How Tarantino Writes A Scene

When it comes to writers in the industry today, there are many who stand out, but if you were to ask me, when it comes to the best at writing dialogue, no one comes close to Quentin Tarantino, so what's the problem with Tarantino? Why are his dialogues so good? Mesmerizing, there are many reasons for this, but I think a great place to start is the first

scene

of an indie film you may have heard of called Pulp Fiction, come on fantastic, it was the first in the film and it already has viewers . attention and the reason it caught our attention is because it uses a very specific device and it is a device that is not often talked about, in fact, it is talked about so little that it is on a device that doesn't even have its own name, That's why it's something I've come to call the promise now, please keep in mind that this is just my own thinking, the promise is not a famous literary device, but just a little phrase I've coined to try to understand how to tell a story. good story, just make a promise.

It's a promise to the audience that at some point in the future, whether distant or immediate, something interesting will happen and Tarantino is the master of the promise, that's how it already grabs viewers' attention within the first five words of the movie. he's like, okay, cool, the line essentially says that they're planning something and what they're planning is very dangerous. Naturally dangerous things are going to interest the viewer, so for the next few minutes that promise is stuck in the viewers' minds, what are they planning? Why is it so risky? The viewer doesn't know exactly what it is, but what he does know is that something dangerous is going to happen.

All of that investment was created from just five words, and of course, a promise doesn't necessarily have to just promise. conflict or even conflict because if conflict was the only thing that audiences would find interesting then all movies and stories would be nothing less than one long argument or fight sequence, so to better understand compromise let's look at another way Tarantino uses the device. Let's take a look at the hateful eight, so here's the summary. The character of Major Marquis Sam Jackson had a huge Confederate bounty on his head because he escaped from one of his most famous prisons.

You destroyed. The elder Marquis did more than escape. Hey, Jamal Quest had a brilliant idea so brilliant you wonder why no one had ever thought of it before dear Johnny, with your brilliant idea you want to know what he says next, right? and the fact that he just stops that clip at that moment almost bothers you because you want to hear the story. of how he broke our prison and got a bounty on his head, that's the point and that's the promise in action, it's one of the reasons why Tarantino

writes

such great

scene

s because it often creates an anticipation towards the future, whether the next scene or just the next line of dialogue not all, but many of his lines build a larger picture, they not only serve themselves but also serve the next line, so the audience is kept in a perpetual state of wanting to know what happens next and that is why it is very difficult to stop watching a Tarantino film, especially when there is an exchange of dialogue in relation to the first line of pop fiction.

I guess you could ask, but that line of dialogue makes it not a promise, it's a hook and you. I'm right, that line is a hook, like a great line of prose at the beginning of a good book that grabs the reader's attention, but this line also serves to be the promise of the scene and then you might ask, right? hook a promise exactly the same well, it's not really a promise it's more fundamental to telling a good story because a hook is cheap, it grabs the viewers attention, a promise keeps it and I think what's worth noting about Tarantino and their scenes is that there is always conflict in them, let's look at the star of the hateful first scene, the oldest is held at gunpoint in a tense first encounter with another character, the second they have an argument over whether a reward should be received alive or dead, the third has a tense encounter with another man where he claims to be the sheriff and they don't believe him.

The fourth, the three characters have an argument about the Civil War that ends with a gun pointed in someone's face. Then they meet everyone at the haberdashery and everyone is very suspicious of each other, with a few exceptions here and there in Tarantino movies, every scene, every conversation, every line of dialogue has some conflict, there is always something at stake in a scene by Tarantino, whether it's something as simple as the loss of a character. from an argument over a foot massage to being discovered as a spy or simply getting shot because there is always something at stake there is always conflict which is the core of any good story when it comes to writing great dialogue there is another quality that makes a dialogue It is interesting that many writers fail to capture and it is something that Tarantino has proven time and again that he is a master at and that quality is subtext and what is subtext is simply what is not established, it is the rule of not say the program.

Applied to dialogue it is the difference between the words that come out of a character's mouth and the thoughts that remain in his head. As a purely hypothetical example, let's say there is a German officer in World War II and he encounters three American soldiers who are trying to pass themselves off as Italians, however, he knows very well that they are actually spies, how could an evil writer write that scene? Well, it could be something like this. Americans try to speak Italian, but fail miserably. The officers face falls when he realizes they're lying and then he says something like I know you're spies and you're screwed, so it's exactly terrible dialogue, but it could be made a lot more interesting and also by pure coincidence , Tarantino has his scene exactly. so with that subtext in Inglourious Basterds, however, he handles it with much more grace, so the subtext hands landed, the German officer knows that the three Americans are posing as Italians, so this happens, you are alarming, exquisite , commits blood, alarming, I am carnaval de la me la dominick the coco comes dominic de coco Bravo Bravo this conversation is incredibly well done it would be noble to ask them their name but he makes them repeat it over and over again with a smile and when he turns to the left who pronounces his name authentically Landis pats the back and says well done, when I first saw this scene I thought Landa was trying to find out if they were Allied spies or not and I didn't notice the clues hidden in the dialogue, but in this conversation Lander directly confesses that he knows they are Allied spies because no one would ever applaud a man for doing his own accent correctly on screen.

It's incredibly subtle to the point that many viewers, even after multiple viewings, could easily overlook it, but it starts. to complement one of them specifically about how well he is imitating being the Italian he pretends to be and if Lander thought they were really Italian he would never have said well done or asked them to repeat his name so many times and let out such a smile every time he said it. They say Antonio Margheriti to corner Marguerite from a Travolta but from his own music from the parola Margheriti that right there is a perfect example of well-done subtext, a bad writer would have each and every line of dialogue surface.

At this level, each character would say exactly what they want to say and nothing would be left to the imagination, but Tarantino has a lot of subtext in many of his lines, there is often a hidden purpose or train of thought that is incredibly easy to miss. overlooked by the viewer. and don't be the wiser too, but for a discerning viewer, all those little nuggets of subtext make the dialogue a little cleverer and a little more fun to watch, but if you were to ask me what Tarantino's true style is, the area cinematography is real. Where his talent really shines is in how Tarantino creates suspense and maintains it throughout a long scene.

What on the surface sounds like a fairly simple task, in practice is exceptionally difficult to achieve. Now there are many examples of Tarantino creating this. long-form suspense, like the story about how the general's son was killed in the Hateful Eight or the poisoned coffee scene from the same movie, but I think one of its best examples is the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds, so here is the premise. A French farmer receives a visit from German Colonel Landa, so the visit phase remains a mystery for the first few minutes when it is finally revealed that I heard the difference between accusing her of running that she was left in class while she was hiding or It happens ten times, so for the next few minutes they have a slightly uneasy conversation, but in the middle of that conversation the truth is finally revealed.

The Jewish family that is hunting hides under the floorboards. From this point on, the fear builds like a snowball rolling downhill, the farmer reveals that a squad of Germans already searched his house months ago, then Lander goes on a tangent about the animals and how, in his opinion, , are related to humans, if one had to determine what attribute the German people share. In a beast there will be the cunning and predatory instinct of a hawk, but if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with the Beast, it would be that of the rat. Tarantino takes his time going off on tangents and makes especially sure not to rush into the next one.

For a few moments, the viewer doesn't really know, and this analogy continues until he finally says this: A German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn. He looks in the Attic, he looks everywhere he would hide, but there are so many places he wouldn't allow him to sell to hide. The audience remembers that the German squad searched the house and couldn't find anything and then they make the connection. Lambda says that the Germans didn't know what they were doing and didn't search the house properly.

This, by the way, is a good example of subtext done right and then the viewer's stomach sinks as they realize exactly what Lander is implying and it seems very possible that he is suspicious of the Jews. In fact, the family is inside the house and then, after some small talk, a silence falls over the room. You are harboring enemies of the state. No, yes, you will take them under your floor. He turns to you and then comes to the terrible realization that the audience suspected he might. What happens at the beginning of the scene has become a certainty, this is a fantastic cliffhanger and there are many lessons to be learned by just watching this scene near the beginning of the scene, the audience is informed about the mission of the office and its goals. are under the floorboards, since the audience has been given the information they can piece together, the characters had the potential to collide with devastating consequences for the French farmer and the Jews hiding beneath the floorboards.

What is interesting to know about this scene is how the tension in this scene does not stagnate, it constantly builds and how exactly the tension increases at the moment when the audience learns the information about Landers' mission and the people who are hiding. Below that possibility of them colliding with each other enters the viewers' heads as the tension in the scene builds. The possibility of terrible eventualities becoming reality is also built. The scene gradually progresses from the possibility that London will find and kill the Jews to the absolute certainty that it will happen; that's the source of all the suspense in this scene. and that's what most writers just can't create tension like Tarantino does because very often they are in a hurry and the characters say all their lines efficiently and purposefully so that the viewer can move on to the next scene as quickly as possible. possible. possible and I will confess that it is a flaw in dialogue that I, as a writer, constantly stumble upon, you can't have strong, long, palpable tension in a conversation when that conversation is over in less than 30 seconds, but if you do what it does Tarantino, establishes the goals of the two characters have the potential to collide with devastating conflicts and then, over the course of a five-minute conversation, you peel back the layers as the audience slowly puts the pieces together and after each and every pieces come out of the screen, The tension only grows stronger as the viewer gradually realizes that that horrible outcome they initially suspected is becoming more and more certain until what seems like after an unbearably prolonged fear finally culminates. in the worst possible scenario.

In general, and I think another good example of Tarantino creating suspense is later in the same film, when there is a British spy and an SS officer sitting at a table and there is a long, drawn-out sequence in which the officersuspicious of his German. accent and later in that scene the spy says this guy Glaser and then the officer makes this expression when he first sees her, this expression doesn't mean anything and when the shooting starts 60 seconds later it's almost a moment of shock only in the next scene, as it revealed the subtle way in which he betrayed the fact that he was in German due to his hand gestures he asked for three glasses in the order Slee Glasses that the Germans are, so on a second viewing the viewer knows the story and the way The Spy gives himself away, that expression the officer makes has a totally different meaning than the first time, since the viewer knows that the officer has just realized that he is a spy, as he said once Alfred Hitchcock.

The essential fact is that to get real suspense, you have to let the audience have information now let's take the old bomb theory you and I are sitting talking we will say about baseball we are talking for five minutes unfortunately a bomb explodes and the audience has a terrible shock of ten seconds. Now let's take the times in the same situation. Tell the audience at the beginning that under the table I will show them that there is a bomb that will explode in five minutes and we will talk about baseball. the audience, if they're not talking about baseball, there's a bomb underneath that now gives the audience the right amount of information and turns that scene into a suspenseful scene.

That's good filmmaking, but writing it one way on first viewing is a moment. of shock and in the second it is a suspense scene, that is frankly brilliant filmmaking, but ultimately, the climax of the conflict, the moment in which the plot is lost or the character dies, that is not the moment that It is the most interesting part, but rather the most interesting parts when the climax of that conflict is imminent. It is for this reason that I imagine that Tarantino could direct an exceptionally good horror film, since he is a master at building and milking that great release of strain.

Tarantino is a master at storytelling and I know many of you who watch this channel, like me, aspire to one day make your own movies and write your own stories, which is a very admirable goal, however, it is difficult to write a good story or make a good movie, especially without the right team. knowledge on how to do it, even for veterans in the field, there is always something more to learn and when it comes to increasing your knowledge and maintaining your craft, there is no room. I would recommend more than skill sharing and can happily welcome skill sharing. for sponsoring today's video, I have been using this service for six months and it is a learning resource that I have personally found to have invaluable skills.

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And I'll see them next time to get a closer look.