For years Quentin Tarantino has been adamant about his plans to hang up the filmmaking boots following his tenth feature.
The director recently sat down with Pure Cinema Podcast in an interview that saw him echo those fabled claims. During the episode, Tarantino and hosts Elric Kane and Brian Saur delved into five great final movies from their final directors. Tarantino gave a nod to collaborator Tony Scott’s Unstoppable, and the conversation veered towards the final film of Tarantino’s career.
Tarantino joked that he should quit while he’s ahead, “Most directors have horrible last movies,” Tarantino said. “Usually their worst movies are their last movies.
“That’s the case for most of the Golden Age directors that ended up making their last movies in the late ’60s and the ’70s, then that ended up being the case for most of the New Hollywood directors who made their last movies in the late ’80s and the ’90s.”
Tarantino went on to highlight Bonnie & Clyde director Arthur Penn as a case in point: “I’m not a super huge fan of this director, but the fact that Arthur Penn’s last movie is Penn & Teller Get Killed is a metaphor for how crummy most of the New Hollywood directors’ last, last films were,” he said.
“So to actually end your career on a decent movie is rare. To end it with, like, a good movie is kind of phenomenal. I mean, most directors’ last films are fucking lousy.”
“Maybe I should not make another movie because I could be really happy with dropping the mic,” Tarantino said of his last film, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.
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“That’s the frustrating part… a lot of the really terrific directors, it’s like their third-to-the-last movie would have been an amazing, amazing one to end on, which goes back to what I was saying about myself. Or you know, if Don Siegel had stopped with Escape from Alcatraz, oh my fucking god. What a career…he really said it all. The other two were just jobs.”
You can listen to the podcast below.
Even if Quentin Tarantino ends on an absolute stinker, we know it’ll be a stinker with a helluva soundtrack.
