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The violence, goriness, bizarreness, randomness, and eccentric characters are well-known to be common aspects of Quentin Tarantino's movies.

I believe all these are external commonalities and styles. Apart from those, do his movies have a common underlying theme/message/symbolism that he has always maintained or tried to convey?

P.S. I have already read the wiki.

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    Does foot fetish count as symbolism?
    – Torisuda
    Sep 20, 2016 at 5:26
  • I don't think so.
    – Ravindra S
    Sep 20, 2016 at 5:27
  • 1
    Some interesting details in answer from Salman Gurung in this Quora post regarding common themes that are a result of the fact that he religiously follows the grind house action, pulp and thriller genre themes while making his movies. Also mixing elements from multiple film genres (including the pulp and low-budget ones) can be seen as a theme per se. Sep 20, 2016 at 7:24
  • Yeah saw that post.
    – Ravindra S
    Sep 20, 2016 at 7:24

2 Answers 2

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I don't think that there is a common theme as such. He's obviously a huge movie buff and he seems to deliberately mix and match from all kinds of genres and drop all kinds of references in there for other movie nerds to spot and (other than his grind house and B movie obsessions) would appear to be on a mission to make many different kinds of movie without repeating himself too much. Also, he is making movies for their own sake, as entertainment which (IMO) runs contrary to trying to convey any kind of underlying 'message'.

HOWEVER, his movies all take place in a shared universe (or two) which provides a kind a commonality. To quote the man himself...

“There is actually two separate universes,” he explained. “There is the realer than real universe, alright, and all the characters inhabit that one. But then there's this movie universe. So From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill, they all take place in this special movie universe. So when all the characters of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, when they go to the movies, Kill Bill is what they go to see. From Dusk Till Dawn is what they see.”

There is also a nice summary of some of the links between the movies in this article.

WARNING: Once you start reading this stuff, you'll have to go and watch all of the movies again so clear your diary!

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Revenge & Redemption and Deception are common themes in all his films.

Mr Orange attempting to redeem himself by confessing who he is, and Mr White killing him as revenge.

Kill Bill, obviously.

Pulp Fiction. Butch redeeming himself by saving Marcellus and Marcellus deciding not to continue with his wanting of revenge for Butch lying and stealing from him. Jules redeeming himself at the end of the film.

Django, obviously.

What I mean by deception is that his characters tend to put on some ind of masquerade or performance, pretending to be someone they are not in order to get what they want. Whether that's all the characters in the hteful eight, Mr orange being an undercover cop, Jules putting on a dominant, dramatic act in order to interrogate his victims, Beatrix Kiddo putting on the act of being a normal person despite being a 'natural born killer' as Bill says with his analogy about superman being an alien but having to masquerade as a normal person to fit in, Hans Landa putting on a polite, friendly act to get into the head of whoever he is interrogating, the basterds pretending to be german soldiors in the basement and also pretending to be italian filmmakers to infiltrate security and also Django and Shultz pretending to be mandingo buyers in order to get into candieland and get Djangos wife.

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