Quentin Tarantino is back for the last time. The filmmaker behind some of the most indelible movies of the past three decades, Pulp Fiction and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood among them, is putting together what sources say is being billed as his final movie…
The filmmaker has long maintained he had a finite number of movies in him, saying he wanted to direct 10 films or retire by the time he was 60. The writer-director has made nine (if you count the two Kill Bill movies as one) and turns 60 later this month. He also has espoused a philosophy that directors get out of touch as they age. In 2012, he told Playboy, “I want to stop at a certain point. Directors don’t get better as they get older.
So what do you think? Is this his last film? I doubt it. I think he enjoys doing it and will keep on making movies like several others:
Tarantino is reportedly worth north of $120 million. I’m sure money motivates many directors, particularly on their way up the ladder, but Tarantino already ‘made it’ some time ago and of course never has to work another day in his life. So that leaves how does he want to spend his time in retirement, and also leaves the whole question of artistic integrity. If he meant what he said about only having so many movies in him and his observations about directors not aging like wine (" If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don’t."), there’s no reason to doubt him.
I have observed that he does have a few motifs that he has latched onto, and there is a finite number of opportunities to revisit these.
Universally acknowledged bad guy:
Nazis
Antebellum Slave Owners
Manson Gang
Resolution involving fire
Unless he can identify an unused universally acknowledged bad guy (aliens?), then that is tapped out.
Moving on from that, I suspect that once he spends a few years over the age of 60, he will realize that it is not a hard and fast cutoff for decline. It is a conceit of the young that older folks are all decrepit and worthless. If they are lucky enough to get there, they learn otherwise.
Maybe we can at least hope that M. Night Shyamalan joins him in the Hack Director’s Retirement Home? Where their punishment is to watch reruns of Matlock and Barnaby Jones 24-7?
I’ve enjoyed all the Tarantino movies I’ve seen, in large part because I never know what’s going to happen next. Even if he stops directing, he could continue as a producer or a writer and still be involved in movie making. If he’s ready to hang it up then I wish him well. Thanks for the movies.
I’d like to see him make another movie that could plausibly be set in current times. Inglourious Basterds was fun, but IMO his westerns sucked, and now he seems stuck in the 70s. Come on, Q, there’s still plenty of Elmore Leonard you can plunder!
He’s probably just exhausted all of the genres he’s really passionate about. At a certain point, he can revisit those genres, tackle one he’s not that interested in, or just quit. As much as I loved, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it really is just a movie about movies (or TV), which is the directorial equivalent of a reporter interviewing a reporter because there’s nothing else to do,
Age 60 really has little to do with it. Clint Eastwood was 62 when he made Unforgiven, one of his best films. He was 82 when he talked to an empty chair at the RNC.
If QT makes good films, he should go as long as he wants, not stop at some arbitrary number.
But as for me, he’s barely gone 50% on good movies.
Among all the splatter one thing that is often over looked is that he’s actually very, very good at directing actors. I think he’s got a very serious talent for making actors step out of their comfort zones and give great performances. Not all of them, not all of the time. But certainly way over par for most A-list directors, especially those working in the genres he picks, crime, war, western.
Some directors are great at mis-en-scene, others in creating mood and tension, some are technical wizards or put a lot of faith in the cinematography. I don’t think QT really excels in any of those categories*. But he shines in his work with actors.
*Might explain his affection and affectation for 70mm. That way his movies can look grand and impressive.
He’ll probably produce. Hard cap young directors at 30 million a pic. Horror, Westerns, Blaxploitation and Martial arts. They’ll all make 60 mill and he’ll get the Adam Sandler retirement.
It may just be the Mandela Effect or a shift between universes, but at one time I recall Tarantino saying that he would quit directing at 40 because you stop having something new to say when you get older.
Obviously this didn’t happen. I think if he has a story he really wants to tell he will do it.
Add Scorsese (I think my next one will be about the mafia) and Wes Anderson (pains me to say it) to the list. Tarantino is correct that directors don’t get better as they get older.
