Quentin Tarantino shakes his interlocutor's hand hard and launches a loud "hello!" before the interview in a central Barcelona hotel this Easter Monday. The American director gathered more than 1,500 people yesterday at the Coliseum theater with all the tickets sold to present Cinema Speculation, his first non-fiction book in which he reviews the films of the seventies that he saw in the cinema and that would end influencing his successful career. The book has been published in Spanish under the title Meditaciones de cine, by Reservoir Books, and in Catalan under the name Reflexions sobre cinema, under the Columna Edicions label.
How is the experience of this world tour to present the book being?
It is being something very interesting and I also cannot deny that it is a bit exhausting. I started in November in the United States and now the tour is in Europe. I put on some kind of show. I don't just talk. When I read some fragments of the book, in some way I am acting, and I have to fill the theater. It's like he's doing a comedy show or something. I feel the warmth of the public and that is very gratifying.
You can tell he had a great time writing it...
Yes a lot. While I was writing it was as if flashes came to me of each moment that I described. I had nothing written down in a diary. I have a very good memory and I remembered every detail, who I had gone to the cinema with and what theater it was. If I have talent as a writer it is because everything is connected to my memories. For me it is very easy.
He just turned 60 years old. How is he doing?
I can not complain. I don't think anyone gets along with turning 60. I'd rather be 40 a thousand times (laughs). But my life is amazing now. I am married to a wonderful woman who has made me a father for the first time and I am having so much fun with my children. They are the loveliest people I have ever met in my life. It could not be better. And I'm also in a fantastic place in my career.
It is not very normal that his mother took him to the cinema at the age of seven to see adult films like Joe, American Citizen or Where is Daddy? According to her account in the book, she told him that a movie wouldn't hurt her, but the news would.
I totally agree with him letting me see those movies because it meant he trusted me. It's just a movie, who cares? But the news was horrible in the seventies. They only talked about crimes and serial killers. It was all very alarming.
He says that he was a very sophisticated child because he explained movies to his friends that they couldn't see.
I felt really cool about it. I could see things that their parents wouldn't let them see. I was able to have these very cool experiences and I had so much fun explaining each sequence in detail. I remember when I went to see Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and Never Were Afraid to Ask, and I told them about the giant breast that pumps milk. They just freaked out.
Did you imagine as a child at some point watching all those movies on the big screen that in the future you would become a famous director?
Well, it was fun to imagine something like that, but I don't think he thought he wanted to be a film director. I also don't think he knew what it meant to be 100%. But I did know that he wanted to be linked to this industry. I didn't have a specific plan, I thought that I could also be an actor because I saw so many on the screen... I imagine that, somehow, I knew that my professional future would be linked to cinema.
At nine he saw Black Gunpowder, starring Jim Brown, and was never the same again
As you know, I was raised by a single mother and, as I discuss in the book, I did not have a clear father figure. My stepdad was a nice guy and he took me to a lot of movies, but at one point, he kind of disappeared from the picture. Watching Black Powder, a blaxploitation revenge film in 1972 with 800 black men in a room with an enthusiastic audience was a very masculine experience and no other film has made me feel the same. That situation was very special because of how old I was and that marked me. I would have liked to work with Jim Brown, but I didn't have a character for him.
His book is also a tribute to a time when going to the movies was an event. How do you see the current crisis that theaters are going through?
It's all a question mark. I don't think they'll go back to the way they used to be, the way I remember them. But I trust that they will survive.
He cites The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jaws as two perfect movies. Which of your filmography do you think are?
Good question. Let me think... well, I would say that both Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood. They are perfect for me but I am not saying that they are perfect for others, eh?
Are you one of those who usually watch your movies several times?
Oh yeah. I love all my movies! I like to see them every time they are shown on TV. And when they open in theaters the first two weeks I go see them and I get into the audience. I enjoy seeing how they laugh, how they respond to one scene or another. It is the reward for a job that has required a lot of effort.
He has seen countless violence-laden films such as Dirty Harry or Taxi Driver but was traumatized by Bambi
It's just that I wasn't ready to see it. He had only seen a poster and he didn't quite know what she was about. So the whole thing about the fire and the death of Bambi's mother was terrifying to me. That movie has screwed over millions of kids for decades.
You praise a vast majority of 70s movies, but you don't feel the same way about 80s or superhero movies.
I think it's because of age. You are getting old and you don't want to see according to what things. The same thing happens to me with music. I'm not familiar with what it sounds like right now. I watch the movies I like and listen to the music I like. And it turns out that they are from another era. I still have many old movies to watch. It also happens to me with books. I don't usually read much, but I prefer old books more. When I was reading superhero comics in my youth it would have been great to see the feats of superheroes on a big screen. However, at my age they no longer tell me anything.
And what do you think of today's Hollywood?
Definitely not his best time. It doesn't appeal to me much. To be honest, I haven't seen Everything At Once Everywhere yet and I don't know if I will.
He affirms that watching Matador, by Pedro Almodóvar, in a Beverly Hills cinema, convinced him that there was a place for his violent dreams
It's just that Almodóvar is an extraordinary director and he has always inspired me. The scenes and the provocation he enacted were almost unthinkable. For a Hollywood director, a start like Matador's in the eighties was unthinkable and now it wouldn't be very normal either.
Do you watch current Spanish cinema?
The truth is that it is difficult for Spanish and Italian films to reach American theaters. Before it was easier to access them in the art and essay rooms.
He names film critic Pauline Kael, who is rumored to be the lead in his new film, The Movie Critic, several times. What did he admire about her?
Well, it's not going to be her who the movie will be about. I could talk about Kael for a long time. It turns out that she is one of my favorite writers of all time and she did it on top of movies. Her way of writing is amazing. I admire her mind, her point of view. I could disagree with her often. And the older I get, the more I disagree. However, I admire her way of processing thoughts. I loved reading her reviews and I think I discovered her at the right time, when I was forming my own opinions.
Did you review any of his films?
I think he retired a year before I started directing. I spoke to her once on the phone and she told me that she was a fan of Jackie Brown.
Is The Movie Critic really going to be the last movie you direct?
Yes. It's just that I'm no longer motivated to make more films. What does a movie mean nowadays? Is it something you see on TV? Is it something you see on a movie screen? And how long does it last in a movie theater? Two weeks? And then it is broadcast directly on platforms? I don't think that's going to be the case with The Movie Critic, but it could happen. And I don't like it. I've done an extended serial version of The Hateful Eight for Netflix and I'll probably do something else for TV, some show that I can make into a series. But it is something that has nothing to do with the movies. I think making ten is a perfect number. And besides, I want to spend more time with my family.
How do you deal with fame?
Sometimes I wish I had a button so I could turn it on and off at will. That when he turned it off, he could be invisible. But I can not complain. Fame and success have given me a wonderful life and opportunities others could never dream of, both personally and professionally. Being in Barcelona now, to work, is great. I remember with great affection when I went to the Sitges Festival.
Do you want to write more books?
I'd love to. I have to do a sequel to Cinema Speculation. I'll probably write a book about 80s movies and at some point I'll turn an original idea back into a novel, like I did with Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood.
