At 88, filmmaker Ridley Scott has lived long enough to know that even extravagant praise deserves a little skepticism. So when informed that Quentin Tarantino had named his 2001 war epic “Black Hawk Down” the greatest film of the 21st century, Scott did not feign humility, accept the compliment, or launch into a defense of his own achievement. In fact, he wondered what Tarantino had ingested.
“I wonder what he was on, because whatever it is, I want some,” Scott told The Sunday Times. Asked whether he agreed that his film deserved the top spot, the director’s answer was even more concise: “No!”
Tarantino unveiled his top 10 during an appearance on the “Bret Easton Ellis Podcast” late last year, placing Scott’s film ahead of “Toy Story 3,” “Lost in Translation,” “Dunkirk,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Zodiac,” “Unstoppable,” “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Shaun of the Dead,” and “Midnight in Paris.”
The “Pulp Fiction” filmmaker called “Black Hawk Down” “a masterwork” and “the only movie that actually goes completely for an ‘Apocalypse Now’ sense of purpose and visual effect and feeling.” After revisiting it, Tarantino said his heart raced throughout the film and described Scott’s work as “a feat of direction [that] is beyond extraordinary.”
Scott said he had not spoken with Tarantino about the distinction, although his late brother Tony Scott knew the director well. “Tony adored Quentin and, I think, Quentin adored Tony,” he said. That admiration was reflected elsewhere on Tarantino’s list: Tony Scott’s runaway-train thriller “Unstoppable” landed at number seven.
Released in 2001, “Black Hawk Down” dramatized the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu and featured a sprawling cast that included Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Sam Shepard, and Tom Hardy in his feature-film debut. Scott received an Oscar nomination for Best Director, while the film won Academy Awards for editing and sound. Scott himself will finally receive an Honorary Academy Award at the Governors Awards in November (read our coverage).
Scott also used the Times interview to complain about the same handful of stories circulating through contemporary film and television.
“Look, everything now is about a murdered girl in the woods, or an FBI agent who is better than anyone else—or a superhero,” he said. “F*ck me! There have to be other stories to tell.”
This is familiar territory for Scott, who declared last year that cinema was “drowning in mediocrity” and revealed that he had taken to rewatching his own movies because, in his estimation, “they’re really good” and do not age. “Black Hawk Down” was the particular “comfort movie” he cited at the time, so perhaps Tarantino’s ranking was not quite as chemically inexplicable as Scott now suggests.
Scott’s 30th feature, “The Dog Stars,” stars Jacob Elordi as a civilian pilot surviving in the aftermath of a catastrophic pandemic alongside Josh Brolin, Margaret Qualley, Guy Pearce, Allison Janney, and Benedict Wong. The post-apocalyptic thriller opens in theaters through 20th Century Studios on August 28.
