Director Quentin Tarantino debunks Kanye West’s claim that the filmmaker stole the idea for the film Django unleashed of the musician. Released in 2012, the film focuses on a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) who is freed by a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to help him track down wanted criminals and ultimately rescue Django’s wife from captivity. The film received critical acclaim upon release, winning five Academy Awards that year, including Tarantino for Best Original Screenplay.
Tarantino’s response comes just days after Kanye “Ye” West had a heated interview with Piers Morgan on Piers Morgan uncensored. In the interview, West claimed that Tarantino and the film’s star, Foxx, stole the idea for… Django unleashed from a pitch he made for the two as a concept for a music video for the hit “Gold Digger” (which features Foxx himself). This claim and the response that followed comes on the heels of Adidas cutting ties with the rapper after he made a series of anti-Semitic comments earlier this month.
while on Jimmy Kimmel Live!Tarantino was asked about the validity of West’s claims. While the director clearly states that there is “not true“to the idea that West is coming up with” Django unleashed, the acclaimed filmmaker does share a story about what really happened between him and the musician. Check out Tarantino’s quote below:
Okay, well, the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of ​​Django isn’t true, and then he told me and I said, ‘Oh wow, that’s a really great idea! Let me take Kanye’s idea and make it Django Unchained.’ That didn’t happen. I had the idea for Django for a while, before I even met Kanye. He [West] wanted to make a huge movie version of School leaver. So he wanted to get big directors to do several songs from the album and then release it as this giant movie. […] So we used it as an excuse to meet. And we met and it was very nice. He had an idea for a video […] that he would be a slave and that the whole story was the slave story he sang in gold digger. […] That’s what he means…
Tarantino movies have always had a complicated relationship with originality
While Tarantino dismissed West’s claim that he stole the idea for… Django unleashed, questioning the director’s originality when it comes to his filmography is nothing new. As an avid film fan, many have often criticized the filmmaker for not only paying tribute to classic films that inspired him, but rather ripping them off. It’s certainly no secret that Tarantino has an affinity for cinema’s rich history, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, but that knowledge may seem like a hindrance to some, when certain sequences of his films seem completely out of other, lesser-known films. to have been ripped.
However, for fans of Tarantino, there is still no one like him working in the industry today. With his latest movie, 2019’s Once upon a time… In Hollywood, as another critical and commercial hit, the filmmaker has no shortage of people who love his work yet find originality in every film. While West accuses the director of stealing ideas, Tarantino has proven time and again to have many cinematic ideas of his own. The movie buffs who are fond of his output will certainly not be deterred from admiring films like Django unleashed shortly.
Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live!