Quentin Tarantino Dominates Director Roundtable, Says "I Can't Stand All This Digital Stuff, This Is Not What I Signed Up For"

Amongst even the most fervent Quentin Tarantino fans, the subject of Death Proof is touchy — is it a good film, or not? I love the movie, seeing it as precisely the sort of grindhouse movie that it hoped to replicate, with a layer of commentary thrown in for good measure. But Tarantino stirred up new conversation about the film today with comments in a long interview about the fact that he hopes Death Proof ends up judged as the least of his films.

The beginning of awards season each year sees THR assembling talent in one room for great roundtables, and this year the director roundtable features Ang Lee, Tom Hooper, Ben Affleck, David O. Russell, Gus Van Sant, and the dominating presence of Tarantino.

The comment about Death Proof may have been the most attention-getting thing Tarantino said, but he had a lot more to offer, from a breakdown of his own writing and directing process, to plans to write books (novels and film criticism) after he stops actively directing. And the end of his directorial career seems prompted by technological change, as the move to digital projection leaves him cold.

And there's a lot more, too — while Tarantino tends to dominate the conversation, each of the participants has great stuff to add about the business of directing. It's worth an hour of your time to watch the whole thing.

My favorite part of this roundtable has to be the looks Tarantino gets as he talks about some of his working method. When he's talking about how he scripts, and the way he rewrites on set... and then when he talks about throwing temper tantrums and David O. Russell pipes in with "speak for yourself, Quentin." Gold!

Here's part of Tarantino's talk, in which he talks about being a writer after his active directorial career is done, and mentions the idea of doing "a six-hour mini-series or something" to adapt a huge Kill Bill-style script:

Elsewhere, he echoed recent statements about quitting directing:

I'm really well versed on a lot of directors' careers, you know, and when you look at those last five films when they were past it, when they were too old, and they're really out of touch with the times, whether it be William Wyler and The Liberation of L.B. Jones or Billy Wilder with Fedora and then Buddy Buddy or whatever the hell. To me, it's all about my filmography, and I want to go out with a terrific filmography. Death Proof has got to be the worst movie I ever make. And for a left-handed movie, that wasn't so bad, all right? — so if that's the worst I ever get, I'm good. But I do think one of those out-of-touch, old, limp, flaccid-dick movies costs you three good movies as far as your rating is concerned.

And here's the full roundtable, from THR: