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Article: The pissing contest. (examination of personalities and work of film directors Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino)
- Article from:
- Esquire
- Article date:
- December 1, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Hearst Communications, reprinted with permission of Hearst. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Oliver stone versus Quentin Tarantino? Pitting writers against each other as if they were professional wrestling stars in a grudge match is not considered sophisticated literary practice, although it is true that the man who is regarded as perhaps the single most prodigiously learned litterateur in the language, George Steiner, once wrote an entire volume dedicated to putting two mad Russians into mano a mano competition. He called it Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, and there was blood on the floor before referee Steiner gave Foaming Fyodor the edge.
And for a long timer American fiction has been ruled and riven by the war between the rival sensibilities of Hemingway and ...