YOU'RE SO COOL

The thing I like about Quentin Tarantino and the thing I hate about Quentin Tarantino is that he drowns his movies with the sounds and images that he wants to see. It's what I would do, given the chance to make movies. However, I feel like he does it in a tasteless, obnoxious way. He has great influences and they are all plain to see in his films. Today we're going to be talking about TRUE ROMANCE. Written by Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun, Days of Thunder, the Last Boyscout).



The movie is a tribute to Terrence Malick's 1973 film, Badlands. Homaging some of the same shots, motifs, dialogue, and score, as well as the general "on the run" plot. The characters are virtually the same, the scores theme and instrumentation is exactly the same, and the voice-over narration by Arquettes character Alabama is spot on the same unreliable, uninformed, narration as Sissy Spacek's.



Terrence Malick's Badlands (in my top 5 favorite films) is loosely based on a true story that happened in 1958 (when the movie takes place roughly). The film embraces the late 50s in such a way that you forget it was made in the 70s.

There is a motif that continues through the film about James Dean. Sheen looks like him and acts like him (and makes efforts to do so). Holly thinks he looks like him and reads magazines with Dean on the cover. There are 3 shots that homage the 3 Dean films. Sheen squats like Dean in East of Eden, he flicks his cigarette out the door when he gets chased by the cops like in Rebel Without a Cause, and he holds a shotgun on his shoulders like Dean in Giant.


Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about Badlands.


The song Nebraska is probably about the movie, more than another event. The song Badlands really isn't about the movie mostly.

Badlands is very similar to the film Arthur Penn's 1967 Bonnie & Clyde.


Their strange relationship. Bonnie thinks Clyde is so cool, and Clyde only wants to remain cool in her eyes. He took her away from her boring life and introduced her to his exciting life and then he has to find a way to keep it exciting.


Jean-Luc Godard made a Bonnie & Clyde of his own in 1967 called Pierrot Le Fou...


...However he had made 2 films before that which were also "on the run love stories". Breathless and Band of Outsiders. All 3 have a similar plot of a guy breaking the law and a girl he tries to get to follow him.

In conclusion... what I believe to be Tarentino's greatest achievement is to some up 50 years of "on the run love stories" in one line... "You're so cool." It captures the essence of every Rock'n'Roll relationship (doomed love). You're so cool.