To the many American personalities who have come to the French Riviera to present their films at the Cannes Film Festival, from Johnny Depp to Harrison Ford, via Ethan Hawke, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Scarlett Johansson, it was already known that when he arrived Quentin Tarantino it would be another explosion.
Director of kill Bill He has no new productions, but he has come to Cannes to present a “surprise film” at the Directors’ Fortnight (former Directors) and have an open conversation with the public. To be clear: parallel to the Cannes Film Festival, which has its own sections and awards, the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week take place, which are independent of the Festival.
There were people queuing for two hours in front of the Théâtre Croisette, the JW Marriott hotel, where Fortnight films are shown, to secure a good seat in the audience, because tickets, booked four days in advance online , were not numbered. And two hundred people remained outside, unable to enter.
Tarantino, in jeans and a dark gray jacket, matching shirt and white trainers, was introduced by the new General Delegate of the Fortnight, Julien Rejl. When he mentioned it, the entire audience stood up and applauded him until he took the stage.
To put into context, Tarantino’s first visit to the Cannes Film Festival (later to win the Palme d’Or with Violent times), his debut street dogs was shown in May 1992. It was one of the films out of competition, just like the othello by Orson Welles. That year the jury was presided over by Gérard Depardieu, who competed Voyageby Pino Solanas, and in Un Certain Regard a fucking copby Abel Ferrara, e Modern crimesby Alessandro Agresti.
When Quentin asked the packed audience if they knew what the surprise film was, many replied, “!Thunder rumble!”, which in Argentina was called overwhelming storm. But we will see that it is not a matter of catastrophe cinema, but of revenge cinema, typical of the era in which it was released, in 1977.
Quentin said, before the screening, that he saw John Flynn’s film “the same day it came out, in Los Angeles, with my mother, and her husband at the time”, in a double bill – as happened in theaters neighborhood, here also in Argentina, no less than with Operation Dragon, the movie with Bruce Lee. And for some strange reason, I hadn’t seen it Operation Dragon. All the kids at school had seen it, I hadn’t.”
As usual, Quentin is one to beat around the bush and kept talking Operation Dragonand “how John Landis took it word for word and copied it into Kentucky Fried Movie” (1977), which was actually a parody of several films, with a script from the creators of And where is the pilot?.
“They passed first Operation DragonThe lights came on and then went off. And all that she had heard, after that was nothing Thunder rumble. And today we will see this film, here, in Cannes”.
“We’ll see it in 35mm,” he announced, and the applause was thunderous, in favor of a film copy and not a digital one. And she thanked Metro Goldwyn Meyer.
Tarantino, who was 14 at the time, now urged viewers to “relax, sit two in your seats and if you feel like expressing your emotions during the screening – something that took time to happen, but yeah, c “It was shouts and exclamations and stuff, especially before some scenes of violence, just do it. ‘And if you want to scream, scream!’ And he sat in the audience, really close to where he was clarion.
Tarantino’s favorite
Thunder rumble It’s one of Tarantino’s favorite films, which he said since he first saw it, he’s seen it countless times “and found new details.”
The copy in question had those scratches, from having been projected so many times, and also the circle on the right side, at the top, which was the one that announced to the projector that the roll of roll was approaching, and it had to switch to the other projector. The sound was also low, so the experience was like being transported to a Los Angeles movie theater in 1977.
The protagonist of William Devane, who 23 years later would again share the cast space knights, by Clint Eastwood, with a very young Tommy Lee Jones here. Devane plays Major Charles Rane, who after spending eight years in a Viet Cong prison camp, returns home to San Antonio, Texas. He is accompanied, as we said, by Tommy Lee Jones.
Rane is greeted as a hero. They give him a red Cadillac convertible, two thousand dollars in silver coins, one for each day of his imprisonment, plus a lucky one. But, and there is always a but, his wife tells him that in her absence she has fallen in love with another man, who is a policeman, who plays with his son by throwing him a baseball.
From there, Rane will get into his Cadillac and with the blonde who gave him the coins, he will cross the border into Mexico, in search of Fat Ed. The first scene of violence, after an attempted not to mention rape, but a dangerous the approach of a Mexican who is missing a tooth with the girl, causes his metal hook to sink into the bad Mexican’s hand. Then, the blood will be wiped clean with a towel, which will be handed over to a local girl.
Curiously, the screenplay was written by Paul Schrader, a year after that of Taxi driverby Martin Scorsese. And the film’s influences can be guessed, at least, Kill Bill Part I.
The limit of violence for Tarantino
After the screening, Quentin simply admitted that he likes violent films “as much as some musicals.” And he added, about it Thunder rumble: “It could be a fascist film, as Paul Schrader thinks, but it is the best fascist film,” Tarantino summed up.
He also talked about Dirty Harryby Don Siegel, starring Clint Eastwood, pointing out that Siegel did not want to direct a political film.
And he was very clear in describing his limit to violence: when animals are actually killed. “Cinema is the art of pretending, I don’t pay to see the real dead.”
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Source: Clarin
