Quentin Tarantino And His Taste For Violence

Why do we like violence in movies? Does it have anything to do with our emotions? We have taken a closer look at Quentin Tarantino, his world and his violent films to learn more about why we like to watch violence.

Quentin Tarantino is an instructor who has come through with his own brand. If you go in and watch one of his movies, we know that there will be violence, music, actors with fetishes, close-ups of women’s feet and a lot of tributes among many other things.

Tarantino loves to pay homage to filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock, kong-fu movies, spaghetti westerns and even the  Flintstones.

Tarantino does what suits him. He uses guests, plays with the colors and recycles plans. He reinvents scenes and mixes everything until he finds what he is looking for. Many accuse him of plagiarism, and he admits that he is inspired by other films.

Everyone and everyone uses their taste and influence to profit from it. Therefore, if you want to make something completely new here in the 21st century, you will almost always have to “copy” or take something that others have already used.

On more than one occasion, he has said that you do not have to have gone to school to be able to make a good film, you just have to be passionate about what you do. He shows his passions through the movies. Now that we have said all this, we must rather ask: Why do we like violence so much? Why is Quentin Tarantino’s film so special?

The special thing about movies by Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino was taught acting and worked in a video rental kiosk, a place that was a real source of inspiration for him. The idea for Reservoir Dogs arose one day, he was surrounded by his friends.

At the time, Tarantino did not think it was possible for him to make a real film, so he was happy that a cheap production was being made with his friends. But producer Lawrence Bender read his script and gave him the opportunity to make it.

He pays homage to a lot of movies. Let us mention some examples of this. The famous  Pulp Fiction dance scene was taken from Fellini’s  8 1/2  and Uma Thurman’s costume in  Kill Bill reminds us a lot of Bruce Lee.

Tarantino’s films are all about pushing the viewer into a world of intertextuality. His films have their own plot and identity, but are at the same time full of hints and references. After Pulp Fiction (1994), the audience finally recognized Tarantino as a director and screenwriter.

He caught the attention of audiences and critics, leading to him winning his first Oscar for Best Screenplay.

Sound is important

Other films such as  Jackie Brown (1997) , Inglorious Bastards  (2009) or  Kill  Bill  (2003) ended up founding Quentin Tarantino’s trademark. Finally, his latest films like  Django Unchained  (2012) and  The Hateful Eight  (2015) were a declaration of love for an almost forgotten genre: Spaghetti western.

With these films, Tarantino revived the core of the genre and filmmakers such as Sergio Leone and also Ennio Morricone, who have composed some of the most famous film music.

Another interesting fact about Tarantino’s films is that he is also personally responsible for their sound.

On the other hand, anachronism is not something that worries Tarantino. He always gets all the pieces of the puzzle together perfectly in the end.

Quentin Tarantino and his taste for violence

If there’s anything that defines Quentin Tarantino’s film, it’s violence. Totally explicit violence and carnage, which is sometimes so absurd that you can not help but laugh at it.

A distinctive feature of his film is that there are hardly any of the characters one can sympathize with, which ends up with the viewer not worrying about who is alive and who is dying. The Hateful Eight is an excellent example of this.

If you are going to see a Quentin Tarantino movie, then do not expect to find any sensitive people. Prepare to see blood and violence and laugh at it all the way.

The funny thing is that despite their messy narrative and expressed violence, they always end up with the audience loving the movies. The scenes he shows in his films are a beautiful art.

The famous ear-cutting scene in  Reservoir Dogs, for example, is produced uniquely with background music and dance, while at the same time being a “replica” of a scene from the movie Django  (Corbucci 1966).

Can violence be something entertaining? Can there be a limit to it? Tarantino has said several times that his film is pure fiction to enjoy for the audience. Instead of asking if his violence is moral or not, we should just enjoy it.

The music in the movies makes us see the violence as something beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. There is a clear difference between films that show violence in a realistically crude way and the way in which violence is used as a simple excuse for entertainment.

Furthermore, Quentin Tarantino has stated that kong fu films are very violent, but no one questions their morality because it is pure entertainment.

Violence is just for fun

When it comes to raw violent films like  The Passion of the Christ  (Mel Gibson, 2004),  Das Experiment  (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2001) or  Irréversible  (Gaspar Noé, 2002), audiences will feel no joy at all, only discomfort.

It does not happen when you watch a movie with directors like Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino. These filmmakers use violence as a cathartic method to portray freedom and purity through images.

Aristotle also had a few remarks about violence in his work  Poetics. There he analyzed Greek tragedies and all that they contained. Why did the ancient Greeks like to watch violence and scenes of incest? Precisely because they were taboo.

Nevertheless, it is characteristic passions that people tend to suppress because of the immoral aspect. Violent plays were cathartic to the Greeks, which is why they enjoyed them so much.

Several psychoanalysts like Freud have also dug deep into this topic. He and other experts conclude that the taste for violence seems to be a hallmark of humans. It is something that we are somehow trying to turn into a kind of art.

Quentin Tarantino also reminds us that his films are nothing but fantasy. Their unrealistic aspects are exactly what his fans love the most. They are cathartic, passionate and emotional. Tarantino’s films are undoubtedly meant as entertainment.