Cinema Speculation and Rolling Thunder

I’m reading Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation and for those of you who love Tarantino, this is a fascinating look at the movies he grew up with. 

Not exactly an autobiography as much as an autofilmography of the flicks that shaped him. Most of them I’ve seen or have no interest in. 

And then we got here, to something called Rolling Thunder. Originally written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) but reworked by screenwriter Heywood Gould, Star William Devane, and director John Flynn. 

Schrader hated the new direction but those of you who love revenge flicks are gonna have a blast.

I decided I needed to see it before I read the chapter about it. And mannnnnn, this is it. 

It’s seedy cheap 70s cinema at its finest. The first half is a character study of a POW returning home from Vietnam and completely works as that sort of movie. 

And then we get an exceptional and exceptionally violent revenge picture. Young Tommy Lee Jones and Ed Devane look like gangsters in their sunglasses and dress uniforms. And you just know they are gonna burn something down when the time is right. 

You will also probably, like me, cackle at how many things Tarantino has homaged out of this flick. I recognized every seedy bar in every Tarantino movie as coming directly out of this slice of the 70s. 

Anyway, the book is great. The movie is hot fire.

Tarantino says he’s going to make one more film and then get out of directing movies. The book mentions several directors who Tarantino believes should have quit when they were on top.

If he does I hope we get more books like Cinema Speculation although, this time, I’m hoping he goes behind the behind-the-scenes of his own work.

Screenwriter William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade and the sequel, Which Lie Did I Tell, More Adventures in the Screen Trade looms large in the area. Goldman’s first book was such a scandal that he was excommunicated (for a while) after it came out.

Cinema Speculation is a nice warm-up and Tarantino doesn’t have any qualms about talking frankly about the stars, directors, and writers who made the movies he loved. He even takes Martin Scorcese to task for the interviews he did after Taxi Driver where the director claimed the rampage ending was not supposed to get audiences cheering.

Tarantino calls bullshit on that.

He also has apparently waited in the tall grass for 30 years to take down one particular critic of his work. Nobody can hold a grudge like an artist.

However, I’d like Tarantino to tell us about his own work and the behind-the-scenes fights to get it on the screen. Those tantalizing details are just out of reach in this book.

Tarantino probably has the stories to match Goldman and the guts to tell it all.