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.”
