Quentin Tarantino paid tribute to Robert Redford and the Sundance Institute while at the Burbank International Film Festival, according to The Hollywood Reporter. After receiving the festival’s Vanguard Award at the Burbank Marriott this past weekend, the filmmaker talked about his experiences in a career-spanning interview.
When the discussion reached how he broke in with his debut film, Reservoir Dogs, the director praised the Institute, having attended its Directors Lab in 1991 while in early development on the crime drama, and the impact it had on him and other filmmakers:
None of us independent filmmakers would be where we are without the Sundance Film Institute…A lot of money and a lot of people are dedicating their time just for us, just to give us the chance [to make an independent film]…They were saying, ‘You’re young, and we might get on your case, we might bust your balls, but we see you.’ I just couldn’t believe something could be that artistically philanthropic. So thank you very much, Mr. Redford.
Tarantino’s stance toward the Institute and Festival appears to have changed with these comments, as he previously commented in Peter Biskind’s 2004 book, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film, his disappointment when Reservoir Dogs was passed over for awards due to its violent content:
They were liberal in the worst sense. It wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if I hadn’t been told by everyone that I was gonna win—something. But it hurt my feelings. I was sad, I was mad. When [the ceremony] was over, I did a slightly less drastic version of storming out. ‘F–k all you!’
Former Sundance programmer Cathy Schulman also stated in Biskind’s book how the director refused to collaborate with the Festival after that snub:
We were always trying to involve him in everything…We tried to get him on the jury. We tried to get him to work in the labs as a resource person. He was never accessible to us.
In addition to Tarantino, Sundance helped launch the careers of several other noteworthy filmmakers in the 90s, including Steven Soderbergh, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, and Paul Thomas Anderson.
Redford, who founded the Sundance Institute and Film Festival, passed away on September 16th at the age of 89.
Leave a Comment