The director Brad Pitt calls “one of our most original voices”
As one of Hollywood’s most idolised actors, Brad Pitt has, for nearly four decades, contended with his status as a sex symbol. Of course, this is a title most of us could only dream of attaining. Still, when one’s such a devout movie fanatic, it can, as Pitt discovered, become a hurdle of sorts.
For decades, Pitt has defied his striking aesthetics, delving into a career that few have concurrently rivalled. His filmography includes notable roles under the direction of David Fincher, Guy Ritchie, Steven Soderbergh, Steve McQueen, Adam McKay, Ridley Scott and Quentin Tarantino. Hence, it’s safe to say Pitt knows a thing or two about impactful movie direction.
In a 2022 episode of the popular Video Club webcast, Pitt sifted through the show’s titanic DVD collection and stumbled upon a few Tarantino titles. “Mr. Tarantino! My man Tarantino,” he said. “Who’s just one of our most original voices. Still, I just think… I don’t know. When it’s all said and done, he’ll still, like decades from now, when new directors come in and go, he’ll still be something really, really special and original.”
Sadly, Tarantino still plans on calling it quits and taking his winnings after his forthcoming tenth film, The Movie Critic. During a 2022 interview with CNN, he revealed why he intends to stop at the ten-movie mark. “Well, I’ve been doing it for a long time,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and it’s, it’s time to wrap up the show”.
Adding: “Like I said, I’m an entertainer. I want to leave you wanting more, you know, and not just work, and I don’t want to work to diminishing returns. I don’t want to be… one, I don’t want to become this old man who’s out of touch when already I’m feeling a bit like an old man out of touch when it comes to the current movies that are out right now. And that’s what happens.”
It also transpires that being both a writer and a director is a somewhat mentally and physically taxing process. In an interview shared earlier in 2023 by Outstanding Screenplays, Tarantino likened the blank-page writing and directing process to conquering Mt. Everest.
“One of the most talented filmmakers of my generation is David Fincher,” Tarantino asserted. “But he’s not in the same category as me because I’m a writer-director, and that makes it different. That makes it a different thing.”
“One of the things that I’ve been focussed on is there’s a lot of writer-directors that come out, and they write and direct one movie, a second movie, a third movie. And there’s a real voice there; there’s a real voice. But, you know what? It’s hard work to go to that blank piece of paper and start from square one. Start from scratch every single solitary time,” Tarantino continued.
“You are at the bottom of Mt. Everest every single solitary time, and everything you’ve done before not only does not help you, it could even like hang over your head, and that is a tough row to hoe, and you make less movies that way. And it’s a lot easier to go and look at the scripts that are out here and available, and you can maybe work with the writer, do a little rewrite or do that kind of thing, and you get more movies made.”
“But, you know, cut to six years down the line, and where’s that voice? It’s gone away,” he concluded.
During Pitt’s Video Club visit, the host, David Leitch, asked whether he believed Tarantino would really throw in the towel after his tenth movie: “He says he’s got one film left. Do you think he’ll be able to stop making movies?”
“Well, he’ll do other things, you know,” Pitt replied. “He just put out the book of Once Upon a Time [in Hollywood]. He cut Django [Unchained] into a four-part… for the streamers. So he made something else out of it, which was such a unique idea. He wants to write novels; I mean, he’s not going away.”
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