Rating: Excellent
Quentin Tarantino has always come across as someone who can’t keep his mouth shut, most recently he’s been rounded on for his description of Paul Dano as the worst living actor in America, among other more colourful insults. If you’ve heard Tarantino talk then you know that he is an enthusiastic and opinionated motormouth and when you read Cinema Speculation you can’t help but hear his voice, which, ultimately, is a good thing. Cinema Speculation is a blend of memoir and critical appraisal, beginning with ‘Little Q Watching Big Movies’, in which he talks candidly about his childhood brought up by his mother and being taken to the movies by her and his stepfather, and then a succession of boyfriends. Basically, Tarantino was taken to see movies in the 60’s and 70’s that he was far too young to see, and this then informed his approach to making his own movies. It’s a fascinating opening chapter, setting the scene for a foray into his favourite movies between 1968 and 1981. This is film theory, but not the kind you’re used to, it’s fast paced, both irreverent and reverent, taking no prisoners with opinions blasted from the gun used by Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry (1971). Tarantino starts with Bullitt (1968), a Steve McQueen feature, in which he riffs on the leading male actors of the time, claiming that Elvis could have been up there with the likes of McQueen and Paul Newman if he’d taken his movie career more seriously. Such conclusions are a feature of Cinema Speculation. Dirty Harry (1971) is next and there’s no stopping Tarantino’s motormouth and at only the third chapter in you are caught up in his endless enthusiasms, wanting to see these movies again, to see them through his eyes, with his voice running through your addled brain.
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| Steve McQueen as Bullitt - 1968 |
During each chapter he references many other actors and movies, most of them obscure and lost to time, but kept alive by cinephiles just like Tarantino. This is the kind of book to have a notepad by your side to write down all the obscure movies he mentions for later viewing. Cinema Speculation is totally digressive, but all the better for it. It’s an invaluable insight into what became known as ‘New Hollywood’, when actors and styles that had been rusted on were swept away by the likes of Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg (whom Tarantino refers to as a genius) and Francis Ford Coppola. There’s a chapter entitled – 'New Hollywood in the Seventies' that is brilliant. Tarantino loves these directors, but throughout the book he really champions the ‘Grindhouse’ and the ‘Revengeorama’ sub-genres that existed in the darker realms of movie-houses. He writes great pieces on the likes of Deliverance (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976), but also on the more obscure likes of Rolling Thunder (1977) and The Funhouse (1981), movies made by smaller studios and risk-taking directors. It’s these movies that Tarantino talks about that really make Cinema Speculation something special, to the extent that I’m going to try and watch as many of these movies as possible. They are out there, existing in the search engines of lesser streamers like Tubi or floating around in the piles of DVDs that are filling up op-shops these days (people are dumping their physical media in their droves). Ultimately Cinema Speculation leaves you with a deeper understanding of where Tarantino came from and what informed his stylistic choices when it came to his own movies. I don’t love all of Tarantino’s movies (I’m one of the few people who aren’t partial to Reservoir Dogs (1992), for example), but I do believe that he is one of the most significant writers and directors around. If you have any interest in cinema history or Tarantino, then Cinema Speculation is well worth the read.
