great_badir
Posts: 4205
Joined: 6/10/2005
From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle
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quote:
ORIGINAL: adambatman82
quote:
ORIGINAL: great_badir
Hence me saying above about how The Killing was the only specific reference he made (to MAINSTREAM media - have to make the distinction here between that and the geek press).
As I mentioned, contemporary pre-ResDogs success interviews are really difficult to find on the internet. That's one of the two that I have been able to find, and in it explicitly refers to one of his influences. Who knows what else he referred to in other interviews that have long disappeared. At this stage it'd probably help you're point if you could link to a couple of interviews from before the success of the film in which Tarantino claimed Reservoir Dogs to be an unequivically original work, because at the moment it feels like I'm attempting to debate an argument that hinges on conjecture and the memories of someone who wasn't even a teenager when the film came out.
quote:
ORIGINAL: great_badir
Is that epitaph actually on screen? Cos at that point, in the days before the internet, most people wouldn't have had access to the script.
I'm not sure I understand. The script that he wrote, that was shipped to studios, agents, actors and probably the screenwriting press and other folks in that area (trades etc) had the dedication on it. While it wasn't on the film itself, a document that was produced prior to his supposed "outing" as a plagiarist bears the names of the people he was supposedly plagiarising. Ergo, he's recognising them as influences in the work at hand. I don't see why this is being disputed/spun into something it isn't.
quote:
ORIGINAL: great_badir
But still no mention of his most blatant "borrowings", nameley City on Fire, The Taking of Pelham 123, A Better Tomorrow etc etc.
Like I've said a couple of times now, contemporary interviews from the days before the success of the film (i.e. the time when you seem to be saying that Tarantino was happy to pass off others work as his own) are really difficult to find online. I'm sure you can appreciate this, seeing as you've provided no evidence whatsoever to back up your claims that he was pretending that ResDogs was a wholly original work.
Well, I must admit that most of my recollections are just that – recollections. BUT, when dogs came out I was 13/14 years old and already a well versed film prick who HAD already seen City on Fire, A Better Tomorrow, Pelham 123 and The Killing. I distinctly remember at least one TV interview (which was probably on the much missed Moving Pictures – that would’ve been the only TV show on at the time where QT and Dogs would have featured, although Film 92/93 is also a possibility) where he only mentioned The Killing specifically, and one broadsheet interview (probably in The Sunday Times Culture section, cos that was the only broadsheet my folks bought) with the “I used to work in a video store and spent most of my time there watching the stock” (paraphrased) line. Latterly, a 90s edition of Empire or Premiere DEFINITELY had a fairly chunky interview with QT that was conducted at the time of Dogs’ release and, again, the only specific mention of other films was The Killing and French new wave in general. Unfortunately I couldn’t tell you exactly which issue as I had to show all of my film magazines to the recycling bin when we moved house in 2004.
I can’t do a Google search at the moment, but there are at least two (re-printed) interviews somewhere online, again conducted around the time of Dogs’ release and before he became the next big thing, that corroborate my recollections. I will search them out and post links when I find them.
But the reason I remember the above so clearly (apart from the fact that I was already a well seasoned film prick despite barely being in puberty – I have my dad to thank for that...the film prick thing, not puberty) is down to both the fuss it caused in the press, and also when I saw finally saw it (on a terrible shot-in-the-cinema-with-a-home-video-camera VHS bootleg that a mate amusingly paid £15 for, along with a bootleg of T2 copied from the extended laserdisc for which he even more amusingly paid £25) and my first reaction was that there was a lot more than just an influence from The Killing going on. I also distinctly remember that, whilst Ringo Lam, John Woo and Chow Yun Fat have never said anything on the matter, there was definitely a stern and none-too-pleased response from the heads at Cinema City which, again, was rather surprisingly reported in mainstream media.
At which point you just have to take my word for it and believe that I’m telling the truth and am recalling correctly which, I acknowledge (as a massive skeptic), is not an easy thing to do with no firm evidence to back it up, but I freely admit I love Pulp Fiction (it's in my top 150 list), I think Jackie Brown is okay and the man himself seems to be an affable fellow (although, apparently, an absolute nightmare to interview cos he never shuts up - first hand from a mate who is a freelance journo and interviewed him in the late 90s), so it's not as if I have some major vendetta against the guy.
< Message edited by great_badir -- 30/8/2012 3:53:04 PM >
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