- Tarantino talks of his love for The Killing
- 1956 Kubrick film is “one of the most important films” of Tarantino’s early life
- The Killing was Stanley Kubrick’s first major Hollywood project
The love Quentin Tarantino has for Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 heist noir The Killing is once again generating headlines on the internet as Cannes Film Festival captivates cinema loving fans around the world.
Tarantino, who has been in attendance in Cannes this week, has made no secret of the influence Kubrick’s 1956 crime thriller had on his own seminal 1992 work Reservoir Dogs.
1992 Tarantino Interview Does The Rounds Again
In an interview with the Seattle Times back in ’92, Tarantino said of Kubrick’s film, “I didn’t go out of my way to do a rip-off of The Killing, but I did think of it as my Killing, my take on that kind of heist movie.”
Read more: Quentin Tarantino’s The Movie Critic: All We Know
At the Cannes premiere of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino also said, “The Killing is my favourite heist film, and I was definitely influenced by it.”
In 1956, The Killing served as Kubrick’s first major Hollywood project, with the iconic filmmaker directing and writing the picture. Originally adapted from Lionel White’s novel Clean Break, The Killing performed poorly at the box office without a proper US release, but received rave reviews from critics.
The Killing’s plot revolves around a career criminal, recently released from prison, planning a heist of a racetrack where he believes $2 million can be robbed. However, unlike other films of the era, the storyline didn’t advance as simply as just being presented as a linear passage of time. The time skips backwards and forwards with flashbacks.
Reservoir Dogs’ Legacy Lives On
This would be a stylistic approach that Tarantino would adapt for Reservoir Dogs. The film revolves around a jewellery store heist gone wrong. But as the drama of the aftermath unfolds in a warehouse hideout, flashbacks are employed. These flashbacks explain how the crew was recruited for the heist in the first place. The technique allows for backstory to be sewn into the arc in a more natural progression of the story, while the present day plot develops.
Reservoir Dogs would go on to screen out of competition at the 1992 Cannes festival. It regularly features in lists of the Greatest Movies Of All Time. It is also referenced across pop culture to this day through it’s various iconic scenes and pieces of dialogue.
