The film Quentin Tarantino would choose to memorialise James Caan
The passion of American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino for the history of cinema truly knows no bounds, with the director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Django Unchained being fascinated by all kinds of movies. From the samurai flicks of Akira Kurosawa to Edgar Wright’s comedic thrillers, Tarantino is as much a master filmmaker as he is an avid cinephile whose love of cinema goes back to his youth.
Learning the craft from the history of cinema itself, Tarantino preferred to watch and learn from the masters of the art form, becoming a student of such filmmakers as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and Sergio Leone, rather than enrolling in film school. Speaking to The Talks about his ability to retain such knowledge, he comments: “[My] head is a sponge. I listen to what everyone says, I watch little idiosyncratic behaviour, people tell me a joke and I remember it. People tell me an interesting story in their life and I remember it”.
Throughout his love of 20th-century crime cinema, Tarantino found a particular fondness for the late James Caan, an actor who found industry fame after his starring role in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 classic, The Godfather.
Passing away in July 2022, Tarantino discussed the passing of the actor along with his remarkable career on the Reel Blend podcast with Roger Avary. Finding an issue with the fact that fans only ever sang the actor’s praises for The Godfather and the beloved Christmas movie Elf, the Reservoir Dogs director was asked which movie and scene he would choose to memorialise the late actor.
Replying without hesitation, Tarantino made reference to a 1981 classic directed by Michael Mann, stating, “It would absolutely be the cafe sequence in Thief”.
Shot with a remarkable cinematic eye by DOP Donald E. Thorin, the scene sees Caan’s Frank share a heated and loving discussion with Tuesday Weld’s Jessie in a diner illuminated by azure-white lighting in front of the Chicago skyline.
The actor revealed that the movie included his all-time favourite role whilst conducting an interview with The Hollywood Reporter at the start of 2022. Revealed to the publication whilst talking about the 50th anniversary of Coppola’s classic, Caan also discussed how he walked out of one of The Godfather’s very first screenings.
Speaking to the publication, he said, “When Michael [Al Pacino] tells me he is going to take care of the cop and Sollozzo [Al Lettieri], I say, ‘You’ll get brains all over your nice Ivy League suit. There was a scene before in the same room that I had with Bobby [Duvall] that was like ten pages long — and Francis cut all of it out! I was so pissed off, I couldn’t watch the rest of the film”.
Take a listen to Quentin Tarantino discussing the films of James Caan, below. In the very same publication, the filmmaker reveals some surprising thoughts about modern cinema, including why he thinks Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn’t the worst film of the franchise.
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