Cinema Speculation

by Quentin Tarantino

The old-school genre movie directors dealt within a movie industry I can read about in books, but I really can’t imagine. They’d get assigned a producer from the studio that they couldn’t stand. They’d get assigned actors they didn’t think were right for the part. They’d work with 1st AD’s, costume people, directors of photography, production designers who weren’t working for them. They were working for the studio. And it worked the other way around too. Producers and actors would get stuck with hack directors with no feel for the material they were directing, that were just shooting a schedule. Charles Bronson once claimed that was three out of five directors he worked with. Back in those days people would work together and they’d finish their projects despising each other. Especially Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah once said, “A director has to deal with a whole world absolutely teeming with mediocrities, jackals, hangers-on, and just plain killers.” That’s not been my experience in the industry.