Quentin Tarantino: Mr. Red

A Tarantino trademark is to perversely combine comedy and gruesome violence. It keeps the audience off balance--you never know when a funny scene's going to turn a dark corner, or if a murder is leading to a punchline. This happens throughout Pulp. In one scene a bunch of guys attempt, with sitcom incompetence, to clean up a mess they've made before one of their wives gets home-- only these men are gangsters and the mess is a murder victim, his brains and blood spattered, JFK-like, all over a car in the garage.

I figure if Tarantino can explain where this weirdness came from, I'll have some insight into where he's coming from. "Um--I'm not really a hundred percent sure where it came from," he says. "It was sort of like the idea of--the comedy is the reality of it. As opposed to gangsters doing what gangsters do, they're dealing with real-life concerns, which are fucking them up. They're not worried about cops, they're worried about this guy's wife coming home. It's absurd because it seems like real life." Oh yeah, real life. Right. I hate it when I get brains all over the backseat.

Tarantino could serve as the Janet Reno poster boy for movie violence: "Senators, here's that proof I was looking for--this poor bastard watched exploitation films as a child, and look what happened." Tarantino's been fielding questions about the blood in his movies from his earliest interviews and, well, now he has to do it again. He remains unrepentant on the subject. "It's funny because to me, I'm never--the only time I put any thought to the subject," he says a bit wearily, "is when a journalist asks me a question about it. I want to say something interesting and truthful--so I think about it. But in giving an answer I'm giving you the impression that I walk around with this philosophy of violence. I have no more problem with violence in movies than I do with dance or subtitles or slapstick. My mother doesn't like slapstick--that doesn't make her a jerk. It comes down to what some people like and don't like."

Actually, as he knows, it comes down to what some people in Washington want to ban. But Tarantino doesn't have nightmares of censors snipping away at his artfully staged mayhem. "It's just getting inflamed right now. It'll go away after a certain point. My first couple of movies have been in the crime film genre--it's violent. I'm not afraid of showing violence. I think it's very cinematic. I like Godard's quote in Pierrot le Fou: 'There is no blood in Pierrot le Fou. There is only the color red.'"

I ask Tarantino the film nut what his favorite Shootout scenes in other people's movies are, knowing that he's probably got it all worked out. "Well, obviously The Wild Bunch shootout, as well as--it's almost as good--John Milius's big shootout in the last third of Dillinger when the G-men surround Pretty Boy Floyd. He almost manages to accomplish everything Peckinpah did without the slow motion. As far as I'm concerned, John Woo does the best shootouts of anyone, although there are a lot of people in Hong Kong who could give him a run for his money. Woo's A Better Tomorrow Part 2 is probably my favorite shootout of all time. And-- this has to be mentioned--the restaurant shootout in Year of the Dragon. A true masterpiece of filmmaking. It couldn't be better, actually. When an action scene works, you forget that you're watching a movie. You forget you're breathing. Those are great, great moments that cinema can do that few other art forms can."

Movie art is one thing. But Tarantino's gleeful portrayal of graphic violence isn't just aesthetics, or for that matter, sadism. I think he wants to kick the audience's ass by giving them that "real life" he talks about. But how personal is his take on violence? Has he ever experienced violence in his own world? "Yeah," he says, quietly, then pauses. "Just bizarre things from living real life. Real-life violence is bizarre." He looks up at two young boys who are studying us curiously through the window of the restaurant. They start making faces. "Like someone looking at this kid, and suddenly giving him a smack on the face. I'd be shocked."

What about Tarantino's parents? What are they like? "I--I only have a mom," he says in a subdued voice. "My mom is an executive with a home medical organization." Period. More coffee.

"What scares you?" I ask Tarantino. "Well, it's been a long time since I saw anything in the movies that scared me--"

"No," I say, "what scares you in real life?"

"Oh. Well, lots of things. Rats. I have a big rat phobia. I'm serious."

Then he launches into a detailed description of a "Roseanne" episode he just saw, in which Rosie's macho husband Dan backs out of a bar fight at the last minute because, he promised her he wouldn't fight and he really just doesn't want to do it again. Later Roseanne tells him, "Me and the kids civilized you when you wasn't looking." Just as I'm wondering what this has to do with Tarantino's fears, he says, "I used to live and walk around in some of the most fucked up areas you could ever imagine. I went out of my way to go to those areas, you know. I never once gave, like, two thoughts about it. I used to have the biggest balls in the world. I'd see a guy coming towards me, I'd look like a badass and dare him to say something."

"Just how much of a badass were you?" I ask. I know he didn't finish high school, but I'm not sure what that had to do with badass-dom. Tarantino says, "Well, I--I'm not bragging about it. I'm just, you know --I don't know. I just wasn't scared about stuff. I figured I could handle any situation I was in. But oddly enough, I can't even remember the last fight I was in. Since I've been an adult. Now I'm on my guard more, and partly it's because, in a way, I've become a little civilized. Being the baddest guy in the world isn't the most important thing anymore. I think it's that I can feel the repression in the air, and the threat of violence, and it makes me a little sad and scared."

Pages: 1 2 3