Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

In the space of just seven movies, albeit spanning seventeen years Quentin Tarantino has become one of the most popular and controversial directors.

He is a filmmaker who wasn't afraid to take risks and try something new - for that reason he is one of out modern day icons and a filmmaker whose movies will always be remembered.

Before making a film Tarantino sold the script True Romance it went onto be released in 1993 and starred Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette.

His debut movie came in 1992 after he penned the script for Reservoir Dogs which opened at the Sundance Film Festival.

After a simple jewellery heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.

The film was well received by the critics; however it did enjoy more success after the release of Pulp Fiction. However the film was criticised for it strong language and explicit violence in particular Matthew Madsen's ear cutting scene.

However the movie gave audiences a first look at the nonlinear storylines and stylistically excessive violence that he is now so famous - and immediately Tarantino caught everyone's eye.

Next up for the director was a second sold script as Oliver Stone took on Natural Born Killers, but changes Tarantino didn't agree with made him disown his script.

Because of the success of Reservoir Dogs Hollywood came calling and the new filmmaker was offered a series of high budget projects such as Men in Black and Speed but Tarantino stuck to his independent film roots choosing instead to work on Pulp Fiction.

Released in 1994 the story focuses on Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), two hit men on duty for "the big boss," Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), whose gorgeous wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), takes a liking to Vincent.

In the second, a down-and-out pugilist (Bruce Willis), who is ordered to take a fall, decides that there's more money in doing the opposite. The final chapter follows a pair of lovers (Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth) as they prepare to hold up a diner.

The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival and it went on to win the top prize the Palme d'Or and went on to be nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and won Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Roger Avary.

The success of the film changed the way independent filmmaking was seen by Hollywood forever as it became part of the mainstream.

He worked on episode four of movie Four Rooms but it wasn't until 1997 that he completed his third feature film Jackie Brown.

Jackie Brown is based on the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard, although Tarantino made significant changes to the story and characters.

A female flight attendant becomes a key figure in a plot between the police and an arms dealer.

While it received critical recognition, with Forster earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and Jackson and Grier being nominated for Golden Globe Awards the film didn't repeat the success of his previous release Pulp Fiction and it is still the least know of Tarantino's movies.

Fans of the filmmaker would have to wait seven years until a Tarantino movie made it to the big screen. But in 2004 Tarantino returned to the Cannes Film festival with Kill Bill Vol 1.

The Bride wakes up after a long coma. The baby that she carried before entering the coma is gone. The only thing on her mind is to have revenge on the assassination team that betrayed her - a team she was once part of.

He followed this up twelve months later - with Uma Thurman reprising the central role.

Volume 2 picks up where the first film left off, as The Bride (Uma Thurman) resumes her quest to track down her former mentor, Bill (David Carradine), and exact revenge.

But before she gets to Bill, she must first take out the remaining minions who helped to slaughter her best friends and fiancé. First up is Budd (Michael Madsen), a quiet but dangerous country boy who lives in a trailer.

The murderous Bride continues her vengeance quest against her ex-boss, Bill, and his two remaining associates; his younger brother Budd, and Bill's latest flame Elle.

Both the films were met well critically and performed well at the box office with Vol. 1 grossed $180,949,045 worldwide, and later Kill Bill Vol. 2 grossed $152,159,461 worldwide.

However Death Proof didn't fair well with the critics or with at the box office, a double feature alongside Planet Terror in America the films were released separately in the UK.

But he bounced back in fine style with Inglourious Basterds back in 2009 - the cast included Brad Pitt, Christoph waltz, Diane Kruger and Michael Fassbender as well as comeos from Mike Myers and Tarantino himself.

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis.

The movie was both a critical and commercial hit - taking in excess of $320 million worldwide; Tarantino's greatest box office success.

But the film went on to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars and Christoph Waltz picked up Best Supporting Actor for his outstanding performance.

But what has made Tarantino so successful is his determination not to bow to current demands of Hollywood studios and keep the idea of independent filmmaking at the heart of all of his work whether that be directing a film, writing a script or helping to get another project, such as Hostel, off the ground.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw


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