Tarantino's Secret to Great Cinema? Ditching the Protagonists
Movies are often criticized for lacking character development or having one-dimensional protagonists. But what happens when there is no protagonist at all?
Having a main character in a movie seems like something we take for granted. The protagonist's journey guides the story and helps you get into the movie by relating to him or her. But there are some movies that simply don't have a protagonist, and strangely enough, they are quite good, and sometimes even brilliant.
The first movies without a protagonist that come to mind are two prominent works by the great and terrible Quentin Tarantino — Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
Fans are still arguing about who the protagonist is in Pulp Fiction: Vincent had the most screen time, Butch played the most important role in the plot, Marcellus was the liaison, and Mia is the face on all the Aliexpress T-shirts.
So maybe there isn't a main character?
There are eight characters in Reservoir Dogs in general, and none of them can be singled out. It's the dynamic of the gang, not one man, that drives the plot. We know of movie almanacs in which several unrelated stories are told in sequence or in parallel, perhaps even by different directors (think Four Rooms). But Reservoir Dogs is different. Tarantino's genius is that each of the eight gangsters is interesting to follow, and to help us remember them, he uses colors instead of names.
And that's where we have to bring up the term "ensemble film." It's easy to confuse them with movie almanacs, but the main difference is that almanacs tell us several stories with one main character in each, whereas an ensemble film has one story told by several characters.
Tarantino, being one of the apologists for ensemble films in his attempts to shoot using new tropes and techniques, says:
"As opposed to Reservoir Dogs, which is a complete ensemble piece, [Pulp Fiction] works in a series of couples – everybody's a couple all the f****** way through."
Watchmen, The Usual Suspects, Magnolia, Love Actually — all of these are ensemble movie highlights if you are not in the mood for a Tarantino marathon. But you definitely don't need a main character (or a main storyline) for a movie to be good. Maybe it's time to watch some old good ensemble movies because... it's just fun?