The making of Pulp Fiction

[goDel]

Interesting piece in vanity fair

 

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/03/making-of-pulp-fiction-oral-history

 

I

n late 1992, Quentin Tarantino left Amsterdam, where he had spent three months, off and on, in a one-room apartment with no phone or fax, writing the script that would become Pulp Fiction, about a community of criminals on the fringe of Los Angeles. Written in a dozen school notebooks, which the 30-year-old Tarantino took on the plane to Los Angeles, the screenplay was a mess—hundreds of pages of indecipherable handwriting. “It was about going over it one last time and then giving it to the typist, Linda Chen, who was a really good friend of mine,” Tarantino tells me. “She really helped me.”

When Tarantino met Chen, she was working as a typist and unofficial script consultant for Robert Towne, the venerable screenwriter of, most notably, Chinatown. “Quentin was fascinated by the way I worked with Towne and his team,” she says, explaining that she “basically lived” at Towne’s condominium, typing, researching, and offering feedback in the preparation of his movie The Two Jakes. “He would ask the guys for advice, and if they were vague or disparate, he would say, ‘What did the Chink think?’ ” she recalls. “Quentin found this dynamic of genius writer and secret weapon amusing.

“It began with calls where he was just reading pages to me,” she continues. Then came more urgent calls, asking her to join him for midnight dinners. Chen always had to pick him up, since he couldn’t drive as a result of unpaid parking tickets. She knew Tarantino was a “mad genius.” He has said that his first drafts look like “the diaries of a madman,” but Chen says they’re even worse. “His handwriting is atrocious. He’s a functional illiterate. I was averaging about 9,000 grammatical errors per page. After I would correct them, he would try to put back the errors, because he liked them.”

It's a loooong piece, btw.

[SR4]

He has said that his first drafts look like “the diaries of a madman,” but Chen says they’re even worse. “His handwriting is atrocious. He’s a functional illiterate. I was averaging about 9,000 grammatical errors per page. After I would correct them, he would try to put back the errors, because he liked them.”

 

This explains a LOT of why Tarantino's recent movies are the way they are to me.

[vamos scorcho]

nice. i was starting to get very, very tired of idiots* slandering him these days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*idiots

[vamos scorcho]

“Not since the advent of Citizen Kane … has one man appeared from relative obscurity to redefine the art of movie-making.”

 

 

exactly. and jackie brown is his touch of evil.....kind of

 

 

edit: this is too long

[vamos scorcho]

mayne

 

yeah

 

whatever

 

i'm an idiot

 

so what

[SR4]

just relax for a sec

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

cuz Django sucked

[YO303]

Which page is to know what was inside the briefcase?

[Squee]

Which page is to know what was inside the briefcase?

 

That's actually not that big a mystery...

 

http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/pulp.asp

[Cryptowen]

actually just watched dis movie for the first time today

[vamos scorcho]

perhaps a fundamental disagreement on what makes "good art"?

[Guest chunky]

so all the best bits of pulp fiction were written by a chinese girl and the worst bits were by tarantino? that's exactly the time that it is my good sirs. tarantino is a brand name for an illiterate dumbo. let the chinese girl make the film next time, eh?

[Candiru]

It's interesting to know that a cultural touchstone like motherfucking Pulp Fiction was made in such a loose, half hazard way as normal people do things. Good thing Paul Calderon didn't play Jules. Let's diss Tarantino and take him for granted because Tarantino >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> bacon> watmm

[SR4]

i did like hearing about how that dance scene came about...

 

it seems like a lot of what made Pulp Fiction so special involved a lot of mistakes behind the scenes.."happy accidents"...Jules' wig being one of them. goddamn that wig was brilliant.

[goDel]

Yeah, I'll definitely grab the DVD this night and look at it through a different set of glasses.

[mcbpete]

[SR4]

my god that interview was so fucking awkward.

[marf]

he had an interesting childhood

[lumpenprol]

that was a good read. It shows how some of the clever touches in the film were not Tarantino's, or were happy accidents. It also shows that Harvey Weinstein is a badass.

[LimpyLoo]

my god that interview was so fucking awkward.

 

that interview has 'cocaine' written all over it.

[SR4]

 

my god that interview was so fucking awkward.

 

that interview has 'cocaine' written all over it.

 

I think Quentin Tarantino can be summed up with "cocaine".

[LimpyLoo]

[Guest bitroast]

wow. i feel like an idiot for not knowing steve buscemi played 'buddy holly' at the 50's diner.

[lumpenprol]

yeah I didn't realize either