Quentin Tarantino Confirms He's Only Making Two More Films and Discusses His Directing Style

For years we've heard that Quentin Tarantio might retire of after he makes his tenth film, which means he has two more films to go before he calls it quits. He recently confirmed this news at a special screening for Pulp Fiction at the Jerusalem Cinematheque where he also talked about his career. It was there he confirmed:

“I’m planning on stopping at 10. So it’ll be two more. Even if at 75, if I have this other story to tell, it would still kind of work because that would make those 10. They would be there and that would be that. But the one he did when he was an old f—ing man, that geriatric one exists completely on its own in the old folks’ home and is never put in the same shelf next to the other 10. So it doesn’t contaminate the other 10.”

I'm a fan of Tarantino's work. His films have gotten better and better with each one that he makes, and it would be kind of a shame to see him retire after making only ten movies. It seems like he's pretty serious about it, though, so we'll see. I don't know, it just seems like he loves making films and telling stories so much. Why would anyone want to stop doing what they love?

He goes on to talk about a few other aspects of his career and the kind of filmmaker he is. When talking about how he gives direction he explained:

“I am the captain of the ship, and they have to follow my orders as far as that’s concerned. But when it comes to getting the best out of them in any given scene or performance, then I’m at their disposal. Because it’s not about getting my way, it’s about making them comfortable and getting the best out of them. I’m just very sensitive to them, we have a lot of private talks and, when I have to direct, I’m not just sitting in video village, which is usually in another room, watching a f—ing television. As they’re acting, I’m sitting right next to the camera. There’s no monitors on my set; I’m sitting right by the camera. And I’m looking right at them. And when it’s done, they look at me…’What do I think?’ When I have direction, I walk over to them and I talk about it. I don’t scream at them from across the set. Or scream from another room, ‘Do this… do that!’ I’m talking directly to them and, boom, we go in and do it. It’s very intimate.”

I'd love to be on the set of one of Tarantino's film just to witness him work and learn more about his craft. The guy manages to get some crazy awesome performances from his actors. At one point he even discussed his obsession with dialogue: 

“The one rule that I have is you have to know my dialogue backwards and forwards. When you show up on the set, you need to know my dialogue as if it was your fourth week of a Broadway run after a six-week tryout. Anything else, you are ripping me off. I could fire you and start all over again. Because you’re just disrespecting me. You can’t just do the kind of work that I need you to do if you don’t know the lines beyond and beyond. Because I’m looking for that take when an actor just happens to kick in to something. And actors describe that moment where, all of a sudden, they just kick into the character and at that moment, they can’t do it wrong, because they are the person. If they say a joke, it’s a little bit funnier because they are really saying the joke and get the humor. Actors describe it, they say it’s like flying because they’re literally — that’s why they become actors. You can’t deal with flying when you don’t know the dialogue that much. That will bring you back down to earth. I am paying them to say my dialogue. That is their job. I like my actors, but I love my characters, and it’s the actors’ job to say my lines.”

So, to be in one of Tarantino's movies, you basically can't fake it like so many other actors do. When you see a Tarantino movie, you are seeing an actor give everything he's got. One of the more interesting parts of the discussion is when Tarantino revealed that his favorite character that he's written for in all of his movies was Colonel Landa, who was played by Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds.

“I didn’t know yet that Colonel Landa [Christopher Waltz] was a linguistic genius, but during the course of writing the script, he became a linguistic genius. No matter what character came in the room, he could kick it to them in their language and speak it really well. He’s not shown doing it, but he’s probably one of the only Nazis in cinema history who could speak Yiddish perfectly. If Filipinos walked in the room, he’d be kicking it in Tagalog with them and not missing a click.”

When talking about Waltz being cast in the role he explained:

“I was getting to be kind of worried, and unless I found the perfect Landa, I didn’t want to make the movie. I was literally emotionally preparing myself to pull the plug. Then Christoph Waltz walked in…and it was just obvious he was the guy. He could do everything we wanted. He was just amazing….We were ecstatic when he finished. We were just vomiting all over him: ‘Oh my God, you were amazing, you were fantastic. Oh my God, thank you, thank you, thank you.’ I’ve never given a man a blowjob, but at that moment, at that time, if anyone deserved it, it was him.”

That movie launched Waltz's career in mainstream American films. He was absolutely amazing in that role. You can read the entire Q&A from the event here.