE SWITCH also marked the first appearance in Leonard’s work of the mismatched partners in crime Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara, who would reappear 15 years later in RUM PUNCH, the basis for JACKIE BROWN, with Ordell portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, and Louis by Robert De Niro.    http://www.filmscouts.com/SCRIPTs/matinee.cfm?Film=jac-bro&File=productn

That’s Hollywood, translating truth to fiction to facade parading as truth.

Tarantino is a genius at dialogue, a great visualist, but rarely all that original, creating from a panorama of past films. That’s not to denigrate the quality of Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, both excellent films. But a lot of his work shows a lack of discipline, often leaning on exaggeration of violence for its own sake.

But comparing film to literature is often difficult because of the visual nature of film as opposed to the descriptive language of the later.

But both are respectful, and, I’m sure, as susceptible to hubris as any of us.

I saw recently a Samurai sword film from 1974 called Lady Snowbload.  His homage to the female Assassin in that film was so that he copied her origin,character,music the female lead sang as intro song and made Lucy Liu character in Kill Bill 2.

So he is far from original.  He is good at dialouge but seriously he hasnt a quality film since Pulp Fiction,Jackie Brown days imo.

I was watching True Romance (which Quentin wrote) the other day, and noticed Brad Pitt’s stoner character tells Jim Gandolfini’s character to “be cool.”

I was too old for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction when they came out and I’d already read too much of the source material - Elmore Leonard - and seen too many of the 70’s movies referenced. I never “got” Tarantino the way people (well, let’s be honest, young men) did and those are the only two of his movies I’ve ever seen.

In a recent issue of Macleans Magazine in Canada, some professor who once worshipped Tarantino but has gone off him is quoted saying Jackie Brown, “... had more exploration of character and theme than his subsequent films, and it’s his one movie that seemed to say he was getting a little older and a little wiser.” But he never did.

The article, What Happened to Quentin Tarantino is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

<< Jackie Brown, “... had more exploration of character and theme than his subsequent films… >>

Right. Because it was written by Elmore Leonard, not QT.

I’d like context for that quote, because I’ve read lots of interviews with Tarantino and he only gives praise to Elmore Leonard. He is clearly a big influence on his style.
And as for being unoriginal, he may have been heavily influenced by exisiting cinema (and on rare occassions literature) and occassionally even ripped things off, but what came out of it, i.e. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are great and unique films.

In reference to the Tarantino story link (set up as an email link for some reason):

If there is a problem with Tarantino’s work, the writer points out a couple clear possibilities:

“Tarantino went to Berlin to make the picture, but there’s nothing in it that suggests the writer-director has ever been outside of a movie theatre.”

At times I found Inglorious reaching for something original, then others it came across quite bland. I actually enjoyed the more classical directing approach and the more familiar characters (stereotypical the writer considers them). But then the over-the-top violence would either make me want to laugh or squirm depending on whether or not it was linked to a dramatic or comical moment. Part of that problem is that QT doesn’t seem to know when to shorten a scene down to its essence. The film is 30-45 minutes too long by my estimation, if you wanted to cut out the ambiguities and reduce it to its essence. The length is where QT strayed from ‘classical’ film-making to the more overwrought and overlong style of the ‘important’ (or egotistical) modern directors. The length is in part due to QT probably intending Inglorious to be a spaghetti Western-like homage (Once Upon a Time in the West), which doesn’t work because of the middle.

All that is due to the fact QT has no real sense of who he is as an individual because, in my opinion, he seems to bring no real personal life experience or attitude to the education he received apparently only from cinema. As for the non-linear forms of Reservoir and Pulp, that’s a result of his reading Mr. L as much as anything else, and certainly in literature that is not exactly unique to the writer, either.

“Peary says, but now that his ’90s novelty has worn off he seems like another Hollywood filmmaker who doesn’t care about the real world, and concentrates on “smart-ass dialogue and explosions.”

This seems to be the case because QT seems to have become so enamored with dialogue and cemented himself as somewhat of a grotesque that he doesn’t know where to go to from such scenes. I was laughing during the bar scene in Inglorious which ends the second act, with the British agent meeting the movie star, when suddenly a surprisingly original action sequence erupted. It was so shocking in its near total elimination of interesting characters that I literally spoke aloud in the theater, “What the Hell!?!

And that is the problem with Inglorious, and maybe QT’s works overall based on watching Death Proof, that he seems to have no way to resolve emotional issues without resorting to violence. This is somewhat reflective of Mr. L’s works, but more due to the 70s films and Hong Kong cop flicks which seem to have influenced QT the most (regardless of his fondness for quoting french filmmakers).

If QT wants to truly mature as a filmmaker he might try a purely dramatic film. Or even a Rom-Com which would play to his dialogue strengths.

But I respect any guy who gets a film made no matter how bad that film may be, or even unoriginal or near outright copy because in the end its the expression of an artist - and it’s not easy getting a film produced!