Last month, Quentin Tarantino drew some headlines when he said that Ava DuVernay‘s "Selma" was a picture that "deserved an Emmy." It was seen as something of a snarky takedown of the director’s Martin Luther King Jr. drama, but Tarantino later tried to clarify his comments saying he ranked the movie alongside the great TV movies of the ’70s and ’80s. Though his defence was muddled by the fact he hasn’t actually seen DuVernay’s film.
"I’d be honored to be placed next to those films. However, I haven’t seen it. Does it look like a seventies TV movie? Yes. Does it play like one, I don’t know, I haven’t seen it," Tarantino wrote in a statement.
DuVernay has remained quite about the hubbub until now, when asked by THR, and she has taken the classy high road. "I was surprised by how surprised everyone was. When you look at his work and his persona, there’s nothing surprising about what he said," she said. "But it didn’t bother me like so many assumed it would."
So, a bit of light jab back at Tarantino, but otherwise, it seems DuVernay has already moved on. But we’ll see what Tarantino has to say as I can’t imagine "The Hateful Eight" press tour won’t involve someone asking him about it.
