[Matthew Lloyd]

Reading the new edition of the Confidential Guide, a thought occurred to me:

Those who follow the movie/entertainment world closely may recognize some striking similarities in the roles that Tom Doak and Quentin Tarantino have played in their respective industries, and (thankfully) continue to play.

First, the most obvious comparison – both are hands-on craftsmen who have reached the pinnacle of their respective careers, but also managed to stay there by continuing to study their respective art forms, which has in turn enabled their style to evolve. Doak has played just about every golf course, Tarantino has seen just about every movie. Both have an encyclopedic knowledge of what they’ve seen and can apply the lessons learned to their own work.

Second, both owe a part of their success to “independent” creations in their early years to get on the map.  Tarantino burst onto the scene with ultra low budget movies with an edge that few would have the guts to make, and he wasn’t shy to share his opinions on the state of the business he was entering into.  Doak made a similar splash with the original Confidential Guide, a bold move that few people ever would have done.  I wish the movie industry had a filmmaker who would come out and publish a similar book – people would love it.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, both have become the de facto “tastemakers” for their respective industries.  The Confidential Guide speaks for itself, and on a similar note, Tarantino has become widely known within the movie industry for publishing an annual top 10 list, which creates an immediate stir and a great deal of debate – I’m not sure any other filmmaker would have a big enough following to generate any interest in their opinions like Tarantino does.  I would argue that Doak’s views on golf courses would be more anticipated than any other architect at this point.

Fourth, both seem to encourage dissent, debate and discussion from their peers and fans.  Tom Doak’s role on this discussion board and his willingness and interest in hearing from his “fans/critics” is probably a small part of how he keeps his edge and stays engaged.  Tarantino, likewise, does the same thing in similar forums in his world.

[David_Elvins]

Wait until Tarantino has another 10 Oscars, then he can be compared to Doak. 

[RJ_Daley]

This thread must surely present Peter Pallotta with some room to offer  interesting insight.

I don't know that Tarantino would be my pick to draw any comparisons or parallels.  I don't know thw genre of producer-directors enough (probably don't know the archies enough either  )  But, to take a shot at it, I was thinking more like Ron Howard for the comparison.  Tarantino in my view goes for the shocking, dark, and near pornographic in sensationalism  to excite and provoke.  Howard seems to understand the more humanistic qualities, along with the heroic aspects of everyday people placed in situations to do something great.  Or, basic greatness revealing itself in a relatable everyday setting.  Thus, with the tendancy to use the most natural of settings TD uses insightful skills and fundamental understanding of everyday golfers and exceptionally good golfers to allow them to reach for a higher interest or awareness in the game, the field of play on the land masterfully presented, like a good movie inspires the better of our nature, with beautiful cinematography. Not an exploration of the dark sides or the tortured aspects that a Tarantino movie often evokes with shocking visuals.

And if anyone thinks Howard as just Opie, you better take a deeper look at a lifetime of excellent and consistent work.  TD is approaching a long term consistently excellent body of work now in his 50 somethings.   

[Steve Okula]

There is no comparison whatsoever. Tom Doak, by all accounts, is turning out quality work. QT hasn't done a movie worth the time to watch since Pulp Fiction. With the latst absurdities of Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained he has become a caricature of himself.

In Inglorious Basterds we're expected to believe that a few American soldiers, with no prior knowledge of the terrain or the language, can evade and terrorize the Wehrmacht occupation forces in France for months. A 1940's hard-scrabble French farmer is fluent in English? Where did he go to learn it? You can't find a French farmer today who speaks English. Or the Jewish girl who hides in a Paris cinema, where she learns to speak English, which she'll need because when the theatre is later full of Nazis she'll naturally want to avoid using French or German. And how many stupid movie-goers left the cinema thinking Hitler died in a theatre fire in Paris?

Django has an ante-bellum, slave-owning, plantation owner inviting blacks to sit at his dinner table? Or how about death bouts between two large slaves held not in a ring, but in his parlor!?

Christopher Walz is a brilliant actor though, and almost redeems IB all on his own.

[Mike Treitler]

Have to respectfully disagree with your thoughts on django and especially inglorious basterds.   They are satirical accounts and revenge fantasies...if you expected them to be realistic or historically accurate than you went in with the wrong expectations.  Like expecting an ocean at Augusta.   

I kind of think Nicklaus might be a better comparison as a designer because although doak has crazy greens I usually find his courses to be very fair.   Nicklaus is just as deliciously sadistic as Tarantino as he basically punishes the viewer/golfer with non stop violence/trouble.

Fun topic.

[Ally Mcintosh]

I think it's quite a good comparison. Those who dismiss Tarantino's cinema as middle-brow pulp are missing his influence and intelligence.

The only thing that doesn't ring true is that Tarantino is ultra-stylized and whilst Tom's architecture is certainly stylized to a degree, he might fit better with a neorealist maverick like Roberto Rossellini or a naturalist director such as Robert Altman.

[Tony_Muldoon]

This thread must surely present Peter Pallotta with some room to offer  interesting insight.

You mean he also taught Tarantino everything he knows?  Why am I not surprised....

[Thomas Dai]

Quentin Tarantino (per Reservoir Dogs) = Tom Doak = Mr Brown (how apt!)

Additional architect nominations needed please for the following -

Mr White
Mr Orange
Mr Blonde
Mr Pink
Mr Blue
other casts members - shame no Mr Green (sic!)


atb

[Jeff_Brauer]

We'll know gca is mainstream when we see a thread on IMBD comparing directors to golf course architects......

[Matt Kardash]

There is no comparison whatsoever. Tom Doak, by all accounts, is turning out quality work. QT hasn't done a movie worth the time to watch since Pulp Fiction. With the latst absurdities of Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained he has become a caricature of himself.

In Inglorious Basterds we're expected to believe that a few American soldiers, with no prior knowledge of the terrain or the language, can evade and terrorize the Wehrmacht occupation forces in France for months. A 1940's hard-scrabble French farmer is fluent in English? Where did he go to learn it? You can't find a French farmer today who speaks English. Or the Jewish girl who hides in a Paris cinema, where she learns to speak English, which she'll need because when the theatre is later full of Nazis she'll naturally want to avoid using French or German. And how many stupid movie-goers left the cinema thinking Hitler died in a theatre fire in Paris?

Django has an ante-bellum, slave-owning, plantation owner inviting blacks to sit at his dinner table? Or how about death bouts between two large slaves held not in a ring, but in his parlor!?

Christopher Walz is a brilliant actor though, and almost redeems IB all on his own.

Inglorious Basterds is perhaps the best, most mature film Tarantino has made. Therefore, you Sir, are wrong. I am sorry but this decision is final. 

[Jay Flemma]

Boy, that sure looks a lot like what I wrote about Mike Strantz and Tobacco Road!   I felt the same way about Strantz - http://golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php?action=printpage;topic=23225.0 (Guys I couldn't find the actual link to the thread, but that should get you close enough for jazz...)

Cary L gets the best "What course is what movie" analogy - Mission Impossible = Oakmont:)


Fave Tarantinos:

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Kill Bill (entirety)
3. Reservoir Dogs

[Peter Pallotta]

Matthew - there are some good points/points of comparison there, but I think there are also significant differences.

QT takes old genre pictures (think 'golden age courses') and consciously and obviously flips them on their heads, keeping true to the heart of those genres but adding a lot of flash (think 'hand of man') in manipulating the traditional narratives, challenging the older world views/ethics, and exaggerating the characters/their characteristics. And the flash that he adds is often for the sake of flash itself, i.e. his movies, whatever else they are, are overt celebrations of himself and of the art-craft of film-making. That he manages to make this meta-level smogarsburg work so well is a testament to his talent. 

TD on the other hand seems to do the opposite, especally in terms of hiding his hand. He takes the model of the old great golden age courses and doesn't flip them on their heads nor does he manipulate the traditions or challenge the older golfing ethos -- at least not obviously. Instead, he creates new courses that are meant to look and play and be experienced precisely like their golden age counterparts, but not as those golden age courses played in the 1920s, but as they play (and look) today. It is a very subtle 'trick' (for lack of as better word), and essentially the opposite of QT's overtly metal-level approach.  TD seems determined to not appear to be celebrating either himself or the art-craft of gca.
Peter

[Steve Lapper]

Matthew - there are some good points/points of comparison there, but I think there are also significant differences.

QT takes old genre pictures (think 'golden age courses') and consciously and obviously flips them on their heads, keeping true to the heart of those genres but adding a lot of flash (think 'hand of man') in manipulating the traditional narratives, challenging the older world views/ethics, and exaggerating the characters/their characteristics. And the flash that he adds is often for the sake of flash itself, i.e. his movies, whatever else they are, are overt celebrations of himself and of the art-craft of film-making. That he manages to make this meta-level smogarsburg work so well is a testament to his talent. 

TD on the other hand seems to do the opposite, especally in terms of hiding his hand. He takes the model of the old great golden age courses and doesn't flip them on their heads nor does he manipulate the traditions or challenge the older golfing ethos -- at least not obviously. Instead, he creates new courses that are meant to look and play and be experienced precisely like their golden age counterparts, but not as those golden age courses played in the 1920s, but as they play (and look) today. It is a very subtle 'trick' (for lack of as better word), and essentially the opposite of QT's overtly metal-level approach.  TD seems determined to not appear to be celebrating either himself or the art-craft of gca.
Peter

+1

I think the better analogy might lie with Stanley Kubrick or Wes Anderson

[Peter Pallotta]

Steve - yes, but I was thinking of other parallels (probably before Matthew's time, and mine too), i.e. the kind of directors that elevated/perfected the genre picture and that became the darlings of media and of the cognoscenti (at least in France!) -- e.g. Howard Hawks, John Ford.

Peter

[Mike Treitler]

I hate to state the obvious here but I actually think Spielberg is a decent comparison... 

They both give the viewer tremendous eye candy and great entertainment, however, they are also very accessible for all audiences. 

You know you are in for some great fun when you see a Spielberg movie as well as playing a Doak course. 

[RJ_Daley]

PP, never disappoints.   John Ford, in deed.  "Stagecoach", "Grapes of Wrath", "How Green Was My Valley", "The Searchers"..  Use of locations to frame the characters and tell the story with characters framed in perspective of the dramatic backdrop of the place. 

Mike T., I think you also have a good comparable for those reasons.

[Josh Bills]

RJ one of my favorites of Ford is "The Quiet Man" such a great location and great story. 

[Steve Lapper]

Steve - yes, but I was thinking of other parallels (probably before Matthew's time, and mine too), i.e. the kind of directors that elevated/perfected the genre picture and that became the darlings of media and of the cognoscenti (at least in France!) -- e.g. Howard Hawks, John Ford.

Peter

Peter,

   I'd thought of Hanks or Ford as well, however Tom's greens most definitely have a Kubrick-twist with an Anderson sense of humor!

[Steve Okula]

I would compare QT to Desmond Muirhead; no doubt brilliant, but one who squandered his considerable talent creating cartoons.

[Carl Rogers]

Can we get back to the thread topic please?....
I wish a lot of you got to play Beechtree before NLE.  
I have been hoping for a long time some more GCA play at Riverfront.  These courses are on less spectacular sites and take on a decidedly pastoral quality.  They are anti-Tarantino.

[Jeff Taylor]

Matthew - there are some good points/points of comparison there, but I think there are also significant differences.

QT takes old genre pictures (think 'golden age courses') and consciously and obviously flips them on their heads, keeping true to the heart of those genres but adding a lot of flash (think 'hand of man') in manipulating the traditional narratives, challenging the older world views/ethics, and exaggerating the characters/their characteristics. And the flash that he adds is often for the sake of flash itself, i.e. his movies, whatever else they are, are overt celebrations of himself and of the art-craft of film-making. That he manages to make this meta-level smogarsburg work so well is a testament to his talent. 

TD on the other hand seems to do the opposite, especally in terms of hiding his hand. He takes the model of the old great golden age courses and doesn't flip them on their heads nor does he manipulate the traditions or challenge the older golfing ethos -- at least not obviously. Instead, he creates new courses that are meant to look and play and be experienced precisely like their golden age counterparts, but not as those golden age courses played in the 1920s, but as they play (and look) today. It is a very subtle 'trick' (for lack of as better word), and essentially the opposite of QT's overtly metal-level approach.  TD seems determined to not appear to be celebrating either himself or the art-craft of gca.
Peter

+1

I think the better analogy might lie with Stanley Kubrick or Wes Anderson

Why Kubrick? I don't see that at all.

[John Kavanaugh]

Kubrick because quasi-intellectuals believe they see the brilliance in it.

[Paul Gray]

Kubrick because quasi-intellectuals believe they see the brilliance in it.

Is it all Emperor's New Clothing then, John?

[Peter Pallotta]

Kubrick because quasi-intellectuals believe they see the brilliance in it.

Or because the brilliant see quasi-intellectualism in his work.

I find "Fail Safe" (Sidney Lumet) a much more gripping and satisfying film than Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" -- both films based roughly on the same pre-exisiting text, but the former made by a man with heart and the latter by a bratty school-boy.  

That's another possible analogy, Sidney Lumet. A true master craftsman.

[Peter Pallotta]

Paul - JK changes his (emperor's) clothes so often than he's bound to want to call everyone else naked, even when they're obviously fully clothed. Indeed, the more good clothes someone has in his closet the more JK will want to steal the moth balls.

Peter

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