The director Quentin Tarantino was “obsessed” with
The works of Quentin Tarantino are quite easy to obsess over, given that his filmography undoubtedly boasts some of the finest movies of the last three decades. As a result, Tarantino’s work has achieved something of a cultish following at the same time as being commercially successful on a wide scale, balancing critical acclaim in the process.
The likes of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will likely remain some of cinema fans’ favourite movies of all time for years to follow. But Tarantino himself has his own favourite directors too, and it’s fully known he adores the work of Sergio Leone and Jean-Luc Godard. However, the iconic filmmaker’s deep cinematic love doesn’t end just there.
When appearing on Charlie Rose’s talk show, Tarantino once explained: “When I was in my 20s – still now he’s one of my favourite filmmakers – but particularly when I was in my twenties, I loved Brian De Palma. I’d just like obsess about his stuff the way any big fan would obsess over a movie star or a baseball star or whatever.”
Tarantino, as he mentions, clearly had a youthful obsession with De Palma and went to extraordinary lengths to understand his works. He noted: “Whenever his movies would come out, I’d be counting down the days until the first show of his movie, and I would collect all the reviews and the interviews, and I would put them in these De Palma scrapbooks that I had set up.”
The films of Brian De Palma are often found in the crime and psychological thriller genres, and he’s released several critically and commercially successful movies throughout his career, including Carrie, Scarface, The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible, and some cult classics too, like Blow Out and Carlito’s Way.
Continuing to explain his De Palma obsession, Tarantino went on: “I would go see his film, a movie of his like Scarface would open, and I would go and see the first show, the first day. And no one could go with me; I didn’t want anyone else – it was like a religious experience, and I didn’t care what anyone else thought. I just sat there and watched the movie, taking it all in, see what the story was.”
However, Tarantino wouldn’t stop there; he’d go back and watch the same film that very same day, only from a different perspective. “Then I would go and see the midnight show that night, and then I’d like someone to see it with me,” he said. “Then I could watch it having got the story, got the film, now let’s see how he did it. Then I could talk about it with that person; I could see it through their eyes and stuff.”
Of all the De Palma films Tarantino loves, it looks like his 1981 neo-noir mystery thriller Blow Out, starring John Travolta, is top of the pile. It tells of Jack Terry, a sound technician who inadvertently captures a recording of an assassination of a presidential hopeful while working on a low-budget movie.
Discussing the film, Tarantino said, “Brian de Palma’s Blow Out, I think it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s Brian de Palma’s finest film which means it’s one of the finest movies ever made. As we all know, Brian de Palma is the greatest actor of his generation. John Travolta, by the way, gives one of the best performances of all time in this movie.”
Check out the trailer for Blow Out below.
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