The iconic director Quentin Tarantino calls a “fucking pothead”
While Quentin Tarantino has always been full of praise for the infinitely varied cinematic traditions that have emerged from different parts of the world, his artistic sensibilities have also been informed by American cinema. Ranging from B-movies to great American classics, the director of Pulp Fiction is highly aware of his country’s rich film history.
On multiple occasions, Tarantino has been the first in line to highlight the brilliance of other American auteurs like Brian De Palma. However, one notable compatriot who failed to impress the Reservoir Dogs filmmaker is none other than Robert Altman. Known for his uniquely stylised gems like The Long Goodbye and Nashville, Altman’s vision played a major part in shaping the New Hollywood movement that garnered prominence in the 1970s.
The film that particularly irked Tarantino was McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Altman’s dreamy anti-western, which stars Warren Beatty as a gambler who keeps his secrets close to his chest as he tries to build a fortune in a small town. According to Tarantino, the sound-mixing completely ruined the experience for him and proved that Altman demonstrated certain incompetencies that were far below Hollywood’s normal standards.
Tarantino said: “I have an interesting relationship with this movie, because I think the first reel of the movie is the worst-mixed reel in the history of Hollywood cinema. It’s so badly… there’s a level of incompetence to the mix that Hollywood never really goes below. Hollywood maybe doesn’t reach its heights every single solitary time, but it doesn’t reach the lows. There is a strong level of mediocrity that it never goes that further down. It’s terrible. [Altman] is a fucking pothead who doesn’t know any fucking better.”
The director added: “He thinks it sounds good. A lot of people think that Warren Beatty was actually kind of the co-director on that movie. I asked Warren Beatty about that once, and he goes, ‘Well, you don’t think that pothead could have gotten that performance out of Julie Christie, do you?’ ‘No, he probably couldn’t have. Say no more.’ And Warren Beatty is fantastic and it’s obvious Warren Beatty is directing himself. He’s not listening to Altman.”
Part of Tarantino’s negative comments were based on the fact that he watched it on VHS, which detracted from the cinematic experience. Eventually, he got his hands on an IB Technicolor 35mm print, which completely changed his mind. Even though he still thought that the sound mixing in the initial segments of the movie was terrible, Tarantino admitted that the dynamic between Beatty and Julie Christie is simply magical.
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