Tuesday 12 January 2016

Quentin Tarantino’s Visual References

It is a well known fact that Quentin Tarantino is a self-proclaimed cinephile. But the writer/director's love for cinema is most obviously expressed through his own films. In addition to showing his characters spending a great deal of time discussing cinema, Tarantino's films are jam-packed with homages and visual references to the movies that have intrigued him throughout his life.
    Many filmmakers pay homage, but Tarantino takes things a step further by replicating exact moments from a variety of genres and smashing them together to create his own distinct vision. Just like Kill Bill: Vol 2 (2004) draws on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and Samurai Fiction (1998), Tarantino's work often reflects Spaghetti Westerns and Japanese cinema--both new and old. His unique way of referencing other films allows him to bend genre boundaries and shatter the mold of what we expect to experience. While his methods are often criticized and he is accused of "ripping off" other filmmakers, it seems that Tarantino is simply writing love letters to the art he is ever so passionate about.
    From German silent-cinema to American B movies, the following video uses split-screen to demonstrate a few of the hundreds of visual film references over the course of Tarantino's career.     ~Jacob T. Swinney



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