There are some filmmakers who are notoriously against a lot of the digital aspects of today’s industry. One such filmmaker is Quentin Tarantino. Him, along with Christopher Nolan have been some of the big holdouts in terms the use of actual film, and as many fans know, Tarantino is also still holding out in terms of digital viewing.

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Tarantino doesn’t use Netflix, and is very precious about watching movies on a physical medium. In addition to the tangibility of it, he sees the current digital age as one that lacks overall commitment. In a recently-unearthed interview (via Yellow King Film Boy), Tarantino delved into his observations on film watching as a result of Netflix.

“It’s very sad to me. It’s very, very sad to me. And I’m a little surprised how quickly it happened, and I’m a little surprised at how the public has moved on, and no one’s looking back, and they don’t really care. And it’s not just out of the nostalgia. I’m not on Netflix so I can’t even tell you exactly how that works. Even if you just have all the movie channels in your [cable] package, and that’s something I do have, you hit the guide, and you go down the list and you…watch something or you tape something and maybe you never get around to watching it or you actually do watch it, and then maybe you watch it for ten minutes or twenty minutes, and maybe you start doing something else, and [you decide], ‘Nah, I’m not really into this. That’s kind of where we’ve fallen into.

“However, there was a different quality to the video store. You looked around, you picked up boxes, you read the back of the boxes. You made a choice, and maybe you talked to the guy behind the counter, and maybe he pointed you toward something. And he didn’t just put something in your hand, he gave you a little bit of a sales pitch on it to some degree or another. And so the point being is, you were kind of invested, in a way that you’re not invested with electronic technology when it comes to the movies. Now, of course, we all rented three movies and didn’t get around to watching the third one, but there was more of a commitment to what you ended up getting. And maybe you went down to the store to get Top Gun, and that’s what you wanted, and you got “Top Gun,” but then you picked up something you never heard about before, just because you wanted something more than Top Gun. And maybe it’s something that caught your eye, you didn’t know anything about it, and you took a chance. But you rented it, so you actually wanted to try and watch it some degree or another. And that’s what’s really lost — in a weird way, what’s lost is commitment.”

While I see where he’s coming from, I can’t say I entirely agree. More than ever, viewing is an engaging experience. I rarely watch things passively on Netflix, and since you have to go in and actually choose what you’re watching, I’d argue it’s a more engaging experience than standard cable. In addition, from online reviews to Netflix recommendations, I’d say we go into the film with just as much information as we ever did in the video stores.

That being said, he does have a point in one respect. With countless films at our fingertips, if we aren’t feeling a movie ten minutes in, there’s nothing stopping us from pulling the plug and looking into something more intriguing. In that sense, we could very well be missing out on potentially life-changing movies.

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SOURCE: Yellow King Film Boy