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#but this is so weird?? like i get if she hit him hed defend himself but she didnt even touch him?
mushyoctopus · 4 years
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We need to talk about Kevin did not age well did it
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angrylizardjacket · 5 years
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ask your destiny to dance [17] {Roger Taylor}
[masterpost]
It takes Roger exactly two weeks to realise he doesn’t know Ash nearly as well as he thought he did. There’s a lot to glean about a person from their room, and what they say, but not everything, not even close to everything.
“So I guess you’re working tomorrow?” Roger asks, leaning against the bar as Ash polishes a glass. It comes as a surprise when she makes a face, shaking her head. “We’re going on a pub crawl, if you wanna come along then.” 
Ash takes her time before answering, hanging up the glass and pulling another from the rack before she finally speaks.
“I can’t, I’m busy, sorry.” And she sounds... uncomfortable about it. Roger’s never known her to be uncomfortable about anything that didn’t relate to her home life, and she can see the moment he jumps to that conclusion. “I’m going to Paris in the afternoon,” she says quickly, and Roger’s taken aback, “I don’t get home until late; train times, you know?” 
“A day trip to Paris?” He asks, and Maureen leans over to Ash with a small smile.
“Is that where you go on those Saturdays? That’s cute, Ash, little routine trips to France.” She flicks Ash with the end of her tea towel, to which Ash smiles despite herself, blushing and flicking Maureen back.
“Oi, I’m just going to Paris, nothing cute about it. I’m allowed to have hobbies, you know.” She argued back, and Maureen snickered, smiling fondly at the ginger before she tucked her tea towel into her back pocket and went back to cutting lime wedges. “I’m going to The Louvre.” Ash explained to Roger, cheeks still faintly pink.
“The Louvre?” There was a surprise in his voice that Ash had expected, and when she looks up at him, she still seems a bit defensive.
“There’s free entry once per month; first Saturday at six.” She pauses, and when his expression brightens, hers falls and she feels like she’s said too much.
“Do you go every month?” He sounds delighted at the prospect, and Ash wants to defend herself, but then he says, “you shouldn’t be catching the train so late, it’s dark even at six, love, you must get home at like midnight; just let me drive you.”
“Rog, you don’t need to do that,” but her grin is more relieved than anything else, the tension leaving her shoulders as she goes back to her work, “you guys are going out tomorrow, and besides, it’s not like I’ve never done it before.” 
“I can get on the piss with them any time; this only happens once a month.” And the way his words make Ash smile, quietly pleased, he’s already pretty sure it’s going to be worth it.
Things between them have been... weird. Good weird, sure, but that doesn’t make them less weird. They haven’t really had time for an actual date yet, they just sort of show up at each other’s homes and watch TV and make out whenever they don’t have work or rehearsals of a night. It’s been good, it’s felt safe. 
When Ash sits on the curb outside of her dorm, she feels nervous more than anything else. It’s not a feeling she’s used to; she’s never been nervous around Roger before; it takes her probably too long to realise how much she wants this to go well. When he shows up, just after midday, he’s beaming from the second hand station wagon that he’d gotten since recording the album. There’s a map in the passenger seat.
“I’ve driven there before, but not for a while, you’re going to have to direct me.” He advises as she buckles her seat belt, putting her sketchbook and thermos by her feet and unfolding the map.
It’s a long drive, just over five hours, and Ash is nervous for about three of them, which is only compounded by getting lost twice, and eventually Roger pulls over.
“You’ve been tense since I showed up; what’s wrong?” He asks, and Ash sighs heavily, picking up her thermos and pouring herself a small cup of tea.
“I don’t exactly go blabbing about the fact that I make semi-frequent trips to Paris, alright?” Ash admits, and she takes a sip of her drink, looking out through the windshield. Roger’s not sure what that means, how to respond, and after a minute, she adds, “Freddie doesn’t even really know.” And she finishes the tea, putting the thermos back, and Roger’s still quiet. When she finally looks at him, his expression is fondly amused.
“You’ve made me feel all special.” It’s far too genuine to be a joke, and Ash lets herself smile back, rolling her eyes at him.
“Don’t let it go to your head.” She warned, and Roger’s smile sharpened as he pulled back onto the road.
“Too late.” But he reaches over to rest his hand on her knee as she opens the map up again, and her heart grows warm, her anxiety easing. They turn up the radio for the rest of the trip; Ash hums along to the songs she only knows the tune of without too much hassle, yet somehow can’t seem to actually sing a note to save her life. She finishes butchering Elton’s Crocodile Rock at the top of her lungs, and Roger’s sides hurt from laughing, and she’s grinning in a way that means she knows exactly how terrible she is and how much it amuses Roger.
“I have other skills.” She says dismissively, grinning with her nose in the air as the radio host announces another song, and instead of answering, Roger sings along to the radio like he’d written the melody himself. “Showoff.” Ash laughed, and Roger’s eyes crease as he grins.
“I don’t have other skills, I gotta make use of this one.” He replied, lightly, and Ash’s expression softened.
“Oh shut it, you’ve got at least two other skills, probably.” She played along with his joke, watching him as he sings along to the rock song blaring from the radio, and it’s relaxed and easy, and she finds herself wondering why she’d been so worried just a few hours before. 
They hit Paris at a quarter to six, and grab some fast food before heading to the gallery. There’s people everywhere, and the line isn’t exactly short to get in, more than a few of them are uni students like them, looking to get in for free, and Ash says hi to a few; the fact that she goes here enough to know other people who do this regularly to is still something that baffles Roger a little. He’s worried she’s getting nervous again when she takes his hand - they’re not the sort of people who hold hands - but when he looks at her, her eyes are shinning and bright as she looks up at the building; she’s excited. 
Ash goes quiet in the gallery, looking around with wide-eyed reverence at the works around them. They move past the entrance slowly; Ash gazes at the works with their plaques memorised, while Roger reads them, fingers laced with hers. 
“Oh, hello.” Voice reverential, Ash greets a statue at the end of the hall like an old friend, and introduces Roger as such. “This is the Venus de Milo, she’s almost two thousand years old, god, look at that marble work, imagine how sharp it would have looked back then,” and then it’s like she’s opened a floodgate, and she’s tugging him along, rambling along the way about each piece they pass, little facts not on the plaques, things she can cite from the top of her head. Above everything, she’s passionate, pulling out of his grip to clutch her hands to her chest and looking up at headless sculpture of what Roger thinks is an angel, and what Ash clarifies to be The Winged Victory of Samothrace.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Ash’s moon-eyed gaze was focused on the statue’s marble garments, but Roger’s only got eyes for her. When he doesn’t answer, she looks to him, catches the way he’s smiling at her, and she feels her cheeks heat up. “What?”
“You really love this stuff, don’t you?” It’s a sincere question, and it’s as if he can see her responses flit through her mind, sarcastic, dismissive, an eye roll, flippant, she passes them all, takes a moment to really look at him, taking her time to breathe in the whole situation before responding.
“More than anything.” It’s a sincere answer, and it catches him off-guard. Ash is many things, but unapologetically enthusiastic is not one Roger’s familiar with.
Turning on her heel, Ash leads further in to the gallery, but it’s finally hits him how much this means to her, this place, these works, bringing him here. They’d been together for barely a fortnight, but they both know it’s felt so much longer than that; she’d taken a gamble, bringing him, he has no doubt she’d have left him in London if she didn’t want him to come along, and something tightens in his chest. 
He doesn’t dwell on it, he takes it in stride well enough, peppering her with questions along the way that she seems thrilled to answer. Tucking her arm into his, they make their way through the building, the babbling turning to banter easily as Roger provides his own commentary on each piece as they pass, which serves to make Ash laugh.
They get to a small painting on the top floor with a border that looks bigger than the picture itself, and Ash has gotten quiet again. 
“Who’s this?” Roger asks, the two of them stepping close to get a closer look.
“The Lacemaker.” Ash sounds a little awed, and when he looks down at her, Roger sees how fondly she’s smiling at the little painting. “She’s my favourite.” 
“’course she is, she’s like you.” Roger answers easily, and Ash makes a face, laughing a little self consciously.
“No she’s not, shut up.” She doesn’t sound like she believes him, a bit of a laugh in her words, but she’s resting her head against Roger’s shoulder and he wraps an arm around her.
“Same focus.” Roger muses, and when Ash looks to him, surprise and confusion on her face, he just grins. “When you sew, you’ve got the same look on your face, same focus.” He explains, and there’s something in Ash’s awed expression that he can’t place, and she pulls away from him too fast for him to really identify it.
She’s pretty sure she loves him.
It’s fucking terrifying.
She can’t look at him, stepping out of his grip as she feels tears well in her eyes as her emotions overwhelm her, not that it’s an uncommon occurrence, Ash has never set foot in an art gallery and not cried, but Roger didn’t need to know that. She’d really been doing well today, too. Usually she gets lost in the scope and detail of The Wedding at Cana, or even comes to obsess over the little details of The Lacemaker, but she’s also usually alone and can get away with it. 
“That’s- Rog, that’s really sweet of you to say.” And he can hear in her voice that she’s trying not to believe him, that she can’t let herself believe him. And when she turns back, she’s wiping at her eyes, and he wants to try and comfort her, but she’s already walking past him briskly, leading to the next painting.
“There’s something I’ve... well, I’ve always wanted to try here.” He hears her say, voice firm as if she’s trying to move quickly past whatever the moment she’d just had was. She leads not to the painting, but to one of the weirdly low, backless sofas that are scattered around for people to view the paintings from. This one’s empty; Ash looks around for security, and seeing none, steps up onto it. 
“And what’s that?” He asks with a smirk, the sofa giving her only about two inches of height on him. He doesn’t ask why she’d almost started crying, and for that she’s thankful. Instead, his hands come to rest on her hips, and he’s smiling at her in that way that sets her heart aflutter.
“Don’t ruin this.” She warns very quietly, amused smile on her lips, and Roger quirks an eyebrow.
“Ruin what?” He asks, shooting for innocent, a million different things running through his mind that could make her smile, but would definitely ruin the moment; he bites his tongue. 
Ash cups his face in her hands, and she can’t help but laugh as she leans in to kiss him. It starts sweet and tender, her lips soft against his, but he wraps his arms around her, pulling her close and deepening the kiss. There’s people moving around them, most ignoring them, some stare, but neither of them seem to care. She tastes mostly like the tea she’d sculled in the car when they’d arrived, and she’s got a hand in his hair when he presses kisses from her jaw, trailing down her neck, and she laughs, a little giddy. He pulls back, if only to see her bright eyed and blushing. 
“Let’s go home.” She says softly, and Roger’s never agreed to something so quickly, his heart elated to see Ash giggling and mischievous as they backtrack through the gallery, knowing that he and the art were the things that made her smile like that. 
“I didn’t ruin it.” He sounds a little smug when he says it as they walk through the streets of Paris back to his car, and Ash glances at him out of the corner of her eye, snorting.
“I could see you holding yourself back from a one-liner about pinning masterpieces to walls or something like that; I appreciate your discretion.” She tells him, deadpan, and Roger gives her a self-satisfied grin.
“It certainly wasn’t easy.” He agrees, but she still reaches out and takes his hand. When they get to his car, he goes to head around to the driver’s side, but she pulls him back for a moment, pressing a kiss to his lips. After a moment, he’s got a hand on her hips, pressing her against the side of the car, and she sighs against his lips, her arms around his neck. Her legs slide open easily as she pulls him closer, letting him slide a knee between her thighs.
“Christ,” Roger breaks away from the kiss, murmuring the word against her neck as her nails graze his scalp.
“Thank you for today.” She whispers softly, and he can hear the smile in her words. He presses a kiss to her shoulder.
“Any time, love.” He steps back from her, enough to see her fond smile, and to give one in return, before he heads around to the driver’s side and they both get in the car.
It’s well past midnight by the time they get back, and Ash follows Roger up to his flat with a yawn, flinching as the door opens and Brian, Freddie, and John all greet them with a cheer, obviously taking a pit stop in the middle of their pub crawl.
“I was starting to sober up; the walk between the last pub and the next is directly smack bang in the middle of here.” Freddie claims with a surprising amount of confidence considering his words make no sense.
“No- this place is on the way to the next pub.” John corrects, and Ash has to giggle at the sight and sound of a drunk John Deacon. It never fails to amuse her, he’s surprisingly confident and well spoken.
“Yes! Deaky is right! You two can join us!” Freddie brandishes and subsequently spills on Brian, who’s sitting beside him.
“Go if you want, I’m knackered.” Ash yawns, giving Roger’s shoulder a nudge, moving past him to his room.
“Actually, I think I’m right, I’ve been driving for a while,” Roger says, making to follow Ash, only to hear Freddie boo loudly, and John call out after them.
“Where’d you guys go?” He asks, and Roger answers over his shoulder.
“Art gallery.” He answers, and he hears Ash snort from his bedroom.
“That’s... Rog, that’s surprisingly cute, didn’t know you had it in you.” Brian smiles at him, and Roger feels a little patronised by the pride in his flatmate’s voice. He flips Brian off, along with the rest of them, since John was grinning like the cat who got the cream and Freddie looked like he was three seconds away from actually ‘awe’ing. 
“Did you kids have fun?” Freddie calls, sounding nothing so much like his own mother, wearing a shiteating grin, which only got wider as Roger told him to piss off, slamming the door once he got into his room. 
Ash was standing by his bed, pulling off the shorts she’d been wearing all day, already wearing one of his shirts. Roger can hear the others on the other side of the door already laughing and talking about something else, all three of them trying to convince themselves to get up and move on to the next pub. She gives him an amused smile and Roger just rolls his eyes at his friends’ whole situation.
They don’t speak, though Ash’s yawn triggers one in Roger, and when he’s stripped down to his boxers, she’s waiting for him beneath the covers. When he kisses her, it’s a thank you for the day, and she hums a soft, contented noise against his lips. They’re too tired to even fool around, and Ash wraps her arm around him as he turns to lay on his side, pressing her chest to his back, pressing a kiss to his shoulder blade before they fall asleep.
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trendingnewsb · 6 years
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Quentin Tarantinos History of Disturbing Behavior Toward His Actresses
For Quentin Tarantino, a man whose taste for portraying violence against women has often been mistaken for feminist filmmaking, the line between fiction and reality is equally blurred.
As a writer and director, Tarantino is famous for pushing his female heroines towards acts of brutal violence; but more often than not, Tarantinos women find themselves on the receiving end of the directors graphic imaginationraped, beaten, killed, whipped and branded.
Like so many (male) directors before him, Tarantinos work has relied on the rape-revenge fantasyan outdated trope that throws in a sexual-assault backstory instead of doing the work of female character development. As a Mic article, Kill Bill and Our Troubled Relationship with Rape Revenge Movies elaborated, While sexual assault is worthy of in depth exploration on screen, these rape and revenge films do not depict the reality of how these assaults can affect women. Rather, they look to fetishize the act and use it as motivation for unabashed gore and violence. What should be empowering films featuring women rising out of past trauma to exact justice are often instead turned into a form of torture porn.
And yet, Tarantino has often been called a feministusually by other men. Hes the auteur of choice for cinephiles who like their directors male and their feminist films full of sexualized violence and lingering feet footage. Harvey Weinstein himself called Tarantino the most pro-woman ever, continuing, [Look at] Uma Thurman [in Kill Bill], Pam Grier [in Jackie Brown], Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger [in Inglourious Basterds].
Since Weinstein, who stands accused of sexual assault by more than 90 women, asked, maybe it is time to revisit those iconic Tarantino heroinesand take the director to task not just for the female characters hes created, but the real-life women he mistreated in the process.
In recent years, Tarantinos legacy has come under fire by increasingly skeptical critics. In 2015, The New York Times A.O. Scott called 2015s The Hateful Eight an orgy of elaborately justified misogyny. And new allegations by his former muse, Uma Thurman, threaten to unmask Tarantino as little more than what his films would suggest: a man who is altogether too interested in torturing women.
I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.
Diane Kruger on Quentin Tarantino
Over the weekend, Thurman accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in The New York Times.
In a series of painful, shocking anecdotes, the actress also revealed that Tarantino pressured her into a potentially life-threatening scene while filming Kill Bill. Thurman told the Times that this incident occurred after she had disclosed to Tarantino that Weinstein, who produced Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, had previously assaulted her.
Thurman had expressed that she wanted a stunt person to do the dangerous-seeming scene, which involved operating a wobbly car that she described as a death trap. But Tarantino was insistent. He was furious because Id cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: I promise you the car is fine. Its a straight piece of road, Thurman recalled. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair wont blow the right way and Ill make you do it again. She added, The seat wasnt screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.
Newly-released footage shows the subsequent crash, which Thurman says resulted in a concussion and knee damage. She described the accident to the Times, remembering, The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me. I felt this searing pain and thought, Oh my God, Im never going to walk againWhen I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didnt feel he had tried to kill me.
Thurman also told The New York Times that Tarantino withheld the crash footage from her for years, saying, Quentin finally atoned by giving it to me after 15 years, right? She added, Not that it matters now, with my permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees.
A recent Sydney Morning Herald article fleshed out the connection between the directors oeuvre and the new accusations: No matter how Tarantino might defend his blood-spattered back catalogue as pro-woman or true cinematic equality, violence in the QT pantheon so often seems to be, with a few exceptions, something done by men to womenTarantino loves to put his female characters through hell. We know now, from Thurmans account of his on-set behaviour, that he also likes to do the same to at least one of his actresses in the name of authenticity in performance.
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In the past, Tarantino has admitted that he knew enough to do more than I did about Harvey Weinstein. He told The New York Times that, There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasnt secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him. Tarantino said that his ex-girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, had told him about Weinsteins unwelcome advances and unwanted touching, and that he also knew about Rose McGowans settlement with the producer. Weinstein distributed his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs in 1992, and has served as a producer on every Tarantino project since.
In the New York Times story, Thurman briefly summarized other abuses she suffered on the set of Kill Bill, with the Times reporting that, 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.
In a subsequentDeadlineinterview, Tarantino called Thurmans car crash one of the biggest regrets of his life. He told Deadline that the good things I did are in the Maureen Dowd article, butcomplained that, they are de-emphasized to not make any impression. Thesegood thingsseem to include making Weinstein apologize to Thurman for assaulting her, and the herculean task of going to a storage facility to find the tapes of Thurmans car crash, which she told theTimesshes been trying to get for years. Tarantino expressed zero regret for strangling and spitting on his heroine, essentially bragging to Deadline about the skill with which he spat on Thurman for aKill Billscene. So the idea is, Im doing it, Im taking responsibility, Tarantino explained. Also, Im the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit. I know where I want it to land.
Actress Jessica Chastain commented on this perverse directorial dynamic in a series of tweets on Saturday, writing, I keep imagining Tarantino spitting in Umas face and strangling her with a chain for KILL BILL. How many images of women in media do we celebrate that showcase abuse? When did this become normalized entertainment? When violence against women is used as a plot device to make the characters stronger then we have a problem. It is not empowering to be beaten and raped, yet so many films make it their pheonix [sp] moment for women. We dont need abuse in order to be powerful. We already are.
Chastain concluded, Directors inserting themselves into a scene depicting abuse is crossing a boundary. How can an actor feel safe when your director is strangling you? Judd Apatow also reacted to the allegations on Twitter, writing, The number one job a producer and director has on a set is to make sure that everyone is safe. That can mean safe from reckless stunt preparation or safe from predatory producers physically attacking them. There is no excuse for not protecting your cast and crew.
Thurman isnt the only woman who has suffered from Tarantinos boundary-crossing.
Diane Kruger, another actress whose Tarantino role Weinstein pointed to as one of the directors feminist credentials, told Parade about her unique death scene in Inglourious Basterds: I get strangled, which was especially weird because you feel it when someone is choking you, so it was an interesting day at the office. The funny part is that Quentins hands are in the close-up. I wont give away the name of the actor who kills me, but Quentin said, Hes not going to do it right, itll either be too much or too little. I know exactly what I need and I think I should just do it. I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.
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In an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Tarantino recalled asking Kruger if she would let [him] strangle her: And so I just said to her, what I want to do is, Im going to be the hands, and what Im going to do is, Im going to just strangle you. Im going to cut off your air for just a little bit of time, were going to see the reaction in your face, and then well cut. He bragged, It was real. It looked really good, explaining that, When somebody is actually being strangled there is a thing that happens to their face, they turn a certain color, and their veins pop out and stuff. In other films, he complained, It always just seems fake.
In an interview promoting 2007s Grindhouse, Fergie recalled being bitten by the director during one rehearsal. She said, He came to the set and ran lines with me. In one scene Quentin got really into the character and bit me. My manager has it on his camera. Im not going to sue him or anything, but I wanted documentation. It was crazy cool.
Rose McGowan, who also starred in Grindhouse, wrote in her new memoir Brave that, The first time I met Tarantino, and for years after, every time hed see me, he said, Rose! I have your movie Jawbreaker on laser disc! I cant tell you how many times I used the shot where youre painting your toes!' She continued, That means Tarantino paid extra money to jerk off to my young feet and told me about it loudly, over and over, for years, in front of numerous people.
Additionally, according to The Telegraph, McGowan writes that for all the praise Tarantino receives for depicting strong female characters in his films, he also beats the s— out of them for his enjoyment.
Thurman, who has spent years fighting for her video evidence, and even more years staying silent, has some of the strongest insight into the cult of Tarantinothe fictional women he brings to life and the real ones he endangers. Personally, it has taken me 47 years to stop calling people who are mean to you in love with you, she told the Times. It took a long time because I think that as little girls we are conditioned to believe that cruelty and love somehow have a connection and that is like the sort of era that we need to evolve out of.
Tarantino is currently on the hunt for an authentic Polish thespian to play the part of Roman Polanski in his upcoming film, which will reportedly take on the 1969 Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate.
This piece has been updated to include comments from a Deadline interview with Tarantino published late Monday.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/quentin-tarantinos-history-of-disturbing-behavior-toward-his-actresses
from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2IslkJV via Viral News HQ
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trendingnewsb · 6 years
Text
Quentin Tarantinos History of Disturbing Behavior Toward His Actresses
For Quentin Tarantino, a man whose taste for portraying violence against women has often been mistaken for feminist filmmaking, the line between fiction and reality is equally blurred.
As a writer and director, Tarantino is famous for pushing his female heroines towards acts of brutal violence; but more often than not, Tarantinos women find themselves on the receiving end of the directors graphic imaginationraped, beaten, killed, whipped and branded.
Like so many (male) directors before him, Tarantinos work has relied on the rape-revenge fantasyan outdated trope that throws in a sexual-assault backstory instead of doing the work of female character development. As a Mic article, Kill Bill and Our Troubled Relationship with Rape Revenge Movies elaborated, While sexual assault is worthy of in depth exploration on screen, these rape and revenge films do not depict the reality of how these assaults can affect women. Rather, they look to fetishize the act and use it as motivation for unabashed gore and violence. What should be empowering films featuring women rising out of past trauma to exact justice are often instead turned into a form of torture porn.
And yet, Tarantino has often been called a feministusually by other men. Hes the auteur of choice for cinephiles who like their directors male and their feminist films full of sexualized violence and lingering feet footage. Harvey Weinstein himself called Tarantino the most pro-woman ever, continuing, [Look at] Uma Thurman [in Kill Bill], Pam Grier [in Jackie Brown], Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger [in Inglourious Basterds].
Since Weinstein, who stands accused of sexual assault by more than 90 women, asked, maybe it is time to revisit those iconic Tarantino heroinesand take the director to task not just for the female characters hes created, but the real-life women he mistreated in the process.
In recent years, Tarantinos legacy has come under fire by increasingly skeptical critics. In 2015, The New York Times A.O. Scott called 2015s The Hateful Eight an orgy of elaborately justified misogyny. And new allegations by his former muse, Uma Thurman, threaten to unmask Tarantino as little more than what his films would suggest: a man who is altogether too interested in torturing women.
I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.
Diane Kruger on Quentin Tarantino
Over the weekend, Thurman accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault in The New York Times.
In a series of painful, shocking anecdotes, the actress also revealed that Tarantino pressured her into a potentially life-threatening scene while filming Kill Bill. Thurman told the Times that this incident occurred after she had disclosed to Tarantino that Weinstein, who produced Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, had previously assaulted her.
Thurman had expressed that she wanted a stunt person to do the dangerous-seeming scene, which involved operating a wobbly car that she described as a death trap. But Tarantino was insistent. He was furious because Id cost them a lot of time. But I was scared. He said: I promise you the car is fine. Its a straight piece of road, Thurman recalled. Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair wont blow the right way and Ill make you do it again. She added, The seat wasnt screwed down properly. It was a sand road and it was not a straight road.
Newly-released footage shows the subsequent crash, which Thurman says resulted in a concussion and knee damage. She described the accident to the Times, remembering, The steering wheel was at my belly and my legs were jammed under me. I felt this searing pain and thought, Oh my God, Im never going to walk againWhen I came back from the hospital in a neck brace with my knees damaged and a large massive egg on my head and a concussion, I wanted to see the car and I was very upset. Quentin and I had an enormous fight, and I accused him of trying to kill me. And he was very angry at that, I guess understandably, because he didnt feel he had tried to kill me.
Thurman also told The New York Times that Tarantino withheld the crash footage from her for years, saying, Quentin finally atoned by giving it to me after 15 years, right? She added, Not that it matters now, with my permanently damaged neck and my screwed-up knees.
A recent Sydney Morning Herald article fleshed out the connection between the directors oeuvre and the new accusations: No matter how Tarantino might defend his blood-spattered back catalogue as pro-woman or true cinematic equality, violence in the QT pantheon so often seems to be, with a few exceptions, something done by men to womenTarantino loves to put his female characters through hell. We know now, from Thurmans account of his on-set behaviour, that he also likes to do the same to at least one of his actresses in the name of authenticity in performance.
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In the past, Tarantino has admitted that he knew enough to do more than I did about Harvey Weinstein. He told The New York Times that, There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasnt secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him. Tarantino said that his ex-girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, had told him about Weinsteins unwelcome advances and unwanted touching, and that he also knew about Rose McGowans settlement with the producer. Weinstein distributed his directorial debut Reservoir Dogs in 1992, and has served as a producer on every Tarantino project since.
In the New York Times story, Thurman briefly summarized other abuses she suffered on the set of Kill Bill, with the Times reporting that, 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.
In a subsequentDeadlineinterview, Tarantino called Thurmans car crash one of the biggest regrets of his life. He told Deadline that the good things I did are in the Maureen Dowd article, butcomplained that, they are de-emphasized to not make any impression. Thesegood thingsseem to include making Weinstein apologize to Thurman for assaulting her, and the herculean task of going to a storage facility to find the tapes of Thurmans car crash, which she told theTimesshes been trying to get for years. Tarantino expressed zero regret for strangling and spitting on his heroine, essentially bragging to Deadline about the skill with which he spat on Thurman for aKill Billscene. So the idea is, Im doing it, Im taking responsibility, Tarantino explained. Also, Im the director, so I can kind of art direct this spit. I know where I want it to land.
Actress Jessica Chastain commented on this perverse directorial dynamic in a series of tweets on Saturday, writing, I keep imagining Tarantino spitting in Umas face and strangling her with a chain for KILL BILL. How many images of women in media do we celebrate that showcase abuse? When did this become normalized entertainment? When violence against women is used as a plot device to make the characters stronger then we have a problem. It is not empowering to be beaten and raped, yet so many films make it their pheonix [sp] moment for women. We dont need abuse in order to be powerful. We already are.
Chastain concluded, Directors inserting themselves into a scene depicting abuse is crossing a boundary. How can an actor feel safe when your director is strangling you? Judd Apatow also reacted to the allegations on Twitter, writing, The number one job a producer and director has on a set is to make sure that everyone is safe. That can mean safe from reckless stunt preparation or safe from predatory producers physically attacking them. There is no excuse for not protecting your cast and crew.
Thurman isnt the only woman who has suffered from Tarantinos boundary-crossing.
Diane Kruger, another actress whose Tarantino role Weinstein pointed to as one of the directors feminist credentials, told Parade about her unique death scene in Inglourious Basterds: I get strangled, which was especially weird because you feel it when someone is choking you, so it was an interesting day at the office. The funny part is that Quentins hands are in the close-up. I wont give away the name of the actor who kills me, but Quentin said, Hes not going to do it right, itll either be too much or too little. I know exactly what I need and I think I should just do it. I have to say it was very strange being strangled by the director.
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In an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Tarantino recalled asking Kruger if she would let [him] strangle her: And so I just said to her, what I want to do is, Im going to be the hands, and what Im going to do is, Im going to just strangle you. Im going to cut off your air for just a little bit of time, were going to see the reaction in your face, and then well cut. He bragged, It was real. It looked really good, explaining that, When somebody is actually being strangled there is a thing that happens to their face, they turn a certain color, and their veins pop out and stuff. In other films, he complained, It always just seems fake.
In an interview promoting 2007s Grindhouse, Fergie recalled being bitten by the director during one rehearsal. She said, He came to the set and ran lines with me. In one scene Quentin got really into the character and bit me. My manager has it on his camera. Im not going to sue him or anything, but I wanted documentation. It was crazy cool.
Rose McGowan, who also starred in Grindhouse, wrote in her new memoir Brave that, The first time I met Tarantino, and for years after, every time hed see me, he said, Rose! I have your movie Jawbreaker on laser disc! I cant tell you how many times I used the shot where youre painting your toes!' She continued, That means Tarantino paid extra money to jerk off to my young feet and told me about it loudly, over and over, for years, in front of numerous people.
Additionally, according to The Telegraph, McGowan writes that for all the praise Tarantino receives for depicting strong female characters in his films, he also beats the s— out of them for his enjoyment.
Thurman, who has spent years fighting for her video evidence, and even more years staying silent, has some of the strongest insight into the cult of Tarantinothe fictional women he brings to life and the real ones he endangers. Personally, it has taken me 47 years to stop calling people who are mean to you in love with you, she told the Times. It took a long time because I think that as little girls we are conditioned to believe that cruelty and love somehow have a connection and that is like the sort of era that we need to evolve out of.
Tarantino is currently on the hunt for an authentic Polish thespian to play the part of Roman Polanski in his upcoming film, which will reportedly take on the 1969 Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate.
This piece has been updated to include comments from a Deadline interview with Tarantino published late Monday.
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/quentin-tarantinos-history-of-disturbing-behavior-toward-his-actresses
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