PAN QUENTIN

Regarding “A Chat With Mr. Mayhem,” by Hilary de Vries (Sept. 11):

How unfortunate it is to read that Quentin Tarantino sees himself as a maker of “great films,” yet he knocks Oliver Stone for attempting to inject some much-needed social resonance into the tired veins of his original script for “Natural Born Killers.” If one cuts out what Stone contributed to the film, all that’s left is a droll one-act journey of cult film iconoclasm.

Then Tarantino tries to tell us that Americans can’t tell stories anymore.

Stone is a proven storyteller and filmmaker who has his own moral perspective and a genuine point of view. His works will be long remembered because of this and the fact that the layers within them have substance, not superficial plot manipulation interwoven with monologues consisting of pop culture references that the audience is supposed to digest as characterization.

Will Tarantino ever write or direct anything as memorable or thought provoking as “Midnight Express,” “Platoon” or “JFK”? Right now it seems doubtful.

Tarantino’s apparent lack of conviction, lack of anything to say about the human experience, further illustrates a man who is proud to be uneducated, ignorant and apathetic.

The stories he tells aren’t American stories, they’re movie nerd stories.

Tarantino the Storyteller? No.

Tarantino the Regurgitator? Definitely.

JASON ENDRES

Fountain Valley

*

Before I read Hilary de Vries’ interview with him, I had thought Quentin Tarantino a wildly overrated, plagiarizing, misogynistic wimp who somehow got the backing to make the Movie Mommy Didn’t Want Him to Make.

But now I know better. He is also a shallow, self-serving, puffed-up ignoramus who learned about life from a video screen.

I finished the piece thinking, “Wouldn’t it have been cool if a sadistic armed robber had walked into Video Archives years ago and subjected then-clerk Tarantino to a real-life dose of the butchery he has since so callously exploited on his way to the ‘forefront of a new generation of filmmakers’?”

KEN BASH

Malibu

*

How dare you! You forgot to mention that the 10-minute torture scene is an exact rip-off of the “Singin’ in the Rain” torture scene from “A Clockwork Orange.”

Stealing from one source is plagiarism, but stealing from many is research. Tarantino is a great researcher but not an original filmmaker. Who do we hold responsible? Tarantino or the insecure, frightened I’m-afraid-to-give-the-green-light Hollywood system? I think the system!

ROBERT FORD

Long Beach

*

Since the release of “Reservoir Dogs” in 1992, virtually every article on the history of the film and how it got made has got it wrong. The apocryphal story, as repeated by Calendar, goes: “After (Harvey Keitel) agreed to star . . . (Lawrence) Bender was able to raise the $1.5 million. . . .” This is the actual sequence of events:

In November, 1990, Quentin asked me to help get the film made, and I joined him and producer Bender as an equal partner. Richard Gladstein, then at Live Entertainment, agreed to finance the film in January, 1991, the budget to depend on the value of the lead actor or actors. Keitel and Christopher Walken both read the script, liked it, and it seemed likely we would be able to make a deal with them.

Live submitted a deal memo to us on Feb. 4, contingent on the services of both actors or acceptable substitutes. We submitted a list. By the end of April, Keitel was signed, Walken was not. Live agreed to proceed at a reduced budget. In June, I went with Quentin to the Sundance directors’ lab, where he had a chance to try out some of his directing ideas. We started production in August. The rest, as they say, is history.

I am very proud of my continuing association with Quentin and Lawrence, and to have been a part of “Reservoir Dogs,” contributing to the emergence of a major American filmmaker.

MONTE HELLMAN

Blue Moon Entertainment

Los Angeles

*

Oliver Stone’s over-picturesque, big-budget epics don’t compare to Quentin Tarantino and the candid and un-self-promoting flicks he’s made.

To me, the unappreciated films by Tarantino are not an alternative--they’re first class with gold-plated seats.

JEREMY ALVAREZ

Alhambra