Saturday, February 2, 2008

Sure, Quentin, Just Keep Making Movies

I swear to God, what would we do without Quentin Tarantino in this world? He's at it again in an interview in Sight and Sound, throwing f-bombs all over the place and simultaneously praising/insulting other directors while arguing with the interviewer over the magazine's interpretation of his style. Highlights:

So then I started thinking about what I could do. And the first idea was a bunch of young college history students that were going through a tour of the plantations of the old South. And there's a ghost of an old slave that is part of negro folklore. Jody the Grinder actually went down and bested the devil, by fucking him. And so the devil put him on earth for all eternity to fuck white women. And that was the devil's punishment. The opening scene would take place in the classroom, with the professor telling the story of Jody the Grinder in a big four-page monologue. I would probably have had Sam Jackson playing that part. And it was really good. But then I didn't have anywhere to go with it, because if you have a story about a killer slave with supermacho powers done in the style of a slasher films, then even if he's doing it today, and even if the white girls are innocent, how can you not be on the slave's side?

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Q: Where does your girl dialogue come from?

This is gonna sound like a smartass answer, but I have to say, it's obvious, but it so needs to be said. I'm a good writer. It's what I'm supposed to be able to do. It needs to be said. It's not like I overheard some friends. It's my job to be interested in other people's humanity and not just write about myself. Having said that, there was something that added to the authenticity of these ladies. For the last five years I've had a lot of different posses of female friends. You know, these three black girls over here, these four Korean girls over here, these waitresses over here, these more posh club owners over there... I have male friends but up until recently they were more one on one. I didn't roll with a crew. But with women I did. And in most cases, it wasn't like they were my crew, I was part of their posse. It wasn't like Quentin and his bitches, even though it looks like that when we walk into a club. I just realised as I finished the script that, wow, they're here! This is almost my love letter to them.

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But I lost my stamina in the last quarter of the last lap of Jackie Brown and part of the reason was I wasn't taking something I created from scratch from a blank piece of paper and turning it into a full project. When I finished the edit and got my cut the way I wanted, I was emotionally done. I believe people could say it's my best movie, but there's a slight once-removed quality, located somewhere in my balls where that doesn't live.

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