The director Quentin Tarantino called “the Bob Dylan of movies”
There are a number of influences Quentin Tarantino scooped up, tossed into the blender, and then launched onto the screen in a style that was evocative of others but distinctly his own nonetheless. Still, those inspirations haven’t always been held dear throughout the filmmaker’s entire life.
The two-time Academy Award-winning mastermind behind Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained could wax lyrical about the effortless cool of John Woo all day long or gush over the towering shadow Brian De Palma cast over his own aesthetic and the way Tarantino sought to blend stylised violence with engaging stories and well-written characters.
However, a formative figure in the writer and director’s filmic upbringing was eventually cast aside as his opinion began to sour, not that it could ever take away the tricks, tips, and techniques he’d initially picked up. For a while, Tarantino would happily praise Jean-Luc Godard to the heavens before changing his tune the longer his own career wore on.
It was Godard who first instilled in Tarantino the desire to push the boundaries of the medium and mould them into something recognisable but still unique, which is hardly out of the ordinary when the experimental pioneer and titan of the ‘French New Wave’ has made the exact same impression on countless auteurs.
That being said, in the years following Tarantino’s breakthrough, he began to sour on Godard. Not only that, but the filmmaking icon reciprocated those feelings, too. The latter would openly criticise the name of the former’s production company and the quality of his output, with the battle lines being drawn.
In response, Tarantino regularly suggested that he outgrew Godard as his own cinematic education continued, with the latter stages of the maestro’s professional life coinciding with a drastic downturn in quality. From Tarantino’s perspective, at least.
It wasn’t as if Tarantino suddenly turned on Godard, though, but not to make him sound like a petulant teenager; it was a phase he eventually grew out of. That doesn’t dampen how he made his mark on the former video store clerk in the first place, especially when he was openly comparing him to one of the most transformative names in music history.
Discussing his influences with Alexandre Rockwell, Tarantino shared how “Godard taught me invention” before pointing to a singer and songwriter in a constant state of evolution to further his analogy. “To me, early Godard was like the Bob Dylan of movies,” he offered. “There was a sense of creation and playfulness. He really gave forth the idea that if you loved movies enough, you could make a good one.”
As someone who didn’t go to film school but watched a massive amount of movies before trying their hand at breaking into the industry – which he did in spectacular style with Reservoir Dogs – it’s clear that no matter how much Godard dropped in Tarantino’s estimation eventually, he was monumental for a spell, to the point modern Hollywood would look markedly different if he wasn’t.
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