In 1992, Quentin Tarantino was still an unknown newcomer to Hollywood, not even a small coffee, and went all over to raise money for his films. In the end, he brought in tens of thousands of dollars and flicked various relationships with his three-inch tongue to send his debut film "Falling Water Dog" to the Sundance Film Festival.
As a result, the World War I became famous, and it was unacceptable. Two years later, he took out the global noir film "Pulp Fiction", and thus embarked on the road of a generation of famous directors. Before being disciplined by the Oscars, Quentin Tarantino’s films had a strong personal style, bluffing, using foreshadowing and reversal to bury the plot explosives; the characters’ chattering lines controlled the narrative rhythm and played at the same time. When it comes to shaping the character, it conveys the characteristics of the character that are either ironic or appreciated.
Of course, there is also his signature, violent aesthetics of stealing Hong Kong movies. Suddenly inflicting exaggerated and bloody violence in the boring and slightly boring dialogue, this trick made his director's movie "Kill Bill" look cold even now, chilling and nerve-painful.
This year, he will present his masterpiece "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" to movie fans , and the movie has been finalized in the mainland. It is rare for movie fans to see Quentin's work on the big screen.
Although Quentin’s personal style has converged slightly after "Inglourious Basterds" and made more compromises for commercialization, his personal style is still interspersed in every corner of the film, as if a "virus" is generally infected with classical film elements. The major "cells" of "Quentin" made traditional gangster movies, police movies, and action movies finally become "Quentin movies" branded with a strong style.
To understand Quentin’s movie style, one must naturally start with his first feature film. That looks rough but actually quite sophisticated debut, "The Dog in the Water" , is the type and style origin of all Quentin’s movies in the later period.
Quentin's film features are not in the story, but in the narrative, that is, the method of telling the story . After graduating from high school at the age of 18, Quentin worked odd jobs in a video rental shop, looking for dreams. As a movie fanatic, he relied on imitation and self-study to gradually comprehend and master a lot of film knowledge and techniques. In 1991, he sold his own script "Fatal Romance" and earned $50,000. After he finally got the "first pot of gold", he decided to start filming his third script "Falling Dog".
"Falling Dog" can tell the whole story in almost 30 seconds. The gangsters, father and son, found a group of thugs to rob the jewelry store. As a result, there were police undercover in the thugs. A group of people were ambushed by the police during the robbery. The dead, the wounded, the gangsters who had returned to the warehouse and suspicion each other, and finally got angry, a group of seemingly fierce thugs died of arrogance and softheartedness one after another.
This story is very clichéd, and the film has no big stars, no street shootouts, and no classic story of twists and turns. As a newcomer, Quentin chose a "smart" approach and adopted a non-linear narrative . After breaking down the cause and effect of the whole robbery process, he put it together according to the different perspectives of the characters, so that the audience can gradually understand the incident step by step. The truth behind it, and the important source that led to the ending.
To watch Quentin's movies, one must be familiar with the two concepts of "sudden turn and irony". The first act of the film is a chatter that fans who are used to watching Hollywood's "three-part narrative" style film usually think it is extremely boring. A group of gangsters were talking about each other in the breakfast before the robbery, arguing about everything from Madonna’s songs to old-fashioned movies, and in the end they quarreled without giving the waiter a dollar tip.
In fact, this group drama is extremely important . You can understand the character of each character through the lines of the characters, either in disguise or real. For example, the fan who was unwilling to tip, found various reasons for not paying, and finally had to pay because the boss spoke. This personality trait provides the premise and logical motivation for his subsequent behavior in the warehouse. ；
But Mr. Bai, who is uncomfortable with this behavior, is a robber, but he has a chivalrous spirit in his heart, awe-inspiring justice, and his character of loyalty is quickly revealed; Mr. Jin, who doesn’t laugh, is about to draw his gun at every turn. When everyone talks, he shows a paranoid side; and Mr. Orange, who rarely speaks and hides his thoughts, is actually suspicious early in the morning; and the fuse of a group of people is the fuse of the big brother Joe, who thinks that he must pay a tip. Strong, but also the performance of this scene into the woods three points. The conversation of a group of people can see their personality weaknesses, and at the same time can judge the communication barriers brought about by their mutual personalities, indicating their unsatisfactory actions and the tragedy that may eventually be caused.
Quentin's dramas rarely have useless pens , and all seemingly unremarkable are foreshadowing and accumulating tension. After a group of people chatted and laughed, Mr. Bai immediately fled back to the warehouse with the injured and crazy Mr. Orange. The dramatic drop in one after another was Quentin's usual sudden change.
After returning to the warehouse, Mr. Fan, who is unwilling to tip, Mr. Jin, who is violent and unreasonable, and the boss and son return to the warehouse one after another. The audience will see a fire that would not have caused it and pass by. Before telling the results, Quentin explained the reasons for Mr. Bai, Mr. Jin, and Mr. Orange to join the action through interruptions and flashbacks. The arrangement of the three paragraphs is to continue to dig into the character of the characters on the one hand, and at the same time establish the logic of the relationship between the characters. For example, why would the son of a big brother trust Mr. Jin so much that he is not an undercover agent. It can be seen from the two men's fight in the office like children, as well as his own violent tendencies;
Why does Mr. Bai desperately defend Mr. Orange, even hesitating to draw his guns against the big guy as a friend? First of all, Mr. Bai’s inner justice, and his and Mr. Orange’s deep foundation of "big guy and little brother" before the robbery friendship.
So why can Mr. Orange fool a group of "senior and professional" thugs. When you see Mr. Orange, in order to play his role well, he does not hesitate to recite a lot of lines, and his careful thought of "ready to go" before acting, you will understand the character's inner meticulousness and adequate preparation.
All the scenes are to prove the "self-consistent" of the ending of the story , and make the causal link more convincing. In the last scene of the story, when Mr. Orange's identity is shaken off through the reminiscence narrative, the irony tone is revealed again. If at the beginning, the fans were still brainstorming who is the undercover, when the story progressed to this scene, in fact, the mystery had been revealed. Quentin directly told the audience the location of the foreshadowing bomb, and then mischievously started the countdown and let the audience see it in person. I saw a group of gangsters trapped in the bottom of the valley falling into a tragic trap because of their personality defects.
The details shown in the non-linear reminiscence narrative scene show Quentin's extreme obsession with the script, and he is bound to make the best shots of each scene. He cares about movies and is very patient, willing to take the time to ensure that every lens angle, every look, every action, and every movement of the camera can meet the needs of the story.
Compared with the exquisiteness of "Pulp Fiction", Fatty actually prefers the roughness and the fineness of "Falling Water Dog". Except for the opening breakfast shop, the scene of the whole movie is the factory warehouse behind. The lack of funding makes the film more prominent in the minimalist style of the importance of mirroring and performance.
We are always the soul of the movie is the story, but we often forget that telling a story is sometimes more important than the story itself. A movie is an organism composed of multiple elements, just like the public's definition of beauty. Although there are traditional representations of beauty, we can also regard it as a representative of beauty because of its outstanding aspect.
Therefore, the classic film discusses eternal and universal forms, but formulas; it discusses meticulousness, not a shortcut; it discusses originality, not mechanical reproduction. In the practice of this, Quentin did it through "Falling Water Dog", and has been practicing it, and finally made him a master of generation.
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