Quentin Tarantino has no sympathy for critics of his work.
For years, the Pulp Fiction director has been condemned for the ultra-violent nature of his movies and the use of the N-word by some of his characters.
Speaking to Chris Wallace recently on the host’s HBO Max talk show Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, Tarantino said those offended should simply watch “something else”.
“You talk about being the conductor and the audience being the orchestra,” Wallace said to Tarantino. “So when people say, ‘Well there’s too much violence in his movies. He uses the N-word too often.’ You say what?”
“You should see [something else],” Tarantino responded. “Then see something else. If you have a problem with my movies, then they aren’t the movies to go see. Apparently, I’m not making them for you.”
Tarantino’s frequent collaborator Samuel L Jackson has defended the director’s inclusion of the racial slur numerous times in the past.
“It needs to be an element of what the story is about. A story is context – but just to elicit a laugh? That’s wrong,” he said in an interview with The Times earlier this year.
“Every time someone wants an example of overuse of the N-word, they go to Quentin [Tarantino]– it’s unfair. He’s just telling the story and the characters do talk like that. When [12 Years a Slave director] Steve McQueen does it, it’s art. He’s an artiste. Quentin’s just a popcorn filmmaker.”
Tarantino recently faced further criticism over remarks he made on Wallace’s show about disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Tarantino said of Weinstein’s behaviour: “I chalked it up to a Mad Men-era version of the boss chasing the secretary around the desk. I’m not saying that’s okay,” before adding that “there was never any talk of rape or anything like that”.
Discussing the interview on CNN This Morning Friday (18 November), host Kaitlan Collins said: “The larger point that it goes to is that people knew something was happening. A lot of people... came out afterwards, said, ‘Oh, well, I had no idea’. And then you heard people more candidly say, ‘Well, we’d heard these stories and this and where there’s smoke, there’s fire’. And I don’t know, the whole thing is gross.”
