Whether it has to do with his style of filmmaking or his maverick take on cinema, Quentin Tarantino stands apart from his contemporaries in Hollywood. The director has carved a niche for himself in the industry with his brand of storytelling that has caught the fancy of audiences across the world while also throwing up a lot of talking points regarding his stylized approach to violence.
Behind the camera, Tarantino is known to have an equally singular and quirky personality that was evident to all his actors and crew members on the sets of his films. During the filming of Kill Bill, the Pulp Fiction director took a radical decision to ban all cell phones on set owing to a particular incident that disturbed his process.
Quentin Tarantino Made This Tough Call For The Welfare Of His Films
Filmmakers who invest blood, sweat, and tears into making a film, are more often than not, extremely particular about how their set should function to ensure that they get the best end product. Quentin Tarantino took this obsession one step further on the sets of his critically acclaimed revenge drama Kill Bill.
The director who is known for his unique storytelling style and off-beat methods of execution, pioneered a new brand of stylized action in the Kill Bill series. Expectedly, the planning and effort that went into visualizing various challenging scenes required actors and crew members to be on their A-game from start to finish to ensure that no mistakes were made.
Therefore, when the ringing of a cell phone interrupted the proceedings, Tarantino was extremely irritated at the unwanted disturbance. In a 2016 interview with Coup De Main, the Oscar winner revealed why this was problematic and how his assistant director’s idea led to his radical decision to ban all cell phones on the set.
“Basically, a phone rang during a scene with Michael Madsen and ruined the scene and threw the whole rest of the night in a bad way. I was really f***ing pissed off and then at one point, my A.D. goes, ‘Quentin, we’re giving them these phones, we can take them away. There was another time, where all of a sudden shooting the scene you hear [the whirring sound] when you turn on a laptop or something. I don’t want any f***ing electronics on my set. Ever since!”
While many may have considered this to be an extreme move by Tarantino, it proves that like all great filmmakers, the pursuit of excellence in cinema was of paramount importance to him. His films are permanent testaments to this.
Quentin Tarantino Believes That Cell Phones Have Drawn People Apart
While Quentin Tarantino strictly adhered to his ‘no cell phones’ policy on his film set owing to the disturbances it can cause during filming, he believed that there were more serious consequences of using the device when it came to human interactions.
The director was of the opinion that the invention of the smartphone and everything that it provides at the touch of the screen was detrimental to relationships. In an in-depth chat with Coup De Main, he elaborated on the dangers of continuously swiping through apps that ultimately affected the dynamic between people involved in a film set.
“Because what’s happened, is these smartphones are so prevalent now on sets, that people really aren’t even there, when they’re there. They’re not 100% present. They’re on the set, and they’re going through s***, they’re looking up stuff, they’re updating their Facebook page, and they’re not present.”
The Inglorious Basterds director revealed that the lack of phones many years ago resulted in actors and crew members being a close-knit group who all worked together towards a common goal without any distraction. He observed that by banning phones on his set, he was able to see a sea change in the way his workforce interacted with each other.
