The Hollywood Reporter recently gathered Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, David O. Russell, Danny Boyle, Tom Hooper, and Alejandro G. Inarritu for a directors roundtable. Here are some of the highlights:
What's the biggest challenge facing film, as a whole, today?
SCOTT The problem with this town is there is no tax rebate. We're in the village, the place of the beginning of features, in Hollywood, and there is no tax rebate.
TARANTINO There are philosophical problems with films today. I mean, frankly, I have to tell you the truth, a lot of films that 10 years ago I would have actually [gone] out to the theaters and watched, I can wait for them to get to the cable channels. I'm watching them six or seven months later, and I'm perfectly enjoying them, but I didn't really miss that much.
INARRITU Independent filmmaking has [been] transported to TV. There's great stories, great things. And in a way, the screens are now full of films that look like TV, just on the big screen. There is no revelation, there is no mystery. I need the mystery of it.
SCOTT The bar is lower because there are way too many films being made. Maybe there's too many [directors] in the field and therefore the general quality [is worse].
INARRITU What has happened in the economy in the world is happening to film: the 99 percent and the 1 percent division. Now there are super-expensive films or just very tiny-budget films. The middle-class films are disappearing.
What's the last great film you saw?
SCOTT I saw a very, very good film last night [with] a great comedian now actress —
TARANTINO Oh, the Sarah Silverman movie [I Smile Back]? I haven't seen it, but I just heard about it.
SCOTT Yes. All this big brouhaha, and all these flashy movies with lots of digital effects and all that shit, and this film has pushed the envelope. … When you see what we had two years ago, three years ago, it felt depressing. I got slightly depressed about the general quality of films.
BOYLE We've just come off a bruising experience with Steve Jobs, trying to open it out much wider in America. We failed to reach that widest audience. And you should reach that widest audience, because [moviegoing] is not a club. Its origins are ordinary people at the end of a tough week who just want to go and lose themselves in some extraordinary idea or image or creation.
TARANTINO The key to what you're saying is that this is a working-man's art form. It's not opera, it's not theater. That was one of the reasons why movies flourished in the '30s. And it's not anymore.
Read the full roundtable at The Hollywood Reporter.
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