Is Quentin ready to make a Western?

Two of Quentin Tarantino's favourite films, the two which are firmly rigid on any top ten list he scribes over the years, are the three character Westerns; Rio Bravo, and Serigo Leone's The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Some pet favourites come and go but those two never change. With Tarantino's love for re-creating moments, genres and the themes he adores from other movies, you had to believe that sooner rather than later the post-modern director was going to make a film that would celebrate the Western genre. Speaking to Empire outside of the U.K. Premiere of his new movie Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino mentioned that after "flirting" with the genre for so long, he most definitely still "wants to do a Western" but warns us before we get too excited that he doesn't "even know next movie's gonna be". ... So it's not a firm confirmation, just another hint that Tarantino wants to make a cowboy film at some stage. Maybe it will be his next film, maybe it won't. After the jump I talk a little about the Western influences on Tarantino's work and how I think a Tarantino Western might turn out... Tarantino's flirting with the Western genre has been present from his first movie Reservoir Dogs (with the mexican stand-off at the film's conclusion,), which continued in Kill Bill (a Japanese Samurai Spaghetti-Western revenge flick), all the way to his new movie, a Sergio Leone-esque European war movie opening August 21st. Inglourious Basterds begins with a full out homage to Leone, with heavy references to both Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, as Nazi Col. Hans Landa, like a powerful gunslinger of a different universe, comes to visit the house of a morally righteous man who has become a victim of trying to do good for his family. It's a great scene, probably the best scene of the whole movie. But with Ennio Morricone's score BELTING out of the sound system (and believe me, the score TAKES over the movie in this scene, Tarantino made sure it would play LOUD), it's origins in the Italian westerns of old are just so blatant. No matter what genre he works in, Tarantino brings some of the essence of the Western with him. We shouldn't forget either that Quentin also had a significant acting role in Takashi Miike's Western Suzuki Django, and until his friends started to get in on the gig, had planned to shoot a faux Spaghetti Western trailer for Grindhouse. So he's almost been building to this point to make a Western his whole career but we do have to ask, what style would he go for?. A John Wayne, classic American Western, the kind we don't see made anymore, where Indians were commonly the bad guys or an Italian spaghetti-western style which many have tried to imitate recently but apart from a few made on foreign soil, they haven't really lived up to their promise? Classic Wayne, or The Man With No Name? I'd say we are due for a mix of both. Like Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, a movie with three American leads (Charles Bronson, James Robards and Henry Fonda), but most of the supporting players of foreign language, and subsequently dubbed. That's the style I believe and expect he will go for, if and when he finally pulls the trigger on this genre. I wouldn't be surprised to see Monument Valley and all the looks of an American setting but in Tarantino's universe, you can damn sure bet that Italian architecture is not too far behind. Once Upon a Time as part of the title also? Wouldn't surprise me.

But I firmly believe Tarantino has no idea what his next film is gonna be at this stage. He's just spent 9 months of his life grueling over getting InglouriousBasterds shot, cut and screened in absolute record time, and then he's been promoting the film too and it looks like that will continue for several more weeks to come. He ain't decided on his future yet... and given his track record, it might be a while before he firmly decides to roll the dice with a new project.