Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Director’s Panel

Reviewed by Charlotte Brange. Viewed at the Lobero Theater, at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

I thought it was too bad that we didn’t get tickets to the Director’s Panel at this year’s SBFF so I decided to take matter in my own hands and talk myself in, with success. This year’s line-up included James Cameron (Avatar), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Lee Daniels (Precious), Pete Docter (Up), Todd Phillips (The Hangover) and my personal favorite Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds). This is a pretty impressive collaboration, with that being said that all of them have a movie that’s nominated for at least one Academy Award (except for Phillips, but he won a Golden Globe for The Hangover instead).

With this amazing crew interviewer Peter Bart kicked off this year’s Director’s Panel with naming James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow as k’ing and queen of the world’. This refers to Cameron’s Titanic (1997) where one of the lines are DiCaprio’s “I’m the king of the world!”. I think Bart also played on the fact that Cameron and Bigelow used to be married.

Bart started to interview James Cameron and asked him about Avatar and 3D. Cameron stated that a filmmaker should never do a movie in 3D “just because it’s 3D”, the 3D-hype is just aftermath to Avatar’s success. Cameron also said that there’s a sequel to Avatar in progress, not because of the success Avatar has had, he has this idea even before releasing Avatar.

Pete Docter talked about that he finds film as a expression of human condition into something you haven’t seen before. Quentin Tarantino agreed and said that his next movie will be with action.. and romance! “I want to do it my own way”, he added.

Bart asked Phillips why he cast unknown faces as the lead roles in his movies, he has now made them into stars. Phillips answered that he didn’t want a famous person that is associated with a movie, “I don’t want stars with baggage”, he stated very clearly. “I agree, I like new people”, added Kathryn Bigelow.

An interesting question and answer was the next discussion with Lee Daniels. Bart asked, a little bit carefully, why Daniels almost exclusivly casted black people in his movies. Daniels responded; “We can’t grow as black people without addressing ourselves. I am very proud of this movie.”

Tarantino said that he started to write on Inglorious Basterds in 1998; “But it all changed on the way.” He then started talking what he would do after he was done with filmmaking. He said that he would really like to teach film appreciation, but not film production. And that he’d “love to open a cinema and be that old cool guy with the cinema in the town.” Then, Tarantino who’d been drinking a lot of water during the panel, escaped to the restroom.

Over all, a very interesting and entertaining discussion with an amazing panel. They all sort of completed each other; the “outsider” Phillips that joked about The Hangover, the “funny guy” Lee Daniels that had a punchline to every question ready, The “visual man” Pete Docter, that talked about his passion for animation. We had also the humble and “king” James Cameron, the “queen” and interesting Kathryn Bigelow, and last but not least, the crazy, funny and weird, Quentin Tarantino.