Six Definitive Films: The ultimate beginner’s guide to Quentin Tarantino
Read More
Credit: Alamy
Quentin Tarantino remembers watching ‘Joker’ for the first time
Before all else, director Quentin Tarantino is a student of cinema. His movies are hailed as some of the finest pieces of post-modernism in the form. They draw on various elements of popular culture and mesh them to create a personal homage to the great melting pot of the 1960s and 1970s he grew up in and the niche elements of cinema he loves the most.
Ostensibly a cinema nerd since he was a child, Tarantino has been deeply ensconced in the world of films. As with anyone with a lifelong passion for a specific form, his knowledge is extensive, and the wisdom and character that colour his accounts of movies is something that all cinema lovers should attempt to emulate.
One of the best accounts of a modern film Tarantino has delivered came in 2021, a time when he discussed his experience watching Todd Phillips’ universally acclaimed Joker for the first time in a special podcast with fellow director Edgar Wright for Empire.
When discussing the now-iconic scene near the film’s end when Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck threatens Robert De Niro’s talk show host, Murray Franklin, Tarantino made his thoughts very clear. Looking back on that breathtaking moment, the director recalled: “You [could] feel the entire atmosphere in the theatre change”.
“It’s not suspense; it’s beyond suspense,” he continued. “They are riveted. Everybody is completely plugged in. If you saw this movie on an aeroplane, if you watch this movie streaming, if you watch this movie on DVD, you didn’t fucking see the movie”.
Providing a strange sexual anecdote of why watching in the cinema was the best experience for Joker, the Kill Bill auteur opined: “You got a handjob as opposed to having great sex. You got a handjob as opposed to a threesome”.
“The thing that’s profound is this: it’s not just suspenseful, it’s not just riveting and exciting, the director subverts the audience,” Tarantino noted of Joker. “Because the Joker is a fucking nut. The guy is a fucking nut. Robert De Niro’s talk show character is not a movie villain. He seems like an asshole, but he’s not any more of an asshole than David Letterman. He doesn’t deserve to die”.
He concluded: “Yet, while the audience in a movie theatre is watching Joker, they wanted to kill Robert De Niro. They wanted to take the gun and stick it in his eye and blow the back of his fucking head off”.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.