QUENTIN TARANTINO’S CINEMATIC LEGACY 1

Beyond the Bloodbath: Exploring Quentin Tarantino’s Cinematic Legacy in Hollywood

Leen M. Rabaah

Department or Foreign Languages, University of Sharjah

0202212: Research Paper Writing

Dr. Rania Al-Sabbagh

February 15, 2024

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Beyond the bloodbath: Exploring Quentin Tarantino’s cinematic legacy

When Quentin Tarantino's name is mentioned, it immediately conjures thoughts of violence in

cinema, with films like Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs serving as prime examples. However,

Tarantino's contributions extend beyond violence; he is renowned for his original ideas and

techniques. As a child, Quentin developed a passion for filmmaking by merely watching movies

and never did actually study filmmaking. In addition, actors who work closely with him, are often

amazed by his ability to create such a unique and original style; Tim Roth, who has acted in two

of his movies, remarked that Tarantino is “incredibly inventive” (Kaye, 2015, P.8). However, his

sense of uniqueness has been always evident in his career; as he is planning to only have a 10-

movie-long career, for the reason that he believes it is best for a director to retire at the peak of

their career in order to leave a good impression (Real Time with Bill Maher, 2021). Tarantino’s

distinctive storytelling style and popular culture references in his films and their lasting impact on

cinema after his retirement are a great inspiration for the future generations of directors.

When his style is described as unique or distinctive it means that it is different from what

Hollywood is used to in the sense of structure and techniques. That is why his style is expected to

have a great influence on contemporary cinema. Tarantino, is initially a storyteller, given the fact

that he writes and direct his movies. In movies such as Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction

(1994), he uses a style that wasn’t very popular in his time; the story in each of these movies is

told in a “jumbled” (Berg, 2006, P. 37) order, so, as the story unfolds, he picks at different instances

of it in a fun way that seems to attract the viewer. Now this technique existed before him but was

in fact rare, and according to Berg (2006), directors such as Richard Linklater and Stanley Kubrick
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have used this technique long before him but it is evident that he is “leading the latest parade”

(P.2).

However, during his time, in the late 90s, his style started coming to prominence in Hollywood

and critics coined the term “Tarantino Effect” referring to the use of his style in storytelling and

“to the transition of low budget movies to Hollywood hits” (Tyler, 2022, P.6). One of the most

frequent examples of a movie influenced by the “Tarantino Effect” is Christopher Nolan’s

memento 2001, which, according to Sims (2016), had a low budget in proportion to its success

and it uses a similar plotting style to that of Tarantino’s movies. Tarantino does not invent new

techniques, rather he toys with a technique in a creative way that it looks different from what

Hollywood usually expects, and that is, the conventional chronological order storytelling style: a

beginning, a middle and an end.

On a deeper look into the stories that Tarantino produces, a very obvious aspect is his use of pop

culture references. In his movies, Tarantino refer to music lyrics, movie scenes, literature and

other texts. According to Rennett (2012), this style categorizes Tarantino as a “Director as DJ,” a

term coined by Timothy Corrigan in the late 90s, and it refers to both the director who makes on

producing a moving picture and a the DJ who mixes and produces music. Ultimately, “this

deviation from the traditional director is not only a representative of hip hop, but of the

contemporary world as a whole” (Rennette, 2012, P. 2). Such a style is known for it’s use of what

is called ‘intertextuality’ in order to evoke a certain

memory or thought in the mind of the viewer.

Although Hollywood was not a big fan of the style,

Tarantino “ was too much his own man ever to

comply with Hollywood thinking…but that is exactly Figure 1, Pulp Fiction 1994
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what he was proposing”(Nathan, 2022, P.226); an unfamiliar approach of intertextuality into

film. In his book, Nathan narrates Tarantino’s journey of writing his first script as it got rejected

multiple times from Hollywood for its violent content and pop culture references before it finally

made its way to the “the Dark side of Hollywood”(Nathan, 2022, P.88). In Tarantino’s famous

scene in Pulp fiction 1994 (figure 1), he uses Chuck berry’s song You Can Never Tell that goes

back to the 80s, referring back to a classical dance scene from Bande Á Part 1964, in addition to

directing of Uma Thurman to dance like one of the cats in the animation movie The Aristocats

1970. These classical references allows viewers and critics to consider different approaches in

interpreting the meaning and message behind his movies. And as Rennett (2012) put it “since

the content of the films of the director as DJ can challenge Hollywood standards, the true stance

of this type of director as an outlaw seems to be the result of his promotion as a rebel”(Rennett,

2012, P.9), and in fact Tarantino seems to be a rebellious spirit.

In conclusion, Tarantino has learned and identified his own style merely from watching movies

and analyzing different styles, and this allowed him to create his own long-lasting signature in

cinema. Despite all the criticism regarding the violence in his movies, he still made his way up

with his raw passion and unique vision by challenging Hollywood norms. His use of

intertextuality and non-linear narrative style paved the way for a new look into cinematic texts

and allowed the viewer to revisit old classical texts and use them as references to analyze and

produce current texts. Many young directors and directors of his age have been influenced by his

style let alone the influence he has on Hollywood that is going to commemorate his work long

after his retirement. Dr. Richards comments on Tarantino’s legacy, saying that “just the role he

has had in the commercialisation of independent cinema will be a significant legacy of his”

(Brine, 2019, P.44).

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References

Kaye, D. (2015, December 23). Tim Roth on the Hateful Eight & working with Tarantino.

ScreenRant. https://screenrant.com/hateful-eight-tim-roth-interview/

Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO). (2021, January 26). Quentin Tarantino: Once Upon a Time in

Hollywood [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/6D79c4RKXyo?si=5l8_dVjnm5-iyn4D

Berg, C. R. (2006). A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying the “Tarantino

Effect.” Film Criticism, 31(1/2), 5–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44019213

Tyler, A. (2022, April 23). What is the Tarantino Effect? How he changed Hollywood movies.

ScreenRant. https://screenrant.com/quentin-tarantino-effect-movies-change-cinema-

timelines-budgets/

Sims, D. (2016, March 16). How Memento set the framework for Christopher Nolan’s career. The

Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/memento-is-a-

precise-twisty-delight-15-years-on/473973/

Corrigan, T. (1998). Auteurs and the new Hollywood. In J. Lewis (Editor), The new American

cinema (38–63). Duke University Press.

Rennett, M. (2012), Quentin Tarantino and the director as DJ. The Journal of Popular Culture,

45(2), 391-409. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00918.x

Nathan, I. (2019). Quentin Tarantino: The iconic filmmaker and his work. White Lion Publishing.
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Brine, J. (2019, August 25). Quentin Tarantino’s complicated legacy in a diverse

Hollywood. On The Record. https://ontherecordunisa.com/2019/08/25/quentin-

tarantinos-complicated-legacy-in-a-diverse-hollywood/
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