Quentin Tarantino has no place for weak nerves – in his films, fake blood usually squirts by the liter. The moment of shock: a lasting one. Above all, however, his works have captivated audiences for more than three decades with brilliant dialogue, laconic humor and an all-star cast.
At Tarantino, the who’s who of Hollywood comes together. The list of well-wishers for his birthday should also be top-class. Today (March 27) the American cult director turns 60 years old.
An all-rounder
As an auteur filmmaker, Tarantino makes few compromises. He directs, writes the screenplay, is often a producer himself and takes part in small roles as an actor. “Quentin writes poetry and I like poetry,” Christoph Waltz once said of Tarantino, who has won two Oscars to date.
Those involved in his films have won more of the coveted trophies. Most recently, the homage “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” was honored for best production design and Brad Pitt for best supporting role.
Impressive career
Tarantino is a writing genius with no formal qualifications: the young mother raised little Quentin Jerome alone in Los Angeles. There the film junkie went to ghetto cinemas, where kung fu films and Clint Eastwood westerns were shown.
Everything else he learned through jobs in video stores and acting classes. His passion for film brought him to a directing workshop in Sundance, where Robert Redford hosts the annual independent film festival.
Tarantino celebrated his first big screen success in 1992 with his Sundance debut “Reservoir Dogs”, a merciless gangster chamber play. The fans had to wait two years, then they were compensated with “Pulp Fiction”. The screenplay for the blood orgy about crook honor, murder and manslaughter – with Hollywood greats like Bruce Willis and John Travolta – there was the first Oscar.
Tarantino attributes his success to perseverance. As a young man, he tried to make a movie and failed, he said in 2022 at the OMR digital festival in Hamburg. “The fact that I didn’t stop after that is perhaps the proudest fact of my career.”
Tarantino’s downsides
In 1997, Tarantino provided the gangster epic Jackie Brown. Another six years passed before “Kill Bill”, but Tarantino served up the revenge campaign of a murderous bride (Uma Thurman) in a double pack as “Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2”.
Years after the shooting, a New York Times report led to serious allegations against Tarantino. He persuaded Thurman, who was considered his muse, to do a stunt in which she injured her neck and knees. Thurman himself later said there was no malicious intent behind it – other than the attempt to keep the incident secret. This is due, among other things, to “the notorious Harvey Weinstein”.
The accident came to light in 2018 in the wake of rape allegations against the Hollywood mogul, who has since been convicted several times. Weinstein’s team had previously brought many of Tarantino’s works to the cinema, including the Nazi hunter film “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) and the slave western “Django Unchained” (2012). After the allegations became known, Tarantino admitted that he knew about the sexual assault and did not react in time.
He was “shocked and upset” at the time, but never realized the full extent. He then shot “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” with Sony Pictures. Based on the award-winning film – a journey through time to 1960s Los Angeles – Tarantino published his first fiction work “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” in 2021.
An era is passing
Meanwhile, fans are likely to look forward to his next film with mixed feelings. It has been known for a long time that Tarantino wants to break up afterwards. He has been living in Israel with his wife, the singer Daniella Pick, for several years. In 2022 he became a father for the second time.
“I’ve been doing all this for 30 years,” the director confirmed his plans recently in an interview with US television network CNN. He doesn’t want to become an old man who has lost touch with the present. “It’s time to end the show.”
