Quentin Tarantino: “When I read ‘Hard Times,’ I could see what a script could be.”

The filmmaker talks about the impact the script for the 1975 movie had on him.

Some refer to it as the “haiku style” of screenwriting. Lean. Taut. Incomplete sentences. Sometimes single words. It was popularized by Walter Hill who co-wrote and directed Hard Times.

Here is the opening of the movie in script form.

Here is what Quentin Tarantino had to say after reading the script.

“When I read Hard Times, then I could see what a script could be. It was exciting, it was fun, and it wasn’t just the dialogue … It wasn’t just description. It was prose. Not prose like I’m used to in a novel, but it was prose that appropriate for a screenplay. He wasn’t just giving a blueprint for how a bunch of technicians can make this movie later, like a recipe for a cake that somebody else is going to bake. The prose was written for me, the reader. I was supposed to get caught up into this. I was supposed to to be excited about this story. I was supposed to get caught up in the story and even more importantly, I was supposed to make the movie in my mind. When the script was over and I put it down, I saw it. I saw the movie.”

“I saw the movie.” When we write a screenplay, that should be our goal for anyone reading the script. What’s on the page should evoke images … emotion … create a connection between the reader and what’s unfolding on the page. And as the script for Hard Times reflects, sometimes a single word can do the trick.

Here is a trailer for the movie:

You can read more about the “haiku style” of screenwriting in my articles on two other movie scripts: Wall-E and Alien.