Okay, listen closely, and just trust me on this. Anyone who tells you this movie is not worth seeing has no idea what they're talking about - no idea. Or, they are willfully deceiving you, and I don't know which is worse. For the first fifteen minutes, I'm sitting in this movie thinking "okay, how long can this scene possibly last? If the whole movie is like this, then I don't know if I'm going to - whoa! Did that just happen? Oh, no!" and tension ensues. In fact, this whole movie is a study in proper tension-building. I'm not even a big Tarantino fan; sometimes I just don't get the guy, but this time I did. This time, he blew me away. It takes a genius. Write a twenty minute scene? No problem. Write a twenty minute scene that holds people's attention and ends in such a way that it completely justifies ever second of the time spent building to that point? That takes Tarantino. Watch and understand what it is to take your time and do it right. What it is to wow with skill and words and not just visual tricks of the trade. If you told me you had a fifteen minute stretch of your script where two guys are just sitting at a table talking, I'd tell you to cut that down to three minutes, and have them doing something. But Tarantino does it. I'll never be able to do it, but Tarantino does it. And he does it very well.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Inglorious = Glorious!
Okay, listen closely, and just trust me on this. Anyone who tells you this movie is not worth seeing has no idea what they're talking about - no idea. Or, they are willfully deceiving you, and I don't know which is worse. For the first fifteen minutes, I'm sitting in this movie thinking "okay, how long can this scene possibly last? If the whole movie is like this, then I don't know if I'm going to - whoa! Did that just happen? Oh, no!" and tension ensues. In fact, this whole movie is a study in proper tension-building. I'm not even a big Tarantino fan; sometimes I just don't get the guy, but this time I did. This time, he blew me away. It takes a genius. Write a twenty minute scene? No problem. Write a twenty minute scene that holds people's attention and ends in such a way that it completely justifies ever second of the time spent building to that point? That takes Tarantino. Watch and understand what it is to take your time and do it right. What it is to wow with skill and words and not just visual tricks of the trade. If you told me you had a fifteen minute stretch of your script where two guys are just sitting at a table talking, I'd tell you to cut that down to three minutes, and have them doing something. But Tarantino does it. I'll never be able to do it, but Tarantino does it. And he does it very well.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Yes. The brilliance is that QT finally managed how to have these really long conversations that are laden with suspense and tension.
Definitely his masterpiece.
QT - I like that. It saves me the trouble of having to Google him every time I need to remember how to spell his name. Yeah, he gets a masterpiece and I get the inner dialogue of "You might as well quit now, novice writer, because even your very best works will all be shameful in comparison to this." Too dramatic? I think not.
Post a Comment