Film Courage: How many Oscars has Quentin Tarantino won for best director?
Erick Weber, Editor-in-Chief of Awards Ace/YouTuber: That's a great question. I
should absolutely have this down. I can say without answering the question I spin out
Quentin Tarantino there's an example of a director who is very singular with his vision and knows
exactly what he wants to give you as an audience he wants he's going to give you the film that he
has in his head is going to be the product and that's the challenge for filmmakers is
what's in the head doesn't always come out into the end product I think Tarantino maximizes his
vision to actual completion product maybe better than any director I think Denis Villeneuve is up
there but Tarantino's one for sure and certainly as a director writer I don't know if there's a
better combination do how many Oscars he's won for best director well I okay I don't have the
exact I'm going to throw a number out and say she obviously we know that he was not happy with bong
winning instead of him that's an interesting story by the way we get into that or not but there's a
very interesting story with Quentin Tarantino and bong very interesting that I've never told
well first of all Tarantino would probably come after me guys hold it but it's a good one
but I okay for me I can say this he should have won for Django Unchained he did not win
for Django Unchained he should have won I Django Unchained one of my favorite Tarantino movies
I'm going to say he has well the easy the thing for me is I really should know is I would say
it's zero but I'm going to say one your first your intuition good zero which is crazy right
like I said you think about Django just recently even once of a time in Hollywood but sometimes
it's all about what's the competition when you look at parasite parasite was a phenomenon
and once you get to that level where parasite is just all-encompassing it's going to win the one
thing I think Tarantino would have and this would be this is the challenge I think for any major
filmmaker like a Tarantino is having people in your circle who are capable and strong enough
and you listen to them you value their opinion to say listen man your movie needs to be shorter
it needs to be tighter and you have to val the director at that point has to value the opinion
of the person who's given him that obviously and I don't know if every director has that ability to
step back and have other people assess their work and allow them to make constructive comments that
might better the film and I think hateful light is absolute film that's too long
so many films I see are too long it's it's not and it's not really about length you could watch a
immaculate three-hour film look at the wolf of wall street to me even avengers end game these
are films that at three hours work okay but there are also also plenty of films that do not they
they run too long again go back to everything everywhere all at once 225. if that movie comes
in at 150 and you don't have as much repetition at the end it's a great film as it is it it loses its
value as it extends past its natural point where it really should have ended and it's really about
tightening the screws and I think filmmakers have to have that person in their life that is
that they value and that they will listen to and they will make the changes necessary if they if
they believe them to to be accurate and you got to find those people you trust in your life I think
in anything you do right but here's the thing who who's going to who's going to tell Tarantino right
you're scared most people are like I'm not going to go tell quinn you might go off on me I don't I
wouldn't have that you have to have someone who's very again he goes back to that being knowing you
and your assessment of the product is accurate at least as much as you believe it to be and again
having the instincts to know and then having the fearlessness to say I said I would love to do that
listen let me watch your film and you could say I'm crazy and what I'm telling you is absolutely
wrong but at least let me watch it and I will say hey I think that we can do this and this
and we can make a stronger product sometimes maybe there's not nothing to change but that's not very
often it's very infrequent that I see a film that I don't go okay I think you could do this and this
and it would be a stronger product I thought Boyhood was great oh and some people said it
was way too long and meandered I loved Boyhood more than slacker so yes no Boyhood I know that's
maybe not a popular opinion but Boyhood is a film was that 2012 ’13 ’14. a Boyhood is a film that I
saw in Boston and I’d heard so many great things about it and I sat through it I just had the birth
of of my son and my daughter was both extremely young and I'm watching this film and I'm going
wow this film is just everything the the sad passage of time is something that really hits
me and when you watch Boyhood you really see that right you see them the shot over how many years
was that was it was it 15 years 10 years whatever the length of time they filmed it I can't remember
now it's been so many years but that that we're going to go shoot every year a little bit as the
kid grows up as the daughter grows up and the sad passage of time is something that will always
resonate with me and Boyhood captures that in a way that is it's what makes it the film it is it's
really something when you talk about filmmaking and what link later did with that film it just
it's truly one of the best films because of that because of what he did the uniqueness of that
project who deserves an Oscar more Tarantino or Nolan Tarantino yeah I think Tarantino again when
you look at you look at all the films his his portfolio of films is really with few exceptions
everything you're going to get from him is going to be
top shelf now that said I think Nolan is absolutely right there as well interstellar for me
is when you talk about Nolan films I think it's interstellar and again what does that hit down
on it drills down on the sad passage of time right so he comes back and his daughter now is he's he
stayed the same age that that just blew me away but there are things that Nolan does that I go
listen I don't know what your thinking is this is what we talked about
someone needs to get to Christopher Nolan and say listen I know you want to mess with audio
I get it I know you want to play with that it's artistic you want to do this strange thing and
experiment with the audio you do not experiment with the audio i.e dialogue of a film that is in
ud dialogue to explain films such as interstellar such as tenet you better have that dialogue tenant
without the dialogue you're like people are like what's going on here but he buries it behind
Ludwig's score and Hansa scored an Interstellar I remember sitting there an interstellar and even
batman the dark knight rises I remember sitting in that screening early this was a press reading
so it was a before it came out and I'm sitting there in this giant imax theater in boston going
why am I not hearing the dialogue this is weird because it's usually dialed in here the
something's something's off in here and that was I think one of his first things that he started to
mess with the audio dark knight rises and then you go to interstellar remember that was a big story
everyone was going Nolan people don't come to us and complain the theaters were like don't come to
us and say that the sound's not right Nolan did that it's not our fault you shouldn't be doing
that I don't know what his thought process is I get it he's experimenting but don't do that
because it's lessening your films and I think that again that gets back to what we say these
filmmakers need to have somebody who is going to come up to them like I just said here stop
messing with the audio and your dialogue especially in these films that need it you
need somebody who has that you value that tells you this is a mistake because he might think it's
cool you might think it's an interesting thing to do but it is it's making the it's lessening the
film and that's what we say it's like the choices you make ultimately either make the film better or
worse and Nolan's experimentation of audio makes his films worse I'm going to name seven directors
I'm hoping you can tell me which one has won an oscar for best director
number one spike lee number two paul thomas anderson number three ridley scott four David
Fincher five robert altman six alfred hitchcock seven stanley kubrick this is another one of
these trick questions I know it where you're these are these are this is a gigantic list
of incredible directors that go back through the the history of you talk about the vaunted
directors of all time and we're going to end up with like one oscar winner right I can't fool you
yeah yeah it's not fully but here's that's this is what this is what's crazy about this is that
is that is is is that's the maddening part of Oscars and awards is that it doesn't always go to
the best person in the list we just had of these directors preeminent directors of all time and
the number is what a grand total of is it even two there's seven and I believe the number is zero I'm
just gonna say it's good it's fine is it even two yeah I was trying to say possibly out of all these
directors we've got to have two that but that's but that's that goes wow what what's happening
here but again I think you have to go back and look at the films that they had that were their
best film and let's just use Fincher because it's recent and we go to social network and you say
he's he's in the right place and you just go how did this not happen because there's something else
that caught fire it happens so often in award season where you have something all of a sudden
gets momentum and then it just goes snowballs up Coda just happened that's exactly what happened to
Coda it was really a movie that no one was talking about as even an awards film really a major player
when apple acquired that out of Sundance Coda was sitting there they put it out I believe in
august of last year and everyone was like that's fine it's fine we like the film it's good but
then it kind of went away and then apple said we're going to really attack this film
as an fyc film as an Oscars film and let's push this and it started getting momentum it started
winning here and here but if you go back at coding you look speaking of directors and you look at
Sean Hader who directed that film I don't believe she has a single nomination from any critics group
anywhere which is really unheard of for a film when you talk about a best picture you're at
least talking about a director that's in the conversation and I think that that's a real
rare occurrence when you look at Coda but a lot of times it's really about timing these
these directors had something that caught a film that caught fire up against them and it was that
director's moment but the fact that you have zero is just it's I know that's it's baffling because
you you go back and you go how is that possible but you'd have to go back and look at every year
and say what was it what was the film that came through and like king's speech and just was like
oh it's king's speech and you're like it's the king's speech really you're kidding me no but as
you go back you assess it and you're like that was the wrong decision it was objectively which which
films stood the test of time king's speech or social network okay any even Tarantino I believe
even recently said social network is his best film of the past decade and probably beyond and
again I'm not it's not my best film of the past decade and beyond for me because of Quentin
Tarantino but I love hearing when another director says the same thing that's awesome and I'm going
to say an unpopular opinion I love molly's game more yep maybe just a female protagonist so
identified more but I absolutely love that but don't forget that's Sorkin directing ah okay
so so so that's Sorkin directing good point right so but it's interesting here so okay let's talk
about that's I love you brought that up because when you talk about director and screenwriter the
combination not every director is a good writer and not every writer is a good director okay
when you look at Aaron Sorkin you look at a writer who is one of the best if not the best working in
Hollywood today right and you give him a script such as social network and then you couple that
with David Fincher direction and you get social network then you flip it and you go to trial to
chicago seven and you get Aaron Sorkin writing and you get Aaron Sorkin directing and you don't get
anywhere near not even in the same universe and it speaks to I think that these are two different
skills direction and writing are not the same skills and I think there are some director writers
that maybe should just be directing or maybe just should be writing and I think Aaron Sorkin has yet
for me to prove that he's at certainly at a Fincher level but few are but still maybe
maybe you're just a writer maybe you're just a director there's directors I’ve seen that have
written and you're just like I saw something recently where I said I think that if you give
if you would have directed this and let someone else write the script it would have been better
there's something's gonna pop in my head but again those are two distinct skills
and I think we have a bleeding sometimes and sometimes you can't do it all maybe you can but
the chances are lower the more that you try to do that's well write direct act you can have someone
who does all these things well Clooney has had some good films directorially and he's been in
but I think it's hard it's really hard to get all of those skills because these are all different
things you're juggling three completely different things Ben Affleck and Argo 100 oh he shows the
instinct right there right Ben Affleck and Argo's a fantastic film a crowd pleaser all
these things and he shows a ton of talent then you go look at this movie that he did like a few
years after that I'm forgetting it now it's like a warner brothers film period piece with him and
but it was not a great film so it's again it gets back to you can have one great film that doesn't
mean every film you ever make for the rest of time is going to be great and that's the importance of
when you go down to watch a film and sit down is to forget all that about the director and what
you're about to see and just evaluate what is there on the screen not who's behind the camera
what is on the screen and I think there are people in this business film critics who get
bogged down in who's the director this and this I'm like it doesn't matter ultimately
it doesn't matter when you think about it it's really about the final product period.