The final scene Quentin Tarantino called “one of the great endings of any movie” and why you’re a “fuckwad” if you laugh
They say that opinions are like arseholes, and to many people, Quentin Tarantino is an arsehole with a lot of opinions, many of which might be better off being kept to himself.
Little did Paul Dano know that he had an army of supporters who were willing to descend upon Tarantino with pitchforks and flaming torches for daring to call him the worst actor in the business, which, as much as it is an opinion, doesn’t hold any weight whatsoever because it’s subjectively untrue.
If he likes a movie, then he’d want you to like it, too. In fact, he’d probably insist that you like it, and even if you offered an elaborate explanation for why you don’t, he’d try to change your mind by explaining that you’ve been watching it wrong, and his way is the only way to get the best experience.
That might be a sweeping generalisation, but the two-time Academy Award winner has said enough things along similar lines, and heaped praise upon so many substandard flicks, that it’s not too wide of the mark. What can’t be denied is that the man knows his cinema, but god help anyone who’d even think about laughing during a finale he believes is one of the all-time greatest.
It’s a specific bugbear to have, which goes to show how much Tarantino adores Sydney Pollack’s 1974 thriller, The Yakuza. Well, he adored Paul Schrader’s script, had his issues with Robert Towne’s rewrites, and was adamant that Pollack was the completely wrong man for the job, but he didn’t let that get in the way of his viewing experience.
He literally said as much, declaring that the filmmaker “was not the man for the job” and “wasn’t perfect casting for the project” within the space of two sentences when reviewing the picture for the New Beverly, although he did find Robert Mitchum’s central performance to be “vibrantly alive” in a turn he surmised as the ‘Golden Age’ legend’s last great leading role.
When Brian Keith’s George Tanner does bad business with the yakuza and has his daughter kidnapped as a result, Mitchum’s Harry Kilmer travels to Japan to investigate. When his former flame’s brother becomes marked for death, he becomes increasingly desperate in his attempts to tidy up the mess he’s created.
In the final scene, as recompense for his actions, Kilmer visits Ken Takakura’s Ken Tanaka before heading home, and when he’s making tea, commits yubitsume, the act of cutting off one’s pinky finger, wraps it in a handkerchief, and slides it across the table as a token of apology. It doesn’t sound very funny, and it’s not, but anyone who thinks otherwise will make an instant enemy of Tarantino.
“The film’s final coda, the finger-cutting scene, is, for me, one of the great endings of any movie of its era,” he posited. “And arguably Mitchum’s single greatest acting moment on film, as long as some fuckwad in the cinema doesn’t laugh during it.” It’s a bit stagey, a touch hammy, and very sweaty, sure, but make no mistake: chuckling when the finger comes off will not go down well with the Pulp Fiction director.
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