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Screenwriter Rob Edwards Delves into Tarantino

By Rob Edwards · December 18, 2014

I don't know why, but most of my stories start like this… I was at a party holding a drink when this guy walks up to me. In this case, some mutual friends found out that we were both writers and thought we should meet. It turns out the guy had written a spec parody of a certain producer's style of movies. He was slightly terrified when the actual producer called him. He was even more surprised when the producer offered him a job on his staff fixing scripts. He obviously knew the formula, why not put that knowledge to good use? I had to ask. Did you take the job? Heck yeah! He'd gone from a young observant guy to a working writer in Hollywood based solely on his ability to break down somebody else's style and employ it in a screenplay. It's one of my favorite stories because it's the best possible result of what we've been talking about for the past few weeks.

If you don't already know, this is the third part of a three part series. Here's where you can find part one and two. The first article talked about the importance of studying great writers in the same way that painting students sit in museums re-painting the works of the great masters. In the second part, we focussed down on some specific aspects that separate great filmmakers from each other. In this, the third of three parts, I'm going to share the results I got when I used this system to take a look at Quentin Tarantino. But here's the thing, I can do many things with words, condense an entire 3-ring binder of observations on Quentin Tarantino into a single article is not one of them. Consequently, this article will be in two parts. Yes, it's a four part trilogy. I'm sorry if you were hoping to get the whole thing in one bite, and I'll field all complaints… next week after the last part is out and there's nothing to complain about. See how I did that?

Before we dive into this, I want to say three things. 1) The reason I picked Quentin Tarantino is because I think he's the best of the best. There are few filmmakers whose work I enjoy more and watching all of his movies multiple times was some of the best time I've ever spent. If any of the observations below seem remotely critical, it's a huge mistake on my part. 2) I'm sure there's stuff I've missed. This is not, by any means, comprehensive or scientific. As a matter of fact, I would appreciate hearing any observations you might have so please fill up the comment section and we'll have fun with it. 3) Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but there's a reason why plagiarism is illegal. If studying Van Gogh paintings inspires you to paint swirls then, by all means, have at it. Essentially, if you copy anybody's anything you shouldn't consider yourself an artist. Rather, the idea here is to learn from the masters and build your cathedrals on the shoulders of giants as artists have done for generations. Put your own spin on whatever you learn. Use it to improve your writing and to take writing in general to the next level. There.

Caveats over. Here we go…

SAMPLE SIZE

I like to go by the 80-20 rule when it comes to analyzing an artist's style. You'll get 80% of your information from 20% of the material. Knowing that, let's look at everything out there first.

According to IMDB.com, as of this morning, Quentin Tarantino has written (or co-written) 23 movies and directed 16. I found myself focussing on films that he'd both written and directed: Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds, Death Proof, Kill Bills 1 and 2 (which I'm considering as one movie), Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs… and then I added True Romance, which he wrote but didn't direct, because it's awesome. So shoot me.

I removed Jackie Brown because it was based on an Elmore Leonard novel. Mr. Leonard has a distinctive style which makes it difficult to sift through the Tarantino-ness of this one so out it goes.

I focussed on Django, Inglorious and the Bills as the most Tarantino-esque and used Romance and Death Proof as examples of great ideas handled in ways that were a little easier to examine.

STRUCTURE

As I've said before, I'm a structure geek. I love the puzzle pieces of story. It's fun to seduce people from distributing popcorn and sodas into your movie and then assembling a story where the world washes away as the audience forgets their cell phones and the candy in their laps as they're engulfed in your story. With Tarantino, the structure jumps right out at you. There are movies like Pulp Fiction, that deserve their own articles and others like Django, Inglorious and the Bills are all written in chapters rather than acts.

Here's why the use of chapters advances movie storytelling to the next level. Most writers work through First Acts, Inciting Incidents, Bridges into Act Twos and other tent poles. Tarantino does all of that and then adds what I can only describe as META-STRUCTURE. Each of the movies I just mentioned contains several short films with beginnings, middles, ends. Each short film has its own tone, location, characters, pace and style. Notably, each new section brings its own energy but each also advances the story to the next story tent pole. How awesome is that?!

I found myself watching individual "chapters" and enjoying them as I would a series of brilliant stand-alone short films. You guys should try it. Every "chapter" of Kill Bill has its own flavor, pace, shape and dynamic. In each "chapter," The Bride is a slightly different character, as she advances to the next goal, and each section gives you a definitive satisfying ending.

By the way, I wouldn't advise taking on something like this until you had a steady hand with traditional structure. At Disney / Pixar we always write in sequences so chapters are a fun next step for me and I've incorporated them into my own writing.

CHARACTERS

Okay. I'm at another party holding another drink and a writer friend of mine tells me he's just sold a slew of screenplays for what I like to call "vacation house buying money." When I asked him how he did it, he said he wrote parts that great actors would want to play and let the rest take care of itself. Great advice. There's no shortage of this in the works of Quentin Tarantino. His protagonists are like flypaper to big stars. Certainly Tarantino has a stable of guys who come in and hit cameos out of the park like Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson, Harvey Keitel and Michael Madsen, basically guys you'd just hand your lunch money to if you saw them in a hallway. But he also writes bad-ass genius protagonists like Brad Pitt, Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Jamie Fox. At Disney we would call these characters "aspirational." We want to be them. Deep down inside we all want to be a Tarantino protagonist. We all want to put on a black suit and a thin black tie and go out kicking in doors and shooting Nazis in the eye. There's very little tension between audience and protagonist here. You know what you're in for when you buy the ticket and you're immediately on for the ride when the movie starts.

The other thing that's worth noting here is the notion of ROVING PROTAGONISTS.

The Django that is unchained in Django Unchained is not the protagonist of the movie that bears his name. I'll let that sink it. It's Dr. King Schultz. Think about it. It's his arc. He's the one who frees Django. He's the one who is driving the plot. Django is just a means to an end until the middle of the movie, when we finally find out what Django wants. Then they're both allied in saving Broomhilda until Schultz's drive takes over again when he can't resist the temptation to shoot Candie. Then, Django takes the baton back as he fights for his life through the conclusion of the movie.

In Inglorious Basterds, the protagonist of the movie, Shosanna is hiding under the floorboards for the first 20 minutes of the movie. Then Aldo Raine drives the action of killin' Nazis for the next few chapters. Then we're reintroduced to Shosanna in the back half of the movie, living her new life until fate falls into her lap and the plot to kill Hitler comes to fruition which melds her drive to Aldo's (two characters who, incidentally, never meet.)

Now I know what you're thinking, Hans Landa is the protagonist of Basterds. Nope! Read your film books again. He's an antagonist. Okay, Hitler is the true antagonist, but Landa gives him voice, just as the Dark Side is the antagonist of Star Wars, but Darth is the guy you want to stab with your light saber.

In Pulp Fiction, you have a variety of protagonists to choose from. Most people would say it's Vincent Vega because we stay with him for most of the movie, but Jules Winnfield is the character that actually has the arc and has to make the final existential decision of the movie. Vincent is just an observer at that point so you could make an argument that it's Jules' movie. Or maybe it's Marsellus Wallace's. The fear of him is present in every scene and he too has his own epiphany. Of course, I'm just proving my point here. In Tarantino movies, the most entertaining character takes over the movie and runs with it. It's a fantastic way to tell stories. Could anybody but Quentin Tarantino get away with it? I seriously doubt it.

Okay. I'm sure I've worn you out so it's time to take that break. Next week we'll continue through the list. Until then, class dismissed!

 

Rob is an Emmy-nominated writer whose credits include In Living Color, Full House and Fresh Prince. His animated feature writing include Disney / Pixar's Oscar nominated The Princess and the Frog and Treasure Planet as well as working on Frozen, Tangled and Wreck-it Ralph. His latest project, The Santa Story, will be released in December 2015. 
 
In 2012, Rob launched www.robedwards.net. On this website, Rob shares the tools he's used to write dynamic scripts for the past 30 years. Rob's passion for teaching has led him to do Master Classes, panels or lectures at Syracuse, UCLA, USC, NYU, BU, The Organization of Black Screenwriters, The Animation Expo and The Scriptwriters Network among others.
 
Photo: Alphacoders