Why Quentin Tarantino Shoots on Film Instead of Digital

Quentin Tarantino prefers film because his idea of cinema includes both the photographic image and the experience of projecting a film print for an audience. His objection to digital extends beyond the camera. In his public remarks, the way a movie reaches the screen matters too.

That helps explain why a discussion of Tarantino and film versus digital so often leads to The Hateful Eight. The film's large-format photography and its theatrical roadshow brought those two commitments together. But Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, made primarily on 35mm, offers an equally useful example of what film contributes to his work.

For the titles and release years, start with our Tarantino filmography. Here, the question is what he wants us to see when the lights go down.

What Tarantino actually said about digital

At Cannes on 23 May 2014, Tarantino was discussing film exhibition during a visit marking Pulp Fiction's twentieth anniversary. The festival's own press-conference report records his statement:

"I believe that digital format represents the death of cinema as I know it."

He went on to compare digital screening to watching television and expressed hope that another generation would recognise what had been lost.

The context matters. He was talking about showing movies, including a tribute screening of Sergio Leone's work. His argument concerned the disappearance of a particular theatrical experience. Reading it only as a complaint about digital cameras misses that part of his position.

Whether you share his preference is a separate question. The useful thing about the statement is how clearly it connects his filmmaking to his life as a moviegoer. For Tarantino, the print and the projector belong in the conversation about the finished work.

Shooting on film and projecting film are different choices

A movie's capture format tells you how its images were recorded. Its exhibition format tells you how you are watching them. A film photographed on celluloid can reach an audience through a digital presentation; the camera credit alone does not establish what is running in the projection booth.

That distinction also helps with The Hateful Eight's numbers. Robert Richardson's account for Kodak identifies its photography as 65mm. The roadshow used 70mm projection, as Tarantino explains in the 2015 New York press conference published by PopEntertainment.

Those figures refer to different stages of the process. They describe the camera negative and the exhibition print, respectively.

Why The Hateful Eight used such a wide image

Panavision's production record lists its System 65 camera and Ultra Panavision 70 lenses. The scale of that image is immediately apparent in the snowy landscapes, but the interiors give you more to think about.

Watch how the room works once the characters gather inside Minnie's Haberdashery. A person speaking can occupy one part of the frame while somebody listening remains visible elsewhere. You can look at the speaker, then search another face for a response. A doorway or a figure in the distance can keep your attention even when the conversation seems to be happening somewhere else.

For me, that makes the room feel harder to trust. A close-up tells you where to look. A wide composition can leave several people available for inspection, and you have to decide whose stillness means something. The landscape gives way to a different kind of distance: the space between people who are trying to read each other.

The format creates possibilities. The staging, lighting, performances, and cuts decide how those possibilities affect the scene.

The roadshow made the screening part of the film

In that same 2015 press conference, Tarantino described a presentation with an overture, an intermission, a printed programme, and a roadshow version about seven minutes longer than the regular release.

These details help explain his enthusiasm for exhibition. The audience would set aside time for an event with its own pace and rituals. The pause in the middle and the programme in your hand made the screening something you could remember as an evening at a particular cinema.

That is a practical extension of his Cannes position. He put effort into arranging the kind of presentation he wanted audiences to experience.

What 35mm brings to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

In Kodak's production interview, Richardson says Tarantino wanted an image that felt contemporary to 1969, with rich colour and period-specific visual references. The main photography used 35mm anamorphic film; smaller formats also appear in particular sequences. Richardson describes their starting point plainly: "There was no 'film vs digital' debate."

He also credits the lenses, production design, costumes, hair, and make-up with creating the period. That collaboration is worth remembering when admiring the result. A film stock works with what the crew puts in front of it.

Watch the driving passages and the time spent around cinemas. My reading is that the pleasure comes from being allowed to inhabit the city: signs, clothes, cars, faces, and stretches of street get time to register. The image makes that world inviting before the story asks you to worry about it.

Put it beside The Hateful Eight and the difference is striking. One film lets you roam; the other makes you inspect a room. Both give you a reason to pay attention to space.

What to watch next

Try those two films close together. In The Hateful Eight, notice how often you watch a listener while somebody else talks. In Hollywood, notice when the surroundings hold your interest without a plot development pulling you forward.

For another part of his working method, read whether Tarantino lets actors improvise. Our piece on his comments about Christopher Nolan also follows his interest in how a film plays for an audience.

Diro is being built for following directors and tracking their films. Join the waitlist if you want to work through Tarantino's filmography and keep a record of what catches your eye.

Sources

• Festival de Cannes, 23 May 2014: official press-conference report, the source for Tarantino's digital-format quotation and exhibition remarks.
• Kodak, 2019: Robert Richardson on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, covering capture formats, the intended look, and the filmmaking departments involved.
• Panavision: The Hateful Eight production record, documenting its camera and lens systems.
• Jay S. Jacobs, PopEntertainment, 25 December 2015: New York press-conference transcript, including Tarantino's explanation of the 70mm roadshow.