The legendary director Quentin Tarantino holds in the lowest esteem: “I can’t respect his career”
It would make sense for a lifelong student of cinema to hold his most iconic, illustrious, and legendary predecessors in the highest esteem, except Quentin Tarantino doesn’t care for convention.
He’s worshipped at the altar of Sergio Leone for as long as he can remember, was more inspired by Brian De Palma than most, and has cited everyone from Mario Bava and Jean-Pierre Melville to Martin Scorsese and Howard Hawks as influences, but the two-time Academy Award winner knows where to draw the line.
Tarantino used to speak incredibly highly of Jean-Luc Godard until they got into a bizarre spat that ended up with two wildly different but equally transformative auteurs firing barbs at each other in public, but it turns out that the Pulp Fiction mastermind has absolutely no respect for one of the all-time greatest.
Even if he doesn’t care for their films, it’s ridiculous to suggest that someone who won two Oscars from 14 nominations, claimed three Golden Globes from nine nods, and enjoyed a near five-decade career that yielded a string of inarguable masterpieces that left a mark on Hollywood for decades to come isn’t worthy of at least some admiration.
And yet, even though he helmed The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The African Queen, The Night of the Iguana, The Man Who Would Be King, and countless others, respect is the one thing Tarantino refuses to put on John Huston’s name, apart from one movie.
“I’m not a superfan of Huston, even though I adore Prizzi’s Honor,” he informed Bertrand Tavernier. “I admit I have little respect for a career that I find too all over the place. If I can’t have confidence in someone, I can’t respect his career. And I can’t have faith in John Huston because too many of his movies are terrible.”
It scans as hypocritical when many of Tarantino’s favourite filmmakers have made at least one terrible picture, and some directors he’ll defend to the hilt haven’t made anything even half as good as Huston’s finest work. Maybe it’s got something to do with him becoming one of those old-man auteurs that convinced him to retire, seeing as he blasted how his interest in the medium waned throughout his life.
“His life was great,” Tarantino agreed. “But he could have been an artist. The poker parties, where he put land he owned in Ireland into play, that’s not enough. It didn’t interest him anymore, being a cineaste. He was a macho guy who was more interested in killing elephants or winning at cards than making art. Sorry.”
Apart from Prizzi’s Honor, Tarantino did at least concede that Key Largo was “pure entertainment,” albeit not what he’d call cinema: “Is it deep? No. Is it amusing? Yes. You give me any Italian gangster import from the ’70s, and throw in Barbara Rush, and you can count on me, I’ll love it! Is it a great film? No.”
Compliments don’t come much more backhanded, even if most folks would disagree with Tarantino’s belief that a few bad movies mean someone of Huston’s standing isn’t worthy of respect.
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