Text: Michele Bolton
Illustrations: Bernardo Santiago Acosta
Translated version (Italian to English): Frances Lincoln, 2024
This title – more a love letter than a biography – was originally published in Italian, and was translated into English earlier this year. Here is the promotional copy:
“When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, “No, I went to films”‘. From the set of 1993’s Pulp Fiction, to a bar room meeting with Robert Rodriguez and an inspirational lunch with Leonardo di Caprio, this unique graphic novel takes us across a series of Hollywood-inspired vignettes covering the movie-obsessed life and career of one of modern cinema’s greatest filmmakers – Quentin Tarantino. Join the conversation as Tarantino talks John Travolta into starring in Pulp Fiction, find out about the inspiration for his earliest screenplays and learn about Tarantino’s obsessive childhood growing up in California.For those who already know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris – as well as those looking for an insight into Tarantino’s influences, inspirations and the development of his signature style – we present Quentin Tarantino: A Graphic Biography. Follow Quentin Tarantino’s journey – from a movie-obsessed kid to one of modern cinema’s greatest filmmakers – in this uniquely stylish graphic novel.“
“Uniquely stylish” is not the correct way of describing the artistic style of illustrator Bernardo Santiago Acosta. Mr Acosta’s layouts are impeccable – the scene in which Mr Tarantino explains himself to actors Brad Pitt and Leonardo Dicaprio could have been plucked out of Pulp Fiction, with shifting perspectives of each of the characters contained within the intimate landscape of a cafe booth. But his renditions of even famous people (who should be easy to draw because of the abundance of source material) come across as rough drafts.
The creators engage in a process mimicking one of Mr Tarantino’s techniques of scrambling linear storytelling. The chapter sequence is:
- Chapter Two: The Blonde with the Cute Feet who became a Bloodthirsty Bride;
- Chapter Four: Brash Hollywood Heavyweights Change History
- Chapter One: One Minute you’re a Dancer, the next you’re a Gangster
- Chapter Two: The Pen behind the Camera and the Man holding the Pen.
Unlike Jackie Brown or Pulp Fiction, where the muddle in continuity is used to cunningly conceal part of the plot from the audience, this scramble makes no real difference to the story. It is, perhaps, a little gimmicky.
The story itself contains some interesting discussion about the meaning in some of Mr Tarantino’s films. We had long wondered why Brad Pitt’s character in the movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was permitted by Mr Tarantino’s beloved Bruce Lee (now we know), and we did not know about the youthful Mr Tarantino’s consuming obsession for film when he worked behind a till in a video rental shop.
Your critic used to live in Osaka in the late 1990s, and remembers an amusing advertising campaign very well: see the image below. The text in the word bubble says, “Shyaberi Tarantino”, which more or less means, “Tarantino the Chatterbox”. Mr Tarantino’s chattering is missing from this story. Although Mr Tarantino is depicted as being gently mocked by his peers for his anecdotes, the story would have benefitted from a series of labyrinthine monologues, spiralling in word balloons that might have clustered around the art like mosquitos. Granted, there is not much active listening from Mr Tarantino in this selective depiction of his life, and Mr Tarantino gets most of the dialogue, but we are a little disappointed not to see some relentless, unfiltered babbling. Its absence seems somehow inauthentic.
In addition, and most importantly, the title is fawning in its omissions. The opportunity to bolt in controversy to the story of the life of a man infamous for his controversial output, was missed.
In an interview https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0607647/with Howard Stern in 2003, Mr Tarantino defended director Roman Polawski’s rape of a 13 year old girl in 1977: “He didn’t rape a 13-year-old. It was statutory rape…he had sex with a minor. That’s not rape. To me, when you use the word rape, you’re talking about violent, throwing them down—it’s like one of the most violent crimes in the world. You can’t throw the word rape around. It’s like throwing the word ‘racist’ around. It doesn’t apply to everything people use it for…. Look she was down with it.”
Mr Tarantino issued an apology in 2018: “I want to publicly apologize to Samantha Geimer for my cavalier remarks on “The Howard Stern Show” speculating about her and the crime that was committed against her. Fifteen years later, I realize how wrong I was. Ms. Geimer WAS raped by Roman Polanski. When Howard brought up Polanski, I incorrectly played devil’s advocate in the debate for the sake of being provocative. I didn’t take Ms. Geimer’s feelings into consideration and for that I am truly sorry.“
There is no mention of any of that in this title.
In an interview in 2009 for Parade https://parade.com/40116/jeannewolf/0818-diane-kruger-on-brad-pitt/, actress Diane Kruger talked about Mr Tarantino’s intervention in her death scene in the motion picture Inglourious Basterds:
“I’ve never died in a movie before. I get strangled, which was especially weird because you feel it when someone is choking you, so it was an interesting day at the office. The funny part is that Quentin’s hands are in the close-up. I won’t give away the name of the actor who kills me, but Quentin said, ‘He’s not going to do it right, it’ll either be too much or too little. I know exactly what I need and I think I should just do it.’ I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.”
An article in The Daily Beast https://www.thedailybeast.com/quentin-tarantinos-history-of-disturbing-behavior-toward-his-actresses recounts Mr Tarantino’s confirmation of his actions:
In an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Tarantino recalled asking Kruger if she would “let [him]” strangle her: “And so I just said to her, what I want to do is, I’m going to be the hands, and what I’m going to do is, I’m going to just strangle you. I’m going to cut off your air for just a little bit of time, we’re going to see the reaction in your face, and then we’ll cut.” He bragged, “It was real. It looked really good,” explaining that, “When somebody is actually being strangled there is a thing that happens to their face, they turn a certain color, and their veins pop out and stuff.” In other films, he complained, “It always just seems fake.”
In the video accompanying that article, Mr Tarantino of his actions says to interviewer Graham Norton (and his clearly uncomfortable guests), “It’s on me“. And it is. The interview comes across as dark and creepy. But Ms Kruger in an Instagram post https://www.instagram.com/p/Be29JD3lzCC/?hl=en&taken-by=dianekruger defended Mr Tarantino:
“I would like to say that my work experience with Quentin Tarantino was pure joy. He treated me with utter respect and never abused his power or forced me to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with.”
This is not mentioned either.
Mr Tarantino spat upon actor Uma Thurman during a scene in Kill Bill, when actor Michael Madsen could not do it, and choked her with a chain, as reported https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/this-is-why-uma-thurman-is-angry.html in the New York Times: “Tarantino had done the honors with some of the sadistic flourishes himself, spitting in her face in the scene where Michael Madsen is seen on screen doing it and choking her with a chain in the scene where a teenager named Gogo is on screen doing it.”
The New York Times article reports that Ms Thurman and Mr Tarantino feuded for years after Kill Bill, as a consequence of his reckless insistence that she be involved in a stunt which resulted in a car crash, and permanent injuries to Ms Thurman’s neck and knee. Mr Tarantino gave Ms Thurman footage of the crash years later to help her get closure on the traumatic event, but only after receiving an undertaking that she would not sue him.
Instead, Mr Tarantino is depicted in Chapter Two as casually talking to Ms Thurman before the events of Kill Bill, as old friends exploring a future joint venture. There’s no depiction of the recalibration of that relationship.
Even one of these events, in a fair and balanced way, would have given this title some authenticity. Blind adoration does not make for an honest biography.
