Quentin Tarantino, a film-maker who believes that the camera was invented to portray violence, made a scathing attack on film music composers yesterday, saying that he would never trust any of them with his films.

The director of some of Hollywood's most gory films said: “Music is so important. The idea of paying a guy and showing him your movie at the end. Who the f*** is this guy [who's] going to s**t on my movie?”

He was speaking at the Cannes Film Festival where he followed Martin Scorsese and Sydney Pollack, among others, in being invited to give a masterclass in film-making.

Such is his following that 1,200 people came to hear him speak at a hysterical, break-neck speed interrupted only by what one observer described as a manic laugh. His language was peppered with four-letter words, just like his fictional characters.

Tarantino, who began his career in a video rental shop, said that he preferred to draw on existing music: “I have one of the best soundtrack collections in America.” That, he said, was how he started “filming in my mind when I was a little boy”. Listening to the soundtracks, he would replay scenes in his head, “just pacing around the room”.

He described Scorsese as among his major influences.

Tarantino was clearly preaching to the converted. The cheers and applause from an audience made up of critics and film-makers could not have been more vigorous and appreciative.

It was nothing less than a hero's welcome, even though his last film, Death Proof - an homage to sleazy 1970s B-movies featuring fast cars, guns and under-dressed babes - was largely panned by the critics.

The Observer dismissed the horror-comic splatterfest as “a tedious, meaninglessly anachronistic project”, while The Daily Telegraph observed: “The recent consensus suggests that he has lost the plot. His sixth film, Death Proof - after his two exhausting Kill Bills - confirms that he's lost rather more: his ear for dialogue, a gift for quirky characterisation, almost everything that once gave his work an enjoyable zest.”

But his reputation rests on films such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994. Ever since, he has remained a favourite son of the festival which he, in turn, describes as cinema's Mount Olympus.

Asked to give advice to budding film-makers, he urged them just to have a go at making a film - “that's the best film school you can have”. That was far better, he said, than “going to classes and begging to use their crappy equipment”. That was how he did it, he told them.

He also criticised computer-generated imagery, saying that it detracted from the thrill of real-life stunts.

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