Christopher Nolan says Quentin Tarantino’s approach to retirement is “very purist”
Christopher Nolan has shared his thoughts on Quentin Tarantino‘s “very purist” approach to retiring from his filmmaking career.
Tarantino recently said that he is “ready to quit” making movies following a 30-year career in the industry, with his 10th film – The Movie Critic – expected to be his final big-screen project. The director will be just over 60-years-old when he closes out his career.
Speaking on the ReelBlend podcast (via CinemaBlend), Nolan addressed his thoughts on Tarantino’s retirement plans, say that he “understand both points of view”.
“It’s addictive to tell stories in cinema. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s very fun. It’s something you feel driven to do, and so it’s a little hard to imagine voluntarily stopping,” Nolan said.
He went on to explain how Quentin “very graciously” is “never specific about the films he’s talking about”, adding that he’s “looking at some of the work done by filmmakers in later years and feeling that if it can’t live up to the heyday, it would be better if it didn’t exist”.
He added: “And I think that’s a very purest point of view. It’s the point of view of a cinephile who prizes film history.”
Nolan added of his own career that he’s “not sure that I would trust my own sense of the absolute value of a piece of work to know whether or not it should have been brought into existence”.
He went on: “I’m a big fan, as is Quentin, of films that maybe don’t fully achieve what they try to, but there’s something in there that’s a performance, or a little structural thing, or a scene, you know, that’s wonderful. And so, yes, I understand. I think [I] wanted to keep a sort of perfect reputation of something, but also kind of don’t want to take anything off the table.”
When Tarantino was asked earlier this year if his desire to retire was motivated by “wanting to leave a perfect filmography”, the director replied: “No, I think not. It’s just that I’ve been making movies for 30 years and I’m ready to quit.”
Despite no further movies being in the works, Tarantino said he would “very much like” to write more books.
Meanwhile, Nolan has said he will “absolutely” not work on more films until the actors’ strike in Hollywood ends.
His new film Oppenheimer – starring Cillian Murphy as scientist and “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer – is out in cinemas this Friday (July 21).
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Hollie Geraghty
NME
