Is Quentin Tarantino An Abusive Jerk? Here's What We Know
Back in October, when news of Harvey Weinstein's serial sexual assaults first emerged, Quentin Tarantino was one of the first directors to apologize for not doing more to protect women from the producer. In an interview with the New York Times, Tarantino owned up to knowing about Weinstein's abuse of actresses Mira Sorvino and Rose McGowan and called on his fellow male directors to "vow to do better by our sisters."
Now, Tarantino is under fire after Uma Thurman described being mistreated on the set of Tarantino's "Kill Bill" and after a journalist unearthed a 2003 radio interview in which Tarantino defended convicted rapist Roman Polanski. Here's what's going on.
Thurman Says Tarantino Knew That Weinstein Sexually Assaulted Her Before They Shot 'Kill Bill'
Uma Thurman, who starred in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill," broke her silence about Weinstein this weekend in a profile by New York Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd. Thurman told Dowd that Weinstein sexually assaulted her some time after "Pulp Fiction" came out. "He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things," she said. What's more, Thurman told Dowd that she told Tarantino about the assault before they started filming "Kill Bill" and that Tarantino was initially dismissive of her concerns.
She says Tarantino noticed after a dinner that she was skittish around Weinstein, which was a problem, since they were all about to make "Kill Bill." She says she reminded Tarantino that she had already told him about the Savoy incident, but "he probably dismissed it like 'Oh, poor Harvey, trying to get girls he can't have,' whatever he told himself, who knows?" But she reminded him again and "the penny dropped for him. He confronted Harvey."
Thurman says that she received a "half-assed apology" from Weinstein after Tarantino confronted him.
Tarantino Says He Threatened To Find Another Producer For 'Kill Bill' If Weinstein Didn't Apologize To Thurman
In a long Q&A with Deadline published Monday night, Tarantino confirmed that he confronted Weinstein and said that he made his participation in "Kill Bill" contingent on Weinstein's apology to Thurman.
That was when I realized there was a pattern, in Harvey's luring and pushing attacks. So I made Harvey apologize to Uma. In the Maureen Dowd article it says, that is when Quentin confronted Harvey? Well, my confrontation was saying, you have to go to Uma. This happened. You have to apologize to her and she has to accept your apology, if we're going to do Kill Bill together…
I knew he was lying, that everything Uma was saying, was the truth. When he tried to wriggle out of it, and how things actually happened, I never bought his story. I said, I don't believe you. I believe her. And if you want to do Kill Bill, you need to make this right.
[Deadline]
Tarantino Reportedly Spit On And Choked Thurman For The Camera During The Shooting Of 'Kill Bill'
Dowd also reported that Tarantino personally spit on Thurman's face and choked her with a chain while filming scenes in "Kill Bill."
Thurman says that in "Kill Bill," Tarantino had done the honors with some of the sadistic flourishes himself, spitting in her face in the scene where Michael Madsen is seen on screen doing it and choking her with a chain in the scene where a teenager named Gogo is on screen doing it.
Thurman appears to allude to these incidents as "so many rings of fire" in the interview. "I had really always felt a connection to the greater good in my work with Quentin and most of what I allowed to happen to me and what I participated in was kind of like a horrible mud wrestle with a very angry brother," she said.
Tarantino Admits To Spitting On And Choking Thurman But Claims It Was Necessary And Respectful
In his Deadline interview, Tarantino didn't deny spitting on and choking Thurman and asked, "What's the fucking problem?"
Who else should do it? A grip? One, I didn't trust Michael Madsen because, I don't know where the spit's going to go, if Michael Madsen does it. I talked to Uma and I said, look. I've got to kind of commit to doing this to you… I said, I think I need to do it. I'll only do it twice, at the most, three times. But I can't have you laying here, getting spit on, again and again and again, because somebody else is messing it up by missing. It is hard to spit on people, as it turns out.
[Deadline]
Tarantino also claimed that it was Thurman's idea for Tarantino to choke her.
[I]t was Uma's suggestion. To just wrap the thing around her neck, and choke her. Not forever, not for a long time. But it's not going to look right. I can act all strangle-ey, but if you want my face to get red and the tears to come to my eye, then you kind of need to choke me.
[Deadline]
Tarantino concludes, "I couldn't have respected Uma more during the making of the movie."
Thurman Says Tarantino Bullied Her Into Driving An Unsafe Car For 'Kill Bill,' Resulting In A Serious Crash
In her New York Times interview, Thurman also described a harrowing incident on the set of "Kill Bill" in which Tarantino bullied her into driving a dangerous car for a scene. The car crashed while Thurman was driving it, leading to what she describes as "my permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees."
[S]he had been led to believe by a teamster, she says, that the car, which had been reconfigured from a stick shift to an automatic, might not be working that well…
She says she insisted that she didn't feel comfortable operating the car and would prefer a stunt person to do it…
"Quentin came in my trailer and didn't like to hear no, like any director," she says. "He was furious because I'd cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: 'I promise you the car is fine. It's a straight piece of road.'" He persuaded her to do it, and instructed: "'Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair won't blow the right way and I'll make you do it again.' But that was a deathbox that I was in. The seat wasn't screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road."
Thurman said she tried to obtain footage of the crash, but Miramax (Weinstein's production company at the time) refused to give it to her unless she signed a waiver releasing them of responsibility for the crash.
Thurman says her mind meld with Tarantino was rattled. "We were in a terrible fight for years," she explains. "We had to then go through promoting the movies. It was all very thin ice. We had a fateful fight at Soho House in New York in 2004 and we were shouting at each other because he wouldn't let me see the footage and he told me that was what they had all decided."
Tarantino provided the footage to Thurman only recently. You can watch it here:
Tarantino Says He Regrets The Crash And Played No Role In Withholding Footage Of It From Thurman
In his Deadline interview, Tarantino denied coercing Thurman into driving the car and called the crash "one of the biggest regrets of my life."
None of us ever considered it a stunt. It was just driving. None of us looked at it as a stunt. Maybe we should have, but we didn't. I'm sure when it was brought up to me, that I rolled my eyes and was irritated. But I'm sure I wasn't in a rage and I wasn't livid. I didn't go barging into Uma's trailer, screaming at her to get into the car. I can imagine maybe rolling my eyes and thinking, we spent all this money taking this stick shift Karmann Ghia and changing the transmission, just for this shot.
[Deadline]
Tarantino also denied being involved in the decision to withhold the crash footage from Thurman and contended that finding the footage for her this year was "a herculean task."
Uma thought I had acquiesced to them not letting her see the footage. I didn't know any of that was necessarily going on. I knew they weren't letting her see the footage, but I didn't know she thought I was part of that. She had just told me they hadn't let her see the footage.
She got in touch with me this year and said, I really do need to see that footage. We need to make this right. I agreed with her and went out on a herculean task, to find the footage. We found the storage facility where we had a bunch of stuff. Again, this was 15 years ago, and we pull out of the boxes. Shannon McIntosh goes through all the boxes. First, we find something I had already seen, which was the edited footage, so you don't actually see the crash. Then, we found the crash footage. I was so happy when we found the crash footage, because I was going to be able to present it to Uma.
[Deadline]
Thurman Clarified In An Instagram Post That She Does Not Blame Tarantino For Covering Up The Crash
In an Instagram post on Monday, Thurman emphasized that she blames Weinstein, producers Lawrence Bender and E. Bennett Walsh and talent agency CAA for covering up the crash — not Tarantino.
Quentin Tarantino, was deeply regretful and remains remorseful about this sorry event, and gave me the footage years later so i could expose it and let it see the light of day, regardless of it most likely being an event for which justice will never be possible.
he also did so with full knowledge it could cause him personal harm, and i am proud of him for doing the right thing and for his courage.
[via Instagram]
In A 2003 Interview, Tarantino Defended Roman Polanski And Said Statutory Rape Is 'Not Rape'
Thurman's Instagram post might have put a damper on the controversy if Jezebel hadn't dug up a 2003 Howard Stern Show interview in which Tarantino vehemently denies that Roman Polanski raped a 13-year-old girl. Polanski pleaded guilty to unlawful intercourse with a minor in 1977. His victim testified that he plied her with champagne and Quaaludes before having oral, anal and vaginal sex with her in spite of her protestations. According to Tarantino in 2003, this is "not rape."
He didn't rape a 13-year-old. It was statutory rape… he had sex with a minor. That's not rape. To me, when you use the word rape, you're talking about violent, throwing them down — it's like one of the most violent crimes in the world. You can't throw the word rape around. It's like throwing the word 'racist' around. It doesn't apply to everything people use it for.
[via Jezebel]
Tarantino also insisted, against the protests of Stern and co-host Robin Quivers, that the victim "wanted to have it" and "was down with this."
Tarantino has not yet commented on whether he still believes, in 2018, that 13-year-olds can consent to sex with adults.
Tarantino Also Allegedly Told Rose McGowan, Repeatedly, That He Masturbated To Footage Of Her Feet
What's more, Rose McGowan — who appeared in Tarantino's "Death Proof" — writes in her new memoir, "Brave," that Tarantino repeatedly demeaned her by telling her, in front of other people, that he enjoyed masturbating to footage of her feet.
Recounting how he used to tell McGowan he liked to watch on laser disc one of her movie scenes in which she paints her toes, she sneers: "Tarantino has a known foot fetish. That means Tarantino paid extra money to jerk off to my young feet and he told me about it loudly, over and over, for years in front of numerous people, as if I should be so thrilled that he donated his solid-motherfucking-gold semen that is clearly better than all the other semen in the world, and he gave it up for little ol' me? It's time men realized their semen isn't all that."
