What Makes An Auteur?

Quentin Tarantino - Inglorious Basterds, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs


Quentin Tarantino can be seen as auteur director due to his different sense of direction of movies and this has been a large talking point throughout his career. Three of his main films have been the likes of Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Basterds and Reservoir Dogs. These films demonstrate the auteur qualities of Tarantino and all three of these known as having Tarantinoesque film qualities because of the way he has gone about directing these films. Tarantino comes under what Francois Truffaut’s said which is that “A director can be measured on their unique and perceivable style such as recurring themes, recurring motifs, a distinct visual style or prevailing themes.”

Tarantino is known for many things within his films but the use of violence has become a mainstay within his films. There are a lot of films that have used violence but the way Tarantino uses violence puts his own trademark to the films. He has a way of making his ideas of violence somewhat humorous in a sordid way. In Reservoir Dogs there is an iconic scene where Mr Blonde cuts off a man’s ear to the soundtrack of stuck in the middle with you by Stealers Wheel. This scene shows the irony of a man dancing around to an upbeat song seemingly enjoying the fact he was brutally harming a man. Pulp Fiction has a scene that shows some violence in a humorous way also, when Vincent and Jules are driving away from a murder scene, they have a hostage Marvin and they are asking him some questions until Vincent shoots Marvin accidentally in the face. Inglorious Basterds uses violence throughout the film also however, a memorable part is when the officer, Donny Donowitz (aka. The Bear Jew) batters a German soldier to death with his weapon of choice, a baseball bat.

Tarantino also has a peculiar way of setting out his movies, instead of telling one main story and sticking to this, Tarantino chooses to tell three or four different stories that interlink throughout the film. This also allows Tarantino to cast four or five main characters instead of the usual two or three. The use of several main characters allows Tarantino to manipulate the different stories to follow all the different main characters. Inglorious Basterds has four main characters that the story follows (Hans Landa, Aldo Raine, Shosanna Dreyfus, and Donny Donowitz). Pulp Fiction has five main characters the movie is based upon (Vincent Vega, Jules Winnfield, Butch Coolidge, Marsellus Wallace, and Uma Thurman) and Reservoir Dogs has for main characters (Mr White, Mr Blonde, Mr Pink, and Mr Orange).

Very few directors choose to put themselves into their work however Tarantino is not one of these people. Tarantino has appeared in all three of these movies, he has become somewhat of a cameo in all three, however still chose to cast himself. Tarantino playing a cameo role in a movie gives the idea that the movie is directed or written by Tarantino himself. The part in Inglorious Basterds, he chose not to be credited for, however in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs he plays part in the storyline.

Reference: Francois Truffaut, 1954. Une certain tendance du cinema francais.