On the 59th birthday of prolific director and film connoisseur, Quentin Tarantino needs no introduction. Famously quoted as saying “I didn’t go to film school, I went to films.” Tarantino is perhaps one of the biggest movie geek/cinephile directors working today.
Famed for his unique directorial style and dark humor, Tarantino’s work is distinguished by his penchant for non-linear storylines, graphic and stylized violence, and his unmatched ability for writing extended dialogue. Meticulously charting the course of his directing career, Tarantino maintains that he is on a ten film plan.
As of today, classing Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 as two parts of one project, Tarantino has directed nine features, with only one left to go before he vacates the director’s chair for good. It’s now been three years since his last outing in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), and speculation over his final installment is rampant. Could it be Kill Bill Vol. 3? Or Killer Crow, an Inglourious Basterds sequel? Or a Bond movie? Speculation is futile, this is Tarantino after all. Instead, Video Librarian looks back over his decorated career to give you some facts you may not know about the man and his work.
1. There was a doomed love child of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction
Almost more intriguing than the films Tarantino has done are those he hasn’t. Did you know that in the “Tarantino-verse," Reservoir Dogs’ Vic (Michael Madsen) and Pulp Fiction’s Vincent (John Travolta) are brothers – both with the surname Vega? Tarantino toyed with the idea of a cross-cinematic sequel – or prequel – entitled ‘Double V Vega’ that would take place in Amsterdam.
Back in 2004 in an interview with Rolling Stone, Tarantino claimed he had an idea but no story: “I have been trying to do it for years, and the more time I take, the older these two guys get."
Since Vic and Vincent both die at the end of their respective films, it only made sense to make it a prequel. But the actors aren’t getting any younger so the project became increasingly unlikely.
2. The language used in Jackie Brown caused quite the stir
Tarantino favorite Samuel L Jackson is notorious for his delivery of the word “motherfucker” in his movies and says it 37 times in Jackie Brown. But this isn’t the language that attracted attention. A well-known racial slur is used 38 times and was condoned by director Spike Lee who reprimanded Tarantino for the frequency of the word: “I want Quentin to know that all African-Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick” (IMDb).
Tarantino once told film critic Manohla Dargis "the minute any word has that much power, as far as I'm concerned, everyone on the planet should scream it. No word deserves that much power" (Houston Chronicle). Since then, Django Unchained (2012) has had this beat with an astronomical 110 utterings of the racial slur.
3. Tarantino only cared about one opinion of Jackie Brown
Jackie Brown is the only one of Tarantino’s films that are based on a pre-existing work – adapted from Elmore Leonard’s 1992 novel Rum Punch. Tarantino’s love for Blaxploitation films of the 1970s is manifest in this adaptation. Changing the name of the novel’s Jackie Burke to Jackie Brown is an obvious homage to Pam Grier’s iconic role as Foxy Brown. He also changed the ethnicity of the title character from white to black solely for the purpose of working with Grier.
Although only surface-level changes, and given Tarantino owned the rights so could enact whatever creative changes he wanted, he was still concerned Leonard would disapprove. Turns out he needn’t have worried: “He called me right before he went into production on Jackie Brown. He said, ‘I’ve been afraid to call you for the last year.’ And I said, why? Because you changed the title and the color of the main character? He said, ‘Yeah!’ I said, well that’s alright. Do what you want, you’re the filmmaker!" (Mental Floss).
4. To prepare for Kill Bill, Tarantino asked Uma Thurman to watch three movies
The idea for Tarantino’s infamous martial arts flick was cooked up by Tarantino and Thurman on the set of Pulp Fiction. The three films he considered to be the perfect balance of genres encapsulated in the Kill Bill script and those he insisted Thurman watch were Coffy (1973), John Woo’s The Killer (1989), and Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western Fistful of Dollars (1964) (Mental Floss). Doing a 70’s style kung-fu film was a passion for Tarantino, inspired by the films of Bruce Lee and Chinese wuxia epics.
Cinephilic references to these films are sprinkled throughout Vol. 1 & 2, including most obviously The Bride’s yellow outfit—a direct homage to Bruce Lee’s final film Game of Death (1978). Tarantino was determined to forgo any special effects in order to emulate the visual style of pioneering filmmakers Chang Cheh and the Shaw Brothers. To that end, Tarantino insisted that the 450 gallons of fake blood used in the two films (yes, you read that right) were put into condoms that burst upon impact—just like Chang Cheh did in his films (My Vue).
5. Tarantino thinks Death Proof “has got to be the worst movie I ever make”
Death Proof is Tarantino’s 2007 slasher film packaged as a double feature along with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror (2007). This unusual theatrical experiment between Tarantino and close friend Rodriguez was called Grindhouse and harks back to the experience of seeing sleazy exploitation films at a “grindhouse” that were located on New York’s 42nd Street in the 1970s (IndieWire).
By far Tarantino’s least commercially successful film, it still received some favorable reviews. In a 2012 directors round-table conducted by The Hollywood Reporter, Tarantino said "Death Proof has got to be the worst movie I ever did” (IMDb). He doesn’t suggest the film is a bad film, just that when he retires he wants to do so on a high, with Death Proof as the worst on his filmography.
6. Tarantino once directed a scene for the symbolic fee of $1
Sin City (2005), a neo-noir anthology film directed by graphic novelist Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, had an appearance from Tarantino as a guest director. Tarantino directed the scene of Dwight (Clive Owen) and Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) for a symbolic fee of $1. Tarantino was returning the favor when Rodriguez agreed to score the soundtrack for Kill Bill for the same fee.
7. Inglourious Basterds wasn’t the first Inglorious Bastards
Although not a remake, Tarantino took inspiration for the title from a 1978 Italian war film by Enzo G. Castellari Inglorious Bastards. He was asked why he misspelled his film title: “Here’s the thing. I’m never going to explain that. You do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the piss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place” (Kickass Facts).
Castellari allowed Tarantino to use this title in exchange for a cameo as a General yelling "Fire!" Tarantino did shoot this as part of the theater scene but it didn’t make the theatrical cut.
8. Tarantino only hated one character he’s ever written
Tarantino has stated the central villain, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), in Django Unchained is the only character he has written that he despises. “I hated Candie and I normally like my villains no matter how bad they are. I can see their point of view. I could see his point of view, but I hated it so much. For the first time as a writer, I just f*cking hated this guy” (MyVue). DiCaprio also struggled with the character; when filming one of the dinner scenes, he couldn’t get through the copious amount of racial slurs. Samuel L. Jackson stepped in telling him, "Motherfucker, this is just another Tuesday for us" (IMDb).
9. Tarantino fought for The Hateful Eight to be shown in its original form
As any Tarantino fan will know, he is a die-hard supporter of celluloid film. At the time of The Hateful Eight release in 2015, most movie theaters had replaced film projectors with digital ones. Tarantino fought with distributors for the film to be shown in its original Ultra Panavision 70 presentation. He fought so aggressively that 50 theaters across the world were retrofitted with anamorphic-lensed 70mm analog film projectors to display the film as he intended it to be seen. The Hateful Eight was released on December 25, 2015, in 70mm analog film format theaters exclusively before being released in digital theaters on December 30, 2015.
10. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has a double inside joke
Now, we know Tarantino likes to throw in some rather meta-references in his films, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) is no exception. Kurt Russell and Zoë Bell play the man and wife stunt coordinators on The Green Hornet. Russell previously played murderous “Stuntman Mike” in Death Proof. Bell, a real-life stunt person, also appeared in that film as herself and was Thurman's stunt double in the Kill Bill films which also happened to feature the theme song of The Green Hornet.