The one movie that left a bitter taste in Quentin Tarantino’s mouth: “I simply found it ugly”
As well as being one of the most influential directors of his generation, Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino is also one of the most opinionated. As a lifelong lover of cinema in all its forms, since he was young, he has long since developed and honed his set of filmmaking values. For most, these are negotiable; however, for an auteur like Tarantino, they are a group of rules that he refuses to budge from.
Such a set of principles means that it is nearly impossible not to form opinions on the work of others, and, in fact, offering his ideas on movies and the people that made them seems to be a part of that core set of values. Tarantino was a film lover long before becoming a filmmaker, and this means he is liable to dish out a decisive critique from time to time, with Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard taking broadside blows from the director.
While Tarantino has come out with a host of hot takes in his time, his comment on the work of David Lynch following the release of the 1992 Twin Peaks spin-off movie Fire Walk With Me remains one of his best. He saw the feature as nothing more than proof that the surrealist auteur had become far too pretentious and maintained that he never wanted to see another of his works until things had changed. Slamming Fire Walk With Me, Tarantino commented: “David Lynch had disappeared so far up his own ass that I have no desire to see another David Lynch movie until I hear something different.”
Fusing his experience as an auteur and that of being a lifelong cinema lover is something that Tarantino has always done, meaning that he has criticised a host of notable titles. One of the most recent was 2013’s The Lone Ranger, the feature-length movie based on the classic character of the same name. It stars Armie Hammer in the title role, with Johnny Depp playing his sidekick, the Native American Tonto.
A critical and commercial flop, like many people, Quentin Tarantino took serious issue with one aspect of the movie. When speaking to Les Inrockuptibles, the director revealed all, but first, he noted what he liked about it.
“The first forty-five minutes are excellent,” Tarantino said. “The next forty-five minutes are a little soporific. It was a bad idea to split the bad guys in two groups; it takes hours to explain and nobody cares. Then comes the train scene—incredible! When I saw it, I kept thinking, ‘What, that’s the film that everybody says is crap? Seriously?'”
However, the way The Lone Ranger told Tonto’s backstory ruined the movie for Tarantino. He said he found its depiction of the genocide of the Native Americans so crass that it “left a bitter taste in my mouth”.
“That being said, I still have a little problem with the film. I like Tonto’s backstory—the idea that his tribe got slaughtered because of him; that’s a real comic-book thing. But the slaughter of the tribe, by gunfire, from the cavalry, it left a bitter taste in my mouth,” Tarantino continued. “The Indians have really been victims of a genocide. So slaughtering them again in an entertaining movie, Buster Keaton style… That ruined the fun a bit for me. I simply found it…ugly.”
Considering the many moments of violence within Tarantino’s filmography, some may find this comment out of sorts. However, Tarantino’s principles largely guide him towards punching up rather than down and he rarely resorts to cheap exploitation as a way of entertainment. For this reason alone, the Depp picture will forever land in the dustbin of history for Tarantino.
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