Quentin Tarantino is not a filmmaker known for subtlety.
He is actually regarded as a boundary-pushing director when it comes to Action and Violence.
Tarantino’s films are populated with unique characters and even though he reuses the same actors in many of his projects
they all still stand out as original characters with each new film.
So we have action, characters and everyone’s favorite violence.
These are the go-tos when many people describe his films.
But some of the most stand out features of his films are the close-ups.
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They are sometimes used as cutaways yet also many times the close-ups are essential story elements.
A watch, passed down for generations is the motivation for Butch in Pulp Fiction
in many ways this item sums up his experience, that everyone must go through some kind of hell to earn it and to pass it on.
As if the time piece itself is respected because of everything the people before had gone through.
Or as in the case of Beatrice Kiddo in Kill Bill, after years of being in a coma
something as simple as a mosquito awakens the sleeping warrior.
That larger meaning should be found in these shots and that they are not simply incidental or cut-aways is not lost on Tarantino.
When watching his films I tend to look for these shots, they’re a classic example of show don’t tell.
And many times these shots point to where the film is headed or what the character is truly thinking about or who and what is driving them.
Quentin Tarantino is a filmmaker who borrows a lot from other filmmakers, he as a writer and director certainly takes genre and exploitation to new levels.
His vision for his films always has a clear idea of where he wants to go
simply saying his films are violent or exploitative misses the details in which are ever present in his work.
By using something as simple as a close-up to accentuate a point or to get an idea across
that would be bogged down or over simplified with dialogue is a stand out feature in his films that is both interesting and cinematic.
Next time you watch a Tarantino film pay attention to the close-ups because you never know where they might lead.
