Im Dezember läuft der neue Tarantino-Streifen “The Hateful Eight” in den amerikanischen Kinos an und QT ist noch heftig im Schneideraum mit der Fertigstellung beschäftigt.
Trotzdem hat er dem New York Magazine ein ausführliches und ziemlich spannendes Interview gegeben (hier in voller Länge plus “Outtakes”) aus dem wir die besten Stellen herausgepickt haben:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnRbXn4-Yis[/youtube]
Quentin Tarantino…
über die Entwicklung, die das Kinopublikum genommen hat:
Frankly, sophisticated audiences are not a problem. Dumb audiences are a problem. But I think audiences are getting more sophisticated — that’s just a product of time. In the ’50s, audiences accepted a level of artifice that the audiences in 1966 would chuckle at. And the audiences of 1978 would chuckle at what the audience of 1966 said was okay, too. The trick is to try to be way ahead of that curve, so they’re not chuckling at your movies 20 years down the line. With Pulp Fiction, people were like, “Wow, I have never seen a movie like that before. A movie can do that?” I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I’m not talking ridiculously over anyone’s head anymore. I think people watched Django and Inglourious Basterds and thought they were really out there, but they got it. They felt themselves on solid ground. It wasn’t just, “What the fuck was that?” And people understand what I’m doing with genre. They’re not befuddled. They don’t think I’m doing it wrong. They get it.
über das Western-Genre, in dem er jetzt mit Django Unchained und The Hateful Eight zwei Spielfilme in Folge drehte:
One thing that’s always been true is that there’s no real film genre that better reflects the values and the problems of a given decade than the Westerns made during that specific decade. The Westerns of the ’50s reflected Eisenhower America better than any other films of the day. The Westerns of the ’30s reflected the ’30s ideal. And actually, the Westerns of the ’40s did, too, because there was a whole strain of almost noirish Westerns that, all of a sudden, had dark themes. The ’70s Westerns were pretty much anti-myth Westerns — Watergate Westerns. Everything was about the anti-heroes, everything had a hippie mentality or a nihilistic mentality. Movies came out about Jesse James and the Minnesota raid, where Jesse James is a homicidal maniac.
In Dirty Little Billy, Billy the Kid is portrayed as a cute little punk killer. Wyatt Earp is shown for who he is in the movie Doc, by Frank Perry. In the ’70s, it was about ripping the scabs off and showing who these people really were. Consequently, the big Western that came out in the ’80s was Silverado, which was trying to be rah-rah again — that was very much a Reagan Western.
I’m not trying to make Hateful Eight contemporary in any way, shape, or form. I’m just trying to tell my story. It gets to be a little too much when you try to do that, when you try to make a hippie Western or try to make a counterculture Western.
über Rassismus & “wshite supremacy”:
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly doesn’t get into the racial conflicts of the Civil War; it’s just a thing that’s happening. My movie is about the country being torn apart by it, and the racial aftermath, six, seven, eight, ten years later. Finally, the issue of white supremacy is being talked about and dealt with. And it’s what the movie’s about. (…)
We’re not trying to make it timely. It is timely. I love the fact that people are talking and dealing with the institutional racism that has existed in this country and been ignored. I feel like it’s another ’60s moment, where the people themselves had to expose how ugly they were before things could change. I’m hopeful that that’s happening now.
über Franchise-Filme, also Sequels, Reboots, Comic-Verfilmungen etc:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x08iNZ8Mfc[/youtube]
My pessimism isn’t about franchise filmmaking. That’s been going on since I was born. You can talk about Transformers now, but you could talk about the Planet of the Apes movies and James Bond when I was a little kid — and I couldn’t wait to see those. Actually, when we’re done here, I’m going to go see Guy Ritchie’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. I don’t know why Spielberg and Lucas would be complaining about movies like that. They don’t have to direct them. We all agree that the ’70s — or the ’30s, depending on what you feel — is probably the greatest decade in cinema history, as far as Hollywood cinema is concerned. I think the ’90s is right up there. But people said what Spielberg is saying all through the ’90s, and they said it all through the ’70s.
Not for those bullshit reasons you just gave. If you go out and see a lot of movies in a given year, it’s really hard to come up with a top ten, because you saw a lot of stuff that you liked. A top 20 is easier. You probably get one masterpiece a year, and I don’t think you should expect more than one masterpiece a year, except in a really great year.
über James Bond:
After Pulp Fiction I tried to get the right to Casino Royale, but that didn’t happen. That wouldn’t have just been throwing my hat in the franchise ring; that would have been suvbversion on a massive level, if I could have subverted Bond.
über die Scream-Reihe:
I could have imagined doing the first Scream. The Weinsteins were trying to get Robert Rodriguez to do it. I don’t even think they thought I would be interested. I actually didn’t care for Wes Craven’s direction of it. I thought he was the iron chain attached to its ankle that kept it earthbound and stopped it from going to the moon.
über Regisseur David O Russell und seinen Film “The Fighter”:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71l-kIhJ5j8[/youtube]
I don’t know if we’re going to be talking about The Town or The Kids Are All Right or An Education 20 or 30 years from now. Notes on a Scandal is another one. Philomena. Half of these Cate Blanchett movies — they’re all just like these arty things. I’m not saying they’re bad movies, but I don’t think most of them have a shelf life. But The Fighter or American Hustle — those will be watched in 30 years. [The Fighter] is the explosion of David O. Russell’s talent, which had always been there but really coalesced in that movie. I think he’s the best actor’s director, along with myself, working in movies today. And The Fighter had impeccable casting. As an example, I really liked The Town, which also came out in 2010. It was a good crime film. However, next to The Fighter, it just couldn’t hold up, because everybody in The Town is beyond gorgeous. Ben Affleck is the one who gets away with it, because his Boston accent is so good. But the crook is absolutely gorgeous. The bank teller is absolutely gorgeous. The FBI guy is absolutely gorgeous. The town whore, Blake Lively, is absolutely gorgeous. Jeremy Renner is the least gorgeous guy, and he’s pretty fucking good-looking. Then, if you look at The Fighter, and you look at those sisters, they’re just so magnificent. When you see David O. Russell cast those sisters, and you see Ben Affleck cast Blake Lively, you can’t compare the two movies. One just shows how phony the other is.
über Pedro Almodovar:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EolQSTTTpI4[/youtube]
When people in America talk about the great writer-director auteurs, they don’t talk about Pedro Almodóvar enough. For 30 years, he has dwarfed almost all of his American peers. He went through a slightly weak period around the time of Kika and All About My Mother. I didn’t get Broken Embraces, but it was still okay. But the things he’s been doing the last seven years, he’s been on a magnificent roll. He’s a fantastic director. His scripts are wonderful, and he’s just money in the bank. And he’s so specific, but as opposed to a lot of these specific art-film directors that you’re going to get tired of, like Wong Kar-wai, you never get tired of Almodóvar. Because as much as he has these recognizable elements, it never just seems like the same movie over and over again. The Skin I Live In was him doing a horror film, and it was fucking amazing. I totally got the impression that — and I’m fairly sure I’m right about this — Pedro was watching The Human Centipede and thinking, You know, I know how to do this. I could do something really special with this. And that was The Skin I Live In.
über andere Regisseure als “Konkurrenz”:
This might come across as egotistical, but I don’t really feel in competition with anybody anymore. I’m in competition with myself. David O. Russell can have the biggest hit of the year, and that doesn’t take anything away from me. I couldn’t have been happier that Rick Linklater was at the Oscars this year.
The last time that I felt competitive was when I was doing Kill Bill and my competition was The Matrix Reloaded. That was the sword of Damocles hanging over our heads. I saw Matrix Reloaded at the Chinese Theatre the day it opened, and I walked out of the cinema singing that Jay Z song: “S-dot-Carter / Y’all must try harder / Competition is nada.” I was like, Bring it the fuck on. I was worried about that? Ho-ly shit.
über seinen Einfluss auf andere Regisseure:
I’m a legit filmmaker of my generation who’s leading the pack. Hitchcock saw his techniques done by other people, and that was all great. Spielberg saw his techniques copied — that just means you’re having an impact. Before I ever made a movie, my mission statement was that I wanted to make movies that, if young people saw them, it would make them want to make movies. That is one thing I can definitely say I’ve done.
..und wer sein liebster “Imitator” ist:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBVdAtrzi_M[/youtube]
That was more of a thing in the ’90s, whether it was The Usual Suspects or Eight Heads in a Duffel Bag or Two Days in the Valley. The one I thought was the best was by this director who never did anything else, C. M. Talkington, who did that movie Love and a .45. And there’s a really terrific Hong Kong movie called Too Many Ways to Be No. 1.
über die besten Filme in diesem Jahr:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymoh5SIqgtw[/youtube]
I didn’t see anything this year. I’ve been making this movie for so long. I loved Kingsman. I really liked It Follows. It was the best premise I’ve seen in a horror film in a long, long, long time. It’s one of those movies that’s so good you get mad at it for not being great.
He could have kept his mythology straight. He broke his mythology left, right, and center.
The movie keeps on doing things like that, not holding on to the rules that it sets up. Like, okay, you can shoot the bad guys in the head, but that just works for ten seconds? Well, that doesn’t make any fucking sense. What’s up with that? And then, all of a sudden, the things are aggressive and they’re picking up appliances and throwing them at people? Now they’re strategizing? That’s never been part of it before. I don’t buy that the thing is getting clever when they lower him into the pool. They’re not clever.
über das Mumblecore-Genre:
I haven’t seen all the Duplass brothers movies, but the ones I’ve seen I really liked. They did Cyrus and Baghead. All that mumblecore stuff happened when I was in Germany doing Inglourious Basterds, so I didn’t even know about it. Then I came home and started reading about it, like, What the fuck is this shit? So I watched Baghead. I said to my friend Elvis Mitchell, “Have you seen any of those mumblecore movies? I was curious and watched Baghead, and I thought it was really good.” He goes, “You saw the good one. They’re not all like that. You reached into a pickle barrel and grabbed the right pickle.” I haven’t seen Hannah Takes the Stairs.
über True Detective vs. The Newsroom:
I tried to watch the first episode of [True Detective] season one, and I didn’t get into it at all. I thought it was really boring. And season two looks awful. Just the trailer — all these handsome actors trying to not be handsome and walking around looking like the weight of the world is on their shoulders. It’s so serious, and they’re so tortured, trying to look miserable with their mustaches and grungy clothes.
Now, the HBO show I loved was Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom. That was the only show that I literally watched three times. I would watch it at seven o’clock on Sunday, when the new one would come on. Then after it was over, I’d watch it all over again. Then I would usually end up watching it once during the week, just so I could listen to the dialogue one more time.
(…) Why would it be surprising that I like the best dialogue writer in the business?
über Oscars (Tarantino hat zweimal den Oscar für bestes Original-Drehbuch gewonnen, aber nie für beste Regie):
I would have liked to have won Best Director for Inglourious Basterds, but I’ve got time. And I’m very, very happy with my writing Oscars. I will brag about this: I’m one of five people who have won two Original Screenplay Oscars. The other four are Woody Allen, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Paddy Chayefsky. I actually didn’t know that until somebody wrote it on a website. I went, “Holy shit!” Those are the greatest writers in the history of Hollywood. Now, Woody Allen has us all beat. He’s won three, so if I win three, I’ll tie with Woody.