Overview

Quentin Tarantino is the most exciting and fascinating film director of recent years. Since he exploded onto the scene with the release of ""Reservoir Dogs"", he is one of the few movie makers to combine critical success with box office clout. With more than a hundred interviews with colleagues, close friends and family, author Wensley Clarkson explores the enigmatic cinematic legend in depth. Born in 1963, Tarantino was a film buff from an early age and, determined to join the industry, he studied, wrote scripts and polished his already geekily vast knowledge of all things cinematic by working in a video store. True Romance's screenplay was sold early on, but it was the dazzling ""Reservoir Dogs"" that was to be his debut and a movie which stunned the world. The hits kept on coming with ""Pulp Fiction"", ""Jackie Brown"" and ""Kill Bill"". The whole of Tarantino's dazzling career, his motor mouth reputation and his latest chiller, Grind House, are revealed in a book which draws on sources close to the director, including Connie, Tarantino's mother. Bold, pioneering and always unpredictable, Quentin Tarantino is the ultimate movie director with a fascinating story. Discover it all with this gripping account of his life and times.

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9781844543663

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Reviews

"""Dedicated fans will no doubt find the account of the rising star's career worthwhile."" ""Library Journal"""""

Super-uncool biography of the supercool filmmaker.The groundbreaking impact of Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) certainly make Tarantino a worthy subject for a full-length portrait, and his oddball backstory - learned film history at a geeky video store; betrayed, then (sort of) reconciled with early associates - provides good fodder. Regrettably, prolific celeb-unauthorized biographer Clarkson (John Travolta: King of Cool, 2006, and many more) makes uninteresting use of both life and art. The author spends an inordinate amount of time recounting Tarantino's upbringing in a broken home and youthful taste in movies; while mildly interesting, this material isn't nearly as compelling as his film career. The likely reason for this imbalance is that Clarkson's best source was Tarantino's eager-to-chat mother, Connie Zastoupil. The remainder of the director's story is told primarily via previously published material and author analysis. Clarkson surveys Tarantino's career competently enough; his critical perceptions range from uninspired to lame, as when the author compares Tarantino to Vanilla Ice for their respective use of sampling. Further, the book all but ends in 2004, glossing over, for instance, Tarantino's production work on the horror flick Hostel in 2005 and his 2007 exploitation-flick homage with Robert Rodriguez, Grindhouse. For that matter, the two Kill Bill films (2003 and 2004), not as resonant as his early films but still highly enjoyable, receive what could generously be called a cursory discussion. For a far more compelling dissection of Tarantino and his contemporaries, see Sharon Waxman's excellent Rebels on the Backlot (2005), which offers three vital qualities sorely lacking here: access, context and insight. (Kirkus Reviews)

Dedicated fans will no doubt find the account of the rising star's career worthwhile. -- Library Journal

Dedicated fans will no doubt find the account of the rising star's career worthwhile. - Library Journal

Author Information

Wensley Clarkson is a journalist and prolific author whose biographies include John Travolta: King of Cool, Mel Gibson: Man on a Mission, Tom Cruise: Cruise Control and many bestselling true crime books. He has homes in London and Spain.

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