Quentin Tarantino’s first non-fiction book is a slice of cinematic history in the director’s own inimitable voice, reports Dan Slevin.
Photo: Hachette
Cinema Speculation, Quentin Tarantino’s first book of non-fiction, could just as easily have been called Cinema Digression thanks to the writer’s undoubted talent for spinning off on tangents. Indeed, at first glance this book feels like a bit of a mess – like you’re being ranted at in the passenger seat as the driver wheels around Southern California, riffing on the landmarks and ghosts he sees all around him.
But there is a method to Tarantino’s madness here and the book ties its loose ends together quite nicely. Yes, it appears to have been transcribed rather than edited but – much like Tarantino’s filmmaking – he never wants to miss an opportunity to make you notice something.
Cinema Speculation is not an autobiography, but it has some fascinating details of Tarantino’s early life as a budding cinephile and the people who encouraged him into it. It’s an exhausting (but not exhaustive) history of American cinema in the '70s and '80s. And it’s a bit of a love letter to those manly men filmmakers of the era who weren’t afraid to show other manly men doing ‘manly’ things – the likes of Sam Peckinpah and Don Siegel.
Indeed, the most interesting aspect of the book is him balancing a love of cinematic macho excess – screen violence especially – with the implicit understanding that it is all just posturing – wish-fulfilment fantasy not a behavioural manifesto. Just because something looks ‘cool’ doesn't mean he recommends doing it in real life. And something looking ‘cool’ is the only test that really matters to him.
And he has little time for filmmakers who employ the techniques of action cinema but who then try and justify it with disingenuous arthouse excuses: “They never say cinematic violence is fun. They never say, I just wanted to end the movie with a bang. They never say, I wanted to shock the audience out of their movie-trope-fed complacency.”
Most chapters are focused on a particular film – allowing for all those digressions I talked about earlier – and most of those films are reasonably well known. Where things get a bit juicier is when his encyclopaedic knowledge leads us to more obscure corners – screen adaptations of Donald Westlake’s Parker books; 80s carnival horrors like The Funhouse.
It’s at those moments that you wish you could dial those films up like you sometimes can with a Spotify playlist and a musician’s biography.
However, may of the titles that Tarantino mentions are stuck in the ‘hard to find’ pile. I’ve searched out the main chapter-leading titles and where you might be able to find them, below:
Bullitt (1968)
Neon (streaming), Digital rental, Blu-ray purchase or rental
Dirty Harry (1971)
Digital rental (Apple), Blu-ray out of print but available for rental
Deliverance (1972)
Digital rental (most outlets), Blu-ray out of print but available for rental
The Getaway (1972)
Digital rental (Apple), Blu-ray rental
The Outfit (1973)
Not available in NZ
Sisters (1973)
Imported DVDs available for rental, you can import the Criterion edition Blu-ray
Daisy Miller (1973)
Digital rental (Apple), DVD rental, no local Blu-ray but there is a French edition that might be importable
Taxi Driver (1976)
Netflix, digital rental (most outlets), the Blu-ray is out of print in NZ but can be rented, there is a 4K UHD version but that’s only available in the Columbia Classics Volume 2 boxset. It is also on the schedule for the Wellington and Auckland film societies this year (2023).
Rolling Thunder (1977)
Only available (as far as I can tell) from Aro Street Video, so you need to hope that collection stays together. You might be able to import a Region B Blu-ray.
Paradise Alley (1978)
Digital rental (Apple), there is a Region A Blu-ray which you might be able to import.
Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Digital rental (Apple), streaming with ads on TVNZ+ (at time of writing), Alice has the Blu-ray for rental, there’s a new 4K UHD release overseas which you might be able to import.
Hardcore (1979)
Digital rental (Apple), there are several Blu-ray editions which may be importable to NZ.
The Funhouse (1981)
Digital rental (Apple), DVD rental from Alice and Aro Street, there are Blu-ray editions available overseas and a new 4K UHD from Shout! Factory.
Quentin Tarantino’s book Cinema Speculation is published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson (Hachette in NZ) and is available at all good bookshops. The RRP is $39.99.
