The Steven Spielberg movie Quentin Tarantino called a “true cinematic spectacle”
While most filmmakers possess a knowledge of cinema that likely outweighs the average person, Quentin Tarantino’s knowledge of cinema likely outweighs the average filmmaker. The director became fascinated with movies from a very early age, and he subsequently found the early years of his adult life working in a video rental store.
Exposed to countless VHS tapes ranging from obscure B-movies to the latest blockbusters, Tarantino spent his days discussing and recommending films, discovering new titles, and watching them when he got home. His understanding of cinema is near-encyclopaedic, and you’ll struggle to present Tarantino with a movie he hasn’t, at least, heard of.
When the filmmaker was a child, he started penning his own scripts, eventually making a movie, My Best Friend’s Birthday, in 1987, that was never finished. A few years later, though, Tarantino was the name on everyone’s lips within the film world. His debut, Reservoir Dogs, caused quite a stir when it was released, causing walkouts at screenings due to its shocking use of violence. No one could shake the ear-slicing scene from their minds, and ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ by Stealers Wheel was permanently tainted for many.
The movie seamlessly blended crime and comedy, something that Tarantino has proven himself to be a master of. As his career has progressed, he’s shown a strong ability to blend genres, taking inspiration from his huge mass of influences. For example, in Kill Bill, the filmmaker mixes influences from blaxploitation-era revenge flicks (like Coffy and Foxy Brown) with martial arts cinema and comedy.
Tarantino’s love of movies has allowed him to throw himself into every genre; there’s hardly a movie that he’ll rule himself out from watching, even if it looks like the last thing we’d expect him to watch. The filmmaker cares only about expanding his tastes, gaining more knowledge, and indulging himself in the beauty of cinema. Thus, when he lists movies that he likes, nothing is off-limits.
Even musicals, a genre that Tarantino has not worked in himself, can entice him if they are well-made. The filmmaker once shed praise on a recent musical, 2021’s West Side Story, calling it (via Reel Bleed podcast) a “true cinematic spectacle.” He described it as the “kind that I’d almost thought that I wasn’t going to see anymore. It was fantastic.”
Directed by Steven Spielberg, West Side Story had another adaptation of the stage musical to compete with – Robert Wise’s 1961 movie version – but it stood strong on its own. The Romeo and Juliet inspired movie starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler in the main roles, with additional cast members including Mike Faist, Ariana DeBose (who won an Oscar for her role) and David Alvarez.
Despite being a box office bomb, Tarantino believed it to be incredible. Talking to Brett Easton Ellis, he shared, “I loved West Side Story. The best movie of 2021 should have won the Oscar, and the guy who played Riff [Faist] should have won the Oscar. It’s the only film that I’ve seen, on my own, at the theatre twice. It was beyond the beyond. It was right up there with Fury Road.”
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