Photo by Andrew Cooper, SMPSP – © 2012 – The Weinstein Company
Quentin Tarantino confirmed today that his upcoming film “The Movie Critic” will not be about Pauline Kael, the legendary New Yorker cinemaphile whose first book, I Lost It At the Movies, appeared in 1965.
In a conversation with Cannes Film Festival director Theirry Fremaux, Tarantino was quoted as saying, “I have finished the script of what will end up being my last movie. I imagine we’ll probably shoot it, I guess, in the fall.” Though he confirmed the film would be set in 1977, he said it would not be based on Kael, as has been widely speculated.
Tarantino’s remarks were reported during the launch of his new book Cinema Speculation, which was inspired by Kael’s work. In the book, which debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list, Tarantino recounts his long career as an acclaimed director of such iconic films as Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Inglorious Basterds. His 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood explored the transition from “old” Hollywood with its studio-based ethos to the “new” Hollywood with its more freewheeling outlook. The movie was set in 1969, against the backdrop of the Manson Family murders of actress Sharon Tate and five others.
Tarantino, who just turned 60 this week, had earlier declared that his tenth movie would be his last. It’s expected that The Movie Critic will focus on the film industry in 1977, during the heyday of some “new” Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola, all of whom preferred rawer, more realistic plots to the fantasy fare that had often been released in earlier decades. It’s no secret that the young Tarantino was strongly influenced by these directors.
Over a career spanning 35 years, Quentin Tarantino has received the Palme d’Or, two Academy Awards, two BAFTA’s and four Golden Globes.
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