Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has been flirting with the idea of waving goodbye to filmmaking for decades and has now spoken out about his potential swansong again since addressing it just over a year ago on the Pure Cinema Podcast (via MovieMaker).
“Most directors have horrible last movies,” Tarantino said. “Usually, their worst movies are their last movies. That’s the case for most of the Golden Age directors that ended up making their last movies in the late ’60s and the ’70s, then that ended up being the case for most of the New Hollywood directors who made their last movies in the late ’80s and the ’90s.”
The filmmaker then took a swipe at most New Hollywood directors, saying that it’s pretty rare to bow out after having made a good film as your final outing.
Nodding to “Bonnie & Clyde” director Arthur Penn, Tarantino said: “I’m not a super huge fan of this director, but the fact that Arthur Penn’s last movie is ‘Penn & Teller Get Killed’ is a metaphor for how crummy most of the New Hollywood directors’ last, last films were. So to actually end your career on a decent movie is rare. To end it with, like, a good movie is kind of phenomenal.”
“I mean, most directors’ last films are fucking lousy,” Tarantino went on, verbose as ever. “Maybe I should not make another movie because I could be really happy with dropping the mic. That’s the frustrating part… a lot of the really terrific directors, it’s like their third-to-the-last movie would have been an amazing, amazing one to end on, which goes back to what I was saying about myself. Or you know, if Don Siegel had stopped with ‘Escape from Alcatraz,’ oh my fucking god. What a career…he really said it all. The other two were just jobs.”
Tarantino’s forthcoming retirement has been teased for some time now, revealing in early 2020 that he’s a father now and is looking to focus more on his family than any new movies in the next chapter of his life. There’s no word yet on what that tenth movie might look like, but at least a book is arriving this summer (the novelization of “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood“). Otherwise, don’t get your hopes up for anything too epic or decade-spanning, it seems. Listen to the full conversation below.