Quentin Tarantino, in an interview about his new movie “Django Unchained,” grabbed my attention on the subject of history and storytelling. As someone who strives for historical accuracy and yet prizes the story and also frequently straddles the realms of mythic and historic in the same text, I enjoyed thinking about Tarantino’s ideas.
From The Wall Street Journal Arena section December 13, 2012:
”Tarantino Tackles Slavery”:
“Mr. Tarantino did his share of history homework to write the “Django Unchained” screenplay. He says he researched the “business” of slavery: ‘What were the actual laws about black folks on horses? How much did a slave actually cost? How much did a field hand cost?’
But he wanted to tell a fable rather than a true story.
‘When you get lost in research, you want to put it all into the story. And that can derail you,’ he said. ‘Doing history with a capital H keeps the movie at an arm’s distance, puts it under glass a little. The whole idea of doing a movie like this was to take a rock and throw it through the glass.’
Knowing the kind of books you write, I understand why you were interested in the article. Happy rock throwing!
Great image, isn’t it?
I love Tarantino’s movies and am very much looking forward to this one!
I don’t feel compelled to follow history exactly when writing, but have wondered if others will hold that against me or my book. Glad to see others feel it’s okay to give the story preference.
Cynthia, without the story no one reads a book, but it’s always a delicate balance for me, historical accuracy vs keeping the story going where it needs to be. I think it’s a question that never goes away for HF writers. I certainly see lots of debates about this topic online.
I liked the movie overall. It was pretty clear right from the beginning that this movie was not terribly concerned about historical accuracy, though it did have some good little historical nuances.
Comments are closed.