Why Quentin Tarantino doesn’t consider himself to be an “American filmmaker”
When Quentin Tarantino emerged on the scene with his debut feature, Reservoir Dogs, no one could ignore his stylish and violent film. Made on a relatively small budget, the movie earned the filmmaker widespread praise, even if it did cause several viewers to faint or walk out. New York Daily News writer Jamie Bernard, who was at the premiere, even compared the audience’s reaction to the “first silent movie when audiences saw the train coming toward the camera and scattered”.
Evidently, Reservoir Dogs caused quite a stir. But that was only the beginning. Tarantino soon penned some popular movies, like True Romance and Natural Born Killers, then moved on to Pulp Fiction, his most well-known and adored film. With an all-star cast, memorable characters and dialogue (“A Royale with cheese”), the movie is a staple of the 1990s independent cinema canon.
As the filmmaker’s career has progressed, he’s explored a wide range of genres, paying homage to everything from blaxploitation to westerns. His intense love of cinema, aided by a tenure of working in a video store, has given him an expansive knowledge of the most niche sub-genres under the sun, which he has subsequently incorporated into his films. For this reason, Tarantino’s works often feel separate from average Hollywood fodder.
His roots in independent cinema and his love for B-movies, arthouse, grindhouse, foreign and avant-garde titles shape his films more than the average Hollywood director, making his movies stand out in comparison to his contemporaries. When you watch Kill Bill, for example, it’s clear that Tarantino has been inspired by many classic samurai and martial arts movies, as well as those female revenge stories that were more common in the 1970s, such as titles like Coffy and Foxy Brown. It’s not your typical Hollywood action revenge tale – there’s so much style in the way that Tarantino shoots his characters, with homages to other films hardly hidden.
When he released Kill Bill, he even labelled it a “grindhouse epic,” despite the fact that it was marketed to a mainstream audience. Grindhouse movies have always existed outside of Hollywood—these are the kinds of low-budget, often gory, and exploitative B-movies that were only shown at these specific grindhouse cinemas during the 1960s and ’70s.
When asked by a BBC interviewer if he worries that American audiences won’t “get” his films because of his lack of mainstream influences, he made a bold statement. “I’m a little hesitant about saying this out loud – I’m not trying to crow – but I’m influenced by movies from all different countries. I don’t really consider myself an American filmmaker like, say, Ron Howard might be considered an American filmmaker”.
Howard’s movies feel quintessentially Hollywood, such as Splash, Willow, Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Solo: A Star Wars Story. They’re all fairly inoffensive, appeal to a large audience, and are almost guaranteed to make money. Tarantino is willing to take more risks, compromising financial gain in favour of his creative integrity – although box office success is something he’s hardly had to worry about.
“If I’m doing something and it seems to me to be reminiscent of an Italian giallo, I’m gonna do it like an Italian giallo. And if I’m gonna do something that begs to be done in the vein of a Japanese Yakuza movie or Hong Kong Triad movie, I’m gonna do it like that. I understand a lot of audiences from a lot of different countries, and, to me, America is just another market.” Tarantino knows that America is just one place where his movies will be seen; he has faith that his movies can cross borders due to his refusal to adhere to the Hollywood model.
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