The Quentin Tarantino movie that reduced Paul Thomas Anderson to tears
If you were to choose two filmmakers to define the world of modern cinema, American directors Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino may just be the two you would choose. Whilst Tarantino isn’t quite as prevalent as he was at the start of the millennium, his influential style has rubbed off on the likes of Anderson, who has gone on to dominate the contemporary craft, working with some of the biggest names in modern cinema.
Having been nominated for 11 Academy Awards, it’s a curiosity that Anderson has never taken home an Oscar, with the 2008 movie There Will Be Blood being the most worthy winner of prizes, handing Daniel Day-Lewis a statuette for his leading performance alongside cinematographer Robert Elswit. More recently, Anderson thrilled audiences with Licorice Pizza, a Los Angeles-based flick that starred the likes of Alana Haim, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper and Sean Penn.
A purveyor of quality cinema, Anderson has praised the work of such filmmakers as David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa, with each icon of the craft informing his own films in some form.
Another filmmaker who Anderson has heaped praise on is Tarantino, with the director taking the time to discuss the influential cult icon back in 2018. In praise of the director’s 1997 movie Jackie Brown, starring Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson and Pam Grier, Anderson celebrated the script and the relationship between the key characters, with the film containing enough oomph to boost it to the top of the filmmaker’s list of Tarantino’s best movies.
Speaking about the crime film set in 1995, Anderson stated: “It’s a film so cool and so breezy about middle-aged people that feel the clock ticking,” with the filmmaker picking out the authenticity of the central characters as one of his favourite aspects.
Continuing, the There Will be Blood director added: “It reduces me to tears. I consider Quentin a peer, but Jackie Brown is a watermark for how to shoot and film a scene with delicacy and compassion. A beautiful film, beautifully done”.
Currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, Tarantino is back in several UK cinemas, providing a welcome release from the barrage of superhero blockbusters. Bookending the director’s flawless debut trilogy of un-connected films that include Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown shows sophistication in his filmmaking ability, often lost in the fog of chaos and violence.
This is his masterpiece of characterisation, where every individual feels separate and tangible, autonomous and larger than the film’s runtime. A tenacious performance from Pam Grier as the title character leads the film down a slow narrative spiral, performing mind-games with the supporting cast of devious villains and slimeballs.
The film is Tarantino’s left side of his brain, smart, subtle and suave. Take a listen to what Anderson has to say about the classic film below.
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