Natural Born Killers

• Oliver Stone tried to re-write Natural Born Killers (NBK) and was killed by the media for it
• Quentin used character name "Mickey Knox" from parts of his past. Mickey was a character in a book he stole when he was a teenager, and also an actor named Mickey Rourke. Knox came from Knoxville, Tennessee, where his grandparents live
• Q was very attached to his roots
• One of his characters was named Grace Mulberry, but in original script, Q put Lovelace instead of Mulberry several times (Grace Lovelace = Q's love interest)
• never considered himself a writer, but wrote out scenes just to play them in his head
• seemed to use black humour in scripts
• Has a theory about first films: a director's first movie has to make a splash, so he got Rand to continue to direct it himself. Q left the movie to Rand, but Rand handed it over to other directors and there were law suit problems
• Cut off ties with his "go-nowhere friends" (Video Archives friends who didn't become famous so to speak) if he could talk with the likes of Uma Thurman or John Travolta
• some believe that though Quentin didn't get famous fast, once he did get famous, he got really famous and it went to his head
• Q still thinks of Rand (the man he sort of screwed over) as a friend, and thinks that it was the nicest thing anyone could ever do when he allowed Rand to direct it
• After a while, regretted giving up NBK, because he could have made it later or used material from it for his other films

My Best Friend's Birthday and True Romance

• Quentin was friends with Craig Hamman, who also had an aversion to authority figures
• they shared a similar taste in movies
• as a teenager, they wrote scenes for themselves to act in
• "My Best Friend's Birthday" was co- written, produced, and starred by the two of them to showcase their talents
• Q was Allan Carfield's first student
• Filmed BF's B-day in Connie's house when she was on a business trip, house was a pigsty
• Quentin used material from BF's Bday in Pulp Fiction (likes to use old material in his works)
• pulled scams/took loans they never repaid (From Q's 2nd stepfather) in order to pay for movie filming equipment and materials
• spent so much time of work, they only got around 3 hours of sleep, they were close to nervous breakdowns
• This was a learning experience for Q, learned technical aspects of filming

True Romance:

• this was another film made, after BFs Bday didnt work out
• could not sell film due to such vulgar language and scenes
• however, finally someone liked it
• Bill Lustig was fired (he was the director)
• he was fired because he wanted to change the script/ending (for commercial purposes)
• Q got Tony Scott (new director of film) to convince Sammy Hadida to fire Bill
• This showed that he really did not want to make changes to his film
• "Quentin puts our culture into a blender and redistributes it as an artistic, entertaining phenomenon

• Quentin co-wrote/co-directed/co-starred in a film he never finished
• it was deleted (?)
• Scott (a friend of Quentin's from the video store) killed himself in 1987, and left an elaborate journal & audiotape for Quentin and Roger Avary, saying he couldn't compete with both of them
• Quentin truly loved his friends, and even puts them in his movies as extras, or names characters after them (also gives characters their traits)
• Q liked to take quotes from his friends and incorporate them into his films (had a first-come-first-serve perspective)
• His friends occasionally got angry and felt as if Q had stolen from them
• On one of Stevo's birthdays, Q gave him a favour card, entitling him to any favour at any time, but when Q was famous and Stevo finally did call, Q refused

Video Archives

• worked at a video store for five years, became quite close with co-workers who were all interested in some creative endeavour (writing, film making, art etc)
• Video Archives went out of business when Q left, he was such a big part of it
• Got fired from his job at the lounge because he was under aged
• began acting lessons at James Best Acting Lounge
• Quentin definitely belonged in his place of work (Video Archives, a video store) because of his vast knowledge of videos
• For a while, Quentin was a disappointment to his mother who had worked as hard as possible for herself and her son for dropping out of school and pursuing his dreams of film making and acting
• Took movies very seriously, was very upset (perhaps too upset) when disrupted by talking during a movie (even opening credits!)
• Very opinionated, would take up arguments about filmmakers and films even with people he didn't know very well
• Video Archives was like a second home where Quentin and his co-workers had access to money to use for food, and access to a place to sleep at times.
• Once went to a plastic surgeon to see if his jaw could be shortened because Q wanted more acting roles
• usually only nice when it benefited him/was in his own interests, could be a trickster at times (got people to do his bidding)
• used to the account numbers of female costumers, and changed their name to something like "Dreamgirl" and show them, and it worked (Creative!)
• True romantic
• Grace Lovelace, who he met through the movie store, was the "love of his life" and got her a job
• She left briefly but returned to his life
• Q seems to gravitate towards strong women, probably because of his strong-willed mother (and her influence on Q)

"Little Q"

The Big Faint:

• At the opening of Pulp Fiction, a man in the audience fainted during one of the more visual scenes.
• It may have been due to his diabetic reactions to a needle, or it could have simply been a ploy to get attention

Quentin's Childhood, Adolesence, and life as a teenager:

• Son of Connie Tarantino (who was a young mother) and Tony Tarantino (5 years older than Connie, law student)
• Full name: Quentin Jerome Tarantino
• Raised by grandparents in Tennessee (at around age 10 or 11) while mother was in college. It was an unintended parallel to Connie's early life, when she lived with her grandparents
• Connie was always looking for an "escape" from her family, and heard of emancipation. She took it to mean that she would have to get married and so she married early and had Quentin.
• Tony had told Connie he could not have children, but unexpectedly, Quentin came into the picture.
• Was close with stepfather, musicially inclined Curt Zastoupil
• raised in a household with many family members, who were all quite young (even parents were relatively young) (it was "like Disneyland")
• Religion: Connie allowed Quentin to attend different churches and pick his own religion
• Had a salty tongue as a child
• Played with GI Joes and action figures with overtones that are prevelant in his movies (violence)
• At a young age, Quentin showed much interest in writing, and acting out screenplays
• The movie Deliverance, which Quentin watched as a child, had a profound effect on him and a certain vulgar scene was put into Pulp Fiction
• He watched many movies - including some inappropriate ones - when he was young
• Connie's 3rd husband, Jan, was also a movie freak. Took Quentin to many films
• Comes from an upper-middle class neighbourhood, but enjoys the idea of having hillbilly roots (also evident in movies)
• hated school, dropped out at age 16
• "basically grew up without a father" found a makeshift father in Howard Hawk's films
• Grandmother was an alcaholic, raised Quentin for a while
• constant battles with his mom about his education (after he dropped out)
• caught shoplifting a book called The Switch in K-mart, wasnt really officially shoplifting
• as punishment, Connie made Quentin read all summer, wasnt allowed to do anything else.
• Joined local community theatre group
• Was allowed to drop out of school, on the condition that he got a job
• worked at Pussycat lounge, porn theatre in torrance
• further sign of emancipation: changed surname back to Tarantino
• Didn't thank anyone when he received one of his oscars (first?)

Pre-book knowledge of Quentin Tarantino

[My knowledge of Quentin Tarantino prior to reading the book]

• Quentin writes scripts for films and directs them
• Some of his works include Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill (vol. 1 and 2), and Pulp Fiction
• He starred in his own film "From Dusk Till Dawn"
• Violence is often in his films
• Allegedly has a "foot fetish"