Vocal artist (not the singing kind)Quentin Tarantinohas much to say about the state of TV today. TheOnce Upon a Time… in Hollywooddirector had some less-than-favorable opinions on the cinematic sleight of how many of the prestige TV shows, such as the Paramount hitYellowstone, use in their visual esthetics. He shared his criticisms during a recent appearance onThe Joe Rogan Experiencealongside hisPulp Fictionco-writer Roger Avary. During his diatribe, Tarantino spoke about his experience with modern television versus his favorite films:
“Everyone talks about how great television is now. And it’s pretty good, I gotta say. But it’s still television to me. What’s the difference between television and a good movie? Because a lot of TV now has the patina of a movie. They’re using cinematic language to get you caught up in it…I’ll see a good Western movie and I’ll remember it the rest of my life. I’ll remember the story, I’ll remember this scene or that scene. It built to an emotional climax of some degree. There’s a payoff to it. But there’s not a payoff on this stuff. There’s just more interconnectional drama.”
Tarantino mused that TV - likeYellowstone- with its visual styleapproximating movies in their cinematographyand color grading, doesn’t have the lasting emotional impact of movies that have closure to a story. From one angle, this could seem like a trick perpetrated by TV makers to make it feel more legitimate in a cinematic way. But from another it would seem that TV’s visual technology is getting cheaper and TV makers' visual styles are just getting more sophisticated.
Quentin Tarantino Displays a Fundamental Misunderstanding of TV
The auteur filmmaker’s criticism of TV largely misunderstands the nature of the format. Television, by and large, isn’t designed to have closure on a grander story. The engine of the medium is supposed to produce endless plots and complications and thus perpetuate the show for as long as possible until it becomes a cultural mainstay that executives, who reluctantly green lit it, can take credit for. To Tarantino’s credit, the lasting emotional impact of TV is, one could argue, on a delayed fuse. While individual episodes, character deaths, and huge twists can linger in people’s memories, often the impact of a series isn’t felt until after its finale, for good or ill depending on if they stick the landing,as theGame of Thronesfinale taught us.
Tarantino continued, describing Yellowstone as nothingmore than “just a soap opera.”
“I didn’t really get around to watching ‘Yellowstone’ the first three years or so. Then I watch the first season and I’m like ‘Wow, this is fucking great!…While I’m watching it, I’m compelled. But at the end of the day it’s just a soap opera. They introduce you to a bunch of characters, you learn their backstories, you know everybody’s connection with everyone else… and then everything else is just your connection to the soap opera.”
I don’t know who is going to tell him, but yeah, that’s just what TV is.
Yellowstone
Yellowstone stars Kevin Costner and centers on his character John Dutton. Dutton and his family live on a cattle ranch just a few hours away from Yellowstone National Park. The series chronicles the family’s struggle to defend their home from an Indian reservation and land developers. As if their life wasn’t complicated enough, the Duttons also have medical issues, political aspirations, and family secrets stacked against them.
