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Quentin Tarantino
Director / Screenwriter
1963 - 
Born March 27, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Key Production Country: USA 
Key Genres: Crime, Action, Martial Arts
Key Collaborators: Sally Menke (Editor), Lawrence Bender (Producer), David Wasco (Production Designer), Uma Thurman (Leading Player), Michael Madsen (Leading Player), Samuel L. Jackson (Leading Character Player), Robert Richardson (Cinematographer), Michael Parks (Character Player), Harvey Keitel (Leading Player), Tim Roth (Leading Player)

Highly Recommended: Reservoir Dogs (1991)*, Pulp Fiction (1994)*, Jackie Brown (1997)
Recommended: Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)^, Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)^
Worth a Look: Inglourious Basterds (2009)^
Duds: Death Proof (2007) [also released as part of Grindhouse (2007), co-directed by Robert Rodriguez]
* Listed in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films section; ^ Listed in TSPDT's 21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films section.

 
 
 
Links: [ Amazon ] [ IMDB ] [ TCMDB ] [ All-Movie Guide ] [ Film Reference ] [ Wikipedia ]  [ The Quentin Tarantino Archives ] [ San Francisco Chronicle Article (2009) ] [ Bright Lights Film Journal Feature ] [ Guardian Unlimited Article (2003) ] [ 1994 Interview ] [ Everything Tarantino ] [ Crime Spree: Quentin Tarantino Fanlisting ] [ PopMatters Article (2011) ]
Books: [ Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy ] [ Quentin Tarantino: The Man, The Myths and His Movies ] [ Raised by Wolves: The Turbulent Art and Times of Quentin Tarantino ] [ Quentin Tarantino: The Man and His Movies ] [ King Pulp: The Wild World of Quentin Tarantino ] [ Quentin Tarantino: The Film Geek Files ] [ Quentin Tarantino: Interviews ] [ Quintessential Tarantino: The Films of Quentin Tarantino ] [ Quentin Tarantino: The Cinema of Cool ] [ Quentin Tarantino ] [ Tarantino A to Zed: The Films of Quentin Tarantino ]
 
Reservoir Dogs (1991)Pulp Fiction (1994)Jackie Brown (1997)Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
 
     
  "After working as a video clerk while studying acting, he used the sale of an early screenplay to raise money for his first directorial venture, Reservoir Dogs (1992), a violent heist movie that became a huge success. Noted for his witty dialogue, non-linear narratives and distinctive use of music, he has since blended humour with stylish violence to great effect, and achieved cult status as a director." - (Chambers Film Factfinder, 2006)  
     
  "With their philosophical dimensions, unremitting representations of venality and depravity among the criminal under and over class, art cinema narrational complexities, and black humor, Tarantino's first two films are strikingly original contributions to an American cinema struggling to rebound from the artistic doldrums of the 1980s." - R. Barton Palmer (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)  
     
  "In so many ways, he is the epitome of that brilliant, remorseless, empty-life student that every film teacher has tried to avoid. And yet, he is a real, weird writer, a conduit for swinging, hardboiled talk which, if it is gangsterese for the moment, might one day end in inspired comedy." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)  
     
  "Movies are my religion and God is my patron. I'm lucky enough to be in the position where I don't make movies to pay for my pool. When I make a movie, I want it to be everything to me; like I would die for it." - Quentin Tarantino  
     
  "To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence." - Quentin Tarantino  
     
 8-
 

"One of the key figures in the debates around the fate of cinephilia is Quentin Tarantino (b. 1963), who famously had his formative education as a video store clerk. His own filmmaking is very much indebted to the Blaxploitation genre of American cinema, which by revisiting, he has helped to redeem from the dustbin of history. Is this videophilia? Or is it the cinephilia of the collector, whose obsessive and passionate movie watching is yet another foray into the politics of good taste?" - Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

 
 
Top 250 Directors
21st Century Top 50 
100 Essential Directors (Pop Matters)
Ranked 17th on The Guardian's 2004 List of the World's 40 Best Directors
Ranked 17th on Film Comment's list of the 25 Best Directors of the Decade (2000-2009)
501 Movie Directors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers
 
See Also
Roger Avary (external link)
Cheh Chang
Brian De Palma
Doug Liman
Takeshi Kitano
Robert Rodriguez
Martin Scorsese
Tony Scott
Barry Shear
Bryan Singer
Seijun Suzuki
John Woo
 
Quentin Tarantino's Favourites
Blow Out (1981) Brian De Palma, Carrie (1976) Brian De Palma, Five Fingers of Death (1973) Chang Ho Cheng, Five Graves to Cairo (1943) Billy Wilder, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Sergio Leone, His Girl Friday (1940) Howard Hawks, Pandora's Box (1928) G.W. Pabst, Rio Bravo (1959) Howard Hawks, Taxi Driver (1976) Martin Scorsese, Unfaithfully Yours (1948) Preston Sturges. Source: Empire (2008)
 
 
 
         
         

 

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