Director Christopher Nolan has criticised veteran filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's decision to retire from directing, saying that the decision is a very purist one and it is the point of view of a cinephile who prizes movie history.
As reported by Variety, while speaking to the ReelBlend podcast, the Inception director spoke about Tarantino's plans to retire from feature filmmaking following his upcoming film The Movie Critic. The Pulp Fiction director has spoken for years about his plan to retire, saying he wants to leave behind a consistently strong and tightly curated body of work.
"And do you believe him?" Nolan asked the podcast hosts regarding Tarantino's planned retirement.
Tarantino has reminded fans consistently that The Movie Critic, which will be his 10th feature directorial, will be his last. However, he has also said that just because he is retiring from filmmaking doesn’t mean he can’t write books, plays, television series and more.
Tarantino bringing his filmmaking career to an end in his 60s is a contrast to legendary director Martin Scorsese, who is releasing his latest film Killers of the Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio at age of 80 in late 2023.
When asked about his thoughts on Tarantino and Scorsese's career choices, Nolan said: "The truth is, I 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 then added: "But I also see… Quentin's point has always been that — and he never, very graciously, he's never specific about the films he's talking about or whatever — but 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. And I think that’s a very purist point of view. It’s the point of view of a cinephile who prizes film history."
Nonetheless, The Dark Knight director noted: "I'm 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."
Nolan then told the ReelBlend hosts: "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 he wanted to keep a sort of perfect reputation for something, but also kind of didn't want to take anything off the table," he added.
Nolan's latest biopic Oppenheimer marks the filmmaker's 12th directorial feature, which will hit theaters on July 21, 2023.