Quentin Tarantino, Quentin Tarantino pop culture dialogue [Image Source: MOVIEWEBIMAGES]
Filmmaker Kevin Smith has credited Quentin Tarantino’s unique approach to dialogue, particularly his use of pop culture references, as a pivotal influence on his own career and the way he writes films. This revelation came during an interview where Smith highlighted how Tarantino’s 1992 debut, Reservoir Dogs, showed him that incorporating everyday conversations about pop culture into movie dialogue was a legitimate and impactful storytelling method.
The First Encounter and Early Inspiration
Kevin Smith first met Quentin Tarantino at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, a meeting that underscored Tarantino’s impact on Smith’s work. Smith recalled how reading a New York Times Magazine interview with Tarantino, released around the time Reservoir Dogs hit home video, made a lasting impression right before Smith began production on his own debut, Clerks. In that interview, Tarantino expressed relief that his first completed film was Reservoir Dogs, rather than his unfinished script for My Best Friend’s Birthday, which consisted mostly of characters just talking.
Smith recounted,
“When I first met him, [Tarantino] was like, ‘I almost made Clerks!’”
and explained how Tarantino’s reflection made him rethink his own film’s focus. Tarantino saw Reservoir Dogs as a true representation of “cinema,” while he viewed a movie about working in a video store—a premise similar to Clerks—as lacking cinematic value. Smith shared,
Image of: Quentin Tarantino
“The quote he gave her, the thing he said that I was like, ‘Oh no,’ was because he talked about being at the video store [where Tarantino was working prior to his time as a filmmaker], and he goes, ‘Why would I make a movie about working at the video store? That’s not stupid, but what a waste of time. That’s not cinema.’ I was about to make a movie about working at a video store, and I was like, ‘Oh no. Oh no.’”
This moment highlighted Smith’s apprehension but also underscored Tarantino’s influence on how Smith viewed the potential of dialogue-driven films.
Reservoir Dogs’ Casual Dialogue as a Game Changer
Tarantino encouraged Smith to see Pulp Fiction after Smith shared how the casual chatter in Reservoir Dogs helped him craft the dialogue for Clerks. Smith remembered,
“Honestly, my hearing the Madonna, Like a Virgin dialogue at the beginning of Reservoir Dogs allowed me to write Clerks. Because I remember watching that movie in Third Street Cinema here in Manhattan and going, ‘Wait, this counts? You can just talk about pop culture? This is what me and my friends do all the time. If this counts as movie dialogue, I think I could write movie dialogue and stuff.’”
Tarantino then invited Smith to watch Pulp Fiction, which Smith accepted, describing the experience as eye-opening.
Smith was especially struck by Tarantino’s tonal shifts, how the film seamlessly moved from humor to sudden violence. He pointed to the iconic moment when Samuel L. Jackson’s character shoots a man reclining on a couch and then calmly says,
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I break your concentration?”
Smith exclaimed,
“Oh my God, you could dramatically go from that to that?”
Influence on Dogma and Narrative Style
Following his exposure to Tarantino’s work, Smith’s own scriptwriting evolved notably. He acknowledges that seeing Pulp Fiction inspired a shift toward more intense and violent themes in his film Dogma. Smith noted,
“The Dogma draft that came out of Pulp Fiction got a lot more violent.”
He detailed how the tone swings in Dogma—from comedic moments to darker conflicts, such as Ben Affleck’s character confronting Matt Damon’s character about being cast out of heaven—were heavily influenced by what he had learned from Tarantino’s method:
“All the blood, all the Angel of Death stuff, and whatnot, that got bigger. All the tone shifts going from something comedic to Ben in the garage, barking about being cast out of heaven in Matt’s face, that stuff, those big swings came after seeing Pulp Fiction early.”
Lasting Impact on Filmmaking and Dialogue
Kevin Smith’s reflections offer a compelling look at how Quentin Tarantino’s innovative use of naturalistic, pop culture-laden dialogue reshaped modern independent cinema. By showing that conversations about everyday subjects could be engaging and cinematic, Tarantino expanded the boundaries of scriptwriting. For Smith, this meant embracing a style that reflects real-life interactions among friends, which became a hallmark of his own films.
This reinterpretation of dialogue challenged conventional storytelling and opened doors for filmmakers to experiment with tone, structure, and character development. As Smith continues to evolve as a filmmaker and storyteller, the foundational influence of Tarantino’s work remains evident in his approach to blending humor, violence, and cultural commentary.
