The Quentin Tarantino movie Will Smith called perfect: “I wanted to make that movie so badly”
With Quentin Tarantino publicly announcing that he’s going to make his final movie and then backing out of The Movie Critic, many fans have been left wondering how his last project can affect his legacy. Can the director of gems like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction improve on his already acclaimed oeuvre, or is the retirement decision just putting him under unnecessary premature pressure?
Fans will undoubtedly be divided on this topic until Tarantino releases his swansong, but Hollywood icon Will Smith believes that the Jackie Brown filmmaker has already made the “perfect” movie. This isn’t just passive admiration from a fan but words of praise from an actor who missed out on his chance to work with a director operating at the highest levels.
During an actors’ roundtable organised by The Hollywood Reporter, Smith opened up about being courted by Tarantino for his 2012 revisionist western Django Unchained. Although Jamie Foxx eventually delivered the performance of his career in the film, Tarantino had initially wanted to cast Smith before their creative differences got in the way.
When discussing the project during the conversation, Smith said: “It was more about the creative direction of the story. To me, it’s as perfect a story as you could ever want a guy that learns how to kill to retrieve his wife who has been taken, you know, as a slave…when I choose movies, I’m choosing the arc. I read the first 35 pages, and I read the ending, right? And to me, that idea is perfect.”
Smith is definitely right about the emotional effectiveness of Django Unchained’s narrative, following the titular protagonist’s bloody quest for revenge in a landscape haunted by racial violence and fundamentally unjust social practices. However, Smith felt alienated by Tarantino’s penchant for violence because the actor believed that the screenplay required a different treatment.
The Men In Black star added: “We talked, we met… we sat for hours and hours and hours… I loved that. I wanted to make that movie so badly, but with that story, I felt the only way I could make that movie is it had to be a love story not a vengeance story. I don’t believe in violence as the reaction to violence.”
As per his own admission, Smith was heavily interested in collaborating with Tarantino on Django, but he wanted to focus on the love story between the protagonist and his wife instead of the violent path that leads him to her. That was never going to sit well with Tarantino, whose eye for highly stylised action sequences has played a major role in defining his directorial identity since his debut feature.
Starring alongside talented actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz, Foxx understood Tarantino’s vision much better and did his best to reflect the tragic heroism of a character who has been forged and fortified by his unimaginably traumatic history. No matter what Tarantino decides to make next, fans will be hoping that it can rival the quality of Django Unchained.
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