By now you’ve probably heard about Quentin Tarantino’s press conference from Cannes. He’s not down with digital projection, he’s starting to heal over the “knife in the back” that was casting agents helping leak his “Hateful Eight” screenplay, which he still might make, and he’s considering making a 4-hour version of “Django Unchained” for cable (the irony that he called digital the death of cinema and announced a potential project for the small screen on the same day evidently lost on him).
Love him or hate him, Tarantino is Tarantino, he’s implacable and he’s always going to be who he is, a mix of insightful, passionate and boastful. You’ve heard about it, but you probably haven’t seen it, so below is Tarantino’s 50-minute press conference from Cannes where he goes off on a number of subjects.
Here’s’ some quote highlights from Vulture.
Digital Is Death
“As far as I’m concerned, digital projection and DCPs is the death of cinema as I know it. It’s not even about shooting your film on film or shooting your film on digital. The fact that most films now are not presented in 35 millimeter means that the war is lost. And digital projections, that’s just television in public. And apparently the whole world is okay with television in public, but what I knew as cinema is dead.”
What’s Up With The Hateful Eight
“I’m still in the process of writing it, finishing the second draft, and then I intend to do a third draft. Maybe I’ll shoot it, maybe I’ll publish it, maybe I’ll do it on the stage, because I realized it could work really well onstage. Maybe I’ll do all three.”
His ego is still very healthy
“Whenever I hear directors say they don’t watch their movies or they can’t watch their movies because all they see are the flaws and it’s just too painful, I feel soooo sorry for those people,” he said. “How can you get up in the morning? How can you do what you do if you think your stuff is so shitty? If it was too painful to watch my movies, I wouldn’t make another one! I would just give up at some point! I just feel bad for them. I feel like their lives aren’t as enriched as they could be.”
"this is me-at my most sadistic-and truthful."
Wait Fincher was on everyone's list??? What friends is QT emailing with? I hope that wasn't on Edgar Wright's list, one of QT's friends that actually has real talent.
Fincher is a hack cynic whose work will be forgotten in a few decades. Linklater's had his moments but Before series is the some seriously self-involved insipid stuff.
Digital cinema killed the projection of film … and video killed the radio star. I mean it's not like cinema is really about the storytelling, right? Seeing something in pristine quality will obviously make people unable to appreciate the nuances of … whatever he thinks he's talking about.
The more things change, the more they're different. So what? Move on. If you hate change so much, start a museum and sit around musing about the glorious days of yesteryear to kids who don't really get it – the way that you don't really get them.
Cinema survived the introduction of sound, the introduction of color, the introduction of widescreen, all of which was going to be the death of the purity of the artform. It will survive digital.
QT's amusing, insufferable, self serving (most times), but always passionate. And there's something about that laser-like passion that makes you love everything about movies again, and go out and finally shoot that script you've buried for years (on digital, of course).
"the irony that he called digital the death of cinema and announced a potential project for the small screen on the same day evidently lost on him"
Can't he dislike digital projection in theaters, while still being interested in television? The point you were trying to make there is evidently lost to meâ¦
So tired of the old man nostalgic and fatalistic discourse on the 35mm vs Digital. I don't understand how the vitality of art be tributary to its material medium. Cinema is moving images with sounds and music edited together, not the printing on celluloid or information written in 1s and 0s.