True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993)

• 20 Aug 22:49
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True Romance is a 1993 American romance crime film written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. The title and plot are a play on the titles of romance comic books with their overwrought love stories—very popular in earlier decades—such as "True Life Secrets," "True Stories of Romance", "Romance Tales," "Untamed Love" and "Strange Love."

The film stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette with an ensemble cast consisting of Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman, Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore and James Gandolfini. Val Kilmer is heard but not seen (except in silhouette) as an inner-voice to one of the main characters. Although he is never directly referred to as such, he is suggested as being Elvis Presley.

True Romance was a breakthrough of sorts for Tarantino. It was his first screenplay for a major motion picture. He had hoped to direct the film himself, but ended up selling the script.

The film's score by Hans Zimmer is a theme based on Gassenhauer from Carl Orff's Schulwerk. This theme combined with a voiceover spoken by Arquette is Tarantino's homage to Terrence Malick's 1973 crime movie Badlands, in which Sissy Spacek speaks the voiceover, and that...

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