Welcome to the Deep Dive. We're the show that
unpacks the careers of modern giants, looking
at, you know, the hidden gears behind their biggest
hits and, well, the controversies that often
follow them around. And today we're putting a
really monumental filmography under the microscope.
We're talking about the work of Quentin Tarantino.
Yeah, the ultimate movie kid, right? The one
who actually turned into this major auteur. He
really is. I mean, you could argue he's the single
most influential director of his generation.
He's got this unique style. It's a mix of graphic
violence, sure, but also these long, witty, pop
culture -heavy dialogues. And all held together
by that signature nonlinear storytelling. He
completely broke the mold with that. Exactly.
So our mission today is to basically... Map out
his whole career, starting from the beginning,
the video store days. The non -traditional path,
yeah. Right. Then look at his style. What makes
a Tarantino film a Tarantino film? His influence,
not just directing, but producing, curating.
And exhibiting film, too, which is fascinating.
And we have to tackle the controversies because
they're a big part of his public image. Absolutely.
The public persona, the clashes, and hanging
over all of it is this countdown. His plan to
stop after 10 films. It's a huge part of the
narrative now. But before we dive into how he
built all this, let's just quickly look at the
sheer scale of it. I mean, the numbers are kind
of staggering. They really are. His films collectively
have grossed over $1 .9 billion worldwide. That's
just huge. That's blockbuster money, not what
you typically expect from an indie auteur, right?
But then you balance that against the critical
acclaim. Exactly. It's not just money. It's serious
recognition. Two Academy Awards for Best Original
Screenplay, Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained. It'd
be BAFTAs as well. And the big one early on,
The Palm Door at Cannes for Pulp Fiction. That
really announced his arrival. He went from indie
darling to like critical heavyweight almost overnight
and completely on his own terms. OK, so to really
get Tarantino, you have to understand where he
came from. It wasn't the usual system. He basically
emerged from, well, a library of movies. Born
in Knoxville, Tennessee. Right. March 27th, 1963.
Yeah, Quentin Jerome Tarantino. And his connection
to pop culture was there from the start. He was
partly named after Quinn Asper, Burt Reynolds'
character in Gunsmoke. Huh, no way. And that
famous self -taught film education. It's legendary
now. He skipped film school. He did. Yeah, it's
hard to believe looking at his films, isn't it?
Right. But he essentially made his own film school.
That famous quote. When people ask me if I went
to film school, I tell them, no, I went to film.
Exactly. And that education happened in a couple
of key places. First, he was an usher at the
Pussycat Theater, an adult movie house, soaking
up genre films, the raw stuff. Right. And then
the big one, video archives. The crucial five
years working at video archives in Manhattan
Beach. That's where it all clicked. Five years
surrounded by tapes, recommending movies, arguing
about them. That must have been like a firehose
of film knowledge. Oh, totally. It wasn't just
shelving videos. He and his friend Roger Avery,
they were like curators. They'd championed obscure
B -movies, foreign films, stuff nobody else was
watching. So he was developing that taste, seeing
the art and genres others dismissed. Yeah, soaking
up visual styles, narrative tricks, dialogue
rhythms. That video store, it basically became
the source code for his whole aesthetic. It was
his university. But before Reservoir Dogs blew
up, there were some early attempts, weren't there?
Almost like myths now. Oh, yeah. Definitely.
Raw efforts. His very first known script was
apparently written when he was just 14. Something
called Captain Peach Fuzz and the Anchovy Bandit.
Fantastic title. Isn't it? But more importantly,
there was the uncompleted film My Best Friend's
Birthday from 87 shot on 16 millimeter. A lot
of that got lost right in a fire. Yeah. Partially
destroyed in a lab fire, sadly. Right. But some
dialogue, some scenes, they survived. And he
ended up folding bits of that into the script
for True Romance. So even then, he was learning
to recycle, repurpose his own ideas. And the
money to actually get going, the seed money,
didn't come from some studio exec. It came from
residuals. From Elvis. Well, playing Elvis. Yeah.
In 1988, he had this bit partisan Elvis impersonator
on The Golden Girls. The Golden Girls. Serious.
Yep. The episode, Sophia's Wedding, part one.
Got paid maybe $650 up front. But the episode
was popular. Got rerun a lot. Ah, so the residuals
kept coming in. Over the next three years, they
added up to about $3 ,000. And that, plus the
stuff salvaged from my best friend's birthday,
that was basically the pre -production fund for
his first real feature script. Which brings us
to Reservoir Dogs, the breakthrough. And that
script, apparently, he just churned it out. Three
and a half weeks. Legend has it. The script was
just electric. He met producer Lawrence Bender.
It got passed around. Monty Hellman got involved.
The director. Yeah, Bender got it to Hellman,
who helped secure some initial funding. But the
absolute game changer was Harvey Keitel reading
it. Right. Keitel didn't just like it. He loved
it. Signed on immediately. Agreed to act in it
and put money into the budget. That was huge.
Having an established Oscar -nominated actor
backing this unknown kid, that gave it instant
credibility. Made it more than just another low
-budget indie. It had weight. So Reservoir Dogs
hit Sundance in 92. And suddenly Tarantino, who
wrote it, directed it, even acted in it as Mr.
Brown. He's like a virgin interpretation. That
guy. Suddenly he's the hottest new voice in Hollywood.
But what's interesting is while he's doing this
edgy indie stuff, he's also moonlighting. As
a script doctor, yeah. Yeah. On big studio movies.
That's the fascinating part. He did uncredited
work polishing dialogue on huge films like Crimson
Tide, The Rock. So he's seeing how the big machine
works from the inside. Exactly. Learning about
high -budget action filmmaking, but consciously
choosing not to direct those kinds of films himself.
He got offered massive projects, right? Speed,
Men in Black. Turn them down. Why? Control. Pretty
much. He prioritized his vision, his control
over the material, instead of cashing in and
directing, say, speed. He took his reservoir
dog's money and went to Amsterdam. Yep. Pulled
up and wrote Pulp Fiction. And when that came
out in 1994, well, it wasn't just a movie. It
was a phenomenon. It completely changed indie
film, didn't it? Cemented his style, the violence,
the dialogue, and especially that fragmented,
non -linear structure. Absolutely. And the success
was insane. Over $200 million worldwide. Wins
the Palme d 'Or, gets him and Roger Avery the
Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It proved
you didn't need a straight line to tell a story
that connected with a massive audience. Okay,
so let's dig into that style. From the video
store origins to the actual cinematic signature,
people call his work postmodern. What does that
really mean for a film like Pulp Fiction? Well,
yeah, he's obviously drawing heavily on film
history. He's not creating in a vacuum. Right,
he's a massive film nerd. Exactly. The postmodern
part is really about the synthesis. He takes
genres that were maybe looked down on, spaghetti
westerns, blaxploitation, Hong Kong martial arts
films, and he mashes them up. Like Sergio Leone's
westerns. He talks about those a lot. Huge influence.
Once upon a time in the West, the good, the bad,
and the ugly. But it's not just the gunfights
he takes. It's that stretched out tension, the
cool factor, the moral ambiguity. And mixing
that with, say, blaxploitation, what does that
mashup achieve? Okay, so blaxploitation films
from the 70s, like the Mac or Foxy Brown, they
had this specific energy. gritty street level,
often focused on black antiheroes, super stylized.
So when Tarantino fuses the kind of Leone -esque
cool and moral gray areas with the visual flair
and attitude of blaxploitation, think Jackie
Brown, he creates something new. It feels vintage,
but also totally contemporary. He's picking the
cool parts of film history and stitching them
together. And he pulls from everywhere, does
any Hong Kong action, Sonny Chiba. Oh, yeah.
Cult figures. He even championed obscure Filipino
directors like Sirio H. Santiago, called him
a personal icon. And his admiration for other
filmmakers like Brian De Palma. That led to casting
Travolta, right? Directly. He loved De Palma's
blowout and saw something in Travolta that Hollywood
had kind of forgotten, which obviously paid off
massively in Pulp Fiction. And he has some surprising
takes, too, like Calling Jaws, the greatest movie
ever, not necessarily the best film. Yeah, that
distinction is interesting. It shows he values.
Cure cinematic experience, the ride, maybe even
over high art refinement sometimes. It's about
impact. So the influences are this rich tapestry,
but the structure, that non -linearity, that's
maybe the most recognizable Tarantino effect.
It's more than just shuffling scenes around,
though. It's deliberate. By shifting the timeline,
he plays with how you understand the characters,
their motivations. Information gets withheld,
then revealed. It ramps up the tension. You see
someone die, then later you see what led up to
it, which totally changes how you feel about
them. Exactly. You see it in Pulp Fiction, Reservoir
Dogs, Kill Bill, Hateful Eight. It's a core tool
for him. And we know it's intentional because
Tony Scott directed True Romance from Tarantino's
script, but Scott made it linear. Right, and
it became this high -energy thriller, totally
different vibe from what Tarantino probably intended,
which was more character -focused. That linear
True Romance is like the perfect contrast to
his own directing style. For Tarantino, the structure
is part of the theme. Okay, structure aside,
the dialogue is probably the other half of the
equation. Oh, absolutely. It's what makes it
all work, arguably. It's that mix of really mundane
pop culture stuff right before or after something
incredibly violent happens. It grounds everything.
You've got hitmen talking about burgers in France
or gangsters debating Madonna lyrics. A royale
with cheese. Like a virgin breakdown. These hyper
real trivial conversations make these often extreme
characters feel weirdly human, relatable even.
They argue about tipping, about foot massages.
It makes the sudden shifts to violence even more
jarring. And that contrast is where his dark
humor comes in, right? Definitely. Which leads
us to the violence itself. We have to talk about
it. It's constant. It's graphic. It's always
been controversial. And he's always defended
it, hasn't he? Famously saying. Because it's
so much fun. Yeah. He argues his films are dramas,
but they have this sense of humor that makes
you laugh at unexpected, often uncomfortable
moments. Even though the body counts can be really
high. Oh, yeah. The data is pretty stark. Like,
Reservoir Dogs had, what, 10 deaths? But over
400 profanities. Yeah. Django Unchained. Fewer
swear words, but like 47 deaths. The intensity
is always there. Another structural thing he
does is build his own universe. The Tarantino
cinematic universe. Yeah, he's actually laid
it out. A two -tiered system, right? Exactly.
Tier one is the realer than real world. Films
like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Once Upon
a Time in Hollywood, they exist in a reality
pretty close to ours, just maybe a bit heightened.
Okay. And tier two. Tier two is the movie movie
universe. These are the films that the characters
in tier one would actually go and watch. So like
Kill Bill or From Dusk Till Dawn are the kind
of B movies Vincent Vega might watch. Precisely.
That explains why those films are even more stylized,
more extreme. They're literally meant to be movies
within his other movies. Yeah. It justifies the
comic book visuals, the anime sequences in Kill
Bill. That's actually quite clever, and this
extends to the product placement, or lack thereof.
The fictional brands, yeah. Big Kahuna Burger,
Red Apple Cigarettes, Jackrabbit Slims. Why do
that? Just to avoid dating the films. That's
part of it, yeah. Keeps them timeless. But it
also reinforces that self -contained universe.
These brains pop up across different films, connecting
them subtly. It makes his world feel more cohesive.
Okay, before we move on from style... We kind
of mentioned the feet. Ah, yes. Feet. It's become
this huge internet thing, hasn't it? The constant
close -ups on bare feet. He gets asked about
it all the time. What's his take? He tends to
get defensive. Dismisses it as just good direction.
Says other great directors did it too. Buñuel,
Hitchcock, Sofia Coppola. It does seem really
prominent in his films compared to others, doesn't
it? I mean, yeah. The frequency and the specific
framing. It feels like more than just coincidence,
whether it's a conscious fetish or just a recurring
visual attack. It's definitely become one of
his unmistakable signatures, maybe even a distraction
for some viewers. So a director with such a specific,
intense style, they often need a loyal crew,
right? People who just get it. Tarantino seems
to have built his own kind of repertory company.
Oh, absolutely. That loyalty is key to the consistency.
The most obvious example is Samuel L. Jackson.
Yeah, nobody delivers Tarantino dialogue quite
like him. He's been in, what, five films Tarantino
directed, plus True Romance, which he wrote.
Six total. Knowing Jackson will deliver the lines
lets Tarantino write specifically for that voice,
that rhythm. It deepens the whole thing. And
then there's Uma Thurman, his muse. Integral
is the word. Three films. Obviously, Kill Bill
is the peak of that collaboration. They develop
the bride character together. That partnership
really shaped those two films entirely. Shows
the trust involved. But maybe the most amazing
collaboration story recently, the one that really
shows his impact, is Christoph Waltz. Waltz is
incredible. He was basically unknown in the U
.S., working mostly in European TV for decades.
Then Tarantino casts him as Hans Landa in Inglourious
Bastards. And boom! Oscar for Best Supporting
Actor. Instantly. And then he does it again a
few years later for Django Unchained. Tarantino
didn't just cast him. He saw this incredible
talent nobody else stateside had tapped into
and gave him this massive platform. Twice. That
loyalty extends behind the camera too, doesn't
it? Especially in the editing room. Sally Menke.
Ah, Sally Menke. Her importance can't be overstated.
She edited every single one of his films until
she sadly passed away in 2010. He called her
his number one collaborator. You did. And think
about her job. Taking these non -linear scripts,
often shot out of order, and making them flow,
making them tense instead of just confusing.
She was the architect, making those complex structures
work so beautifully. Her loss was huge for his
filmmaking process. Now, thinking back to his
video store roots, that love of film history
wasn't just for his own movies. He actively tried
to promote other films, right? As a curator.
Absolutely. That drive led him to set up Rolling
Thunder Pictures back in 95 with Miramax. The
whole idea was to distribute or re -release indie
and foreign films he loved, but that weren't
getting seen. Like Wong Kar -wai's Chungking
Express. Beautiful film. Exactly. And exploitation
stuff like Switchblade Sisters. He wanted to
give these films a platform. But it didn't quite
take off commercially. Sadly, no. The films got
critical praise, but sales weren't great. And
Meermak shut it down after a couple of years.
But the impulse didn't die. He just shifted tactics.
Using his own name. The Presented by Quentin
Tarantino tag. That became his new tool. And
it was brilliant marketing. His name was a stamp
of approval for audiences who trusted his taste.
It gave films mainstream attention they wouldn't
have gotten otherwise. Totally. He used it for
stuff like Iron Monkey, a Hong Kong martial arts
film, and most successfully, Zhang Yimou's Hero.
Hero opened at number one in the U .S., didn't
it? It did. Grossed over $50 million. All thanks
to that. Presented by TAG. He was leveraging
his own fame to champion other people's work
he believed in. He even got involved in producing
a documentary. Yeah, Freedom's Fury in 2006.
It's about that insane blood in the water water
polo match between Hungary and the Soviet Union
at the 56 Olympics right after the Hungarian
uprising. Politically charged story. Incredibly.
Tarantino heard about it, was captivated, said
it was the best story he'd ever heard and wanted
to help get it made. His name helped secure funding
and distribution. And finally, his most literal
commitment to film, buying theaters. This is
like the ultimate film preservationist move,
isn't it? In 2010, he bought the New Beverly
Cinema in L .A. And made that pledge. As long
as I'm alive, and as long as I'm rich, the New
Beverly will be there, showing films shot on
35mm. It's a direct stand against digital, a
commitment to the physical experience of film.
And he didn't stop there. He bought the Vista
Theater recently, too. Yep, in 2021. Same intention.
Keep it running as a first -run theater, but
only showing movies projected on actual film.
He's putting his money where his mouth is when
it comes to preserving the format. Okay, this
leads us neatly into the big thing hanging over
his career right now. The countdown, this self
-imposed limit of exactly 10 films. It's such
a Tarantino move, isn't it? Curating his own
legacy down to the exact number of entries. His
reasoning is pretty interesting, too. He doesn't
want to end on a dud, basically. Right. He talks
about avoiding the horrible last movie that contained
a great director's filmography. He said ending
on a decent movie is rare and ending on a good
movie is kind of phenomenal. He's shooting for
phenomenal, trying to craft this perfect finished
set. And just to clarify the count, Kill Bill
counts as one film, volumes one and two together?
Correct. Which makes Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
from 2019 his ninth. He's got one left in the
chamber. The pressure on that tenth film must
be immense. And he had one planned, right? The
movie critic. He did. Set in 1977 about a guy
reviewing movies for a porn mag. Sounded very
Tarantino -esque, very cinephile -centric. But
then he pulled the plug. Shelved his final film.
Why? He said he was really excited about the
writing phase. But when it came to actually making
it, dramatizing it, he just wasn't feeling it.
He admitted he wasn't really that excited about
dramatizing what I wrote. Wow. So the commitment
to quality, or maybe just his personal connection
to it, overruled the deadline. Seems like it.
He wasn't going to force it just to hit the number
10. He'd rather wait and get it right, even if
it means delaying the final chapter. So what's
he doing instead, if not the 10th film right
now? Well, he's talked about wanting to write
a stage play. and generally just taking his time,
letting the right idea for the final film come
to him, maybe waiting at least a year, which
fits with how he approaches writing anyway. Right,
he talks about screenwriting starting as novel
writing for him. Yeah, he drafts extensive prose
first, gets deep into the characters and world,
almost like writing a novel, then formats it
as a screenplay. Believes it helps the characters
emerge fully formed. Exactly. Gives them that
depth, that backstory, which fuels the dialogue.
And this literary side has become a really significant
part of his output lately. The book deal with
HarperCollins. Yeah, a two -book deal. First
was the novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
in 2021, which wasn't just the script. It added
backstory, changed perspectives, a companion
piece, really. And then cinema speculation. His
film history book came out in 2022. Essays on
70s new Hollywood cinema, mostly. Deep dives
into films and filmmakers he loves. Really successful,
too. And he's gone back to his roots with the
podcast. Video Archives Podcast, yeah. With Roger
Avery, his old video store buddy. They just watch
old tapes, talk about movies they rented out
back in the day. It's like full circle. The curator
and the creator coming together again. His strong
opinions have even gotten him official critic
status, right? On Rotten Tomatoes, yeah, since
2020. And his takes are pure Tarantino. championing
stuff like Ishtar, saying Psycho II is better
than Hitchcock's original. He's never going to
just follow the consensus, even as a critic.
And his skepticism about digital projection,
that ties into the retirement plan too, doesn't
it? Absolutely. He's been very blunt about not
wanting to make films if 35mm disappears entirely.
He sees digital as sterile, lacking the magic,
says he won't even make it to 60 as a filmmaker
in a purely digital world. So the retirement
is partly an artistic statement, a stand against
how he sees the industry changing. OK, so we've
talked about the genius, the style, the legacy
curation. But you can't discuss Tarantino without
discussing the controversies. They're just as
much a part of his story. Definitely. And maybe
the longest running one is about his use of racial
language, specifically the N -word. Yeah, that
goes way back, particularly the public feud with
Spike Lee. Started around Jackie Brown in 97,
Lee called out Tarantino's infatuation with the
word. And Tarantino's defense has always been
pretty fiery. Very. It boils down to a writer's
right as he sees it. He insists he should be
able to write any character, use any language
necessary to make them feel authentic to their
world. I demand the right to tell the truth as
I see they are. That kind of thing. Exactly.
He argued it was true to the setting of Jackie
Brown. He even called Lee's criticism racist
for trying to limit him based on his own race.
It's a really fundamental disagreement about
art, language, and ownership. And it blew up
again with Django Unchained, obviously. Given
the subject matter. Oh, yeah. Using that language
so frequently in a film about American slavery,
hugely polarizing. Spike Lee famously refused
to see it, called slavery a holocaust, not material
for a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western. Bo Samuel
L. Jackson, who starred in it, defended Tarantino.
Jackson argued it felt authentic to the period
and characters. Tarantino maintained he made
Jackie Brown, for instance, primarily for black
audiences and was just reflecting the world.
It's a debate that's never really gone away.
And there's the whole Hardy -Weinstein connection.
Weinstein was crucial to his early success with
Miramax. Absolutely pivotal, which made the reckoning
during the hashtag MeToo movement incredibly
difficult and public for Tarantino. He eventually
admitted he knew more than he let on. Yeah, he
gave that quote, I knew enough to do more than
I did. admitted that both Mira Sorvino, who he
dated, and Uma Thurman had told him about Weinstein's
advances. It was a painful admission of complicity,
or at least inaction. And how he described Weinstein,
a fucked up father figure, that says a lot. It
really does. Captures that complex mix of gratitude,
dependency, and ultimate moral horror. Explains
the hesitation maybe, but he did eventually condemn
him. He also had to apologize for some really
bad comments about Roman Polanski that resurfaced.
Right, from a 2003 interview where he seemed
to downplay Polanski's crime, suggesting the
victim wanted to have it. Just awful stuff. And
when confronted later. He apologized fully in
2018, said he was incorrectly playing devil's
advocate just to be provocative, which kind of
highlights a recurring theme, right? Prioritizing
the edgy statement over maybe thinking through
the implications. That confrontational side comes
out a lot, not just with critics, but industry
people, talk show hosts. Oh, yeah. The Denzel
Washington clash during Crimson Tide script doctoring
over perceived racist dialogue, though Denzel
later said they buried the hatchet. than the
actual physical fight with Don Murphy. The producer
of Natural Born Killers. Yeah, Murphy wrote some
critical stuff about him. Tarantino apparently
found him in a restaurant and insulted him. Ended
up in court. Had to pay a fine. And the David
Letterman story is wild. Letterman tells it like
Tarantino called him up absolutely furious over
some joke Letterman made about an ex -girlfriend
screaming threats like, I'm going to beat you
to death. Seriously? Over a joke? Apparently.
Letterman said he only got this really awkward
grudging apology years later when Tarantino needed
to promote a film on his show. It just paints
a picture of this incredibly volatile personality.
And that volatility definitely extends to journalists
who push him. Famously so. That Channel 4 interview
in 2013 where the journalist kept pressing him
on the link between movie violence and real violence.
He completely lost it. I'm not your slave. I'm
not a monkey. Yeah, just shut down the whole
line of questioning with extreme anger. And more
recently, at Cannes, when asked if Margot Robbie
had too few lines in Once Upon a Time, he just
flatly said, I reject your hypothesis. He does
not like his artistic choices being questioned.
Finally, his very public stance on police brutality,
that caused a huge storm. It really did. October
2015, he attended a rally in New York, spoke
very passionately. Calling murder, murder and
murderers, murderers. Exactly. I'm a human being
with a conscience. When I see murder, I cannot
stand by. Very strong words. Which led to police
unions calling for a boycott of the hateful eight.
Immediately. NYPD union, others across the country.
It was a serious backlash, potentially hurting
the film's release. So he had to walk it back
a bit. He clarified, yeah. Said all cops are
not murderers. And that being it, an anti -brutality
protest didn't make him anti -police. He insisted
he was talking about specific cases, citing names
like Eric Garner, Tamir Rice. But it was a clear
instance where his activism directly clashed
with his business. Hashtag tag outro. So looking
back at everything, Quentin Tarantino's career
is just this incredible story, isn't it? The
ultimate film geek who studied the masters and
then became one himself. Absolutely. Built this
legacy through homage. Yes. But also real innovation.
And all alongside this, shall we say. very colorful
and controversial public persona. He's definitely
a unique force, highly studied, critically lauded.
I remember reading he was the most studied director
in the UK at one point. Yeah, back in 2013. And
yet constantly generating debate. But you can't
deny the critical peak winning all four major
U .S. Critics Awards for Pulp Fiction. L .A.,
National Board of Review, New York National Society.
First director ever to do that just cemented
his status. And now here he stands right on the
edge of this self -declared retirement. One film
left. One shot to stick the landing to avoid
that horrible last movie he fears. And we know
he's willing to scrap ideas like the movie critic
if they don't feel absolutely right for that
final statement. The pressure must be unbelievable.
It's not just got to be a good film. It has to
somehow cap off this entire meticulously curated
10 film arc. It's the ultimate narrative challenge
for him. Can he control this final chapter as
perfectly as he controls the scripts? So. The
big question for all of us watching is, will
this immense pressure to deliver the perfect
ending be the one story he can't quite script?
Or will Tarantino, the master curator, pull off
one last masterpiece, sealing his 10 -film legacy
exactly as planned? That's the cliffhanger, isn't
it? We'll just have to wait and see what he delivers.
That's our deep dive for today. Thanks for joining
us. We'll see you next time.