“I would never film the death of an animal on screen”: Quentin Tarantino spoke at Cannes about his fascination with violent scenes

Quentin TarantinoGolden Palm in 1994 for pulp fictionreturned to Cannes and cheered on the crowd waiting for him at the theater, always devoted to the Two weeks of directors, the best platform in the world for new filmmakers aspiring to the official competition. He took the stage with his usual charisma and started his presentation with great enthusiasm to be back in the croisette: “It’s so good to be here, I love Cannes!”

His visit was one of the highlights of this 76th editionwhose long-awaited surprise was the presentation of his fetish film rolling thunderthe 35mm thriller from john flynn from 1977 with a script by Paul Schrader and starring William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones and Linda Haynes. A film that marked the career of the North American filmmaker and inspired his cinematography, to which he dedicated one of the best chapters in his book titled Cinema speculation.

The movie tells the revenge of a US Army Major who, upon returning home from an eight-year prison sentence during the Vietnam War, receives a box full of dollars as a thank you for his efforts. A gang of thieves attacks him in his house they torture him and they end up destroying his son and his wife. This unleashes his desire for revenge against each of the criminals. “Everyone will have to pay with their life.”

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“I was only fourteen when I discovered this movie in Los Angeles and I immediately loved it. So enjoy it, if you want to scream, cry or leave, go ahead, let yourself go!” he cried, as everyone present was moved by clapping and cheering for the performance.

At the end, the director of dead account And djangooffered one Appointment (encounter) of almost two hours on talking about their colleagues, their obsessions and limits in the cinema and all its experience, very much in its own way, exciting and compelling. “When I see this feature film again, I discover more and more details,” he said at the start of his master class.

“John Flynn is an old-school director and his movie was based on a script by Paul Schrader, also the author of Cab driver, and never acknowledged herself in the film. He had written a bloodier, more violent, extremely racist story show the madness of veterans“, he pointed.

Julien Rejl, official representative of the Fortnight, moderator of the meeting, asked him what would have happened if Brian De Palma had directed it and if Harvey Keitel had not participated because of his profile. Tarantino admitted: “Scorsese has made an exceptional film and Keitel is brilliant. However, I am sorry for the reasons why these decisions were made. It was the studios and production at the time that were afraid to give the part of Mac to a black man, fearing the consequences it could have on the black community. I call that social engagement and I hate it in art. I prefer to stimulate than to be for morality. I got a lot of criticism because of that, but you know what? they all come to me less,” he said.

“I was never attracted to the top of the class. Everyone loved Spielberg and Scorsese, while De Palma had his opponents and I was happy to defend him. I like his way of filming, his ability to combine comedy and satire in his films. He knows how to film, while I portray people sitting at a table talking,” he joked in between. “So if I had to choose, I would go for Brian De Palma. When you’re around him, you have to fight a lot of people who claimed he was just a Hitchcock impersonator. What was it not worth! They were the ones who weren’t worth it!” he concluded.

And although it was clear what his position was, later praised Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film, Cab drivers, stating, “I think it’s one of the best movies in the history of cinema. What Scorsese did with that story was something incredible.”

If we talk about what their limits are in filming and his fascination with violent scenesthe main characteristic of his films was emphatically: “My only limit is that I would never film the death of an animal on screen, not that. I can watch a thousand very gory horror movies, where the characters kill each other, and nothing happens. But I can’t watch a dog die.”

In reference to rolling thunder he pointed: “The theme of revenge motivates me, it’s the common thread of conception in some of my films, like in Inglorious Bastards. There I had to kill Adolf Hitler,” he recalls. “It wasn’t the original theme of the film, but the further the project progressed, the more a little voice inside me told me to kill hitler. Kill it, kill it, kill it! Can I really do that? So I wrote on a piece of paper, “Fuck it.” That night I went to bed thinking that the night brings advice and the next day I saw this newspaper and thought, ‘Yeah, I’m going to kill him. It’s my movie, so I can do whatever I want.’”