Tarantino HIp Hops Around Actual Questions About Django By An Actual Journalist
This is why I haven’t gotten a Tarantino DP/30, though ironically, I would never press a DP/30 guest – especially a first timer – this hard on something about which they were uncomfortable talking.
The thing is, he doesn’t really want to talk about it. And I have always suspected that it’s because he really has nothing to say on these issues. Critics have allowed him to through iffy spin, like “The reason that made me put pen to paper was to give Black American males a western hero…give them a a cool black folkloric hero that could actually be empowering and actually pay back blood for blood.”
Of course, when pushed for thoughtfulness he hides behind the notion that he’s said all this before. But he hasn’t. And he does have a responsibility, not answer for the violence in his movies, but to explain intent. But “it’s cool” diminishes the critical legend about who this genius is.
I don’t even think he needs to answer about societal impact. I would be happy to accept “it’s a movie, man,” with some passionate discussion about how violent movies have always been around and how he feels cleansed by them and continues in that tradition… or some such thing. His reality.
But he’s like an animal trapped by his creation. His status has a lot to do with the hyper-fanboy-rationalzation of many otherwise serious critics, trying to tell people he is doing something important… after they laugh their ass off at a movie that engages racism in a rather flippant, entertaining way. Just being the most brilliant collage artist ever to put film through a camera is not enough. And it’s a shame for him, because in interviews like this – rather rare and only in other countries – he comes off as a petulant ass, when it seems he’s really just a bot over his head being of such “cultural importance.”
Oh, horse shit. Tarantino’s expressed his views on violence dozens, upon dozens, upon dozens, of times since “Reservoir Dogs” was released back in ’92.
It’s the go to question for “journalists” rootin’ for controversy (keep in mind that this is the same dude who got the spokesperson for Scientology to storm out of an interview). If he truly cared about the answer to that question, he should have asked a behavioral psychologist, not a filmmaker.
He makes incredibly violent movies, so he really shouldn’t be surprised that he’s asked about violence (in his films and in the real world). Not that there aren’t stupid journalists/questions, but I thought Terry Gross asking him how he felt about violence immediately following real-world tragedies was fair and interesting.
…And even though he was annoyed to be asked about violence in films in the context of a school shooting, he DID answer it before.
There is a reason the violence against slaves is absolutely horrific in DJANGO UNCHAINED and the revenge fantasy sequences are squib filled operatic catharsis. Real violence is grotesque. Movie violence is not.
I think maybe Tarantino just isn’t very good at explaining whatever deeper meanings might exist in his work. He doesn’t come across as much of a thinker, but he is clearly talented.
It’s a bit absurd to say that Django Unchained has started a national conversation about slavery.
Actually Melquiades, if you listen to his interviews he goes deeper into his work than most want to give him credit for.
And Tarantino has already answered the question several times since the Sandy Hook shooting. It’s not surprising that he’s sick of it.
And he does have a responsibility, not answer for the violence in his movies, but to explain intent.
Did you watch the interview? Even in this he makes the distinction.
David, he’s been ask this question over and over again, throughout the years. It is like constantly asking Picasso, why he paints non-realistic paintings?
^
Better yet, it’s like asking Picasso whether or not his paintings cause more kids to be born with facial deformities.
Here’s the thing:
Django HASN’T started any conversations about slavery. I mean, not really. Not beyond the obvious. What it has done is added a wrinkle in how race and pop culture collide with its use of the problematic N word.
I enjoyed this film, but pretending it had anything real to say about slavery is like saying “Inglourious Basterds” had anything to say about Hitler. It didn’t. Neither does this movie. They are escapist revenge fantasies by a master craftsman with no interest in a cinema of ideas. And that’s ok.
QT should just have pointed out the brilliant moment in INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS when Zoller flinches as he watches himself onscreen killing.
I agree that DU has not started any conversation about slavery, but more about how slavery is portrayed in film. the wrinkle is when you have a white guy in what is thought of being the black guys playground, then these should he/shouldn’t he questions are raised.
And of course when Spike Lee adds his voice to the mix, then you get this interesting cultural divide of opinions, particularly among the African American population, those who think that the society has come far enough that slavery can now be used as fodder for all genres of film, and those who think that slavery should be this revered part of history that should be essentially a lesson to the today’s generation.
For the record, the Klan scene with the discussion on face masks was one the funniest things I saw all year.
Ditto Bulldog. In fact, I’m not sure exactly what conversations about slavery modern films are supposed to start. “I’m totally against it.” “Me, too, dude.”
I suppose every now and then some nuts will say, “Let’s bring it back!” but I don’t think I’d want to converse with them.
Antho… how would a thoughtful person respond the the millionth asking of a question?
Not like this.
An annoyed person, is an annoyed person.
Dave,
How would Christopher Nolan have responded if he were asked about his role in the Aurora massacre in every interview for a month? I’m not saying he had ANYTHING to do with that violence, I’m just trying to make it a point that nearly every interview I’ve read or seen with Tarantino regarding Django has brought up that question and I’m sure that anyone get get frustrated if it was implied that people died because of your art. It’s akin to the NRA (still!!) blaming gun deaths on NATURAL BORN KILLERS.
Also, is a celebrity not allowed to have an off day? He was in London. He could have be jet lagged. You of all people know that he could have been sitting for most of that day talking to sundry journalists in 20 minute increments with each lobbing the same questions at the man. This time, his breaking point was filmed.
It is a bummer to see how self-righteous and self-important Tarantino has become. I think he has a point in refusing to discuss that question, but he sounds like a dope in most of this, beginning with apparently not understanding what an interview is.
Since when does an artist have the responsibility to explain intent?! Shouldn’t art speak for itself without the accompanying interview serving as an overview of the work’s themes?
I wonder if the interviewer had framed the question differently how he would responded….
For example what if the MPAA rules that extreme violence would now require an NC17 rating… How would he (Tarantino) feel about that.
certainly an NC17 rating would hurt a film box office wise… Even a Tarantino film… Or would it?
We have become so accustomed to do much access that I actually did not realize until a few minutes ago that I totally agree that artist should be under absolutely no compulsion to explain intent. The work should speak for itself. The audience should take away whetever they take away. Two films I absolutely loathe we’re Tree of Life and The Master. Two films that leave a great deal for the viewer to interpret. I don’t see you calling for an “intent” interview Dave. If a filmmaker wants to make public every nuanced thought they had during filmmaking then that’s their choice. But it should not be any kind of standard.
Django Unchained proved one thing, that Quentin Tarantino knows about slavery and being black just as much as Christopher Nolan knows about being a vigilante hero.
For the record, this was Sam Jackson’s 2nd comic book movie this year.
Apologies in advance for any iPhone autocorrect.
Eh, I thought Charles Barkley handled the same matter better when he stated, “I am not a role model.”
I’ve seen a number of Tarantino films but not all of them. I’ve seen/read a number of interviews of him over the years but I don’t know his position on violence. I wouldn’t have thought to “go google it” in the sense that I didn’t know he had such an eloquent position that his views when stated off camera are on par with what he puts up on screen.
Sure, we may never be smart enough to figure out cause or intent or dormant motivation in other people but when questions on violence manifested in society arise why wouldn’t or shouldn’t people ask people whose work depicts violence, among others, if for no other reason that to eliminate them and their work from the list of possibilities?
If Tarantino wants to say something like “I’m so far off the map (in terms of violence) that my work is absurdness, no one could possibly mistake such such actions as motivations or influence. This is a cat in a cartoon getting thrown in a volcano in one shot and screaming out with his tail on fire in the next. How could that be mistaken as part of the problems facing animals in the pet world?” And one accept it as being a complete answer regardless of it’s accuracy or position to it. Where I would fault Tarantino in his logic is that he’s taking credit for starting a national dialog about slavery but absolves himself of all influence of violence in society. Credit me for the good, blame sugar cereals for the bad.
In his defense, NO ONE is taking responsibility or publicly coming forward with thoughts of self evaluation for being a possible connection to public violence. Not the execs who greenlight the films, not the filmmakers, not the gun manufacturers, not the schools, not the parents, not the gaming industry, not the doctors, not Big pharma, on & on & on, no one. Not pointing fingers at who should be doing it, I’m just saying personal reflection isn’t happening. Maybe that’s due to a component of self preservation, which would make questions of why irrelevant. It’s not what we do it’s who we are. Is that the right answer? Who knows, probably not. But it is an answer, which I’d definitely like to see more of. Not deflection.
Everybody wants to take Freedom to the ball, but ugly stepsister Responsibility always has to stay home.
I want to know if the foot thing has contributed to an outbreak of foot fetishism.
That QT has always made violent films is a given. And that he has been asked about it before is also a given. That he has explained the violence in such films as RD, PF and KB Vols 1 & 2 is again, a given.
But those films each had the same context for their violence. The violence in those films is in quotation marks. They exist in Tarantino-land. They are cinematically charged.
The violence in DU is historically grounded and racially charged. And there lies the legitimate reason to present the question once more. New context, new answer? Nope, new context, same answer. Or no answer at all.
And so, while QT once had the passion and currency to get away with “violence in cinema is cool”, with this new film he has shown his limitations in appreciating his own subject matter. He is simply ill-equipped to discuss it.
If anyone has ever spoken to Nolan about practically anything you will hear a vast mind at work. He is intellectually rigorous. QT is not. His films are kinetic, but with DU and IB, he has been revealing himself to be unable to appreciate the gravity of history.
Not for the first time, his ego is getting in the way. He is claiming his film has provoked a debate on slavery. It has not. He claims his film gives “Black American males a western hero.” That is not why he wrote it. That line is Oscar-campaign talk.
He is claiming IB is a Holocaust picture, it is not. He is claiming that as an artist, he has license to (mis)treat history in any way he pleases. He does not have that right.
The Holocaust and Slavery are not cinematic styles, tropes or jokes. Anyone who thinks that way (and QT does), needs to think a little bit more.
“He is claiming that as an artist, he has license to (mis)treat history in any way he pleases. He does not have that right.”
Um… yeah he does… because he did.
“He does… because he did.”
Sorry Spassky, but your argument is a tautological fallacy. You may think you’ve just come upon something worthy of Descartes, but it just doesn’t wash.
One country invades another. Therefore they had the right to do it?
Talk about cart and horse.
What if someone were to make a movie depicting the KKK as the good guys? Well, Griffith tried to do that, and by mistreating history he was shown up for the racist he was.
QT is not a racist but he is a rampant egoist who thinks historical events exist to serve his cinema.
“He is claiming IB is a Holocaust picture, it is not. He is claiming that as an artist, he has license to (mis)treat history in any way he pleases. He does not have that right.”
So are you saying he does not have the right to make the picture? Or are you saying he does not have the right to say it’s a holocaust picture?
There is a distinct difference between having a right to do something, and being right. You can have the right to make a picture that shows Klansmen as the good guys, but be totally wrong.
How different is what QT did to James Cameron in Titanic? Using the backdrop of a well known historical event or period to tell your own story. Some take a little creative license, others take a lot. When The Help came out last year, many were saying that the reason white people ate it up was because it showed another white person helping black people, thus erasing some of their white guilt. QT puts the gun in the black guy’s hand. He has done way more than shit in someone’s pie.
However, if QT is going around saying that this film somehow sheds some kind of light on slavery, then he’s drinking his own koolaid. But he has the right the make whatever type of film he wants and the audience will be the judge. He has the right to be wrong.
bulldog68,
We’re almost in complete agreement:
I’m not too sure your inclusion of Cameron’s Titanic is completely apt. The sinking of the the Titanic was the result of hubris. Arrogance. Ill-found belief in our own ability to master nature.
The Holocaust and Slavery are the result of bigotry, intolerance and deep-seated ignorance.
But be that as it may, I agree with you. Cameron was entitled to make the movie as indeed is QT entitled to make IB and DU.
But QT saying IB is a holocaust picture? Put it alongside the likes of Schindler’s List, The Pianist, The Counterfeiters and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas… it’s not about the Holocaust at all. It’s a mission movie and the mission is to kill Hitler… in a movie theatre.
QT’s dialogue is memorable because it is so exact, but in conversation he speaks very loosely. And down through the years he has used his youth, enthusiasm, cineaste-aesthetic, movie-geek knowledge and now legend to be increasingly loose in what he says.
“… give Black American males a western hero…give them a a cool black folkloric hero that could actually be empowering and actually pay back blood for blood.”
Really, Quentin? Really? And then he goes and says “it’s just a movie.” Koolaid indeed.
He wants to be feted as a God, but then say “Hey, I’m just a moviemaker.”
But, we are in agreement. QT has the right to make the movie… and the right to be wrong. But I do sense that some people, QT especially, are using the ‘right to be wrong’ argument as a get out of jail card. I don’t think t=he right to be wrong releases anyone from the obligation to be … or do the right thing (allusion intended).
I just included Titanic not for it’s subject matter, but because it’s an iconic event.
Let’s say Cameron chose to make a Titanic movie about what is reported to be the one black family on board. Or replace Cameron with QT or Spike Lee, and they took extreme creative license and crafted a story about this black man fighting for his life, possibly because of an illicit relationship with a privileged white girl, and he had to shoot his way out. How would that have been viewed. As an aberration of an historical event?
QT’s statement of wanting to give black black Americans a western hero is frat boy soapboxing. It’s wish fulfillment. Much like Gangster Squad plays like what would happen if you give a ten year old a camera and $60m dollars. Packed with every stereotype, every character embodiment of what we think we know, and what we’d like to see, and making statements that are more akin to mother goose than mother nature. Mother nature is boring, because all she does is reminds us how slowly we have evolved. Now Mother Goose, she’s a hot chick. We get to live out our fantasies with Mother Goose.
Understand you now about Titanic. And your proposition is an interesting one. I think if someone had made/were to make such a movie, it would be quite legitimate, actually. Well, as legitimate as Forrest Gump. As in… why not make that insertion? More than that, I would consider the people who might have a problem with it as idiots. I don’t know for a fact whether there were any black passengers aboard but within the context of the disaster, it would not matter because the disaster of the Titanic would be viewed as a microcosm of the times… which Cameron alluded to, but only in passing because his canvas was a rollicking love story surrounded by a disaster movie. Your idea would be more pointed. And more interesting. And who knows, even box-office!
I’ll start the screenplay and copywriting procedures as we speak. 🙂
Oh, and according the internet, (where all things are true), there was one black family on board, that perished. Other sites say two men.
OMG QT looked tired and got pissy on a minor and mild-mannered tv interviewer! And this confirms my inarticulate sense that QT has failed to piously contextualize his fake violence in a way that I approve of, not to mention failing to situate his fable in a respectable historical discourse!
And this means QT has notional blood on his hands, that’s for sure.
And on the other end of the scale, Spike Lee said this: “I can’t speak on it ’cause I’m not gonna see it,” Lee said. “All I’m going to say is that it’s disrespectful to my ancestors. That’s just me … I’m not speaking on behalf of anybody else.”
I’d like to know 1) How do you know it’s disrespectful if you haven’t seen it? This from the Director that was called an Afro Fascist by Stanley Crouch, and commentators suggested his Do the Right Thing would incite race riots. And 2) Specifically what was disrespectful?
Pope: Griffith was not a racist. Watch any of his movies other than BIRTH OF A NATION and you’ll see how foolish this statement is. He even made his next and greatest film, INTOLERANCE, as an apology for BIRTH; he stated that he’d thought he was simply telling an exciting history-based story and did not realize the negative impact it would have. That may have made him naive, but not a bigot.
Sorry Cadavra, I don’t agree.
I say it made Griffith a naive bigot. And naive or not, he was still a bigot. You can’t excuse the times in which he lived. You can’t excuse someone of their prejudices just because a lot of other people held the same opinion. There were a lot of other people at the time who saw BIRTH for what it was.
The fact that he thought he was making an exiting history-based story completely blinded him from the reality that his views were at the very least odious. It’s what happens when you spend your time with people who hold the same opinions as ourselves. Which is why I enjoy this site and exchanging ideas with people who do not necessarily agree with me.
If anything Griffith was an electrically charged storyteller who was blind as to the content and/or impact of his stories and so, in effect, the full power of the medium. I will admit that those were very early days and we have learned a lot since then. As you say, Griffith made Intolerance as an act of apology and that shows he was completely unaware of his own prejudice. BIRTH came back at him as a reflection and it shocked him. But sadly, that prejudice re-emerged with Broken Blossoms.
Tarantino is trying to have his cake and eat it too here, like triple-op said it’s a bit rich to claim you’ve started a serious national dialogue about slavery (yeah right) but then refuse to discuss your controversial approach to the material and possible negative impact (I don’t know, QT used to be such a dorky, geeky, hyper-enthusiastic reverential motormouth that his ego was somehow tolerable, now he just seems like a bit of a smug prick in every interview I’ve seen for this movie). It’s the age old dilemma with violent cinema, the line between depiction and glorification — and when it’s the glorification of ‘historical’ violence against slaves by a white film-maker with his rather huck finn-ish sensibility, that can open up a can of worms. Clearly QT doesn’t want to talk about those worms.
As much as I find myself agreeing with QT here … annoyed or not he still comes across like a major douchebag.
Tarantino responded on Leno about gun violence in his films here at the 10:56 mark.
Basically, he says I’ve been making these types of film for 20 years and “dealing with entertainment like this in the midst of this tragedy is actually disrespectful…to bring up these side issues when actually the issue is mental health”. I agree with that mostly…anything can be a trigger for an already unbalanced mind…video games, movies, books. But to totally ignore the glorification of guns in movies is a cop out. Look at Pacino’s Scarface still being a model for young black gang members…copying the attitude and living the high life while breaking the law, regardless of it leading to death.
As for the alternate history, he’s obviously not the first to use tragic historical events as the basis for entertainment. I had no problem with Begnini’s using comedy in a holocaust story in Life Is Beautiful. I was more bothered by the killing of Hitler in movie theater, in that it’s a pointless revenge fantasy. And given the sorry state of education, you know there’s idiots out there who will think that’s actually what happened.
Lynch Van Sant,
I know he was playing loose with his statistics but Italian novelist and philosopher, Umberto Eco once claimed that 70 percent of our knowledge derives from watching Hollywood movies.
So, considering there were audience members who, when watching the re-release of Titanic, didn’t know the ship actually sank. Or that that there even was a ship called Titanic…
My spine has just chilled.
The Pope is on another level of stupid here.
@Think,
Evidently I am on another level of stupid, because I don’t know what you mean by your statement.
Lynch: Those people don’t love Scarface because of the guns, they love it for his attitude. And they would be, and are, criminals even if the movie never existed.
“Don’t blame the movies. Movies don’t make psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!”
Pope (back to our discussion): Griffith was a great humanist. Even as far back as his early Biographs, he was depicting Indians and Chinese with far more sympathy than was the norm at the time. And how can BLOSSOMS be “prejudiced” when the “Chinaman” is the hero and the “whiteman” is the vicious brute? And have you seen WAY DOWN EAST, ORPHANS OF THE STORM, THE STRUGGLE and so many others that deal with human failings in a sympathetic light? Again, tarring him as bigoted on the basis of one film is like saying Eastwood’s a lousy actor on the basis of PAINT YOUR WAGON.
Cadavra,
Thanks for developing this. I agree with you, again but only to a point. In Broken Blossoms, Cheng is the good man yes. And Lillian Gish’s father is clearly the villain. But Cheng is depicted as completely meek. So much so that he practically renders himself subservient to all other Londoners. Especially Gish. He deifies her. In other words, the white woman is put a on a pedestal by non-whites. Gish’s father is, as you rightly say, the vicious brute. But only because he defiles her (i.e., takes her from the pedestal). And yes, he kills Gish’s father… but then he takes his own life. Why? You could argue that he does so because he can’t imagine a world without Gish. Okay, but how about he does so because, well, he’s a meek Chinaman?
I don’t deny that Griffith was capable of depicting scenes of emotional intensity (it’s why we call them melodramas), but his most fully rounded characters are white, male and rich. But then again, the same could be said for many contemporary directors. But I still hold that Griffith was bigoted and prejudiced. Humanist, yes, but only to a point.
^
Also, Dude, Chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.
@ PcChongor,
Which was why I cited his name, Cheng. But you’re correct, I forgot to put the quotation marks around “Chinaman.”
As I did, given it was the term used in the film itself but is now considered offensive.
And he took his own life because he knew that he would be put to death for killing a white man and thus chose the “honorable” way out.
Cadavra,
Thanks for that. You’re right; he would have been executed.
Obviously, you two aren’t golfers…
???
I think it means golfers never concede a shot!
Um, okay.
I think David calls it correctly. There seem to be two separate issues here: Do violent films have a societal impact? Does Tarantino actually have intellectual views to express?
I love him, but he’s a very shallow thinker. I feel like he accidentally creates deeper meaning, much like the B-movies and cult films he reveres, but his actual intent and analysis is best ignored.
Yeah, no. It’s clear you’ve never read or listened to him talk about the movies he loves