The icon who influenced Quentin Tarantino more than any director
As a student and lover of cinema, Quentin Tarantino has been inspired by countless filmmakers from across the globe, including the likes of Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Takashi Miike, Stanley Kubrick and Jean-Luc Godard. Taking aspects of style and form from various different icons, Tarantino instils homages in all of his movies, from 1992’s Reservoir Dogs and 2019’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Over time, Tarantino’s approach to how he views and assesses movies has changed too, stating on the Pure Cinema podcast: “In many ways when it comes to [watching a] film, I think about it more like a film critic than I do as a colleague filmmaker”. One film that helped him in his formative years was the Godard flick Band of Outsiders, with the podcast giving Tarantino something of a cinematic revelation.
“Well, that’s what I want to do,” Tarantino says of the style Godard introduced with Band of Outsiders, with the French filmmaker upending most of the traditional rules of conventional cinema. Continuing, the Pulp Fiction director adds: “That actually encompasses the aesthetic that I want to bring to cinema”.
Despite his love for countless filmmakers, however, Tarantino has stated that no director has influenced him more than the influential film critic Pauline Kael.
On the same podcast, Tarantino announced his adoration for the American critic who wrote for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. “The critic that’s had the most impact on me is, hands down, Pauline Kael,” he stated on the podcast, adding: “To me [she] was my film professor, and at the end of the day ended up being more influential to me as a filmmaker than any director”.
Upon the announcement of the director’s tenth movie, The Movie Critic, many believed that Kael would be the subject of the film, only for Tarantino to later dispel this rumour.
The revelation came during a Q&A in Paris whilst Tarantino was promoting his book Cinema Speculation. It was during this conversation that he confirmed that his new film is titled The Movie Critic, takes place in 1977, and also has nothing to do with Kael. Instead, the protagonist will be based on a real-life individual who worked as a harsh film critic for a porn magazine that Tarantino read in his youth.
Having long said that he would only make five movies, with Kill Bill parts one and two counting as one singular film, Tarantino stated back in 2009 that he wanted to retire at the age of 60 to “go and write novels and cinema literature, stuff like that”. Having turned 60 on March 27th, 2023, Tarantino’s plan is certainly in motion, with The Movie Critic on course for being the director’s very last movie.
Take a look at the trailer for Tarantino’s most recent movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, below.
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