What do you find to be Tarantino's most powerful film?
I find “Inglourious Basterds” to be Tarantino’s most powerful film. Besides the fact that Tarantino himself admitted through the last scene where Raine says “I think this just might be my masterpiece.” before ending the movie. And the fact that it is his most-nominated film, “Inglourious Basterds” is a majestic concoction of comedy, drama, terror, gore, pastiche, and revisionist history. The slow-burning suspense, the cultural references, sudden laughs in the middle of intense scenes, it has it all!
As someone who watched a selection of Tarantino’s best films, “Inglourious Basterds” is able to catch my attention and suck me into its own fictional world unlike what “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” could do. While still having the recognisable Quentin Tarantino’s filming style with retro aesthetics and sudden title screens in between scenes, “Inglourious Basterds” creates a totally different viewing experience, unlike its predecessors. Through all of the elements, Tarantino was able to deliver not only a masterpiece but also change how storytelling can be.
How does Tarantino get away with all of his 'stealing'?
His work is a mixture of many different references and “steals” all combined to assist his new story. I don’t consider it stealing because he’s not making a duplicate copy of an existing media product but rather taking elements of many different products and mixing it in a way that seems like an original piece. As a viewer, I only notice a few details that seem familiar but since it’s mixed with other references, unless you’ve seen and heard every media product made to date, you won’t notice that he “stole” it from pre-existing films. The only way that we know that he “steals” from other media products is because of him admitting himself and because we get told that it’s a reference to another media product.
The stolen elements assist his work, making it more interesting and not "boring". And that’s not what every filmmaker can do. It creates a new meaning for viewers who know the reference and assist the story built up for others.
What elements are you ok with being 'borrowed', 'referenced', or 'co-opted', and what absolutely has to be original?
For my Component 3 project, I’m okay with “borrowing”/”referencing” the visuals of some scenes from other movies with my own little spin. For example, reenacting movie scenes like how they did it for the “Thank u Next” music video but not a 100% copy of the scenes. Making it a little bit more interesting for viewers to see the binary opposites and interesting when they notice the details.
However, my story and the main plot have to be absolutely original or at least my own idea and not completely inspired by an existing media product. As a storyteller, I want to tell a story that is important and relevant to me and not someone else’s story that I find interesting enough to “steal”. Of course, it might not be completely original but it still has to be something that I came up with.
It’s hard to avoid stealing everything from someone else’s work when we try to reference and take ideas from other artists. So it’ll be easier to build an idea of our own and have a complete picture of what we’re aiming for instead of coming back to someone’s ideas to get more ideas on how to continue building the story.
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