I love cinema at least as much as Sharon Lifshitz. When I devoted myself to reading more than a decade ago, I very easily gave up the reality shows, the double-digit channels that sell news by the sight of their eyes and less easily the TV series I was addicted to. At the end of giving up, I had many hours freed up in the day and I celebrated them by reading. But I never gave up on cinema.
Movies are milestones in my life. It's true, sometimes we stumble upon a movie that we wish we hadn't stepped on in the first place, but we keep looking because when it's the right stone, it makes you jump to heights. A good movie is like a song whose sounds immediately land me in memory; Where was I when I saw him? with whom? What did Harry say to Sally when he met her? How lucky Jennifer Gray is to dance the corrupt with Patrick, Princess Anne (my beloved Audrey Hepburn) riding the moped through the streets of Rome with Bradley (Gregory Peck) smiling behind her, and also - how I took my breath away in the cinema when the screen went dark, just after they buried Beatrix (Uma Thurman) And only her breaths echoed in the silent hall, in a brilliant cinematic act of Quentin Tarantino.
You cheap literature, not his first film, but for me the first one I watched, I didn't like it from the first viewing. I was ten years old and I didn't understand it, I didn't understand the part. Here I come to something very important that Quentin taught me, and yes, in our house, between me and the man, we are on a first name basis with our favorite filmmaker. I learned from him not to judge at first sight.
I learned to love cheap literature and it happened on maybe the fourth viewing. Quentin's films are like books that I read again and again, because each time I get something more from the reading experience. And how I love cheap literature. "Zed is Dead" is a byword for me ;) Of course, it helps that I really, really love Bruce Willis.
in the first part of kill bill We watched in 2003, some dilapidated cinema structure on the island of Koh Tao in Thailand. Only Quentin can make a celebration out of a bloodbath. And the movie ends and I ask myself, how come I had so much fun watching it? I got the answer this week when I finished reading his book, Thoughts on cinema.
Quentin Tarantino allows readers to peek into his memories and thoughts without filters. Reading it felt a bit like eavesdropping on a conversation he was having at the next table in a restaurant, but with his full consent. And if we continue with this analogy, then reading it is like eavesdropping and not understanding half of the things, but at the same time wanting to understand, lusting after these bits of information that are like movie pearls, a rain of names-characters-experiences that it rains and I enjoy the overwhelming rain.
"If you are reading this book to learn something about cinema and you are dizzy from many unfamiliar names, congratulations - you are learning something", that's how he writes sometime in the book. And it's true, I learned a lot and mostly I learned that this man, cinema is his world. He breathes and lives the movies and this makes me want to breathe and live books even more than I do today, because if a filmmaker can reach such a level thanks to everything he gathers in his fight related to the field, then I hope to become a better writer thanks to the books and writers I meet along the way.
Immune to death / Kevin Tarantino
However, there is one movie I will not forgive Quentin for. Not about the horrible movie, in which I found no purpose except violence for violence's sake and I never felt that way in his other movies, and not about Kurt Russell, who until this movie I loved him and this movie makes it hard for me to watch his other movies. immune to death For me it was so shocking that to this moment, and 17 years have passed since we watched it, I still close my eyes and try to forget the experience. And that's a good reason to be angry with Quentin, because he did this abomination so well, so well it's impossible to bear it. So that's it, at your own risk if you choose to watch it.
A quote from his thoughts on Dirty Harry:
I remember sitting in the cinema at the age of nine and feeling exactly the same things that the adults around me felt: fear of death and disbelief that Scorpio is capable of doing such sick and twisted things... Well, maybe once we couldn't believe our eyes when we witnessed Scorpio's exploits... but today it is no longer like that. We know exactly how sick and mean people can be.
Regarding the question whether remains or is released In my private library, Thoughts on Cinema is a book that I would like to read again, knowing that in the next reading, as in Quentin's films, I will understand something that I did not see in the first reading, therefore, the book remaining.
Book details:
Thoughts on Cinema by Quentin Tarantino, Blue Publishing, 2024.
And in the meantime, I wish for days when a bloodbath will remain on the imaginary cinema screen and that we can focus on art over our war of existence.
Pleasant reading and may good words be by your side always,
Lily