Anyone remember the early Simpsons halloween episode where the family is on board kang and kodos spaceship and Lisa finds a book called “How to cook humans” which after blowing off spacedust turns into “How to cook for humans”, “How to cook forty humans” and finally “How to cook for forty humans”? It’s a great parable for how limiting quotes gives an incomplete picture. Since this quote:
“I have sibling rivalry with Orson Welles. I don’t think he’s that good. All right? I have sibling rivalry with him and Stanley Kubrick” has been posted three times on this thread, let’s expand it a bit. Maybe there’s space dust there.“I have sibling rivalry with Orson Welles,” Tarantino tells Tracy Smith. “I don’t think he’s that good. All right? I have sibling rivalry with him and Stanley Kubrick.”
Smith asks if Tarantino is being serious or funny.
“I am being funny,” Tarantino says. "I do admire them.
See, he was merely jokin… wait, more space dust:
“I have sibling rivalry with Orson Welles,” Tarantino tells Tracy Smith. “I don’t think he’s that good. All right? I have sibling rivalry with him and Stanley Kubrick.”
Smith asks if Tarantino is being serious or funny.
“I am being funny,” Tarantino says. “I do admire them. But I also think I do have sibling rivalry with them. They’re not all that. All right?”
Huh, first quote out of context makes him look like an asshole. Second quote taken out of context makes it look like he was merely joking. Third quote with better context paints the picture of a joke with a grain of truth to it. He gives respect to the masters but doesn’t feel he should have to genuflect to them. He comes off a bit cocky in suggesting he deserves to be in the conversation with Welles and Kubrick. Maybe he still seems an asshole to some but less egregiously so.
My point is that butchered quotes repeated ad nauseam are best left to shady political strategists. We’re better informed if we share links to interviews and full articles rather than quoting the bits that serve our purpose. We are, ahem, the auteurs after all.
@K
In reference to your “ugh” at Blade. You do know it’s The Blade by Tsui Hark and not the Wesley Snipes thing, right? Just checking.. Boring list, moving on.
Moderated
Bolo Tie, instead of reading about The Bride Wore Black or A City on Fire on IMDB before deciding that what I’ve stated “is such a flimsy, pointless accusation” wouldn’t you be better served by watching them first? Wouldn’t that be fair at least? Because there is a clear general consensus among the people who have seen those movies that QT is lying when he says he has not seen these movies.
Here’s an except from a transcrupt from Jay Leno.
Tarantino: "When I started out acting, you gotta have a resume. If you ain’t done nothin’ when you first start off, you know. It’s like, the thing is, you can’t write “nothin’”… or people aren’t gonna pay attention to that. So you gotta lie, alright. “I had better luck at it than most, because I kinda knew a lot about movies and stuff. I was a fan of Jean Luc Goddard, and he just had a movie come out called ‘King Lear.’ And I saw it and like there’s no way in Hell anyone is ever going to see this movie, alright. So I wrote on my resume…‘King Lear.’ " Jay Leno: “Did you ever get called on any of these? Did anyone ever call and check and say wait a minute?” Tarantino: “No, no, of course not. So the thing is, they don’t check on stuff like that. That’s one of the cool things about this business.”The dude is an admitted bullshitter and a liar. And frankly, I don’t CARE whether he lifts from other people’s work or not. here’s a little news flash for you, I actually enjoyed Kill Bill a lot more than The Bride Wore Black. And I enjoyed Reservoir Dogs about the same as A City on Fire. I made a very pointed example earlier with the Q&A session I attended for Park Chan-wook’s Thirst. Artists always borrow from each other, and that is not a sin. Claiming ideas as your own when they are not, however, does bring your artistic integrity and creativity into issue. Take the analogy of cover songs for example. I think many people consider Jimmy Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower as the definitive version of that song, not Dylan’s original. And I agree. Jimmy fucking borrowed it and then owned that song. And that’s great! As artists do borrow! I’m not at all advocating an “antiquated” or “puritanical” system. Not in the least bit. But say Jimmy went around claiming that he had never heard Dylan’s composition… Wouldn’t you be inclined to call him out on his bullshit and wouldn’t his artistic and integrity be called into question by even the most adoring fans?
Unlike you say, my “entire argument” was never only about whether QT is a liar. I even gave him due credit in this very thread: “I’ll even acknowledge that he IS obviously a very intelligent person and knows how to make a visually stylish film, add compelling music to it, and so on. Pulp Fiction, as meaningless it is ultimately, did have its finger squarely on the pulse of the zeitgeist of pop culture at the time. Like it or not, that film will probably become a part of the canon as it is hugely influential (for the worse, in my opinion). But its significance is more one of pop culture rather than artistic merit.”
As a general rule, I make fairly nuanced arguments in these threads. So while I encourage anyone to disagree with me, I’d appreciate it if you don’t just boil down what I write down to a sentence that grossly simplifies what I’ve argued. And since you don’t know me or what I have advocated on this forum, just about everyone here who reads my posts with any kind of regularity KNOWS that I am the last person to let Criterion dictate my taste. In fact, I’ve started several ironically titled threads specifically to RIDICULE people’s tendency to let someone like Criterion dictate what is considered good and bad art. You’re making a lot of presumptions, man. Just stop.
The difference between Jimmy and QT is, well, Jimmy’s albums come with a note that says “written by Bob Dylan”…or there’bouts.
^^dude, take a page from Jay’s book and just suck your own dick and relax.
(agreed, he probably saw them (though he’s stated he’s not a big truffaut fan, so i guess he might not be beating down doors to watch his films, and might just hear a synopsis and go his own way with it, but either way is cool (Kill Bill is much better than The Bride Wore Black (and in a completely different style altogether))).
I need to remove the ribs first.
I’m not sure what I’m saying with this one.
Right R.S. Brown, as Scorsese rightly gives credit to the creators of Infernal Affairs in the credits for The Departed. But QT doesn’t do that with A City on Fire in the credits for Reservoir Dogs, and he doesn’t do it with The Bride Wore Black in the credits for Kill Bill.
well, that’s because Scorsese was doing a straight remake, and Tarantino wasn’t.
Oren Ishii and the Bride (Beatrix) of Kill Bill seem to both share a similar history and similar character traits with Lady Snowblood and the “heroine” of I Spit On Your Grave, so maybe QT did not see The Bride Wore Black. (The Bride Wore Black has been in my Netflix Nether Region Queue for months and I can’t see it either.)
QT takes great care in crafting what he does make. He knows so much about films, the history of films and filmmaking that I expect more from him, and because of that, I feel like he’s wasting a great wealth of talent, skill and knowledge on lesser projects. He’s good at what he does and I will probably enjoy what he makes even if he never moves on.
RUS, you eat corn, it turns to shit.
You eat a hamburger, it turns to shit.
Yo, don’t take anything personal, R.S. I was trying to make a point about context and keep it light. It wasn’t aimed at you or anyone in particular just the fact that we all often use only the info that fits our argument and sometimes that’s an incomplete picture.
Drew – Clearly there are differences between the two directors. I brought him up as a point of comparison, because Scorsese constantly refers to other directors and films. They do process their influences differently, but that doesn’t make Tarantino unoriginal. Others have tried to emulate Tarantino, and they have failed big time. No one can make a movie like him but him, and that is one of the truest calling cards of originality you can have.
Maybe he’s original in a way that you don’t like, but…
Apologies Jay, you’re right. That wasn’t fair of me…Insulting you, I mean.
It’s cool, man. I don’t mind smack talk. I just figure there’s enough feuding going around this place so I try to at least get off on the right foot with people. And I could have interpreted that as a compliment or even a Bill Hicks reference. Either way you’re alright with me.
How the hell does Martin Scorsese get mentioned in every thread?
Michael Bay!! Just thought i’d say it first.
UDF-F, that is the hardest I have laughed today.
citizen kane
Okay, fine…Wes Anderson.
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Bergman on QT:
" -————————"
QT has talent but he hasn’t made a single original or particularly interesting movie. I think he is mostly popular among film fans who do not see a variety of films or only like particular type of films. Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are not bad films (and, in my opinion, his best films in that order)… Kill Bill is not just overrated but nearly unwatchable (unless you play a lot of video games…??) People who like his dialogue should read writers like Elmore Leonard (the author of the book on which JB was based) and Donald Westlake…
Among the films he has listed, I have only seen the following: Anything Else, Audition, Boogie Nights, Dazed & Confused, Dogville, Fight Club, The Host, The Insider, Lost In Translation, The Matrix, Speed.
While everyone’s taste is personal, personally, I can’t imagine anyone with good taste would choose an overwhelming number of these among their top 20. Fight Club is very good indeed (but it is disliked by some for reasons I am yet to understand) but why Speed (humorless and mechanical), The Host (childish) or The Matrix (cartoonish)?? The others are decent but nothing special…
I don’t care what any of you say. Friday is the greatest comedy to come out in the past seventeen years.
This whole thread is a big meh and I feel ill for contributing to it. That said..
I just wanted to tip my hat in and say that every great filmmaker steals, just like any good musician or writer. To even entertain the notion that this somehow imbues the art with some kind of irretrievable impurity is FUCKING PATHETICALLY STUPID.
Also, anyone who considers “Boogie Nights” “nothing special” has more than a few screws loose.
I like all of his movies, but none of them come anywhere near my top 20. Or top 50 for that matter.
Blue K: But Jimmi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” is borrowing the same exact composition from Dylan. I don’t think I need to see “The Bride Wore Black” in order to know that he’s not creating a hard rock rendition of that movie in “Kill Bill.” They are different compositions that share similar themes and similar plot elements, from what I can tell. Unless you were wanting to argue that “The Bride Wore Black” and “Kill Bill” are equivalent to Hendrix’s cover and Dylan’s original (i.e. same composition, different rendition). Then I suppose I will have to find a copy of “The Bride Wore Black,” watch it, and get back to you on this. I hope you aren’t going to insist on this, because I really have better things to use my time on than confirming the irrationality of your Tarantino authenticity fixation.
It’s like the difference between two songs that sound sad in the same way, and two songs that sound sad in the same way and also share a melody. Are you going to insist that the Truffaut/Tarantino thing is the latter? I guess I’ll pick up the Truffaut and see for myself if you insist, but I highly doubt there’s anything to that claim.
But the other thing is: even if Tarantino really did completely rip off Truffaut, and even if it is clear that he did indeed see “The Bride Wore Black,” and then lied about having seen it, I don’t particularly care, and I don’t think it makes him suspect as a director, or that it demonstrates a lack of talent, or whatever else. Personally, I’m just not so pent up about issues of authenticity, originality, and ownership. Those issues have no relevance for me.
“Paul’s Boutique” is my favorite rap album ever, and it’s nothing but one giant rip-off. But, damn it’s fun.
“No one can make a movie like him but him, and that is one of the truest calling cards of originality you can have.”
Ummm…yes they can. And they did. Before he did. The sentiment is true, but not in regards to Tarantino.
Why would people believe there’s no originality left? Apart from serving as an excuse for Tarantino’s abominations, nothing is gained by evaluating proper films by association. Some are perfectly original, some are inspired by or influenced by other media and some take elements of their own medium and reshape them through their own personal filter. Tarantino does none of this. It’s just a copy and paste job with him.
“(Kill Bill is much better than The Bride Wore Black (and in a completely different style altogether))”
Just how bad do you consider The Bride Wore Black to be?
Drew Gregory
Nathan, I think a big difference is Scorsese is inspired by themes, and uses them instead of directly taking scenes and stories.
Oh well I really don’t care who Tarantino steals from. When he made the wildly entertaining Kill Bill after the phenomenal Jackie Brown, he was saying just kidding I’m not maturing, but how the hell can you not enjoy my films? That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I now look for entertainment from Tarantino not great films.