It’s been three years since Quentin Tarantino released his excellent tribute to showbusiness in the 1960s Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood, which could very well be his last film (I certainly hope not). During that time, he wrote a novelization of the 2019 film, had his first child, started a movie podcast with his friend Roger Avery, and has made numerous talk show/interview appearances to promote these things. His new book Cinema Speculation is a collection of reflections and critiques about his favorite movies from the 1970s, arguably the best decade in movie history, from someone who grew up in the town where it happened.
Tarantion’s rapid-fire delivery of movie trivia in interviews is something he’s more than proud to show off on his appearances on shows like Jimmy Kimmel or Howard Stern, where he acts like a director’s version of Yoda, imparting his wisdom of cinema on the world. And really, all of his films are tributes to genres of cinema: Kill Bill to martial arts films; Jackie Brown to blacksploitation films; Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight to Westerns, etc.
Once Upon a Time in..Hollywood feels like Tarantino at his most personal, and the process of making that seems to have opened up a self-reflexivity where he is more open about his personal life than ever before. Maybe it’s becoming a father or him announcing his retirement, but whatever it is, there’s a noticeable difference—some of which presents itself in Cinema Speculation. Unfortunately, the book is also like his interviews in that it’s sprawling, unrestrained, and rambling, even though, at times, some poignant moments of self-reflection and analysis rise above it all.
Classic films like Taxi Driver, Bullit, Dirty Harry, and Sisters are all addressed, but it becomes fairly obvious early on that he’s less interested in talking about the merits of these films and more using them as an entry point to focus on the stars, their legacies, his vast knowledge of the film’s production and belaboring his gripes that he’s been holding onto for 50 years. Some of this is effective, like his extensive history of Steve McQueen’s filmography and how his wife was critical in choosing what projects he would pick because he wouldn’t read the scripts, and he trusted her instincts.
Others can seem repetitive and misguided, like his defense of Dirty Harry as an anti-fascist film. I wasn’t surprised by any means, but c’mon, dude, cops killing people without due process is something we’re still dealing with today and was rightly called out upon the film’s release. Or his hangup on the pimp in Taxi Driver, played by Harvey Keitel, being white instead of black (due to the studio allegedly pressuring Martin Scorsese to do so for fear of race riots) because of the anecdotal evidence that Paul Schrader couldn’t find any white pimps in New York at the time.
At its best, the book is a memoir about a young movie buff whose firsthand accounts of what it was like to be a part of these audiences as a kid acts as a skeleton key to understanding all of the films that he would end up making throughout his career. Without his dad in the picture, he grew up with his mom in an apartment with her two friends. Whenever his mom would date someone, they would take him to the movies once they found out about his immense passion for them. Being the only white kid in a room full of black people cheering, laughing, and swearing at Jim Brown kicking ass on the screen was just as informative as him working all those years in a video store; as a matter of fact, he doesn’t even mention those years of his life.
Tarantino’s own films and his takes on other films have always been divisive—like the one year he said The Intern was the best film the year it came out (it’s good, but not that good)—so you should expect nothing less from his book. But the biggest takeaway is that Tarantino is that same earnest kid he writes about all these years later; the only difference is that now he’s an Oscar winner.
His brash and unfiltered delivery and strong opinions can be offputting for some, but if you have an interest in learning about film history or are a fan of the director’s work, then you might enjoy it. I will say, even as a person who studies film, it was still easy to find myself getting lost as he was describing minute details about an actor I’d never heard of, but there were also profound chapters like the one he dedicated to Sylvester Stallone and how inspirational he was to the movie culture and to Tarantino himself.
Overall, fans of film criticism, history, and theory will find themselves satisfied with the impressive recall that Tarantino has when it comes to cinema, but those just looking to find out more about the filmmaker himself or a more straightforward approach to film history without hearing about all of Tarantino’s weird hangups might want to look elsewhere.
Final Rating:
‘Cinema Speculation’ is available now.
(Photo: Laura Loveday)
