Welcome to #FlashbackFriday, where we look at past moments with filmmakers, actors, etc. and highlight something in cinema history that’s fascinating, amusing, perhaps something you never knew or have seen, you name it.
For this week’s #FlashbackFriday, we would like to take a listen at an interview that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino gave around the release of “Inglourious Basterds.” Looking back, it feels as if that film became a turning point in the career of the acclaimed filmmaker, as he began to leave the comfort of his homage-filled niche roots of “Pulp Fiction,” “Jackie Brown,” and “Kill Bill,” to focus on films that could attract large audiences, such as a World War II epic.
However, with that came an even more widespread talk about Tarantino’s use of extreme violence and subject matter in his films. And in the interview we have below, the filmmaker discusses his use of extreme violence and how he uses it to garner uncomfortable laughs. And in discussing other films, he name-drops “Freebie and the Bean” as a prime example of extreme violence done for laughs.
For those not familiar with “Freebie and the Bean,” the 1974 film stars Alan Arkin and James Caan as two police detectives that use brutal violence to attempt to take down a crime boss. Tarantino describes the film as “nothing short of a masterpiece” and “absolutely brutal.” However, he finds the film uncomfortably funny.
“But part of the way the film worked was for you to laugh at the brutal violence and then feel bad about yourself for laughing,” he explains.
Tarantino says that if you boil down his work into a simple statement, you could say that the director is always attempting to garner a laugh, even with violence. “However, to get people to laugh at fucked up shit is pretty much what I do,” the filmmaker says.
Whether you agree or disagree with his assessment is up to you, as film fans find Tarantino’s work the source of incredible amounts of debate. However, if you’re a fan of his work, and want to find an underrated film that influenced Tarantino, why not give “Freebie and the Bean” a try?
Here’s the clip, as well as the trailer for “Freebie and the Bean”: