26 December 2015
Newsdesk
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino fell in love with Mad Max: Fury Road even though at first he was "all defiant about" seeing it.
The director-and-screenwriter is a huge fan of the original 1979 dystopian sci-fi film, which stars Mel Gibson as the titular character, and he became equally enthusiastic about the sequel starring Tom Hardy.
“It would have to be the Mad Max movie, Fury Road," he told French outlet Première when asked what his favourite film of 2015 is.
Quentin was reluctant to watch Fury Road initially and he stopped himself from seeing the film for as long as he could.
But when he finally got around to viewing the picture the Pulp Fiction director was pleasantly surprised, especially by leading man Tom's outstanding performance as Max.
"I got a print of Mad Max on 35mm and I watched it in my house, and I had it all weekend and I ended up watching it three different times, and I resisted seeing it for a while because I was like, ‘Mad Max without Mel Gibson? Forget that!'," he shared. "In a world where Mel Gibson exists, how can you cast Tom Hardy? So, I even wanted to get all defiant about it and (hashtag on social media) #NotMyMax. Then I saw the movie and (say), ‘Okay, it’s terrific,’ and he’s pretty good in it, I have to admit."
Although Quentin loves watching films about the future, he prefers to set his own pictures in bygone eras and the Academy Award-winner's penchant for doing so stems primarily from his perspective as a scriptwriter.
"I do like putting scenario and story first, and I actually like masking whatever I want to say in the guise of genre," he said before calling attention to why he decided to make his latest project The Hateful Eight a Western. "However, in this instance, in particular, it’s one of the benefits of the Western genre. There is no other genre that deals with America better, in a subtextual way, than the Westerns being made in the different decades.
"The ‘50s Westerns very much put forth an Eisenhower idea of America, whereas the Westerns of the ‘70s were very cynical about America."
