Thanks to Tarantino, this 16-year-old film is his directorial best

On his birthday, Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) meets Alabama (Patricia Arquette) in a seedy movie theater. It’s love at first sight. After a night of love, she confesses to him that she is actually an apprentice bell girl hired by Clarence’s boss as a birthday present. Wanting to help her regain her freedom, she starts with him the most original, crazy, cruel and colorful novel…

True Romance, considered by many to be the late Tony Scott’s best film, celebrates its 30th anniversary. It is said. It will be next November. But whatever. It goes without saying that the film has become an absolute cult work and even a classic over the years, righting a real injustice in the midst of a painful commercial failure when it was released in 1993.

In France, it drew more than 360,000 viewers, a far cry from the filmmaker’s personal record for Top Gun (3.57 million attendees), Enemy of the State (2.06 million) or even USS Alabama and its 638,000 entries. Internationally, it collected only $13 million. That is, the violence of a blow that had the force of an uppercut.

“I brag about Quentin a lot, but he deserves it”

Brilliant dialogues signed by Tarantino, an absolutely brilliant gallery of characters carried by a King Size cast, from Gary Oldman’s hideous killing spree to the creepy one-eyed Mac Drexley, to the insane Christopher Walken who almost steals the show from the entire cast. The absolutely iconic Dennis Hopper interrogation scene.

Val Kilmer in Almost Elvis. Psychotic James Gandolfini, frozen by violence. A totally stoned Brad Pitt smoking expertly on the couch… not to forget, of course, the terrifying performance of the love duo Christian Slater and a very young Patricia Arquette embarked on a bloody escape.

A fabulous cast of actors who seem happy to be there, hand-stitched in unison behind a titanic script. “This script is extraordinary. The plot is banal. We’ve seen the story of a kid on the run a hundred times, with drugs or money. On the other hand, the characters are unique.” Tony Scott commented.

“They’re sad and kind and tender and violent and they have a sense of humor. And it’s Quentin Tarantino who brings that originality to the film and the script. I praise Quentin a lot, but he deserves it. When his script hit. The actors, everywhere in Hollywood, we quickly learned that this There was a brilliant script, which allowed me to connect with the best actors in the world for supporting roles and low fees.

We were able to connect with them even though we didn’t have a big budget. In general, I have a bigger budget for my films. I also chose this film because I knew in advance that I would be criticized for its violence. But it serves the story and the characters. There is no gratuitous violence in this film.”

Christian Slater agreed with the director: “When you play these violent scenes, these types of scenes, it’s almost therapeutic. But I’m not like that. I don’t get angry like my character, like that. Violence is not the main movie. It’s there, of course, but there are other elements that It makes this movie much more than a banal action movie.”

You are very cool, you are cool…

In this concert of glory, we cannot be complete without mentioning the soundtrack of the film, which is produced by Hans Zimmer in excellent form. The composer, who had already worked with Scott on Jour de tonnerre, delivers a particularly memorable and uplifting musical theme that opens and closes the film. You are so cool, mainly made from an instrument called the marimba; An African resonator xylophone that has spread to some Latin American countries.

To refresh memory if needed…

In fact, Hans Zimmer primarily pays homage to Terrence Malick’s Wild Walk, which uses the same musical theme. It’s no coincidence, of course: Malick’s masterpiece was one of Tony Scott’s favorite films.

There are also many similarities between them true romance and BadlandsFor example, starting with Sissy Spacek’s soft voice opening Malick’s film while we hear the theme music in the background. It’s the same in Tony Scott’s film, in which we hear Alabama’s voiceover from the beginning, with the same theme.

Below is a version of the musical theme heard in Terrence Malick’s film, rearranged by composer George Ellison Tipton:

Epilogue…

“I was often asked: ‘Could you write a romantic movie one day?’ Quentin Tarantino remembered. “But I already wrote a romantic movie – True Romance!” “No, no, I meant a real romance movie.” – “But this is a real romantic movie.”

They answered me there: No, a film in which there will be no violence. Look, there’s definitely a lot of conflicting stuff in the movies I’ve made, but as any movie fan will tell you, the title rings true. The romance is not ironic, it’s a true romance, a truly romantic story.”

Thirty years after its release, true romance It left an indelible, deep mark in our cinematic memory. It is not ready to disappear.