Courting controversy is something that comes naturally to Quentin Tarantino, and he doesn't need to be directing a film to do it. He's perfectly capable of causing a stir just by opening his mouth, especially on the subject of race, and in an interview with Bret Easton Ellis for The New York Times that is exactly what he's done with a sharp critique of "black critics".
Not surprisingly, it has to do with the response to his racially-charged Western, Django Unchained, which drew a ton of heat from African-American critics for its depiction of slavery. Tarantino says..
“If you’ve made money being a critic in black culture in the last 20 years you have to deal with me.You must have an opinion of me. You must deal with what I’m saying and deal with the consequences.”
Okay, nothing wrong with that. Of course, any critic over the last 20 years has to contend with Tarantino's movies. So what's his beef?
“If you sift through the criticism you’ll see it’s pretty evenly divided between pros and cons. But when the black critics came out with savage think pieces about Django, I couldn’t have cared less. If people don’t like my movies, they don’t like my movies, and if they don’t get it, it doesn’t matter. The bad taste that was left in my mouth had to do with this: It’s been a long time since the subject of a writer’s skin was mentioned as often as mine. You wouldn’t think the color of a writer’s skin should have any effect on the words themselves. In a lot of the more ugly pieces my motives were really brought to bear in the most negative way. It’s like I’m some supervillain coming up with this stuff.”
Tarantino has always taken flack for his approach to writing African-American characters or how he deals with certain issues, so it's not surprising he's got some strong words for his harsher critics. However, he may have less of a defense for his comments on Ava Duvernay's Martin Luther King drama, Selma. Speaking on the Oscar snubbing of the film, Tarantino asserts that it didn't even deserve to be up for nomination, stating "She did a really good job on ‘Selma’ but ‘Selma’ deserved an Emmy."
When he wasn't busy ripping the acclaimed Selma as basically a made-for-TV movie, Tarantino touches on a number of interesting topics, from losing to The Hurt Locker in 2008 to his opinions of fellow filmmakers Judd Apatow, David Fincher, and more.
Tarantino's next film is The Hateful Eight which opens on Christmas Day.
