$214M Gory Classic is the Only Tarantino Movie Even Clint Eastwood Approved

Summary

• Tarantino has repeatedly stated that his personal hero has always been Clint Eastwood.
• Once his admiration paid off in the form of Eastwood's praise for the filmmaker's movie.
• Thanks in large part to Eastwood, the film had a major premiere at Cannes.

It's no secret that Quentin Tarantino is not only a fan of the French New Wave, the crime dramas of Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese, and the historical flicks of Akira Kurosawa, but also, of course, Westerns, a love ode to which he delivered in his two revisionist films for the genre, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight.

And one of his main idols is Clint Eastwood. What a pleasant surprise it must have been for Tarantino when the hero of classic spaghetti and revisionist Westerns personally appreciated the film of the then up-and-coming filmmaker.

Tarantino's Longtime Love of the Western Genre

Quentin Tarantino grew up on such classics as Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo and Sergio Corbucci's Django, but some of his biggest favorites are the same ones that are considered classics by seemingly everyone who has seen them at least once. After all, despite his level of pop culture knowledge, Tarantino shows no arrogance. On the contrary, he is extremely accessible to the average folk, which is why his favorite Western franchise is, obviously, Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy.

And of course, the Dollar Trilogy is as much associated with Clint Eastwood's name as it is with Leone's.

'The way we think of the western icon that Clint Eastwood has become for 50 years straight to today started 50 years ago with this movie!' Tarantino shared while talking about his love for the first movie in the trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars.

Tarantino has repeatedly expressed his boundless respect and love for Clint Eastwood, and once his admiration for the actor's work was echoed when Eastwood himself praised a movie by the then-fledgling filmmaker.

Fate Brought Tarantino and Clint Eastwood Together

We are talking about Pulp Fiction. It is now considered a classic, representing almost the entire pop culture of the second half of the 20th century, and was highly acclaimed upon its release in Cannes, winning the top prize, the Palme d'Or. And it was a happy coincidence that one of the jury members at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival was none other than Clint Eastwood himself.

According to Eastwood's recollections, he had to analyze 22 films submitted to the festival in a week, and before Eastwood even saw Pulp Fiction, he had already heard about it.

'You heard the word, but everybody purposefully stayed away from hearing what somebody thought was good or bad. People were sort of afraid to make assumptions at that time, so nobody said much of anything.'

Of all the films presented, it was this one that caught Eastwood's eye, and he realized that there was a new favorite at Cannes.

'I was amazed it was the European guys on the jury that really started jumping,' he continued. 'A couple of them turned around and said, "That's the best picture. That's the picture of this festival."'

Eastwood, with his characteristic restraint both on and off screen, initially approached Pulp Fiction with a healthy dose of skepticism. Nevertheless, the actor admitted that it was a truly fascinating film.

'I didn't jump on it. I was still kind of weighing things in my mind. But it was definitely interesting, and it was exciting, and it came at a time when we needed a little excitement because it came right after a couple that were lulling.'

As a result, Eastwood's instincts did not fail him, and Pulp Fiction forever marked mass culture with its presence, influencing the development of cinema and earning an impressive $213.9 million at the worldwide box office despite a modest budget of $8 million.

Source: The Video Archives Podcast with Quentin Tarantino & Roger Avary, American Film Institute.