Quentin Tarantino’s venomous criticism of Stanley Kubrick

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The Stanley Kubrick movie Quentin Tarantino called “fraudulent”

Thu 23 June 2022 16:00, UK

The director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and several other cinematic classics, Quentin Tarantino, isn’t one to withhold his opinion on classic movies and filmmakers, often going against the status quo to state his claim. With a particular fondness for directors such as Brian De Palma, Akira Kurosawa and Martin Scorsese, Tarantino has long been a lover of art cinema, though there’s always been one director who he’s found it tricky to see eye-to-eye with.

A popular filmmaker in film education, Stanley Kubrick isn’t particularly liked by Tarantino, with the classic director proving a little too cold and detached for the vibrant cult filmmaker. Despite making such influential films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Paths of Glory and Eyes Wide Shut, Tarantino really doesn’t think much of Kubrick, with his issues mainly coming down to two movies.

In a conversation with The New Yorker in 2003, Tarantino explained that he found Kubrick’s films challenging to get through, aiming much of his annoyance at the 1971 movie A Clockwork Orange as well as his controversial adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. “I always thought Kubrick was a hypocrite,” Tarantino told the publication, referencing the 1971 movie, “Because his party line was, I’m not making a movie about violence, I’m making a movie against violence”.

Causing quite the visceral reaction for Tarantino, the filmmaker venomously bursts, “And it’s just, like, Get the fuck off. I know and you know your dick was hard the entire time you were shooting those first twenty minutes, you couldn’t keep it in your pants the entire time you were editing it and scoring it”.

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Frustrated by the filmmaker, Tarantino calls Kubrick a “hypocrite” for celebrating violence in “those first twenty minutes,” with the director further adding, “And if you don’t say you did you’re a fucking liar”.

As a lover of cinematic violence himself, his annoyance toward Kubrick is somewhat understandable, particularly as the Pulp Fiction filmmaker has never apologised for his stylistic gore. Proud of the movies he makes, Tarantino is consistently questioned by journalists as to if the violence depicted in his films is healthy for the young audiences who like to consume his movies.

Failing to see eye-to-eye with Kubrick, as well as disliking parts of A Clockwork Orange, Tarantino also had a considerable issue with Lolita, calling the movie “fraudulent”.

Calling the Adrian Lyne remake of Lolita a “masterpiece,” Tarantino recalls being confused the first time he saw Kubrick’s original. “When I saw it, I thought, Boy, I don’t know if Kubrick even read the novel,” he told The New Yorker, adding, “the idea that you can do a movie about Lolita and not have one single, solitary disturbing image in it at all is crazy. It’s fraudulent! I mean, to me he’s missing the most fascinating part of the work”.

Despite this, the Django Unchained filmmaker does add, “Kubrick manages to take that book and make this madcap comedy out of it that’s actually pretty terrific”.