Quentin Tarantino Felt Like He Had a Target on Him When He Was Accused of Ripping off Other Films
Quentin Tarantino is widely seen as a top filmmaker thanks to his acclaimed and successful projects. But he’s been very aware that some critics have felt he put perhaps too much of his influences in his films.
Quentin Tarantino felt he was unfairly targeted by certain film critics for his work
Tarantino hasn’t hidden the fact that he draws from a lot of influences for his films. He’s even been quite vocal about this technique.
“I steal from every single movie ever made,” Tarantino once told Empire (via Variety). “If my work has anything, it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.”
But some critics felt that Tarantino’s homages to his projects were downright stealing. Composer Ennio Morricone seemed to have developed a slight grudge with Tarantino after working with the filmmaker on The Hateful Eight. In a 2018 interview with Forbes, Morricone expressed several unfavorable feelings towards his former collaborator. He believed that Tarantino wasn’t as original as filmmakers of the past.
“He just steals from others and puts it together again. There is nothing original about that. And he is not a director either. So not comparable to real Hollywood greats like John Huston, Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder. They were great. Tarantino is just cooking up old stuff,” Morricone said.
Tarantino once addressed the accusations leveled against him, and thought he was being personally singled out by critics.
“It’s like I’ve got a target on me,” he once told NJ.com “Critics know I’m a cinephile, and they know I’m not shy about embracing genre, and they turn it into a kind of checklist. … It’s just, you know, it’s vaguely insulting. ‘Oh, he takes a slice of Leone, adds a pinch of Cimino,’ that whole thing. I wouldn’t have lasted this long if that’s all there was to it.”
Quentin Tarantino once accused this animated feature for completely ripping off 1 of his films
Tarantino is also used to his films influencing the works of others. Speaking on Powerful JRE, the director reflected on a brief era when a few films were emulating his work. Especially projects like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
“People would ask me about that and they go, ‘Hey, did that really bug you?’ When, there was a period where it seemed like, five years in the 90s when every crime film kind of had this ironic bit and they talked about TV shows and played music in a weird way. Everybody was a smart-ass,” Tarantino said. “They asked me, like, ‘Well, did that bother you?’ And I go, ‘No, it doesn’t bother me.’ One, I don’t think any of them are as good as mine. So it just makes mine look better and better.”
Tarantino was proud that he seemed to create a sub-genre in the film industry that other filmmakers wanted a piece in. But there was another possible imitator that came in the form of a children’s movie. In an interview with BBC Radio 1, Tarantino believed the animated picture Kung Fu Panda borrowed too much from one of his biggest hits.
“Frankly, Kung Fu Panda is just a straight-up parody of Kill Bill. In every way,” Tarantino said.
But he also shared that the homage worked in Kill Bill’s favor.
“They’re keeping me pop-culturally relevant. Priceless,” he joked.
Quentin Tarantino considered all of his films achingly personal
Tarantino once shared that the biggest inspiration for his movies might have been his own life experiences.
“All my movies are achingly personal,” he said in a 2010 interview with The Telegraph. “People who really know me can see that in my work. In a film, I may be talking about a bomb in a theatre, but that’s not what I’m really talking about.”
But the Oscar-winner wouldn’t divulge the true hidden meaning behind his films.
“Well, it’s not my job to tell you,” he said. “My job is to hide it.”
