Quentin Tarantino and the American Imagination

This case study will discuss and examine the American director Quentin Tarantino, and how his film work is an action and take on many aspects from American society and historical contexts, such as the role of women, gangsters and the influence of the Anti-War film and his revival of the western. The essay will also discuss African Americans and their representations throughout his work. It is key to understand that Tarantino, as an auteur director, makes many of his films as pastiches and borrows from many genres – giving the case study a lot of material to explore on many of the subjects mentioned. Before going into the film industry, Tarantino was a video store clerk who was exposed to a massive amount of films daily, giving him a wide understanding of many genres and ideas, whilst growing up in an ever changing America. Indeed, Tarantino is a very influential and famous director who has been chosen due to his variety of different genre films and how each one of them makes a unique statement in regards to the American imagination. The films that will be analysed are ‘Reservoir Dogs’ (1992) ‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994) ‘Jackie Brown’ (1997) ‘Kill Bill Volume 1’ (2003) ‘Kill Bill Volume 2’ (2004) ‘Inglorious Basterds’ (2009) ‘Django Unchained’ (2012) and ‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015). 

This case study will begin with the analysis of Tarantino’s involvement in the Western genre, prominently with this two westerns, ‘Django Unchained’ and ‘The Hateful Eight’ his two most recent films. Many say that Tarantino brought the Western back, and could be argued that Tarantino has used many Western aspects in his films before, with ‘Reservoir Dogs’ and its Mexican standoff scene, and ‘Kill Bill Volume 2’ for part of its setting and characters. On Tarantino’s influence from the genre, he says: ‘’One thing that’s always been true is that there’s no real film genre that better reflects the values and the problems of a given decade than the Westerns made during that specific decade.’’(Brown, 2015) It can be said that both of his films are a message on race during the 2010’s, with matters such as ‘Black Lives Matter’ and the resurgence of racism in not just America, but the rest of the world becoming more prominent – Tarantino confirms his westerns being a message on race. ‘’And one of the things I think I had to say in this regard was dealing with race in America, which a lot Westerns had avoided for such a long time.’’ (Rupe, 2015) While both of his films share a similar message, they are almost two different types of westerns, Django Unchained being a spaghetti western and The Hateful Eight taking not just inspiration from ‘The Magnificent Seven’ title, but being a mystery/detective film in a way more than it is a western. Django Unchained is almost a homage to spaghetti westerns and the works of Sergio Leone, and can be seen as a parody in some ways, with its Ku Klux Klan scene being very reminiscent of Mel Brook’s 1974 film ‘Blazing Saddles.’ Compared to ‘The Hateful Eight,’ Django is very tongue in cheek with quotes and phrases such as the eponymous hero Django (Jamie Foxx) being known as ‘the guy who’s the talk of the town’ and ‘the fastest gun in the south.’ Tarantino’s common use of revenge in his films is also present here, the main story focusing on Django, a freed slave and his bounty hunter partner Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) on a journey to free Django’s wife from a plantation – which ends in a bloodbath with Django coming out as the vengeful victor. ‘’Tarantino discussed an idea for a form of Spaghetti Western set in the United States’ pre-Civil War Deep South which he called “a southern,” stating that he wanted “to do movies that deal with America’s horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they’re genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it’s ashamed of it” (“Quentin Tarantino: I’m proud of my flop”). (Kroes, 2015, p57) This, in relation to the above quote on race in his films, helps one to understand and explore the film further – Tarantino is making a statement on the genre and the issues of race now and then but crafts it into a spaghetti western, one which disguises the message somewhat into a typical Tarantino film. 

‘The Hateful Eight,’ deals with similar issues but focuses more on the story of the film, in which two bounty hunters and a woman who is the bounty who is to be hung, arrive at Minnie’s Haberdashery – a lodge where they meet a group of men who are taking shelter from a storm. One of the hunters, John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is suspicious of the men in stealing his bounty, and the film goes into the mystery of who these men and what link them all. The film takes a nod to Tarantino’s previous works, including ‘Reservoir Dogs’ with its small group of outlaws characters and one primary setting – however we can see similarities with classic westerns such as John Ford’s ‘Stagecoach’ (1939) for its small group of very different strangers put together under unfortunate circumstances. Tarantino’s characters have certain roles and take on many western stereotypes, with Tim Roth’s character taking the ‘prospector’ type role, Russell and Samuel L. Jackson being bounty hunters, Walton Goggin’s character being the sheriff and so on. The title fits then, with the film being remincent of John Struges ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960) as mentioned above for its title and character types. Ennio Morricone is famous for his soundtrack work on many of Leone’s westerns, to which he is also the composer of this film, helping to capture Tarantino’s homage to westerns. While the film still explores race as an issue, Tarantino uses the idea of the film being set after the American Civil War as a way to tell the story. With Leone’s ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’ (1966) being one of Tarantino’s favourite films we can see that the Civil War setting can be a rather integral plot point to a western in telling its story and offering views of present day American in contrast to this. ‘’The Good, the Bad and the Ugly doesn’t get into the racial conflicts of the Civil War; it’s just a thing that’s happening. My movie is about the country being torn apart by it, and the racial aftermath, six, seven, eight, ten years later.’’ (Rupe, 2015)

Following on from the issues of race in Tarantino’s westerns, we can see his takes on it in many of his other films. ‘Jackie Brown’ is a prominent example, being a Blaxploitation crime film. Pam Grier plays the title character, the actress being famous for other Blaxploitation films such as ‘Coffy’ (1973) and ‘Foxy Brown’ (1974) so it is an evident choice for an auteur director such as Tarantino to use a famous actress from the genre for a film of his own in this genre. The Blaxploitation films of the 1970’s were very stylised and gave a new role to the African American actor to be a strong, smart hero. ‘Jackie Brown’ is not a full Blaxploitation film but makes many nods to the period of these films, and not just from the actress. The character is intelligent and manipulative. She uses her looks and wit to be manipulative, she manages to get her deadly boss Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) and bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forester) under her thumb in a femme fetale like way. ‘’Jackie, for all her womanly ways, is only out to protect herself. She’s been in prison and won’t go back.’’ (Gibron, 2011) The character is almost an evolution of the Blaxploitation character, aswell as being a powerful African American figure, Brown is also a female who uses her intelligence and quick thinking to get her own way and to remain very independent – rather than the common use of violence that these films use. It could be argued that Brown is an object of the male gaze in this film, as many of the male characters are very infatuated with her looks, especially to Max Cherry. However, her independence does separate her from this idea, as she is very much to herself and leaves a lusting Max Cherry at the end of the film to himself.  A controversial and common aspect of many of Tarantino’s films include the use of the term ‘nigger’ in relation to black characters in his films. His most notorious film for this is ‘Django Unchained,’ to which African American director Spike Lee says the use of the word makes the film ‘‘disrespectful to my ancestors’’ (Lee, 2012, quoted in Ryzik, 2012) for the overuse of the word. Tarantino has defended the film, due to its setting and the narrative being focused on slavery and racism, justifying that it is acceptable to use the word in this context. We can see this in many of his other films, ‘Jackie Brown’ is another which has been criticised in this way by Lee, the difference being that the film is set in the 1990’s, so the use is harder to argue about due to decreasing racist attitudes during this time in America, but was and still is a popular term used among African American gangsters – in this instance Ordell’s use of the term in the film.

Linking to the subject of women in Tarantino’s works, it is key to look at the roles in which they have played, most notably for this case study in both ‘Kill Bill’ films and in ‘Pulp Fiction.’ Uma Thurman plays the character of ‘The Bride’ in the Kill Bill films, and takes on a duel role. Once a member of a group of assassins, she leaves the group after she finds out she is pregnant, and decides to live a new life. 

‘‘As violent professional killers who are also mothers, these warrior moms incorporate social roles that are culturally and ideologically incompatible,’ ‘each film attempts to negotiate the cultural anxiety surrounding motherhood and career through the typically masculinised framework of the action genre.’’ (Dancey, 2009) 

This connotes and equivalent to many women in American who, mostly after World War Two, acquired more jobs for themselves meaning they would have to leave their traditional housewife job, which included being mothers. Of course many women who chose to have children would leave their jobs and be stay at home mothers. We can see this comparison for the Bride who quits her job to become a full time mother which erupts into the Tarantino action film series that is Kill Bill. As with ‘Django Unchained,’ we can see Tarantino’s common use of blending ideas like this into a samurai/western/action film that Kill Bill is widely known for being. 

We see another instance in this with the character of Mia Wallace also played by Thurman in ‘Pulp Fiction,’ the wife of a mafia boss, Marcellus Wallace. She is a very stay at home woman, who was once an actress, however for reasons unknown to the audience we do not find out as to why she left this career behind, but it is suggested that her marriage is a factor. When Marcellus cannot be with her, he makes sure she has company and instructs John Travolta’s Vincent Vega to take her out as he can’t – which defeats her freedom and choice to do what she desires as her own woman. This again suggests a comparison to the role of a typical stay at home American housewife who cannot pursue her career due to social constraints. In contrast to this however she does adopt a femme fetale persona, and manages to gain dominance over Vega. In the film she wears men’s clothes, a white buttoned up shirt and black pants, to which Meghan O’Keefe argues that this makes her a powerful character in comparison to many of the other males in the film. ‘‘Her entire outfit basically signals that she’s taken a man’s way of doing things and made it her own. She’s the most powerful woman in a male-dominated world — she can get a terrifying assassin to dance the twist at her command.’’ (O’Keefe, 2014) This connotes a stronger and ever changing position for women in film and that there is more than meets the eye with this character. During the time of the release of the film and onwards, women had a more powerful and respectable role in American society than the past few decades, and Mia Wallace despite her constraints in the film as mentioned, is one of many that had a changing and inspiring role for women in film.

Tarantino’s first film, ‘Reservoir Dogs’ is one of many American postmodern crime/gangster films from the 1990’s and Tarantino’s first. With the role of gang culture being very prominent throughout America’s history it should be expected that Tarantino would have made many of this genre. The film revolves around a group of men who plan a heist that goes terribly wrong, and primarily shows the aftermath and chaos that revolves around the heist. The film uses many conventions of the gangster genre, for example, black formal suits of the characters, the gunplay and violence and even Mr Orange (Tim Roth) being the undercover cop in the gang. The film also connotes the idea of the American dream heavily, with these men aspiring to complete their heist and live full and rich lives with their takings but their failure shows us the idea that even with gangsters using unorthodox methods to reach that dream, plans can be easily ruined when set in motion. Fran Mason discusses how the introductory credits scene poses them as just ordinary men in flash suits – the image being the men walking down a street to George Baker’s ‘Little Green Bag’ in slow motion: ‘’Instead of focussing on their successful incarnation of gansterdom, the image emphasises their aspirations to gangster authenticity and their failure to achieve anything other than its style.’’ (Mason, 2002) From this we can take the idea that these men have a belief they are set in their ways as gangsters and have the image to at least do it – however their actual gangster abilities are limited as we see them fail miserably. This links to the idea of the American Dream being in some ways just a dream and aspiration, the dream in this sense being the ‘gangster’ idea and its prominence in America from the beginning of the 1920’s up to now– and that not just anyone can be a gangster. 

Tarantino’s ‘Inglorious Basterds’ is a war film set during World War Two. The film is a fabricated set of events which lead to the end of the war. This film is key in comparison to many Anti-War films that were released in the 1960’s and onwards. The film is indeed a parody of many war films, and in some ways because of this be seen to promote many American Anti-War messages. The eponymous ‘basterds’ are a group of Jewish-American soldiers who are sent on a mission to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The group are unbelievably violent and brutal to the Nazi’s they kill, for example, beating them to death, scalping and etching swastikas into their foreheads. While this fits in line with Tarantino’s usual violent element of his films, it also resembles the brutality of American soldiers – whether the Nazi’s were our enemies or not we still see the bloodthirsty actions of these soldiers against the Nazi soldiers that in some ways – the film sets us up to feel sorry for, for example the character of Private Butz. The Vietnam war was one of the most violent wars America was involved in. The media at the time highlighted the brutality of America’s actions, killing so many innocent people in the process of killing their enemies. This showed the American people the horrors committed against the Vietnamese people – and this can be seen with the ‘basterds’ being the perfect equivalent. Tarantino has also made the film quite comedic, Brad Pitt’s character of Aldo Raine is a very over-exaggerated American soldier with a passion to kill, but is also shown as coming off quite silly and idiotic. It could be said that Tarantino has set this character up as a mockery of America at war in a way, with the idea that American’s have the power and military capabilities to win a war in somewhere like Vietnam for example – however of course ultimately fail and are left embarrassed.  David Denby of The New Yorker says this on the film: ‘’whether the Basterds are Tarantino’s ideal of an all-American killing team or his parody of one is hard to say.’’ (Denby, 2009) Either way it is easy to see both sides to this and allows us an audience to see them as either a brutal or laughable representation of America at war.

In conclusion, one can see from Tarantino’s various works that he tackles many social and historical ideas from American and uses them in different ways in his films. Blending his skills as an auteur director, he can be labelled as being part responsible for the rejuvenation of the western genre, a landmark genre in the American film industry. His vast array of multi-genre films helps him to explore different sorts of characters such as women and African Americans in different situations and settings – and the messages that are set out to us help us explore the understanding that Tarantino has on the American Imagination as a whole, and how he puts his own spin on that subject.

Bibliography 

Filmography