The forgotten director Quentin Tarantino calls “one of the greatest storytellers in the history of cinema”
Unlike some of his predecessors, Quentin Tarantino has never been shy about his admiration for other filmmakers. Many directors find it easier to keep quiet about their influences and inspirations, instead preferring to present themselves as truly unique originals. A mythical genius creating moving images that enrapture their audiences is a much more alluring prospect than a movie magpie picking the shiniest and brightest moments of cinematic history to weave into their own cultural fabric. But, Tarantino has rarely dabbled with such egotism.
It might have a large part to do with how the director got his own break in Hollywood, avoiding any formal film education, studying only at cinemas and finding the VHS tapes at the Video Archives store that he worked far more enlightening than school books. Or it might just be that Tarantino is, above all else, a movie fan. But the Pulp Fiction man has never been short on praise.
Whether it is for his favourite movies, actors or filmmakers, Tarantino has always put his opinion front and centre, rarely staying away from the media spotlight or feigning injury in the face on onrushing rebuttals to his critical stances. It made sense then when he created, alongside former Video Archives colleague and director Roger Avary, a podcast named after the iconic video rental spot. Within the confines of the medium, the director is allowed ample room to wax lyrical about some of the hidden gems on the now-figurative shelves of the store.
Over the weeks, we have been given unbridled access to Tarantino and Avary’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the 20th-century cinema they cover within the show. Often spending hours dissecting but a handle of movies, in one episode of the podcast, they focused an entire hour on one movie, The Great Waldo Pepper, the 1975 movie directed by George Roy Hill. It was during this conversation that Tarantino put the filmmaker up on an impressively tall pedestal.
The movie is one of the forgotten hits of the 1970s. Starring Robert Redford as Waldo Pepper, “the second best pilot in the world”, it charts the story of a conman pilot who uses fake war stories to curry favour and gain enough gas money to fly him over to the next town, continuing his journey and self-discovery. Pepper soon finds a rival in fellow war-veteran Axel Olsen.
The duo are taking part in barnstorming, a form of aerial entertainment popular after the first World War when pilots returned home without the adrenaline kick of aerial combat when they kindle a friendship. However, things go wrong as Pepper is the victim of an aerial accident, leaving him to return home to Kansas and re-start a life he tried to leave behind. As the story progresses through tragic circumstances and devastating loss, it soon becomes clear that this story, co-written by director George Roy Hill is one of the best of the decade.
On this note, Tarantino praises the director: “I read that book [the original novel by Andrew Horton] as well, and one of the things that book gets across is… it made me re-watch a bunch of George Roy Hill’s films and made me really appreciate him as a director.”
“Cinematically, he’s fine,” continued Tarantino. “But cinematically, he’s not really adventurous other than accomplishing things. The aerial photography he’s able to accomplish in this movie is absolutely fucking amazing. It calls attention to itself in ‘how the fuck did they do it!?’ because you don’t think about it. But when it comes to actually directors who deal in ‘theme,’ there’s nobody who does it more thoroughly than George Roy Hill.”
The Reservoir Dog director suggests that few filmmakers in the last five decades can deliver on their set theme as neatly as George Roy Hill. While he does also comment, “If I was gonna be Pauline Kael,” the rumoured central figure of Tarantino’s tenth and now apparently squashed picture, The Movie Critic, “I’d go ‘Oh, okay, so he just tells the same fucking story over and over and over again.'”
“What gives Hill’s themes real validity is it’s usually not a theme of story, but a theme of protagonists — He’s one of the greatest storytellers in the history of cinema, right up there with Howard Hawks,” the director proclaims. “But it’s about the protagonist, who he chooses as his lead, who he chooses as his protagonists who are leading the story that dictates the stories that he tells. His protagonists are always either dreamers or liars or conmen.” It’s a uniquely captivating idea that Tarantino himself often employed in his own films, with his protagonists rarely proving themselves to be anything other than tainted heroes.
Of course, George Roy Hill’s oeuvre stretches far beyond The Great Waldo Pepper. Perhaps his two most famous movies, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, also encompass Tarantino’s summation and deliver on his proclamation as Hill as one of the best storytellers around. With 14 feature films to his name and eight of those receiving Oscar nominations, it’s fair to say that, once again, it would appear that Quentin Tarantino knows his stuff when it comes to cinema.
In the audio below, listen to Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary dissect The Great Waldo Pepper, one of George Roy Hill’s finest works.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.