Acclaimed filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has said that he thinks some theatre chains deserve to close. The 58-year-old auteur has long been a proponent of the theatrical experience and is known for his encyclopedic film knowledge. After winning over audiences with his 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino has gone on to a multi-Oscar winning career, which he’s repeatedly stated will come to an end after his tenth feature film.
As each new Tarantino release is something of an event, there’s been plenty of conjecture regarding what sort of film will mark the film legend’s final project. However, Tarantino is consistently followed by controversy even when he hasn’t released a film, with his 2019 effort, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood still causing headlines today. That particular issue has to do with how martial arts icon Bruce Lee was portrayed in the film, but it’s hard for anyone to remember when a Tarantino film hasn’t received some form of backlash over everything from violence to racism to sexism. For his part, Tarantino takes it all in stride, confident of the sort of filmmaker that he’s worked to become and loyal only to the concept of cinema.
This unshakeable loyalty to film means that Tarantino has a high degree of respect for the cinema-going process and cinemas in general. But according to Variety, during an interview on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Tarantino made it clear that he’s not a fan of all cinemas and that the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic on some of these cinemas doesn’t trouble him. Going as far as to say that some of the cinemas that have disappeared over the past year “deserved to go,” Tarantino stated:
“I never like any theater closing, but some of these exhibitors that are going, they f***ing deserve to go. They’ve taken all the specialness out of movies anyway, some of these chains.”
Insisting that he doesn’t feel that a movie theatre should “recreate my living room,” Tarantino also took the opportunity to announce that he has purchased yet another Los Angeles area theatre, the Vista. Having previously purchased and revamped the New Beverly, Tarantino’s dedication to saving and preserving theatres is hard to deny. But this being the case, his stance on some of the theatres that have had to close in recent months might seem contrary. It could be argued that a cinema is a cinema, and getting people out of their houses and away from streaming content is still a win for the dying concept that movie theatres have become. But for Tarantino and many other cinephiles, the movie-going experience should be simple, straightforward, and most of all, entirely about seeing a film on the big screen. It’s this same degree of respect for cinema in general that has allowed other boutique theatres such as the Alamo Drafthouse to attract a steady and devoted clientele.
By this point in his career, Quentin Tarantino has amassed enough of a fanbase that people will flock to his theatres. At the same turn, however, he’s also smart to target that demographic of movie-goers who want something more than what large-scale multiplexes offer. Going to a cinema that delivers something more than franchise films or CGI-laden blockbusters has become a challenging task. For those who want something different in their movie-going experience, Tarantino seems to be putting his money where his mouth is.
Source: Variety
