Comments on: Breaking Tarantino's Code

Breaking Tarantino's Code

phaedon — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:58:54 -0800

Tarantino's Mind.

By: optovox

optovox — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:10:26 -0800

Who do you think you're fooling? You're still not fooling anyone.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:12:20 -0800

Alternative Youtube link.

By: CitizenD

CitizenD — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:00:09 -0800

WOW! phaedon, thanks for posting this! i'm a huge tarantino fan, and i'm kind of shocked that i didn't pick up on some of this before. in fact, this short might just inspire another re-viewing of his entire ouvre, chronologically. wow. just, WOW! if it's true, he's a helluva lot more brilliant than i gave him credit for. and i've always thought he was pretty freaking brilliant.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:05:23 -0800

he's a helluva lot more brilliant than i gave him credit for. Don't get me wrong; I love this kind of conjecture, and I love Tarantino....but he steals from himself as much as he steals from everyone else he admires. I don't think very much of that was premeditated, and there's a good chance much of it was coincidental. Fun, but flimsy.

By: painquale

painquale — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:58:28 -0800

There's no way that Mia Wallace and the Bride are the same person - their characters are just too different. Same with Jules and the organ player. There are plenty of links throughout Tarantino's corpus, and they've been well-documented. But not everything is a link. The author of this video is pretty much claiming that if an actor appears in two different Tarantino movies, then he or she is playing the same character in both. That's going way too far.

By: Drix

Drix — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:05:20 -0800

Nice find, and a great short film. Thanks! I knew some of these connectons, but not nearly all. As said I guess some were intended and some were not, but there are some great connections beeing drawn here. Tarantino seriously knows his films, and that makes them even more fun to watch.

By: flippant

flippant — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 02:39:20 -0800

Interesting!

By: redteam

redteam — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:04:11 -0800

When Quentin Tarantino himself is done watching this, he's going to look up from a mirror on his desk, wipe his nose, open his eyes real wide, and then have a one sided conversation with whoever is nearby for about two hours.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:00:41 -0800

The dialog is very worth watching. Nicely done.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:02:06 -0800

Good stuff. CitizenD wrote: wow. just, WOW! if it's true, he's a helluva lot more brilliant than i gave him credit for. and i've always thought he was pretty freaking brilliant. You did get that the film is ripping the piss out of daft fanboys inventing theories, right?

By: rokusan

rokusan — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:27:15 -0800

On this FPP: Love it. Seu Jorge is great in anything. On the "Not Fooling Anyone" stuff: I've always wished Tarantino were less coy about all the stuff he's ripping/riffing off (take your side.) Since in every film, some of it is obvious to me (an old film fan but not a hardcore student) that I always just assume the rest is a pile of references I don't get. He does do a bit too much of happily letting people assume that he originates the things he perpetuates, but it's a convenient schtick. He's always got "Of course it's from Blood in the Streets, what are you, some kind of freshman film imbecile for not getting that?" to fall back on. None of this explains why every character has to talk exactly the same, though.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:58:56 -0800

404

By: es_de_bah

es_de_bah — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:17:24 -0800

wicked fun times. can anyone tell me what Seu Jorge is supposed to be getting at, or is he just supposed to sound mysterious and non sequitor?

By: therubettes

therubettes — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:05:50 -0800

The author of this video is pretty much claiming that if an actor appears in two different Tarantino movies, then he or she is playing the same character in both. I only made it half-way through (at work). Did he explain how Mr Pink came to be the Buddy Holly waiter in Pulp Fiction or Tim Roth Mr Orange and Pumpkin the robber? Or Jimmy (Mr Brown) not recognising The Wolf (Mr White) when he came to clear up the mess, or vice versa when they were at the diner in Resevoir Dogs? In any case given Tarintino's lack of control over casting True Romance and NBK the theory collapses. Good fun though thanks for posting. Pop culture will eat itself!

By: Cool Papa Bell

Cool Papa Bell — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:52:34 -0800

Great post. Great short film.

By: Menomena

Menomena — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:04:13 -0800

"Federer is the tennis player version of Tarantino." Haha... Awesome.

By: rusty

rusty — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:21:06 -0800

Yeah, this was a sort of ho-hum fish-in-barrel shoot until Federer comes up. A shaggy dog story, but an excellent one.

By: hal9k

hal9k — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:28:18 -0800

(stares at blue MetaFilter background) Is that what I think it is?

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:29:50 -0800

The Scagnettis are brothers, like the Vegas. But, yeah, they all do sort of exist in the same universe, and he recycles characters at will. I think the real secret to Tarantino's recent films is his longstanding film nerd love affair with actor Michael Parks.

By: diogenes

diogenes — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:31:15 -0800

That's just silly. Everyone knows that it's Marsellus Wallace's soul in that briefcase. That's why he has a bandaid on the back of his head in the scene where he's talking to Butch in the bar. That's where his soul came out.

By: no1hatchling

no1hatchling — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:40:24 -0800

Really cool short! I really dig tight, short, well scripted films like this. Also, Tarantino has made some awesome movies, but what really fascinates me is.... Our brains are (currently) the best pattern recognition machines in the world. The most versatile at least. Try staring at a "noisy" carpet for a while, if you need proof. Any good storyteller leaves enough bits and pieces and odds and ends lying around that we can draw any number of conclusions on our own, reflecting our current state of mind. And they are infinitely more meaningful to us than spoon fed material. In a whole corpus of work, a good storyteller hands us the material for an unlimited amount of speculation, theories, arguments, and interpretation. Seems like Tarantino is one of the best at this. At least my mind takes readily to it...

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:59:14 -0800

I definitely liked the Fox Force Five conection, but the rest of it was a little meh to me. If Tarantino did deeper films instead of pulp, there's be more to look for in them than recycled character names and occupations. No Four Rooms? That's a real shame.

By: Squid Voltaire

Squid Voltaire — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:55:47 -0800

I guess I really didn't think that the point of the post was "Hey, look at this cool theory about Tarantino", so much as "Hey, look at this engaging, well-written short film."

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:27:57 -0800

There's no way that Mia Wallace and the Bride are the same person - their characters are just too different. Same with Jules and the organ player. During the "cleaner" sequence in Pulp Fiction, Jules says, "That's just Kool and the Gang." Then, in Kill Bill Vol. 2, the organ player claims that he used to be a member of Kool and the Gang. Coincidence? I think not!

By: LogicalDash

LogicalDash — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:43:41 -0800

I thought the film was more of an ode to overthinking a plate of beans. The connections drawn get increasingly far-fetched as it goes on--the guy that dies at the beginning of Pulp Fiction later becomes an organ player? Really? Also, now I know the correct way to end this sort of conversation. Just make the one comparison that is so whacked-out and irrelevant that nothing else can stand up to it.

By: P.o.B.

P.o.B. — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:24:10 -0800

Samuel Jackson doesn't die in Pulp Fiction, but you're right this is a bit far-fetched. I still like it though!