Novelists have always had complete freedom to pretty much tell their story any way they saw fit. And that’s what I’m trying to do.

Tarantino contrasts the relative formal freedom of the novel with the constraints that often shape filmmaking—studio expectations, genre conventions, ratings, budgets, and collaborative decision-making. By invoking novelists, he frames his own work as an author-driven act of storytelling in which structure, tone, and even moral or historical outcomes can be chosen purely for narrative effect. The remark also aligns with his broader artistic persona: a filmmaker who treats cinema as a space for bold, personal, and sometimes revisionist storytelling. In essence, he is defending the right to tell a story on his own terms, privileging voice and invention over fidelity to convention or external demands.