Quentin Tarantino's tenth film, which the director says will be his last, will be called Film Critic.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is the name of the script that Tarantino wrote. Filming will take place this autumn.
Other details are kept in the strictest confidence. Maybe they're locked in a suitcase containing the combination 666 from Pulp Fiction. According to some reports, the film takes place in the late 1970s in Los Angeles, and its main character is a woman.
Of course, Film Critic is a working title, not a final one, so don't be surprised if it doesn't catch on. However, this title makes it quite clear what the film could be about… It is possible that the film could have been based on the biography of the famous film critic Pauline Cale.
Over the years, the director has expressed interest and admiration for Cale, one of the most influential film critics. In an article published in Time magazine in 1994, he stated: «She had the same influence on me as any other director, helping me develop my aesthetic. I never went to film school, but she was a professor at the film school of my mind.» «.
Cale, who died in 2001, was not only a critic. She wrote essays and novels and was also known for her conflicts with editors and directors. The time frame seems to fit just fine, which only confirms speculation that Cale will be the heroine of Tarantino's latest film.
To date, Tarantino's films have won him numerous awards, including the Palme d'Or for Pulp Fiction; four Golden Globes for Pulp Fiction (Best Screenplay), Django Unchained (Best Screenplay) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Best Screenplay and Best Film — Musical or Comedy); two BAFTAs for Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained (both for Best Original Screenplay); two Oscars for «Pulp Fiction» and «Django Unchained» (both for Best Original Screenplay).
He was also nominated three times for the Academy Award in the category «Best Director» («Pulp Fiction» , Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and once in the Best Picture category (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), but never won either.
Given that The Film Critic, as stated, will be the last film, Tarantino will try to fix this and retire with a statuette in his hands …
Why does Tarantino leave after 10 films?
Tarantino has long declared his desire leave the cinema at the peak of his career. He says that he will leave the cinema after filming 10 films and retire by the age of 60.
The director explains this by the fact that even his most famous colleagues’ quality of work decreases towards the end of their lives, and he wants his filmography was remembered «no misses».
In 2012, he told Playboy magazine: «I want to stop at some point. Directors don't get better with age. Usually the worst films in their filmography are the last four works. I'm obsessed with my filmography: one bad film ruins three good ones. I don't want to leave behind a bad, outdated comedy, a film that people will think, «Oh shit, he still thinks nothing has changed in 20 years. When directors get old, it's ugly.»
Fair enough, but in fact, he didn't deliver on both promises, as Tarantino turns 60 this month (March 27, if you were going to send a postcard).
Plus, to be precise, he's already made 10 films:
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Reservoir Dogs (1992)
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Pulp Fiction (1994)
- < p>Jackie Brown (1997)
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Kill Bill Part 1 (2003)
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Kill Bill Part 2 (2004) )
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Grindhouse (2007)
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Inglourious Basterds (2009)
- < p>Django Unchained (2012)
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The Hateful Eight (2015)
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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)
So we counted 10 movies, but Tarantino counts two Kill Bill feature films as one. Audiences, however, still have to buy two separate movie tickets for each movie, so let's not kid ourselves — The Film Critic will be his 11th film.
But don't let that keep Quentin from sleeping at night …
Those who anticipate that the cinema will be left without a film history-obsessed director and screenwriter who has built his reputation on the revival of so-called «frontier» genres need not be afraid. Tarantino has already shown interest in other forms of creativity, noting in an interview that he could direct a series or direct a play. In 2021, he published his first novel, a novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and while promoting Film Speculation in 2022, Tarantino revealed plans for an 8-episode television series.
Who is Pauline Cale?
Pauline Cale (1919 — 2001) was a film aficionado and remains the queen of film criticism. She was the most influential critic of her era, never embarrassed to be direct.
She published her first critical article in 1953 in City Lights magazine in San Francisco. Others followed, in Partisan Review, Moviegoer and other magazines. Later, her work began to appear regularly in the Film Quarterly.
For several years from 1955, she reviewed films on Radio Pacifica.
Her reputation grew for lively and scathing reviews, and in 1965 a collection of her articles entitled «I Lost It at the Movies» was published. («I went crazy at the movies»). The book became a bestseller and earned her commissions from major magazines such as Life, Holiday, Mademoiselle and McCall's.
In 1968, she joined The New Yorker and reviewed films for it until her retirement in 1991.
Here are some of her most memorable quotes:
«When I see advertisements saying 'You'll have to watch this movie twice', I already know that this is the kind of movie I don't want to watch at all.»
About Bonnie and Clyde «:
«Bonnie and Clyde» is the most exciting American film since «The Manchurian Candidate» (…) Audiences live it. Our impressions of watching the film are to some extent related to how we reacted to cinema as a child: how we fell in love with it and felt that it was ours — not an art that we learned to appreciate over the years, but simply and immediately ours.
«Vulgarity is not as destructive to an artist as snobbery.»
From the essay «Trash, Art and Cinema»:
«A good movie can lift you out of the doom and gloom that so often accompanies going to the cinema; a good movie can make you feel alive again, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you feel, make you believe in the possibilities again. If somewhere in the hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, so it's not all over yet.A movie doesn't have to be great; it can be silly and empty and you can still get the joy of a good performance or just a good line An actor's frown, a subtle gesture, a dirty word someone throws with a mockingly innocent face, and the world takes on a little meaning. who are with you, do not react the way you do, you know that there must be others, perhaps in this very theater or in this city, for sure in other theaters in other cities, now, in the past or future who react the same way as you. And since cinema is the most complete and comprehensive art form, these reactions may seem the most personal and perhaps the most important one imaginable.»
«Sometimes it's not fun to watch all the director's films because they're repetitive. Some people think it's a sign of a director's skill, that you can recognize his films that way. But it can also be a sign that he's hacking.»
From «Stanley Strangelove: A Clockwork Orange»:
«The film's convoluted and ultimately vicious morality, however, is not what makes it so disgusting to watch. It's offensive long before one knows what it's leading to because it has no undertones. Kubrick, a director with an arctic spirit, determined to pornography, and he has no talent for it.In The Forgotten, Buñuel showed teenagers committing terrible atrocities, and although you had no illusions about their victims — one in particular was an old debauchee — you were shocked.Buñuel makes you understand the pornography of cruelty: pornography is about what human beings are able to do to other human beings.Kubrick has always been one of the least sensual and least erotic directors.He tries to create juicy scenes of violence, carefully distancing you from the victims so you can enjoy the rapes and beatings, but I think it's more likely to feel cold dislike for the film than the horror of the rape
«This film is a wig that looks like a real bald head.»
About It's a Wonderful Life:
«Frank Capra's most ruthless film… In its own way, slurred, bittersweet. The picture is well done. But it is almost devoid of humor and, despite all the virtuous suffering of the hero, did not resonate with the public. Capra takes a serious tone, although for seriousness there's no reason; it's just bad work disguised as art.»
About Love in the Afternoon:
«Eric Romer's New York Film Festival opening Love Afternoon is probably going to be called perfect, and in a way I guess it is, but it vanished half an hour after I saw it. It's so forgettable a film, as far as it is possible. Perhaps Rohmer, who has become a specialist in the eroticism of non-sexual relationships, fiddled with a small idea for too long; perhaps intentionally (but who can be sure?), this is a reductio ad absurdum. The game «will or will not» ( intellectualized version of the fate of the Broadway virgins) goes on so long that the hero must be considered a fool.»
«Cinema is now so male-dominated that they think they're advocating femininity when women hit each other.»
From the essay «Fear of Cinema»:
«The astute moviegoer wants cinema to be tamed, no more exciting than so-called polite theatre… This is, of course, a rejection of the special greatness of cinema: its ability to affect us on so many levels that we become emotionally vulnerable, in spite of our mental abilities. Movies bypass our mind and alertness; that is what attracted us to the viewing of pictures in the past. Movies — and they do not even have to be first-class, much less great — can invade our sensibility in the way that Dickens did when we were kids, and later maybe George Eliot and Dostoyevsky, and still later maybe Dickens again They can go even deeper — to the primitive levels at which we perceive fairy tales And if people resist this invasion by visiting only those films , in which they were assured there was nothing upsetting, they did not display a higher, more refined taste; they simply acted out of fear disguised to taste. If you are afraid of films that excite your feelings, then you are afraid of cinema.»
«It is the prerogative of any artist, in any medium, to make a fool of himself.»
From the book «Smack-smack, bang-bang»:
«When the breathless Miss Shariss wraps her phenomenal legs around (Fred) Astaire, she can be forgiven for everything — even the fact that she reads her lines as if she had just memorized them.»
«Where there is a will, there is a way. If there's a chance in a million that you can do something, anything, to stop what you want from ending, do it. Open the door or, if necessary, put your foot in the door and keep it open.»
If you want to know more about Pauline Kael, you can watch What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, a documentary by Rob Garver 2018, which tells about the life and work of a film critic.