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"…the other kids in the acting class, who I liked, I thought they were good kids, but they didn't know shit. Not only did they not know shit about movies, they cared less. They just cared about themselves. They just cared about being movie stars. That was all they cared about. Then at a certain point, I kind of realized that I cared too much about movies to simply appear in them. I wanted the movie to be mine." |
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Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino* |
Quentin Tarantino's book, Cinema Speculation, got me through this Christmas as well as providing perfect gifts for at least three of my cineaste friends (Slarek, yours is in the post). Regardless of my varied opinions on his actual movies, Quentin is one of us. And for that I salute him with unalloyed joy. Three things, as alluded to in the title of this review, have made Quentin Tarantino the filmmaker that he has evolved into. I'm sure that's not a shocking revelation to anyone, let alone QT himself. His mother, Connie, exposed him to a steady diet of 'mature' movies at a ridiculously young age that may have inspired, rewired and fired his mind. To quote his introduction:
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"At some point, when I realized I was seeing movies other parents weren't letting their children see, I asked my mom about it. |
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She said, 'Quentin, I worry more about you watching the news. A movie's not going to hurt you.' |
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Right fucking on, Connie!" |
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Floyd, his adult mentor, may have widened those horizons with exposure to wholly different sub-cultures of movies and genres that a boy of the same age in the UK would have never got a chance in hell to be exposed to. And the key to QT's movie diet? The most wonderful film classification of all time… 'R' for Restricted. The enlightened US film censors felt that if the film had extreme content, be it violence or sex, it should be slapped with an 'X'. And an 'X' was synonymous with commercial doom. In the UK, an 'X' certificate was the US 'R''s equivalent and it meant that no one under 18 could legally see movies with sex and violent content that the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) had judged unfit for children and minors. But in the States… An 'R' was no problem if you had enlightened parents and adult friends. They could take you, give you permission to be there in the stalls staring at things on screen in the UK that had been judged to be 'adults only'. I was and remain Hulk with envy.
One of the reasons the fashion of 'platform heels' was so welcome to rabid UK film nuts in the 70s was that the extra height added to the perception of older age. My formative years are full of moments when a movie cashier would either take pity on the 15 year old with added shoe height and let me into to an 'X' rated film or just laugh and tell me to piss off. And all the while, all that content was being hoovered up in the US by kids half my age because their parents were so damn wonderful enough to take them. QT's mom said "Movies can't hurt you…" But they could do a fair bit of damage but a pre-teen Tarantino seems to have shrugged off what would have given me nightmares for months.
I was 13 when Enter The Dragon came out in the UK and despite an absence of Google in my, and everyone else's life, in 1974, I found out about it and subsequently developed a rabid desire to see it. I knew I would never stand a chance to get in to see this notorious 'X' certificate film (which now presents itself as tamer than a TikTok cat video) so I made my parents go and regale me with – in excruciating detail – the plot and the specific sequences. One scene outlined in the novelisation (my only source of vicarious knowledge) and embellished in my fevered mind (Bolo breaking the back of a minion) haunted me for months in my imagination. How terrifying this scene must have been that it had been judged that only adults could witness it without being driven insane by its brutality… In reality, it's almost a cuddle, a murderous grimace and three bone cracking sound effects. I'm telling you, 'X' was such a complex lock to pick for a full appreciation of what cinema really was. My US equivalent (as a child) had the jump on me in every sense. Quentin Tarantino enjoyed a film education in the greatest modern era of Hollywood as well as a sweeping enrolment into the fringes of US cinema (both black and white) and he emerged as a young man who could argue the toss with anyone cinema-wise. And he'd not even arisen from his teens. As a young man working at a video rental palace, Tarantino had some time to fully indulge and augment his passion.
OK, full confession. I have loved, liked and not liked Tarantino's movies since Reservoir Dogs picked me up by the scruff of the neck and shook me to hell and back. But I adore (to hell and back and beyond) the man's utter devotion to cinema. It's something that we at Cineoutsider share, a love for cinema that's hardly containable. Needless to say but nice to be reminded, we review films for no financial reward, merely the satisfaction that we point the way - the best way we know how - for those seeking worthwhile cinema (and in this rare case, worthwhile cinema books). Aside from the introduction, the book is structured around specific 60s and 70s movies, titles that will not be on everyone's radar but which are all well-known and appreciated by those of us on this site. How about these chapters for a cineaste's delight…
Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Deliverance, The Getaway, The Outfit, An appreciation of critic Kevin Thomas, New Hollywood in the Seventies, Sisters, Daisy Miller, Taxi Driver, Cinema Speculation, Rolling Thunder, Paradise Alley, Escape from Alcatraz, Hardcore, The Funhouse and finally Floyd Footnote.
Tarantino's memory must have been significantly aided by the effects these films had on him at such a young age. I claim to remember certain films from my childhood but the actual memories have been blurred in the re-telling and the haze of decades past. Tarantino describes them as if he had access to re-playable memories but there's not a inauthentic note in his reviews and comments on the work he champions. Only when he states a personal opinion on someone's lack of acting chops or denigrates a director's talent, did I feel that even a considered opinion is not strictly verifiable by the work (how actors and movie scenes hit you is usually entirely subjective). His take on The Getaway hit home with me. I always thought the repugnant double crossing Rudy (Al Lettieri) was so effective, he made his scenes genuinely difficult to watch. Sometimes an actor can be too well cast. His insights on Steve McQueen (the actor not the director) and the actor's comfort with his film star persona had a ring of truth to it. I really enjoyed his take on Deliverance and the measured way he deeply analysed the character of Lewis (Burt Reynolds). For a cineaste, no profound readings are off limits. It's all part of the fun. Also noteworthy is Tarantino's insistence (which has many legitimate points) that writer Paul Schrader was obsessed with John Ford's The Searchers and modelled his most famous screenplay on the revenge filled Ethan Edwards played by John Wayne. He sees Scorsese's Taxi Driver as a 'paraphrased remake' of the famous western and up until opening his book, this had never occurred to me.
While the book has a few factual errors that younger proof readers may not have spotted, ones we really don't care about that much, I was slightly disheartened to see a typo on (of all pages) page one. "Holiday Inn's" really should have been "Holiday Inns" but again, who cares? Obviously I do, just a little. But then I proof read for this site. When a book like this exudes such ferocious passion on a subject so close to this writer's heart, I can forgive quite a lot.
If you have any passion for cinema and want a 'must see' list of gems from the great Hollywood era of the 1970s, then Cinema Speculation is your go to volume. Thank you, Quentin. Your passion and heart is celebrated here with gleeful gusto.
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