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Occupation: Writer, director 
AwardsThe still young but already brilliant career of Quentin Tarantino has instantly become the stuff of Hollywood legend. His improbable story incorporates plot elements previously encountered in earlier "boy wonder" lore (e.g. the youthful adventures of Orson Welles and Steven Spielberg) but, much like this unlikely celebrity's rapid-fire vocal delivery, the pace has been greatly accelerated. As of 1996, Tarantino, who also has acted in several features, had helmed only two features and a segment of a poorly received omnibus film. While this output is somewhat impressive for a three-year span, it would hardly seem to justify the three book-length studies of the filmmaker that were published in late 1995. Of course, winning the Oscar, Golden Globe and numerous critics' awards for Best Original Screenplay for PULP FICTION (1994) only added to his luster. Not bad for a high school dropout who picked up much of his film education while working as a video store clerk.
For better or worse, the entertainment press has selected Tarantino as the symbol of a new generation of young directors of popular films. Hailed by Variety as "the videostore generation of filmmakers," these would-be auteurs learned what they know about moviemaking and film history by watching tapes on TV and not at film school. A minimum wage job behind a video store counter became a road to a treasure trove of cinematic expression—particularly if one worked, as Tarantino did, at a well-stocked outfit like Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, CA. Cinephiles rather than cineastes, these young buffs tended to have rather catholic if idiosyncratic tastes. One can see influences of everything from arcane Hong Kong action titles to French New Wave classics in Tarantino's work.
Tarantino and his mother left Knoxville, TN when he was two years old and settled in Los Angeles. After leaving school, he held a succession of odd jobs before finding his niche at Video Archives, where for five years, he regaled customers, including many low-profile industry players, with his passionate opinions and recommendations. There, Tarantino first met the film school-trained Roger Avary, his future collaborator on the screenplays for RESERVOIR DOGS (1992), TRUE ROMANCE (1993) and PULP FICTION (although the exact nature of their work together remains in dispute). The pair were hired by producer John Langley, a regular customer who was impressed by the duo's film knowledge, to work as production assistants on a Dolph Lundgren exercise video. This led to work at Cinetel Productions, where they hooked up with producer Lawrence Bender and finished their screenplay for DOGS. The Tarantino Story kicked into high gear with the release of this acclaimed feature debut as writer-director-actor. A brutally violent yet elegantly written crime drama originally budgeted for a mere $35,000, the production grew to $1.5 million when Harvey Keitel became enamored of the script and agreed to star. The result, a cleverly structured and stylized caper with themes of masculinity, loyalty and betrayal, benefited greatly from top notch tough-guy performances from a superior ensemble that also included Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi and Michael Madsen. It premiered at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and was pointedly snubbed by the jury. Nonetheless, Tarantino was courted by the industry and lionized by some as the next Martin Scorsese, albeit with liberal sprinklings of Samuel Fuller and John Woo. Tarantino continued in this vein with the screenplay for TRUE ROMANCE , a gleefully adolescent daydream fueled by pop culture, violence and testosterone. Slickly directed by Tony Scott, the film offered grandstanding performances and a glossy commercial sheen that rendered the ample violence less distressing than that in DOGS. NATURAL BORN KILLERS , also penned during the same burst of creativity, was helmed with a heavy hand by Oliver Stone, who had the script extensively rewritten, consigning Tarantino to a story credit. Consequently, Stone took the kudos and brickbats that the controversial film eventually generated.
Tarantino returned to the director's chair for PULP FICTION, marking a return to a familiar urban landscape characterized by themes of trust, betrayal, and gangsters given to low-level postulating. Boasting another A-list cast including Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman and Christopher Walken, the film premiered to acclaim and some controversy at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival where it received the Palme d'Or. It went on to surprising box-office success, grossing over $100 million domestically. PULP made Tarantino the toast of Tinseltown and resuscitated the commercial and critical fortunes of Travolta, whose career management became a well-publicized sideline for the red-hot young filmmaker.
After taking home well over a dozen major awards for PULP FICTION, Tarantino was all but omnipresent in late 1994 and 1995. As an actor, he had began popping up in small roles in independent features (SLEEP WITH ME and SOMEBODY TO LOVE, both 1994) but was now being cast in low and medium budget studio pictures. He was the lead in the disastrous comic fantasy DESTINY TURNS ON THE RADIO and did an enjoyable turn as a hapless drug dealer in Robert Rodriguez's DESPERADO (both 1995). Segueing to TV, Tarantino did a guest shot on Margaret Cho's ABC sitcom "All-American Girl" and directed a flashy installment of the hit NBC medical drama "ER." Tarantino and Bender expanded their production company A Band Apart (taken from BANDE A PART, the original French title of Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 classic BAND OF OUTSIDERS) to include A Band Apart Commercials and Rolling Thunder. The latter was a specialty distribution label under Miramax Pictures designed to acquire, distribute and market four films per year. The emphasis would be on visceral, exploitation-tinged genre movies. The first acquisition was a quirky Hong Kong import, Wong Kar-Wai's CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994; released in the US in 1996), an exquisitely stylized romantic comedy in police drama drag.
As a filmmaker, Tarantino returned to the screen to executive produce FOUR ROOMS (1995), a poorly received comedy anthology, for which he also wrote, directed and starred in one segment. He fared better as executive producer, scripter and co-star of Rodriguez's FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (1996), a moody, violent crime flick transformed halfway through into a gory special effects-laden vampire movie. The reviews were mixed but box office was brisk. Still in demand as an actor, Tarantino played an unsympathetic version of himself as "QT" in Spike Lee's sex comedy GIRL 6 (1996). A great interview subject, Tarantino has quickly cultivated an intriguing public persona. He enjoys dual status as the "film geek who made good" and the reigning avatar of postmodern "cool." The latter quality is conveyed by the playful hipster tone of his protagonists, their retro clothing, a mastery of pop culture allusions and killer soundtracks. Eventually, the mere fact that Tarantino likes a particular film or performer became its marketable selling point.
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