Quentin Tarantino Once Felt That His ‘Pulp Fiction’ Blazed the Trail for David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’

Quentin Tarantino may have changed cinema in many ways with his work in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

So much so that Tarantino believed his first two films might have made it easier on David Fincher to put out Se7en.

How Quentin Tarantino felt about claims that other directors were copying his style from ‘Pulp Fiction’

After Pulp Fiction came out, there were a couple of movies in that time frame that some felt were influenced by Tarantino’s film. Tarantino was well aware of the comparisons made between Fiction and these other movies. But he felt he was just one of many directors that shared similar ideas during that period.

“I was a distinct voice that came out, but a lot of films came out that shared that similar voice, all right? And I don’t think a lot of them were conscious attempts to write like me. It just so happens their scriptwriters share a similar voice to mine,” he once said in an interview with Enfant (via The Celebrity Interviews). “I believe artistically like-minded people tend to come up at the same time. There’s something about creativity that it’s in the air, if that makes any sense.”

Still, Tarantino did concede that there were some films that might have been influenced by his writing after all. But he also reminded others that his own style has been influenced by other artists as well.

“Some people have pointed out to me that even average movies such as Bad Boys with Will Smith have copied me by having scenes with gangsters talking about TV shows and pop culture things. But I’m not saying I’m the first guy to do that. Elmore Leonard did it all the time in his novels and that was a key influence for me,” he said.

How Quentin Tarantino believed ‘Pulp Fiction’ blazed the trail for David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’

A big point of discussion for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction was the amount of violence present in both movies. At the time, it was something he was getting some criticism for. But the Oscar-winner had a lot to say about those who questioned his morality because of how violent his movies could be.

“I don’t feel I have any moral responsibility because in real life I have very strong anti-violence views. Violence is a very moral, sad and tragic issue in real life,” Tarantino said. “However, in the movies it can be a lot of fun. The movies are the movies. In real life a shark attacking people is tragedy. It’s horrible. But I go to see Jaws and I love seeing those shark attacks. It’s very exciting.”

However, Tarantino once considered the possibility that the criticism he received for violence in films made movies like Se7en possible. David Fincher’s crime thriller also contained its fair share of violence. But Tarantino believed he might have been the reason Fincher didn’t experience much backlash for it.

“By the time Pulp Fiction came out, my audience had caught up with me in terms of the violence and my sense of humor,” Tarantino once said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “But initially I got all kinds of s*** about the violence in Pulp Fiction, but I don’t really remember David Fincher, the next year, going through what I went through when he made Seven. And I think part of the reason is, he was walking down a trail I blazed.”

Why Quentin Tarantino decided to tone down the violence in ‘The Hateful Eight’

Tarantino once acknowledged that the violence in his movie The Hateful Eight might not have been as overt as his previous movies. This was by design. Growing as a filmmaker, Tarantino began experimenting with new ways to depict violence in his films.

“One of the things I learned making this is how to turn violence into a tone that runs through the story, that hangs over the characters’ heads, like their own sword of Damocles,” Tarantino once told Time Out. “You don’t know when the violence is going to happen, but you know it is going to happen. And you are just waiting for it. There is a long, long build up, as I put my chess pieces in place. I am playing chess and I have got to put them all in the right spot before I start killing them off, and I am asking you for some patience. But hopefully the suspense makes it worth it.”