Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino is an American director, screenwriter and producer. He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 27, 1963. He is an only child and was raised in California and Tennessee. His first name was inspired by Burt Reynold’s character Quint Asper in the television show Gunsmoke. He completed his first screenplay at the age of fourteen. A year later he dropped out of High School.

Tarantino worked odd jobs until settling into a video store in Manhattan Beach. He watched endless films and was known in the local community for his cinematic knowledge and recommendations. He was hired as a production assistant in 1986 and started taking acting classes at a theater company. He wrote My Best Friend’s Birthday (1987) with a few of his classmates. It was never finished, but some of the discourse was reused later.

A dialogue focused heist film was written for the producer Lawrence Bender in three weeks after the two met at a barbecue. It was sent to the director Monte Hellman for editing. Reservoir Dogs received funding. Harvey Keitel read the script and increased the budget. The neo-noir film was released at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992. Quentin Tarantino was the director and played the role of Mr. Brown. Harvey was cast as Mr. White. The film was an instant success.

Quentin Tarantino 1 — Quentin Tarantino at a film festival – Photo Credit: Filmstiftung

Beginnings

The triumph allowed him to sell his screenplays for True Romance and Natural Born Killers. Major movie studios offered him directorial roles for Speed (1994) and Men in Black (1997). Tarantino refused them both and left for Amsterdam to work on Pulp Fiction. The violent and non-linear dark comedy was released in 1994. The opus grossed over two hundred million dollars and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for seven Oscars and won one for Best Screenplay.

Jackie Brown starred Pam Grier and was based off of Rum Punch (1992) by Elmore Leonard. It debuted in 1997 and was Leonard’s favorite adaptation of his work. The pundits agreed. The director accepted a few acting roles before working on Kill Bill. The martial arts picture starred Uma Thurman and was completed with a four-hour run time. The length split the film into two volumes. The first was released in 2003 and the second followed a year later. Both were acclaimed and fruitful. Quentin considers the pair as a single movie in his filmography.

He contributed to Sin City (2005) as a guest director and filmed a few sequences. His work on the fifth season finale of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation won him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing of a Drama Series. Death Proof was released in 2007 as part of the double feature Grindhouse. The other half was directed by Robert Rodriguez and titled Planet Terror. The profits were disappointing. The reviews were encouraging.

Tarantino street art — Tarantino Street Art – Photo Credit: Sir Mildred Pierce

Mainstream Success

The World War II film Inglourious Basterds was shown in 2009. It made over three hundred million dollars in theaters and was nominated for eight Academy Awards. Christoph Waltz won the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. The script was finished a decade earlier. Kill Bill took precedent. Time passed. Quentin Tarantino’s highest earning film Django Unchained hit theaters in December 2012. He won another Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Waltz took home his second for a supporting role.

Work began on The Hateful Eight. The script was leaked in 2014. Production was almost abandoned. Tarantino debated releasing it as a novel and rewrote the ending. Filming began in January 2015. It was released on Christmas. The western mystery’s score won an Oscar. It was nominated for a few others. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood featured Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. It premiered at Cannes in 2019.

Quentin Tarantino dated the comedians Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho in the early 90’s. He separated from Mira Sorvino in 1998 and dated the director Sofia Coppola between 2003 and 2005. He married the Israeli singer Daniella Pick in 2018 at their Beverly Hills Home. They have two children and split their time between Tel Aviv, Israel and Los Angeles. The director has stated that he plans to potentially retire at sixty and after making his tenth film. The Movie Critic is slated to begin filming in the fall of 2023 and will be number ten when considering Kill Bill as one motion picture. Time will tell if it will be his last.