Filmsane

Well, it’s been over a year since the most recent Quentin Tarantino film. That’s not a particularly long gap given that he’s not the most prolific of directors, but at this point Tarantino films are such big events that the years without them can seem a little emptier in cinema. Love him or hate him (and there are too many reasons to count to have conflicting feelings about Tarantino), the director’s Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood was unquestionably one of 2019’s boldest, most unique, and most memorable film. 2020 has had nothing like it (though to be fair this isn’t exactly a normal year at the cinema).

To fill the gap, I’ve been going back and watching Tarantino’s films again, and it struck me just how many memorable and fantastic quotes those films have left us with. So, just for fun, I decided to put down some of my favorites.

“I like the way you die, boy.” – Django Unchained

One of the most amazing things about Django Unchained to me will always be that Will Smith reportedly turned down the titular role. According to an interview with Smith posted on The Hollywood Reporter, the actor turned down the role over “creative differences,” and would have taken it had the film been more about love and less about vengeance. But other reports have strongly suggested that Smith really turned it down because he felt that Christoph Waltz’s character was the real lead.

If the latter is true — and it is a big if — it’s pretty strange in retrospect. Yes, Waltz steals the show at times, but Jamie Foxx squeezed an awful lot of memorable material out of a character who really doesn’t say a whole lot. “Hey, little troublemaker” is intoxicating. “D.J.A.N.G.O. The ‘D’ is silent” is iconic. “I count two guns” is chilling. But for me, “I like the way you die, boy” as a call-back is unbeatable. Django utters this while avenging himself on a man who had previously said, “I like the way you beg, boy” to Django.

“Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are you gonna bite?” – Reservoir Dogs

The most memorable line in a film full of them, this challenge from Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) is like a lit fuse. It stands out because more often than not when there’s as much tension in a scene as there is in this one (as the group tries to make sense of what went wrong with their diamond heist), it either simmers, subsides, or boils over all at once. It’s a scene, in other words, where men will either be at each other’s throats or stand down. Instead of leaping to one conclusion or the other though, Tarantino has Mr. Blonde toss this line out of nowhere (twice) so that the scene reaches a sustained boiling point for 10 or 15 seconds. It’s extremely effective, and it helps that Madsen is one of the few actors in the world who seems like someone who might actually say this.

“That’s a Bingo!” – Inglourious Basterds

This bizarre, brilliantly delivered line from Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) just has to stick in your memory. It is so memorable in fact that despite having nothing much to do with the actual game of bingo (in that nobody’s playing the game in the scene), an actual online bingo platform listed it as one of the best examples of bingo in the movies. As Foxy Bingo notes in justifying the selection, “although bingo only features as a word and not a game, the scene is extremely comical.”

What really makes this one for me though is the exchange it sparks. Yes, I think of Waltz every time I hear the word “bingo,” and may for the rest of my life. But the full exchange is brilliant because it gets dry sass out Brad Pitt (which is arguably one of the best card he has to play in his films). When Landa follows his exclamation with “Is that the way you say it?” Pitt’s character gets to gently correct, “You just say bingo” even in a most serious situation.

“The path of the righteous man….” – Pulp Fiction

If you know the film, you know I’m really referring to a whole little speech by Samuel L. Jackson’s legendary Jules Winnfield. Jules is a fan of doling out Bible verses before killing people, but in this famous instance he gets a little bit carried away with a dramatic rendition of “Ezekiel 25:17.” Only as you probably know, this is more of a pseudo-biblical rant that is, shall we say, loosely inspired by Ezekiel. It’s a famous scene in large part because of Jackson’s delivery, but I can’t help but love that it’s also had people referring to a fake version of a Bible verse as if it’s the real thing for decades. FanSided wrote about it to explain that it’s not the real verse just last year!

“It’s official, old buddy. I’m a has-been.” – Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

I’ll wrap up with my favorite line from Tarantino’s most recent film. This quote is spoken from Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) to his stunt man, Cliff Booth (Pitt), and it speaks to the borderline-existential concern Dalton exhibits about his place in Hollywood throughout the film. But there’s just something wonderful about this specific choice of words. “Old buddy” seems ordinary, but it’s really not something we ever call people, and in this context it packs a nostalgic punch without seeming unnatural in the slightest. That, plus the notion of a starring actor calling himself a has-been and meaning it, really captures the spirit of most of this movie.

It might not be the cleverest or most unique Tarantino quote. But I’m closing with it because I think it might do as much as any other line he’s ever written.