ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

12 years, 6 months ago - Bill Hayes

Gareth, QT agreed to appear on Channel 4's Flagship News programme with a top TV journalist. What did he expect - a fawning puff piece for for the cine boppers? No. his response, whilst entertaining, was arrogant. He makes violent films, violence is at the heart of what he does, at the heart of what he will be always be rememberd for, so to refuse to discuss violence was absurd - especially as it was evident that he was talking with a very intelligent man on a respected programme.

"Oh but I have answered these questions before" True, but he should answer them again, and again, and again as long as violence is front and centre of his work - which is by design not accident. What does he want to talk about - the weather? He has no problem with repetative questions that he approves of.

12 years, 5 months ago - Vasco de Sousa

Movies in general are violent these days, not just Tarantino's. His work has a market with the financiers and distribution companies, and he's just a pawn in the whole game.

Whether or not he's right to have an "outburst" like that, other film makers have physically struck out at people who have criticized their work. From what I saw, Tarantino didn't even swear.

Accepting that kind of criticism can't be easy. I think we expect "celebrities" to be some kind of super human role model, when in fact they are just mortals like us, with the additional strain of being constantly watched. And, he's right that most film makers go on shows with the understanding that they are advertising their films.

All in all, his contained (as if rehearsed) "outburst" did not appear to hurt box office receipts. In fact, the whole controversy appears staged at times, in order to gain more publicity.

If he were making Disney movies, or working on Blue Peter type stuff, or the kind of film I'm working on now, that might be another story.

12 years, 6 months ago - Matt Jamie

I can understand Tarantino's frustration if he is always asked questions about violence in interviews for his films - specifically this film and in the current climate. But his brush off that "You might ask Aptow why he makes comedies" is weak: making people laugh is an obvious reason to want to make a film; showing people being brutally violent to each other is less clear. If he thinks it's "good cinema" then he should be prepared to defend it. 'Inglorious Basterds', in my view, is a great film - and contains a lot of violence and, from the sound of it, a similar 'cathartic violence' in that there is some pleasure for the viewer in seeing someone dispatch Hitler. Perhaps this is what he's attempting in 'Django' with the slavery issue.

The difference between 'fantasy violence' and supposedly 'real violence' in films is perhaps important. Because Tarantino's films are often set in the real world, albeit one where history has been altered to fit his story telling, then one could argue that the violence is still 'real' (and in earlier films like Resevoir Dogs that's certainly true) - but there is a definite sense of being in a fantasy world with his later works. As someone else commented, the 'real' violence in some films or series like '24' where the situations are based on current real life events is surely much more of an issue - desensitising people to, or making entertainment from, actual violence occurring in the world at the moment. And then of course there are films like 'SAW' (though I've not had the pleasure of seeing that) which appear to have violence as the key ingredient, without a particular story or catharsis.

Unfortunately for Tarantino his refusal to answer the question makes it look like he is worried himself about the connection between violence in films and violence in society - or not prepared to engage with the issue. Of course this is an issue which is never going to be properly demonstrated by science (though some people have made interesting studies like this one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704015/) - Unless one takes a statistically relevant large group of people and exposes them to violent films or games for several years and then releases them into society (along side a control group who've only been allowed to watch Disney), any 'scientific research' into this area is bound to be flawed - and that kind of study is of course impossible. And often in cases of so-called copycat killings or massacres, the perpetrator is no longer available for a discussion about their viewing habits...

However I think it would be naive to suggest that we are not affected by what we watch - otherwise why do we go to the cinema? Films make us laugh, cry, get angry at injustice, scared and amazed, confused and delighted. Might they make us feel violent...?

12 years, 6 months ago - Claudette FLINT

First of all it is difficult to comment without seeing the film.
However, I can understand Tarentino's anger even if I don't like him or his films. I am often frustrated when I watch an interview because the journalist can put anyone on the grill without a warning and then show it to the world. Quite often the journalist deserves a hot reaction like this one. I am torn apart because I approve Tarentino's reaction but I would have liked to see someone else doing it!!! He had the right to refuse to answer a question if he doesn't feel like it.

What I don't like about Tarentino is that he uses violence as a way to entertain, to joke or to attract people. For him violence is an art. Clockwork Orange was showing the raw side of violence and it was not fun or complaisant.
I hated Reservoir Dogs and left the cinema when I saw people laughing at the policeman being tortured (cut his ear and talked to it) because it reminded me of the style of snuff films.

I do like violence at the cinema (only) but when it is part of the story, when it has a role, when it is justified, not for the sake of it.

12 years, 6 months ago - janus avivson

Violence in real life is a fact. Artist express themselves in a way they want and like. Sometime, and I stress sometime, there is a connection. Shall we blame cowboy movies for the Vietnam War? Or computer games for drones attack on terrorists (by the way completely illegal but effective and therefor widely accepted)? QT is right not to ask silly questions again and again as he does not wish to be blamed for nuts killing children, I agree with him on that. The journalist could spend his airtime better next time, and maybe he will. Long live artistic freedom, also on the site devoted to shooting people!

12 years, 6 months ago - Claudette FLINT

Dear Matt
You are absolutely right, we go to the cinema to "feel" something. And I do hope that films have an influence on us. Films are bound to be like people: some have a good influence, some have a bad one. Quite often I found that films make people progress by opening the mind.

It is up to us to be influenced in a right way or a wrong way. Those who wants to reproduce the films violence or the crimes are already criminally inclined to do so. If they didn't get encouragement from a film, they would have got it from someone or something.

However I just would like mention what happened to a colleague teacher. When on duty at the canteen with the headmaster, she asked all the girls to pick up their litter before leaving. Three black girls refused to do it and said "We are not your slaves" and the headmaster picked up the litter. (The other black girls picked up their litter).

12 years, 6 months ago - Ed Griffiths

I myself haven't yet seen DJANGO UNCHAINED, but it interests me there has been almost no mention of the original 1966 film, so violent it didn't get a certification in the UK for decades. If you see it the movie is as graphic as any Tarantino film. This discussion is very far from new and the current incarnation of it not very inspired or imaginative in the media. I think that was really what Tarantino was reacting against.

Simple fact is, the era of slavery in the United States was grimly savage and that is documented historical fact. One can only imagine what life in the Roman and Greek empires when it was the basis of pretty much the entire economy. Legal freedom for all and human rights, denied to about three quarters of the world's entire population today, has only been a norm for a lucky minority for a very short time in overall human history.

Violent brutality perpetuates slavery and that's pretty much what DJANGO UNCHAINED looks to be showing us. Violence breeds violence, which is the theme of every thriller and crime and war film.

But this is fantasy violence and cathartic violence. It's reflecting a fundamental unreality. It's entertainment that people are free to reject. Is it not interesting how many people still go to see what they most complain about? That seems like functional hypocrisy to me.

People with violent inclinations and the desire to bully need little incentive in the real world to practice their intimidation. That applies to nations as much as individuals. This nation along with the United States has been rather systematically bullying and pillaging Iraq and just plain brutalising Afghanistan long after the reasons for the original attack imperative have evaporated. I'd say that outdoes anything Tarantino has committed to film pretty handily.

Nor does Tarantino pretend his work is anything other than fantasy and entertainment on an exploitative plane. Contrast that with the pernicious propaganda of ZERO DARK THIRTY, which I have seen. It endorses torture, real torture of real men, while pretending to be factually motivated and neutral. While I personally think these terrorists are an evil we have to fight, I do not want to live in a society that has reverted to propaganda and feeding it to me as entertainment. I'll take Tarantino's honesty over that every time.

Trying to blame film makers and even actors is wilfully ignoring how we tolerate the violence we frequently see around us. Thuggery, intimidation, bullying and petty coercion are all too commonplace and everyday and many of us either engage in it or have to cope with and simply avoid it all too frequently on a day to day basis. Our whole society is complicit across a whole range of everyday abuses - listen to the news or current affairs programmes on the excellent BBC Radio 4 sometime.

You can always watch reruns of LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE instead!

12 years, 6 months ago - Stuart Wright

I've now had the pleasure of seeing Django and it's a big daft cartoon of a film that glories in exaggerated scenes of good guys and bad guys violence a la Peckinpah and no doubt a whole QT archive of cult spaghetti westerns... the better question would have been why do you revel in such bloody scenes OTT scenes in Django... and see where that leads... rather than trying to get him to justify his career and lump that in with recent tragedies... poor poor journalism IMO

12 years, 6 months ago - Ross Leeson

In regards to him being a pompous and puerile fool I don't disagree. However I do share some empathy with the man, for he is most certainly not a politician. The only responsibilty he owes to his fans (constituants) or the public is to keep making good films. Krishna had him on a podium and asked him a loaded question in regards to specific incident, however he answered it he would ultimately derive particularity from his fans in a proleterian sense. That is most certainly not what Tarantino is about, he's an artist. I am sure over the years being asked and asked again he has become aware of this. Anti-gun lobbbyists in American need to blame films to promote their cause (and rightly so).

Tarantino did lose it and go over the top, but who cares he's not a Politician he's just there to promote his movie. His fans who would have watched that interview nonetheless don't care.

12 years, 6 months ago - Chris Cubitt

He does not have anything to account for. There is no link between violence in cinema and violence in real life. As stated above this has been proved over and over in countless academic studies. That massacre has nothing to do with Tarantino and his movies. The people who should be accounting for themselves are lobbyists of the NRA and politicians that refuse to change the American constitution so that gun law is tighter.

12 years, 6 months ago - Stuart Wright

no but they are complaining how boring and poor it is

12 years, 6 months ago - Sam Seal

Interviewers have the capacity to come across as so sanctimonious and po-faced, and their attitude that "I'm important and I'm setting the agenda here" doesn't necessarily play with artists. All you folks who think artists have a responsibility to wring their hands in anguish at the effects their art might have on people - when will you be picketing the closed-to-the-public weapons trade fairs to demand the same sort of introspection of the people who actually manufacture bombs, guns, and land mines? Tarantino was absolutely right - "You can ask the question, buddy, and I'm at liberty to hang you out to dry and not answer it. Better yet, here's me being rude to you - show that - let's all get some facebook time going huh? I've got a movie I want people to go and see."

12 years, 6 months ago - David Graham Scott

Definitely a wild overreaction. An embarrassing display to say the least. OK, so he's tired of hearing the same old repetitive questions but he should be prepared for these and offer some decent explanation rather than that absurd tantrum.
QT fans will back his response no matter what but just imagine it was a politician going off on a tirade like that? He was there to promote the film and instead he's just promoted himself as a pompous and puerile fool.
Sorry Quentin but it's thumbs down from me with regard to that interview.

12 years, 6 months ago - Gareth Bennett-Ryan

Somerled Mackay is bang on. The bottom line is that QT walked into an interview that was supposed to be promotional. The interviewer tried to make the interview about something else. His fault, not Tarrantino's, regardless of what we think of him and his reaction. If QT had gone on Piers Morgans Life Stories and refused the question, i'd have less sympathy, because that's a different sort of interview, but he didn't.

As for violence in film being linked to violence in the world... Violence was much more frequent and much more grusome thousands of years before film was invented. The Romans didn't need film to dream up all the sick shit they did to people.

12 years, 6 months ago - Dominic Burke

Discussing guns shooting people, on a site called shooting people! The public has paid to watch violence through all of history. On the cinema screen, cable news channel or a seat by a boxing ring. Our societies and civilizations are built on violence of endless wars and conquests. Most of our scripts are based on conflict of one kind or another, as that is what draws viewers in. The link between screen violence and real life violence -is our species. I believe that to deny that violence is deep in our very nature is counter-productive to gaining any real understanding of it.

12 years, 6 months ago - Somerled Mackay

QT was perfectly within his rights. It was obvious from the conversation that this was a press junket for the film, each reporter wheeled in for their 15 minutes. Krishnan Guru-Murthy thought it would be clever to use his slot to try and get some headline making comment from the man. So when QT said he wasn't playing KGM's game he was right, it was an obvious ploy and he had every right to challenge it.

When it comes to violence, the theatrical, often comical stuff that QT weaves into his dialogue isn't really the sort of thing the real nut jobs get off on. Having spent my stag night in a gun range in Vegas, I can tell you it's shite like the Expendables that the meat headed gun freaks talk about. Having the effect that each gun would have on a human being described in grizzly terms by a gloating ex-marine with a thing against "limeys" was far more disturbing than any QT set piece

12 years, 6 months ago - Matt Harlock

I am surprised that Mr Tarantino didn't respond more eloquently. I would've thought that explaining patiently to Mr Murphy that the basis of screen drama is conflict and in a primarily visual medium, the apotheosis of that conflict in visual terms is violence - which is why we prefer people killing each other at the end of films to support and justify the moral position taken by that character, rather than resolving their differences.

However, he could have gone on to say that whilst he of course feels huge sympathy for the victims of any gun crime, the consequence for all artists, not just filmmakers, in having to follow restrictions based on supposed causality would result in the worst kind of censorship. The timing of his release right after a gun massacre has been mentioned - unfortunately for America, at the current rate of gun massacres, this would make it very difficult to release any film with adult themes.

And this is a point I would have liked to see him make - that his films are clearly not set in the real world, however much he protests he is making a film about real historical issues - the acting, camerawork and especially dialogue, plot and the violence are all so heightened that they, to a rational adult viewer, bear no relation to the real world (as opposed to Zero Dark Thirty for example) and should be interpreted as fantasy.

The question then becomes - is Mr Tarantino responsible for irrational (ie. deranged) viewers or children under the certificate age watching and being unduly influenced by his films? The answer is clearly no - that is the job of their carers, or society to certificate appropriately and then enforce it. Even if someone responsible for a recent shooting cited Django Unchained as their inspiration, he is STILL not responsible. Making him so leads logically to banning the one piece of literature that has caused more deaths than any other - The Bible.

This would all have been nice to see, but instead he chose to use his status to arrogantly bully Mr Murphy who was politely asking questions, as it was his job to do in that news format. However tired/sick of the same questions/uninformed (he said he thought it was an entertainmenmt show seeking ratings by antagonising him) he was, Tarantino did not come off well and it is not his only unconsidered TV outburst during Django's press run.

I think this is a shame because his films, while not always consistent, have extraordinary moments and craft in them, and I would have liked to see him represent his work in a more considered manner...and more importantly, because he COULD be a powerful advocate for artistic freedom - in which I hope we all passionately believe.

12 years, 6 months ago - Shoaib Vali

Django Unchained is an awesome film, you've got to be pretty thick to get influenced by a film to replicate those actions in the real world, the weak and the gullible are mostly the people who buy into that and get influenced to that level of thinking, the level-headed people know that its a fucking film, and they get over it. If it wasn't a film, it probably would be something else that would tick off the gullible. So in a nutshell, if we had to morally oblige to what content we put in our films, we may as well make some film that is so PC, so morally right, so boring.

Besides, doesn't that rant make Tarantino even more cooler?? someone who does not give a shit and sticks to his guns, cos, at the end, no matter what journalists or tabloid writer print, his intention is to make art, not stir up controversies like how everyone other tarantino himself are so adamant on.

12 years, 5 months ago - Stuart Wright

Sam Seal ... Hear, hear ... afterall it's film journalism, not politics ... QT has no manifesto, owes no one nothing beyond marketing the film for the investors and himself. Cracking point abt the weapons trade too ;)

12 years, 5 months ago - Garrett Hunter

Tarantino said about this interview, 'This is a commercial for my movie.' His outburst during the interview made news around the world. The interview has more than 1.5 million hits on youtube. Django Unchained is now his highest grossing movie. There ain't half been some clever 'basterds'.

12 years, 5 months ago - Claudette FLINT

Ooops I made a spelling mistake, it is "Je Vous Salue..." Sorry.

12 years, 6 months ago - Claudette FLINT

Is anyone complaining about the violence in the Texas Chain Saw Massacre now it is in 3 D? (In case one can't see the blood properly)

12 years, 6 months ago - MICHAEL GORING

yh I think he'd had a bad day night, was a bit grumpy, like he'd been on an all night bender drugs / alcohol(?)

12 years, 6 months ago - Nick Goundry

In my view Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked a series of very reasonable questions. I'm a huge Tarantino fan but that doesn't alter the fact that there's a very valid and ongoing debate to be had about potential links between screen violence and real-life violence.

Guru-Murthy is taking a lot of criticism for calmly probing a complex question for a news outlet. Which is exactly what he's supposed to do. He wanted to know why Tarantino is so quick to dismiss the potential links, and, as both a Tarantino fan and a journalist, I think that's a valid question.

Tarantino gives the impression that he's simply not interested in the debate. He makes hugely entertaining movies that happen to be pretty violent, and that's the way it is. He has a habit of referring journalists to other comments he's made over the past 20 years, but, to my awareness, he's never really coloured his position.

In that sense, I don't think he can really complain if he keeps getting the same questions. The world doesn't stay static and opinions on movie violence change and fluctuate too. If his own views have stayed the same over the years, that's fine. But it's perfectly reasonable for journalists to continue probing.

12 years, 5 months ago - Claudette FLINT

Garrett, there is a film by Jean-Luc Godard called Hail Mary (Je vous Salut Marie). It is a remake of the Nativity where the Virgin Mary is the wife of a taxi driver in Paris and she has a son... The film was a flop until the Vatican banned it. Needless to say after that the film went on top of the chart. Thank you Mr Pope because the film is pretty boring, well, for me anyway.

12 years, 6 months ago - Guy Michelmore

One month, almost to the day, after the Connecticut massacre, refusing to discuss the issue of violence on the grounds that this interview was (his words) "a commercial for my new film" is really astonishing. There was no sense of social responsibility. While he's been asked about it often enough before, the issue moves on and if you make extremely violent films then in the current climate, you should expect to be asked to account for yourself.

12 years, 6 months ago - Stuart Wright

It wasn't so much that he wouldn't play ball, it is the fact that he gets asked about violence in his films every time one is released. QT likes making these type of film and has repeatedly said he does. The difference this time is that the question is loaded given the gun massacres in the States. It's not for him to argue in support of his violent film against a backdrop of tragic acts in society. There's no causal links. Academic research has proved this time and time again. There is no link between violence on screen and violence in society. The same kind of worries and panic has been repeated through history at the advent of: penny dreadfuls (1800s), EC Horror comics (1950s), Straw Dogs, Texax CHainsaw et al (1970s) and in the UK the Video Recording Act 1984 in response to video nasties. The film maker has a responsibility to make a good film... there is no other obligation