Quentin Tarantino
by James Crotty
April 1, 1999
QUENTIN TARANTINO INVITES US
OVER FOR "MEAT LOAF" AND
DEMANDS THAT WE LIKE IT,
ALRIGHT?!
Austin, TX
hey call him
"Quentin." Not "Mr.
Tarantino." Not "Quentin
Tarantino." He's revered
here in Austin because he has deigned to show
a selection of his private collection
of favorite films at the Third Annual Quentin
Tarantino film festival (AKA "QTIII").
It's quite admirable actually. Especially because
Tarantino sits through the entire
nine-day event, including two daunting Saturday
all-nighters, a children's film showcase
(take that Christian Right!), expertly and
persuasively introducing each movie, then
laughing and enjoying each one like the rest of
the rapt audience at the Alamo Drafthouse
Cinema.
Now, a cynic might argue that Tarantino is
showcasing his favorite forgotten films
in Austin because he has found an
accommodating host in Richard Linklater, or
because
Austin is easily wowed by the charming, famous,
if preachy, former video store geek.
Or maybe because Austin offers that rare
combination of intelligent appreciative filmgoers,
who won't be pestering "QT" for an
autograph. From what we garnered, it's probably
a combination of all three.
Admittedly, we've never quite understood the
popularity of Quentin Tarantino. That
is, until tonight. After a forty minute chat with
Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool
News, it becomes quite clear: Quentin is a critic's
darling. Stroking them with his
knowledge of obscure films, and then
referencing those films in his own work (see
critical
faves like Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, and, of
course, Pulp Fiction). We're not
saying that Quentin panders to critics. Rather,
critics find in Tarantino a kindred
spirit--someone who loves film for film's sake.
Particularly American film. Particularly
violent, loud, exploitive American film. You will
rarely find a subtle, smart, and
rhetorically sophisticated
non-violent
flick on a QT list. As the event flyer states,
"Tarantino's idea of a good time is
hanging out with friends, drinking beer and
watching B-movies." It makes you wonder:
if Quentin regards the movie theater as
"church," why does he naturally
gravitate
towards the profane?
We would have asked "Quentin" this
question directly, but it was made clear that
inside
this Austin temple of film, QT was off limits. We
respect that. But it also left
us with further questions about a guy who
doesn't care much for the Beatles, yet
raves about Navajo Joe.
Quentin Tarantino:
We've done this three times and I don't want
to jinx it or anything, but I think
we've figured out what we're doing now. I read a
couple of press things that came
out. The article was something like, "Quentin
Tarantino brings bad movies into town....
There's no Oscar winners in this bunch." That's
like so not at all what we're doing
here. Now some of the movies are really far left
of center. And some of them are
pretty damn wild or crazy or out of control. But
this is not a 'so bad they're good'
kind of thing. I don't really agree with that 'so bad
they're good' thing. Whether you like
them or not, I like them and I'm presenting them.
If you all came over to my house
for meat loaf, I don't want you to talk shit about
my meat loaf. That whole kind
of snobbery attitude to me is just so anti-cinema
and anti-art. Some people might not like
it, but I'm not beholden to your
taste
. So that's where we're coming from on this.
One of the things that's been so great is that
we're actually having the theatrical
experience on a whole lot of movies that haven't
had the theatrical experience in
twenty years at the least. Films were meant to
be seen. Theatrical movies weren't
exactly meant to be seen by you on a couch
watching it on a t.v. and doing a crossword
puzzle
at the same time. They were meant to be
experienced by a whole bunch of strangers
together. They need you all to see them to
prove that they exist. And to like them
or reject them or to love them. At the end of
every festival there's always about seven
movies in particular that you'll probably be seeing
for the very first time. You
may know who the actor is, you may not. You
may know who the director is. You may
not. But there are going to be real discoveries. If
you're here from the beginning to the end
you'll have little discoveries and a couple of them
might actually end up on your
favorite list of all time. That's one of the things I
like most about doing this,
bringing you films you never heard of before and
rocking your world.
One of the other things that happens in the
course of the whole festival is a personality
starts developing and the films kind of start going
together. I have a love for a
lot of the 70s stuff. So, an example is maybe
watching a cheerleader movie say on
Monday and then on Thursday all of a sudden a
waitress will walk into a movie with John
Wayne and you'll be saying, "Hey, that's the
cheerleader." That's Heather from Revenge
of the Cheerleaders, she's the stewardess. Little
by little, actors keep popping
up in this movie and that movie and it wasn't
really even set up to be done like that.
It just kind of works out really great. Anyway,
this is my idea. Where other people
would go and make dinner for somebody I, like,
show eight films. I'm a frustrated
tech and this is my chance to do it. So that's a
pep talk about the festival.
The only other announcement I want to make: A
kind of bad thing has started happening
in revival screenings. A movie comes out and it's
either an old movie or maybe unsophisticated
compared to where we are now, or it might
even be a touch cheesy. Some of these wild
movies are going to have really funny moments
in them. Some of them are
going to be really ridiculous and laugh your ass
off. But the point is, laugh when
it's funny. Don't laugh to just show how superior
you are to the film. Don't laugh
just because you're going to show how cooler
you are than the people who made this movie.
That's not funny. It's particularly bad news
whenever you see a silent film because
everyone is just laughing. You've got to put
yourself in the place of the audience
this movie was made for. So that's the last of
the admonishments.
The first two movies tonight are actually one
movie. It's the Three and Four Musketeers.
It always irritates the hell out of me to call it the
Three and Four Musketeers because
it was actually just meant to be one movie.
When Richard Lester made the Three
Musketeers it was meant to be like this four
hour Russian epic. What happened was
the money grubbing producers, the Salkinds, cut
the movie in half and released it
within six months of each other. So basically the
only way to see this movie the
way it was originally intended is when they
re-released it as a double feature. So we're
doing
that tonight.
I think the Three Musketeers is one of the single
greatest epics made in the 70s.
I have to admit, I have never been the greatest
Richard Lester fan. I like some of
his movies. Juggernaut in particular. But I don't
really care for Petulia. I don't
really get Hard Day's Night. Alright!, I'm not a
Beatles fan to begin with. But this movie
is absolutely amazing. I can't even imagine
another epic that juggles so many different
things. The film works beautifully as an
adventure film. It works as a satire of
adventure films. It also works as a satire of the
time that the movie takes place in.
There's a lot of wicked black comedy going on
throughout the movie. The action in
this movie is about as good as it gets. This movie
has a fantastic all-star cast.
But what rarely happens when you see an epic
with an all-star cast is it's a movie where these
actors are doing some of the best work they've
ever done. I don't think Michael York
has ever been more charming than as
D'Artagnan in this film. Charlton Heston is so
great as Cardinal Richelieu. Christopher Lee, who
has made over three hundred movies,
is so amazing. Second only to Dracula is his
performance in this film. It's one of
Faye Dunaway's best performances. Far and
away Raquel Welch's finest hour. She's
really funny in the movie. But to save the best
for last you have to talk about Oliver Reed.
Oliver Reed is just fucking GOD in this movie.
Oliver Reed owns the film. In fact,
I even heard a really great story from Robert
Rodriguez [who spoke with] William
Hobbs, the fight choreographer for the Three
and Four Musketeers. The fight choreography
in this film is so fantastic. Every actor in the film,
every one of the Three Musketeers,
has their own singular fighting style that works
with that character and that actor. When you
watch Michael York's acrobatic comedy routine
in this film it's going
to remind you of Jackie Chan. Oliver Reed has
no finesse as a fighter in this film.
He's like a bull. A bull sword-fighting. During the
fight training Oliver Reed threw
himself into the fighting so much he made all the
other Musketeers work twice as hard.
They knew if they didn't, Oliver Reed was going
to own the movie completely. He was
that good. You've never seen sword fights the
way Oliver Reed fights them in this
movie. He's like half beating you up at the same
time as he's sword-fighting. This movie
also has just a teeny tiny touch of a Shaw
brothers Kung Fu flavor to it. The sword
fighting is fetishized exactly the way martial arts
are fetishized in Kung Fu films.
But the thing that really kind of blows you away
is that these two movies have probably
the best slapstick ever put on film since Buster
Keaton. And I'm saying a big thing
here because he's the man. It has a take-off on
Aleksandr Nevsky, the big famous
Russian battle sequence where the big war is
going on top of a frozen lake. They have
a frozen lake sword fight in the second half that
is just fantastic. Also when you
watch the film, the first half is very light and then
it gets darker and darker into
the second half. I just love this movie. I don't even
know if it can ever be duplicated
again. I don't know if you could ever make a
movie of this budget. If you had to
make a movie with this style and this subject as
grand as they did it back then,
I don't know if it would be viable today. And so
let's watch the movie.
