Monday, April 4, 2011
Blog Assignment 1A
I am aspiring to become a film director, and one person who inspires me as an artist is the director Quinton Tarantino. In my opinion, he is one of the most talented directors ever and proves it in every single movie he comes out with. Yes, a lot of his writing is gory and usually vulgar, but you can’t deny the artistry that goes into his work. He devotes so much time and commits himself fully to the screenplays that he writes. His trademarks are what really make me enjoy his films though. This goes along with the idea of Contrast and Affinity. His possibly most famous reoccurring theme is the use of the trunk and hood point of view shot in his films. A video of all of these upward angle shots can be found here:
This, as well as many others things seen before, such as his use of black and white suits, his long scenes with very extensive dialogue, and the use of very extreme close-up to depict the intensity of the scene, are used to create a sort of comfort that the fans of Tarantino have built up. He made it into a way to recognize him, and something that no other director really has. Even to the untrained eye, you can see the distinctness in the writing, acting and shooting of every Tarantino film, and that is truly special. It is this use of affinity and style that puts him in his own class. This is something that I would want if I ever became a director, because so many movies today are the same. The plots are all easy to follow, and there’s just nothing distinct about them. I want to make something that people can recognize me by, and Tarantino inspires me to do that.
Another very important aspect of Tarantino’s directing and writing is the use Tension and Release. The idea behind this is to have build up and suspense so the audience is bracing themselves for something to happen, and then all of it is taken away. Tarantino uses this in a couple different ways; my favorite is in this video:
I enjoy this because he plays around with the idea of tension and release a couple different times. First there is the tension of Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta’s characters getting shot, but the bullets miss. Then both of them shoot the man who missed all of his shots, which is the release. However, in the next scene it is shown that the tension for the character played by Samuel L. Jackson is still there and he is starting to talk about how he was protected by some higher power. As this builds up and becomes an argument between him and Travolta, the innocent person who we don’t really know sitting in the back seat gets shot. This is a release of the tension because it takes our minds completely off of the idea of divine intervention and immediately onto the more important matter of their car being filled with blood. He makes tension and release into a toy almost, never giving the audience a chance to relax. This is what makes a movie gripping and entertaining, and for me that is very important.
This last example is from his film called Jackie Brown. The actual plot of the movie doesn’t matter for this example, all that matters is the song that Jackie plays on the record player in this scene:
This song is so important because it defines the relationship with Jackie and Max, the other person in the scene. It is just a song that she decides to play, but Max decides to buy the tape and listen to it all the time in his car. This is the idea of Text and Subtext because it’s underlying meaning is the love between the two. Though this isn’t an important part of the movie, it does have a very powerful meaning, and I believe that music should play a big role in films.
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