Simply Abu Dhabi XXXV

7 9 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I Q: Is Tarantino bluffing when he says that he is retiring? BP: He’s not bluffing. But it’s not retiring, he said – it’s pretty masterful of him, pretty insightful, understanding there is a time when you may not be in touch with the culture as much; directors can lose their way. But he is committed to making ten films, he has said from the beginning. Now that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t count streaming as a film, and he’s got series and he’s got plans for novels and plays, so he’s not going to go away. But I think he is dead serious about ten films. Q: What separates him as a director from the other directors you have worked with? LDC: It’s odd because I don’t think anyone can really define what he does. BP: I haven’t been able to yet. LDC: Obviously, there’s this fairy tale aspect, this forensic look at history and time periods and people, this incredible storytelling that he does, but it’s also like this weird collage. He said he came up with this idea from being on set, talking to a guy that did stunt work and seeing guys dressed in the same uniform and saying wow, that would be an amazing voyeuristic view of Hollywood, the working-class guys that are trying to still survive in this industry. And that is something that he thought of ten years ago and finally all these thoughts sort of culminated in this two-day slice of life. BP: And he’s so authentic, the stories. I mean Tarantino has become a noun, a verb, an adjective. (laughter) Tarantino-ism, it’s a very distinct voice. It’s really good fun because working with him is unlike any other project. There’s a quality of life on set where he kind of “Pied Piper”s throughout the day, with storytelling and fun, and it’s really infectious. LDC: And there’s also an obsessiveness to his research. I mean, there’s certain minds like this, and they all, every one of them that I have met, have all been unique artists. Some can convey it better than others, Scorsese is one, but these people, this art form is in their DNA. They will be watching two or three movies in their screening rooms after work, with Quentin, it’s not only music and television, it’s everything having to do with this town. So that’s why it’s his love letter to Hollywood – you hear all the nuances here, he knows every name, every editor, everything, it’s almost frightening how his mind works! Q: It’s 50 years since 1969, so the film like a 50-year anniversary of that period. How do you think people will remember this period, your era, in 50 years’ time? BP: Wow – who knows, that’s amazing to think about! I talk to 20-year olds and they have never seen “The Godfather,” never seen “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or “Dog Day Afternoon” and these movies that mean so much to me. I don’t know, with streaming now and more people watching things at home, the plethora of material… unless the communal cinematic experience is reinvented and reignited, I really don’t know. I am curious to see. Maybe we are dinosaurs. LDC: It’s interesting too because the information and stimulation is so sped up now. I go on these apps on television, and there’s a newmulti-million-dollar production available every single day. (laughs) And some of them are unbelievable, they are fantastic. But the cinematic experience is almost becoming a sort of relic in a way. Q: While it’s a very romantic look at the era, Tarantino described the Manson murders as a virus injected into this period. How much of that still resonates with the Hollywood community, and has there been anything else that has rattled the city and the community inquite the same way? LDC: Well, the way my parents described it, it was the end of this sort of idealised revolution that they had. My parents are still hippies, but it was the loss of this dream. As Quentin described it, the film portrays this sort of utopia, but there’s a shadow around it, he says. And that brought the darkness of humanity into play and really ended a lot of parents’ hopes and dreams for that era, and what could be. After infusing that “love and peace” ideology into the rest of the world, it all kind of crashed and ended, so much so that some of them talk about it as a conspiracy. But yes, it was the total end of an era immediately. BP: Yes. I think with “In Cold Blood”, Truman Capote’s book on the 1959 murders in Kansas, people started locking doors again. And then it seemed like people forgot, and there was a peace and love movement coming off the tumultuous 60s, a decade of assassinations and civil rights movements. But there seemed to be, as I understand it, still hope. And this thing, when this hit, the feeling was that no one’s safe, not even the people who are living the dream. Q: What do you remember about the first day youmoved to LA? BP: My first day, I went straight to McDonald’s and got the paper and signed up for extras work – you could pay 25 dollars to become an extra. And I signed up the next day with three agencies. I remember driving down Wilshire Boulevard in my dented Datsun, going “Wow!” Q: Both of you are verymuch involved inproduction anddocumentaries. Is filmdirecting on your horizon? LDC: I don’t know. When you work on set, the responsibility of doing what we do as actors is so encompassing – my mind starts to fragment into a million different avenues the character could take and the scene could take. To have that be with 30 other departments asking me questions and having to give them direction, I think my mind would explode. I don’t know how directors do it: “What colour should this dress be?” “Well, I think it should be this colour of red, but this off-red”. I wouldn’t have those answers. I don’t know how to deal with myself and what I do. (laughter) It’s hard enough. Maybe someday I might want to try it, but that’s never been something that I wanted to do. BP: I just don’t think I have anything to add to the profession. There’s so many good directors out there. LDC: There’s so much catching up to do. BP: Yeah, they really do it well, there would be a lot of catching up to do. And it’s a two-year job at a minimum, while we have the luxury of getting to jump to another project. It’s a real commitment: you have got to be in it for the long haul. I would rather do other things, artistically, I would rather donate that time. Q: Let’s talk about the long-haired actors coming in, around 1969, and changing what masculinity was then. It seems relevant today, the topic of masculinity, especially forRick’s character as well, who is a “traditional” guy. How has the idea of masculinity changed since the 1960s and also in the time since you have been working, since the 90s? BP: When I started, I loved Mickey Rourke, I loved Sean Penn. I loved them because there was a toughness to them, that reflected the way I had grown up being taught – that this was the way to be. But they were also really vulnerable, they were both really raw and open and I always appreciated that. What I see now is, especially with people that are going through Hollywood, it’s a re- calibration, as I call it. I see a new masculinity that’s more vulnerable in the sense that a man owns his own flaws and is aware and very open about it, and is vulnerable with his feelings instead of this macho act of trying to be tough. That just may be me in my old age, on my own trip, that I’m projecting on everyone else. Q: Did you ever bring home any props from the set? BP: When I started working, I was going to take hats – you see, I have a thing for hats. Hats of all my characters – I was going to bring home a hat, bring home this one thing, back in the early 90s. And I came back with a hat and my dog chewed it up. It was the fishing hat from “A River Runs Through It” and I said forget it, and I haven’t taken anything since. LDC: I try to hoard as much as possible!