Cannes ‘08: Kenneth Turan attends Quentin Tarantino’s master class

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One of the most enthusiastic standing ovations of this year’s Festival de Cannes went not to a director with a film in competition but to Quentin Tarantino, here to give this year’s La Lecon de Cinema, or Cinema Master Class.

Ordinarily this annual conversation, hosted by French film critic Michel Ciment, is held with directors who have a, shall we say, less boisterous fan base and takes place in the Salle Buñuel, one of the festival’s smaller rooms.

With QT as the focus, the master class was held in the Salle Debussy, the festival’s second-biggest space, which was filled with fans 45 minutes before the event began. If they were disappointed, they did not show it.

Showing clips and talking with his usual passion about his life and the movies, both his own and those of others, Tarantino was anything but dull.

For instance: he has an unexpected passion for the delicate films of Eric Rohmer, with the exception of Rohmer’s big hit, ‘My Night at Maud’s.’ Though he learned a lot during his celebrated stint as a Huntington Beach video clerk, ‘that didn’t make me a film expert. They hired me because I already was a film expert.’

His advice to aspiring writer-directors is that ‘acting classes should be your first step. Everything I learned about writing I learned from acting. Writing classes? I don’t even know what the hell that is.’

-- Kenneth Turan