Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino will never know or care that I feel sorry for him, nor should he. Like everyone else, he should do whatever he wants with his life and his money. But I’m sad for him that he hasn’t been able to move past something his mom said when he was a kid.
A comment Tarantino made last week went viral. Despite being worth $150-million, he said he’d never buy his mom a house or a car. He once helped her out when she was in trouble with the IRS. She attended his wedding and loves his son, her grandson. Obviously, they’re in each other’s lives. He just refuses to share his wealth to improve her lifestyle.
Forgiveness doesn’t come easily sometimes. I had my own issues with my mom and it took years to find my way toward forgiving her for parts of my childhood. Often, the ability to forgive comes from empathy. My mom had a very rough childhood. Her father died when she was ten and left her mom to manage the farm. No one ever told my mother she did something well. Her life was about work and panic from my grandmother about making ends meet. Once you see that clearly, her behavior makes sense and you realize it was about her, not you.
Tarantino hasn’t emotionally evolved past adolesence when it comes to his mother. She gave birth to him when she was sixteen. Her outlook was negative. When he started writing screenplays as a teen, she was dismissive and mocking about his aspirations. His father wasn’t there for him. The elder Tarantino put his career goals as an actor ahead of his son. Tarantino’s mother raised him as a single mom, working double shifts as a nurse, but that one comment about his writing informed the future of their relationship.
He told her that when he made it, there would be no house, no Cadillac. He wasn’t going to share the spoils of his success because she didn’t believe in him when he was a kid.
It’s crappy that she didn’t encourage him and in fact, actively discouraged him from writing. She did let him drop out of high school but insisted he get a job. A real, regular, job, like she had. I can’t know the motivations behind anything she did. But being responsible for a baby at sixteen has to have an effect on a person. It’s scary to take on that much adulting when your friends are out having fun and making plans. It doesn’t excuse her lack of faith in her son’s talent but it might help explain it.
So, this many years later, he still can’t forgive her and that’s why I pity him. He’s 63. This “offence” happened about 50 years ago. His refusal to forgive says more about him than it ever will about her. In 50 years, he can’t see his way to making the life of his almost-80-year-old mother easier and better. I’m sad for him.
Also last week, the parents of a four-year-old boy who was hit and killed by an 80-year-old driver have put forgiveness front and centre. They asked the judge in the case to give the woman the “lightest possible sentence.” Australian law calls for a jail sentence between three and 12 years.
Essentially, the parents’ lives are wrecked. Their child is gone. The driver is deeply remorseful and shattered. The child’s parents feel there’s nothing to be gained by ruining the driver’s life too. In fact, they said they’d like her to spend the rest of her life surrounded by her family. It was a terrible accident with no malicious intent. Why make it worse for the time she has left? She will live in guilt and shame anyway.
I’m sure Tarantino was deeply hurt by his mom during a vulnerable stage of life. Encouragement would have been so much better. But he got the last laugh. He’s one of the most successful filmmakers of all time, happy and fulfilled. What good does it do to have $150-million if you don’t share it? I will never understand hoarding massive amounts of money rather than using it to improve peoples’ lives, especially those who raised you.
This life is so short. Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Forgiveness is an evolved state. I’m sad for QT that he’s still emotionally stuck at age 13 where his mom is concerned.