Earlier this week, Quentin Tarantino stepped in it, when in an interview piece conducted by Bret Easton Ellis for The New York Times Style Magazine, the filmmaker took what seemed to be a swing at Ava DuVernay‘s "Selma" by saying, "She did a really good job on ‘Selma’ but ‘Selma’ deserved an Emmy." Now, the director is backpedalling on those words and claiming he was taken out of context.
In an email to Thompson On Hollywood, he admits that he hasn’t seen "Selma," and attributes most of his quote to Ellis (as of posting this piece, the NYT article still has Tarantino as the one giving those comments). However, he does say that the TV line was more of a question, such as: "It’s like a TV movie?"
Essentially, Tarantino thinks "Selma" looks like a TV movie, but he doesn’t think that’s a diss or a bad thing in his eyes. "Both Bret and myself come from the seventies and eighties when there were a lot of historically based TV movies: the ‘King‘ mini-series written by Abby Mann staring Paul Winfield; ‘Crisis at Central High‘ with Joanne Woodward. And ‘Judge Horton and the Scottsboro Boys.’ These were great TV movies. I’d be honored to be placed next to those films. However, I haven’t seen it. Does it look like a seventies TV movie? Yes. Does it play like one, I don’t know, I haven’t seen it," the director wrote.
I dunno Tarantino, maybe if you haven’t seen "Selma," you shouldn’t say anything at all.