Tuesday, May 27, 2008

by Ari

The Quentin Tarantino masterclass from Cannes is online. It's a fun interview and worth a listen.

“I had been accepted for Reservoir Dogs but it was ready go; I was to be leaving Sundance and going into production. I could experiment and I like long takes so I did one of the scenes from the movie with a long take. I showed my scene to a first group of directors and they hated it. They had a meeting with me and started talking about how I could not do what I did. I liked my scene and I was experimenting with long takes. That was what I was trying to do. Then the next group of resource directors comes in. Terry Gilliam comes in and says, ‘Just great.’ Never in my life had I experienced white to black quite that way. Then Volker Schlöndorff comes walking in, ‘Ah the little genius!' [with a German accent]. And the bottom line was, that’s going to be my career. People are going to REALLY like me or REALLY not and get used to it.”

There's a lot to like, especially Jackie Brown (my favorite) and Kill Bill (when does that Special Edition dvd come out again?). His rant about film composers is a bit much, but for the most part he makes his points clearly, and he's more respectful and engaging here than he was around the time Death Proof came out. And there's a charm to his enthusiasm. He's like Scorsese's foul-mouthed, pop-culture obsessed cousin.