The unique director began his filmmaking career as a young 12-year-old in the heart of Los Angeles, with homemade films and old cameras he found his passion: displaying his weird, wonderful, and downright crazy artistic visions on the big screen. While he began his career at 12 it didn’t truly take off until he was 29 with the release of his first independent film Reservoir Dogs. In 1992 the film industry was very different, which is why Tarantino’s action-packed movies made such a splash. With morally ambiguous characters, violent fight scenes, and intense camera manipulation the young director brought something new to the table. His films often forced the audience to question who the hero was, or if there even was one. This theme has continued throughout Tarantino’s massively successful career, most famously in his film Pulp Fiction, which genuinely displays what it means to be an anti-hero. With these complex characters, Tarantino is able to draw in the audience in a completely unique way. Tarantino’s genius in terms of characters isn’t his only one-of-a-kind quality, he is also known for his interesting inclusion of feet in all of his films. While this isn’t the most important fact when trying to understand Tarantino’s art style, it definitely furthers the feelings of obscurity that accompany the director’s reputation.
While Tarantino is mainly known for his filmmaking skills, he has recently begun to dabble in literature as well. Tarantino famously writes the majority of his own screenplays, however with the release of his new book Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The Novel we see a new side of the directors writing abilities. As mentioned, something that makes his films so fascinating is the way Tarantino develops his characters, making them good, bad, and everything in between. This display of intense personalities is also reflected in the novel, as the story progresses it becomes obvious that the plot is somewhat insignificant and the characters are truly what drives the story. Writing everything in pen on paper, Tarantino creates the elaborate backstories of his absurd characters and is able to put that unique twist on them that makes us truly fall in love with his writing style.
The director’s writing style also differs greatly from his filming style in terms of detail. While the film version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood seems to leave out integral pieces of information leaving viewers confused, the novel spares no expenses. While the storyline follows a group of Hollywood actors in the 1960s, some based on real people, Tarantino creates a fictional world in which Sharon Tate doesn’t get famously murdered by serial killer Charles Mansion. This combination of reality and fantasy is clear in the book, as we see how Manson created a name for himself and the real-life methods behind his madness mixed with an alternate reality where he never actually got the chance to commit any crimes. What is fascinating about the novel is how he is able to manipulate his characters and their relationships in order to create an intriguing fantastical world. Despite the book remaining quite true to the movie, it is still worth a read if you, like I, enjoyed all the absurdity of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
