Quentin Tarantino Discusses THE HATEFUL EIGHT and the Current State of Filmmaking

Vulture recently released an in-depth interview with Quentin Tarantino, and a lot of the conversation is really quite interesting. Talking about his upcoming western, The Hateful Eight, he also has some things to say about the current state of filmmaking, his process of making films, and a few other updates regarding his career, superhero movies, actors, retirement, and more.

Below you'll find a few highlights from the lengthy interview that I thought were worth sharing.

Asked about the Civil War backdrop of The Hateful Eight and its comparison to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Tarantino said:

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.”

Turns out his new film deals with some heavy subject matter that we are seeing today. He goes on to explain how the events taking place in Baltimore and Ferguson relate to his film:

“Finally, the issue of white supremacy is being talked about and dealt with. And it’s what the movie’s about…. It was already in the script. It was already in the footage we shot. It just happens to be timely right now. 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.”

As for the state of filmmaking, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are brought up in the interview, and how they have been pessimistic about the future of the film industry, and how the whole entertainment industry could implode if big tentpole movies start flopping. Tarantino doesn't seem too worried about that, though:

“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… I don’t know why Spielberg and Lucas would be complaining about movies like that. They don’t have to direct them.
“The movies that used to be treated as independent movies, like the Sundance movies of the ’90s — those are the movies that are up for Oscars now. Stuff like The Kids Are All Right and The Fighter. They’re the mid-budget movies now, they just have bigger stars and bigger budgets. They’re good, but I don’t know if they have the staying power that some of the movies of the ’90s and the ’70s did. 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.”

The director also discussed the actors he uses in his films. As you know, the guy has really helped define the careers of several actors, has jump-started careers and even resurrected some. When asked about feeling any kind of pressure to cast certain actors in his film Tarantino said:

“No. If there’s a part that a huge star could play, and that star were interested in playing it, there would definitely be pressures to consider them. And I have no problem doing that, unless I don’t particularly like that actor. But just because somebody’s a star doesn’t necessarily mean my fans or their fans want to see us work together. There is such a thing as my kind of actor, and how well they pull off my dialogue is a very, very important part of it.”

The conversation then turns to actresses, and how it gets hard for them to find work when they get into their late 20s unless they’re someone like Meryl Streep or Julianne Moore. During this discussion, he was asked if he feels any kind of responsibility to write roles for women outside of the typical Hollywood demographic, and this was his response:

“I don’t have any responsibility at all. I’ve been making movies for 20 years, and as great as some of those decisions I made in the first ten years were, I probably wouldn’t make them again. What I mean is, I really liked the scripts I wrote, and I really liked my characters, but I wasn’t overenamored, and I wasn’t that precious about them. Back then, I got much more excited by cool casting. I liked the idea of taking an actor I’ve always liked but wasn’t being used much anymore and putting him in the movie and showing people what he could do. But I don’t feel that way anymore. Now it’s all about my characters. I actually think my characters are going to be one of my biggest legacies after I’m gone. So I have no obligation whatsoever other than to just cast it right. I did a Nightline interview with some dingbat. It was me, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jamie Foxx, and they were asking about stuff like that. I go, ‘Look, I like these guys, but I love my characters. Their job is to say my dialogue.’”

There are also a series of little quotes scattered throughout the interview that I thought you might find interesting. I included those below.

On social critics:

“Social critics don’t mean a thing to me. It’s really easy to ignore them, because I believe in what I’m doing 100 percent. So any naysayers for the public good can just fuck off. They might be a drag for a moment, but after that moment is over, it always ends up being gasoline to my fire.”

On all the superhero movies being made these days:

“I’ve been reading comic books since I was a kid, and I’ve had my own Marvel Universe obsessions for years. So I don’t really have a problem with the whole superhero thing right now, except I wish I didn’t have to wait until my 50s for this to be the dominant genre. Back in the ’80s, when movies sucked — I saw more movies then than I’d ever seen in my life, and the Hollywood bottom-line product was the worst it had been since the ’50s — that would have been a great time.”

On the competition of filmmaking:

“No. It’s a friendly thing. 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.”

On Kill Bill 3:

“No, [Kill Bill 3] is not off the table, but we’ll see.”

On retiring:

“It would be wonderful to make my tenth movie my best movie — go out with a big bang, or with a small chamber piece after a big bang. I think about that every once in a while, but it’s not a real consideration. I just make one thing at a time. There are a few movies I’d like to do, but once I’m done with Hateful Eight and I’ve had a little time to myself, anything I think I’m going to do now, I know it’s what I won’t do later. I’ve got to leave myself open for the right story that talks to me.”

This is all just a small part of the full interview, and I suggest you read it all because there’s a lot more interesting stuff there.

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