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Quentin Tarantino gets very annoyed with Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy

MakeEmLaugh

Anyone see this interview? Tarantino gets very annoyed when Krishnan Guru-Murthy asks him why he's "so sure there's no link between enjoying movie violence and enjoying real violence". It's 4 mins 30 secs into the video, and lasts several minutes.

Highlights include Tarantino saying, "It's none o' yo' damn business what I think about that!"

Very entertaining!

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Faith+1

My god Quentin has a big head

JustAThought

Faith+1 wrote: »

My god Quentin has a big head

His hands and head were moving so fast in some parts that I thought he was speeded up!!!

Bet he wished he'd claimed editorial control before it went out now!!!!

Baby, bathtub!!!

MrJoeSoap

If that's a "commercial" for his movie, it's not a very good one.

The_Gatsby

What I took out of this is that Tarantino will eventually retire from film making. That's sad.

meoklmrk91

The_Gatsby wrote: »

What I took out of this is that Tarantino will eventually retire from film making. That's sad.

+1

I don't blame him for not wanting to talk about the correlation, if any, between movie violence and real violence. This is something that has been hashed over again and again, and will be for years to come.

johnny_ultimate

Neither party comes off particularly well IMO.

I feel I caught a hint of what I'd almost call disdain from the interviewer. At the least it was an arrogant sarcasm. His questions were loaded and provocative, and I don't think he delivered them in a way that was conducive to an intelligent discussion. Interviews should probe further than the mere publicist mandated questions, but there's not always a benefit in actively irritating the interviewee.

Still, Tarantino's response wasn't elegant, and certainly not the type of articulate, informative response I like to hear from filmmakers I admire. I'd like to think directors would be willing to delve a bit deeper into the themes and inner workings of their films when presented with the opportunity. Alas, Quentin just doesn't seem keen, and not necessarily in the 'exhausted from weeks of press junkets' sort of way.

[Deleted User]

Neither comes across well in the interview and it seems that the interviewer went in with the intent of getting something provocative out of a filmmaker who is famous for his out bursts. Tarantino is one of those volatile film makers who has made a habit out of making mountains out of mole hills and really should choose his battles a bit more carefully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxYHxJahzmU

This is a lower quality version of the above video but in it classy Quentin spits at a reporter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMtrPN6v6to

roanoke

MrJoeSoap wrote: »

If that's a "commercial" for his movie, it's not a very good one.

I think it's a great commercial. Finally a movie celeb on a press junket saying something interesting. He calling junkets for what they, rather than just going down the usual path of stars acting like they love sitting there selling their movie and making out like every interviewer is their best buddy and that every question isn't one they haven't heard hundred times already.

Channel 4 seem to be airing this on the basis that they somehow "got" QT , to me it just looks a director saying that he doesn't want to talk about something that doesn't really have anything to do with his movie anyway and if the interviewer really does want answers to those particular questions then the answers are already out there and well documented.

I'd imagine Guru-Murthy is more used to throwing questions like that at politicians who have to answer hardball questions even if it mean waffling around the topic. I don't think he knew what to do with someone who just flat out called him on it and refused to play ball..

Gbear

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Still, Tarantino's response wasn't elegant, and certainly not the type of articulate, informative response I like to hear from filmmakers I admire. I'd like to think directors would be willing to delve a bit deeper into the themes and inner workings of their films when presented with the opportunity. Alas, Quentin just doesn't seem keen, and not necessarily in the 'exhausted from weeks of press junkets' sort of way.

I would imagine that it's quite exhausting to talk about given the recent events in the US. Ostensibly Tarantino is being targeted for some of the blame for terrible atrocities and it's no wonder that would piss him off.

He did have several opportunities to deliver some proper answers and he probably should've taken them but ultimately it's a load of bollocks in his eyes and he's probably sick of talking about it.

You make a film - oscar nominations all around - you're feeling pretty good about yourself but then every time you go to talk about it you're brought back to children getting murdered. That'd drive me insane.

Da Shins Kelly

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Still, Tarantino's response wasn't elegant, and certainly not the type of articulate, informative response I like to hear from filmmakers I admire. I'd like to think directors would be willing to delve a bit deeper into the themes and inner workings of their films when presented with the opportunity. Alas, Quentin just doesn't seem keen, and not necessarily in the 'exhausted from weeks of press junkets' sort of way.

I kinda have more respect for someone who refuses to be drawn on loaded and deliberately provocative questions like that. When someone is asking you questions like these, they have their minds already made up and are just trying to start something and be confrontational. Trying to explain anything to them is usually futile.

Also, whenever some tragic occurrence happens in the US, people immediately start pointing fingers at different aspects of entertainment. I imagine it must be pretty tiring to have people constantly ask you about whether your work inspires people to become violent (and I'm sure Tarantino has been faced with that question many times before). It's tiring to even have to listen to it from the outside anymore because there's very little, if any, truth in it. Sure, Tarantino has a fascination with violence, as many people do be they filmmakers or not, but I see these films as a reflection of a violent society rather than the other way around.

expectationlost

quentin didn't want his words repeated in the USA tmw in context the recents shootings, krishnu should ask nolan maybe

pixelburp

Gbear wrote: »

.

You make a film - oscar nominations all around - you're feeling pretty good about yourself but then every time you go to talk about it you're brought back to children getting murdered. That'd drive me insane.

Which would be fine & understandable were it not for the fact Tarantino refuses to let go of his fanboy love of grindhouse. As much as he wants to talk big about topics like slavery, his recent stints as producer for people such as Eli Roth shows that he's happy to slum it around as a z-movie auteur. If he's contented to revel in low-grade violence, he should be willing to take the punches from conservative media outlets, not throw the toys out of his pram because boo-hoo, all he wants is to show a bit of ultra-violence in his Schindlers List for slavery. At the very least he could have made a joke about it, not go all-out attack

I get so frustrated by Tarantino because his movies show a real talent and skill as a director and storyteller; his early work showed promise yet the man refuses to ... well, grow up & mature. He seems to have wrapped himself up in his own sense of mystique & instead of trying to push into new directions, he just satisfies with pastiches & exploitation cinema masquerading as arthouse. Sure, you do what makes you happy but maybe if he stepped away from his fawning celebrity fanboys he might see there's more out there than making fawning homages to the Shaw brothers / Sergio Leone.

Evilsbane

Seemed to me that Guru-Murthy thought that he had interesting questions and that Tarantino would welcome the opportunity to address the controversy, and he was surprised that Tarantino took it as a personal affront. After all, if Tarantino is so tired of talking about violence, why is he still making film after film where violence is the central point of reference? With Tarantino it's clear that the violence isn't in his movies JUST because it's cool; he's usually using it as a tool to say something more. So it seems to me perfectly reasonable to ask about it - after 20 years the media is still asking him about it because after 20 years he's still making it central to his films. What ELSE are they supposed to ask him? Guru-Murthy had already asked him about slavery. Was there a third theme in the movie he should have asked about instead? I'm sure if Tarantino made a romantic comedy, they'd ask him about romantic comedy stuff.
But he didn't.

Guru-Murthy had already lobbed him a couple of softballs asking "why do you like violent movies", which is basically just giving Tarantino carte-blanche to give his spin on things any way he wanted like just geeking out and gushing about the movies he watched as a kid. Is it a boring question that the world already knows Tarantino's opinion on? Sure. But it's not as if it was a stitch-up.

Tarantino was already annoyed and evasive WELL before he was asked about the link to actual violence, which I admit Guru-Murthy should have realized by that point wasn't going to go down well. The argument went on as long as it did because Guru-Murthy was trying to defend his question, not wanting this filmmaker he admired to think that he was being unreasonable, and so he was explaining why he asked.

Sleepy

Evilsbane wrote: »

With Tarantino it's clear that the violence isn't in his movies JUST because it's cool; he's usually using it as a tool to say something more.

Is he? Or have fawning critics just found things for his movies to be saying?

Incredible use of a soundtrack and some good use of colours when he's not trying to hard to be "slick/stylish" aside I've never found anything particularly fantastic about Tarantino as a film-maker. He's good at flipping out quotable lines but there's little substance to any of his stories imo.

And the clips above of him behaving like a scumbag do little to improve my opinion of the man.

spank_inferno

Lazy by Krishnan to bring out the tired angle.
If he was interviewing the maker of MW3 it would have been the same question.
though I'm sure he's chuffed his fame gets another "lady Diana inverview" bump.

Tarantino has probably been asked the same question a million times and is tired of it.

Evilsbane

spank_inferno wrote: »

Lazy by Krishnan to bring out the tired angle.
If he was interviewing the maker of MW3 it would have been the same question.
though I'm sure he's chuffed his fame gets another "lady Diana inverview" bump.

Tarantino has probably been asked the same question a million times and is tired of it.

I think you're thinking of Martin Bashir. I'm not aware of Guru-Murthy interviewing Princess Di. Not all Indian and Pakistani people are the same.

spank_inferno

Evilsbane wrote: »

I think you're thinking of Martin Bashir. I'm not aware of Guru-Murthy interviewing Princess Di. Not all Indian and Pakistani people are the same.

aah... my mistake.

I wasn't aware they are not all the same.

Thanks.

Duggy747

Every time he releases a new movie the same old questions are flung at him time & time again. He doesn't give a shìt about answering them anymore though he could've handled it better.

Here's when Kill Bill came out and the same guff was thrown at him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGQaJcwAtpU

JohnFalstaff

Tarantino could have dealt with the question more coherently but he must be sick of being asked the same thing by a different reporter every 15 minutes.

Roger Ebert had an interesting take on the issue of screen violence in his review of Elephant.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=/20031107/reviews/311070301/1023

He references an interview he gave the day after the Columbine massacre to a reporter who was trying to show the connection between screen violence and real life shootings:

"Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them.

The full review is worth a read, I think Ebert's point is valid. It would have been interesting if Tarantino had thrown something similar back at Guru-Murthy instead of going on the defensive. Maybe he's just sick of the jumping through hoops that goes hand-in-hand with promoting a movie.

Sinfonia

The question in itself is a minefield: whatever Tarantino might give as an honest response to it, he stands to get slammed somewhere, and as he points out, he's dealt with this issue times aplenty on the record. Further, it really is irrelevant to what the conversation is (supposed to be) about; he has created a work of art, but is being asked to respond to social criticism rather than art/film criticism. As he has said himself, he essentially feels that it's part of his job to ignore social criticism, and I agree. If he were asked to compare/contrast the stylistic aspects of violence in his movies with say another director, he'd probably talk your ear off.

He also knows that the question hints toward a deeper line of questioning that will only get thornier, so he suitably nips it in the bud rather than get in any way drawn in and have to dig his way out later.

I think that 20 years after Reservoir Dogs, when violence has been a notable part of all of his films, maybe on the one hand he should expect questions regarding violence, but on the other, I don't think it unreasonable for him to expect - or at least hope - that people can just get over it, and stop asking him questions he's dealt with plenty of times before. He's always been (for good or bad) excitable in interviews; as a 30(ish)-year-old relative newbie he was probably okay with talking about all aspects of it, as a 50(ish)-year-old big name, I think understandably less so.

super_furry

That's right Quentin, you've suddenly made it OK to talk about slavery. Cheers for that.

That's a good, if slightly provocative interview that cuts to the heart of Tarintino's film making. He's clearly uncomfortable answering these questions and addressing these issues, which is hypocritical and irresponsible of him.

Kinski

He's right to deflect the question. The burden of proof in this "does on-screen violence beget actual violence" debate lies with those claiming it does, and thus far they've failed to prove the two are linked. Producers of screen violence shouldn't get drawn into defending their work from those claims - just turn it around and ask for evidence that watching Kill Bill or whatever encourages violent behaviour.

And once the interviewer moves on, Tarantino does to: he doesn't storm out, he goes on to answer another question, and he doesn't act like he's put out, or is angry once they get past that.

He only comes off badly in the sense that when he says things like "I'm shutting down your ass" he apparently thinks he looks and sounds like Bruce Willis or Samuel L. Jackson, when he actually looks and sounds like Quentin Tarantino.

Sinfonia

super_furry wrote: »

That's right Quintin, you've suddenly made it OK to talk about slavery. Cheers for that.

Actually, that's the only part of his explanation of things that I don't like!

It makes it seem like he's being told that the subject of slavery is controversial, and he's almost trying to excuse it by pointing out its social importance.

Kinski

super_furry wrote: »

That's right Quentin, you've suddenly made it OK to talk about slavery. Cheers for that.

The far more problematic aspect of what he says in that interview is not about violence but about race - how he, a middle-aged white man, can so blithely assume that it's for him to provide the representations of black America that African-Americans themselves want.

MakeEmLaugh

spank_inferno wrote: »

Lazy by Krishnan to bring out the tired angle.
If he was interviewing the maker of MW3 it would have been the same question.
though I'm sure he's chuffed his fame gets another "lady Diana inverview" bump.

Evilsbane wrote: »

I think you're thinking of Martin Bashir. I'm not aware of Guru-Murthy interviewing Princess Di. Not all Indian and Pakistani people are the same.

Technocentral

Can't stand the man or his films, he definitely has a hard on for extreme violence, I wouldn't censor any film ever but I choose not to give the likes of him my money to make more films were the consequences of extreme brutality are ignored and shooting/cutting/beating to death with a baseball bat other human beings is all just a big laugh for his characters, to sum up my position: f**k him.

Technocentral

Sleepy wrote: »

Is he? Or have fawning critics just found things for his movies to be saying?

Incredible use of a soundtrack and some good use of colours when he's not trying to hard to be "slick/stylish" aside I've never found anything particularly fantastic about Tarantino as a film-maker. He's good at flipping out quotable lines but there's little substance to any of his stories imo.

And the clips above of him behaving like a scumbag do little to improve my opinion of the man.

Good to see that at least one other person here has reservations about the "oh, isn't it so cool and funny to blow people away in graphic detail" crap he makes, he's like a teenage boy. I have no problem with films that show horrible violence as long as the consequences of it are also shown or at least alluded to in some way (recent example would be Munich where it showed the physiological toll of constant killing). Its not just his films or other equally violent ones in the US, its their adoration of guns in all the media and society in general that leads to so many gun murders but he certainly isn't helping the situation.

Here Come The Pretzels

Im generally a fan of Tarantino and have no aversion to violent films or games
but I dont think its out of order for a journalist to ask Tarantino probing questions about the link,if any, between on screen and off screen violence.
Im sure he has been asked it a alot of times already, but it is a serious issue so he should be able to defend his stance articulately.
An answer similar to Roger Eberts above would do the job nicely.

johnny_ultimate

Gbear wrote: »

I would imagine that it's quite exhausting to talk about given the recent events in the US. Ostensibly Tarantino is being targeted for some of the blame for terrible atrocities and it's no wonder that would piss him off.

He did have several opportunities to deliver some proper answers and he probably should've taken them but ultimately it's a load of bollocks in his eyes and he's probably sick of talking about it.

You make a film - oscar nominations all around - you're feeling pretty good about yourself but then every time you go to talk about it you're brought back to children getting murdered. That'd drive me insane.

Yeah, I agree that the line of question was an inappropriate or at least misjudged one. That and the endless parade of interviews when you release a film must be exhausting and even a bit humiliating. As a visibly uncomfortable Leos Carax said at a Q&A I saw broadcast "I hope the film speaks for itself" - a stream of asinine, ignorant questioning is not what you want to deal with after years spent realising a film.

At the same time, I do think Tarantino is chancing his arm a bit in suggesting the social importance of his film - its by all accounts a rather cartoonish, revisionist revenge thriller that happens to deal with slavery. I don't have a major problem with that as long as he knows such an approaches major limitations - 'rip-roaring hyper-violent cinematic revenge' is undoubtedly a rather limited way of tackling complex themes. I think cinema is a much richer and diverse artform with someone as fun as Tarantino knocking around. But going by his films and supplemented by this interview, I'm not exactly convinced he's the one to articulate important social questions even if he thinks he is. Still, as long as his films remain entertaining and distinctive, I'm happy to let him away with an arrogant interview or two.

snausages

I'm a bit let down that he doesn't seem to want to vindicate his film against all the 'glorifying violence' charges. Sure, they're mostly absurd charges to begin with but surely the best way to demonstrate that is to give the interviewer here a cause to shut up about it with a reasoned rebuttal and not a 'talk to the hand cause the face aint listening'. He claims his films are purely fantastical, which is fine. But the question that was being asked of him was if those fantasies could be harmful in any way.