Quentin Tarantino, 1990s indie cinema and Miramax, the house that Harvey Weinstein built, are virtually synonymous and inextricably linked. Arguably, there would be no Miramax without Tarantino and vice versa. The symbiotic relationship made for a powerhouse studio and filmmaker which led many to ask where the “Pulp Fiction” director was in the middle of Harvey Weinstein-gate: over 40 women have come forward and accused the besieged studio chief with charges of alleged sexual assault, harassment and in some cases, even rape.
Late last week, the actress Amber Tamblyn — noticeably vocal on social media recently after tussling with actor James Woods, alleging the senior actor had acted in a “predatory” manner towards her when she was underage — shared a message on behalf of Tarantino regarding Harvey-gate. After a short statement shared on Twitter, Tarantino promised a longer response. Today it arrived.
“I knew enough to do more than I did,” he told the New York Times in an article that ran this afternoon regarding how much he knew about Weinstein’s predatory actions towards women. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”
His own former girlfriend Mira Sorvino (who appeared in the Miramax-released “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1995) told the “Reservoir Dogs” helmer about Weinstein’s inappropriate advances towards her and “unwanted touching.” The director admitted Weinstein was “infatuated with her” and “horribly crossed the line…I was shocked and appalled.”
Additionally, Tarantino confessed he knew about the financial settlement Rose McGowan made with Miramax and Weinstein in the mid 1990s. McGowan recently alleged that Weinstein raped her and it’s possible the embattled former studio chief, recently fired from the TWC board, could still be prosecuted for the alleged crimes.
Tarantino said he confronted Weinstein once, which the Times corroborated with the actress in question who declined to be identified.
Despite this knowledge, Tarantino continued to work with Weinstein either through Miramax or The Weinstein Company throughout his career — Weinstein released every one of Tarantino’s films, from “Reservoir Dogs,” to the most recent picture, “The Hateful Eight.” “What I did was marginalize the incidents,” he recalled, saying he downplayed the actions as misbehavior. “Anything I say now will sound like a crappy excuse.”
The writer/director suggested that everyone who worked with Weinstein was culpable to some degree with their silence. “Everyone who was close to Harvey had heard of at least one of those incidents” [chronicled in the first few articles] he said. “It was impossible they didn’t.”
Weinstein continues to deny all allegations of non-consensual sex. “I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard,” Tarantino said. “If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”