![]() ![]() It's the number one thing I respond to in Italian cinema." When I looked at Italian exploitation movies it seemed that there was a sense of operatic grandeur to them. I enjoyed them." He continued, "The great Spaghetti Westerns and gialli are great movies. In the 80s all the movies were released on video. Italian exploitation movies were still released theatrically in the U.S. Talking about Italian films of the 70s and 80s, the 'Pulp Fiction' and 'Django' director said, "I was lucky enough to come of age in the 70s. That would be special and wonderful, especially to shoot at Cinecitta. To this, the filmmaker responded enthusiastically, "I would love that. According to Deadline, during a wide-ranging on-stage talk about his career with fest head Antonio Monda, Tarantino discussed his influences, behind-the-scenes anecdotes from his movies and his appreciation for Italian cinema.Īt one point, Tarantino was asked whether he would consider making a movie in Italy, specifically at Rome's famous Cinecitta Studios, site of classic movies including 'Ben-Hur', 'Cleopatra', 'La Dolce Vita' and more recently, 'The English Patient'. Hollywood filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was recently at the Rome Film Festival last night to receive a lifetime achievement award from the festival and Italian horror legend Dario Argento. Will's description of the mysterious Cammie is a spot-on summary of Chaon's method: "She's good at this withhold-and-reveal game, and it reminds me very strongly of the kinds of tall tales and lies and con games my mother would try out on me - how she'd draw you in with something outrageous and then add a little homely detail to give it a dash of realism, how she'd embellish the story in ways that'd make it personal to the listener."Ī contributing books editor for Oprah Daily, Hamilton Cain reviews fiction and nonfiction for a range of venues, including the Star Tribune, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. And yet the novel's intricate structure and seductive voice lift off the page. ![]() His odyssey, like that of Orestes, spirals toward tragedy there's a creepy noir scene with a chimpanzee that would fit into a David Lynch movie. Will hits the blue highways, meandering through the Midwest to the desert Southwest to the Carolina coasts - in his sideview mirrors he glimpses a country blistered with military checkpoints, flu epidemics and robot spies.ĭespite his blood-soaked sins, Will's an Everydude who strikes a balance between rage, tenderness, and gallows humor as he seeks intimacy from a daughter who may or may not be real. "Sleepwalk" is no act of dull somnambulism but rather a vigorous, polished performance by a writer in command of his gifts. A laugh you'd clown for, a laugh you'd drink up like skin drinks sunshine." There was a xylophone tinkle in it, a conspiratorial glint, a soft caress that made you think she liked you, despite all your failings. He believes she's an AI scam until she laughs exactly like his mother, "the kind of laugh a person makes as they bite down on an apple. His routine is disrupted when a young woman, Cammie, calls him repeatedly on burner phones, claiming to be his biological daughter from a sperm-bank deposit he made in his 20s. He pulls off heists, credit-card fraud, even murder - he's his mother's son. ![]() He roams the country, microdosing on LSD and doing odd jobs for a shadowy criminal syndicate, "dealers, cultists, conspiracy theorists and militias, radical reactionaries and revolutionists, trolls and goblins and parasites," the seedy underbelly of the American Dream. He's still in touch with a childhood friend, Experanza, a cipher and potential threat. Will - or Billy, or "the Barely Blur" - drives a camper his best friend is his pit bull, Flip. ![]() Raised by a mother on the lam (now deceased), he has no birth certificate, no Social Security number, no Facebook page, "a blank Scrabble piece" who goes by too-many-aliases-to-remember. Will Bear, Chaon's 50-year-old narrator, officially doesn't exist. "Sleepwalk" draws on an array of genres and narratives, but it's also a visionary work, a preview of a nation just minutes away. The same can be said of Dan Chaon's brash, exuberant new novel, "Sleepwalk," a Tarantino vibe in book form, with nods to Pynchon-paranoia and Kerouac-style road epic, Greek myths and dystopian fiction. Say what you will about Quentin Tarantino: His films are violent but often hilarious, exulting in the history of cinema, from spaghetti westerns to slasher films to auteurs such as Welles and Kurosawa. ![]()
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