Lately I've started to get into listening to the commentary tracks on movies. They're very insightful and are a great way to see how the movie was made and to also hear interesting stories about the film as well. I watched one of my favorite movies True Romance, directed by Tony Scott and written by Quentin Tarantino, and then immediately watched it again with commentary on by Tarantino. Here are some interesting things I learned from it. This is an idea I can't take credit for though as Film School Rejects is what inspired me to do this with their series on commentaries.
•Quentin starts off by saying True Romance was the first script he ever wrote. He says he started out writing scripts in the 7th grade but could never finish any of them.
•Tarantino mentions that Clarence's (Christian Slater) line in the opening scene about how if he had to have sex with any man it would be Elvis was a line that Tarantino took from his first film, My Best Friend's Birthday, that he financed from his minimum wage job at a video store.
•Clarence's goes to see a Sonny Chiba kung fu triple feature of Streetfighter, Return of the Street Fighter, and Sister Street Fighter. Tarantino mentions that that is a triple feature he's seen and then drops some film knowledge on us by saying it's the first movie to be rated X in the United States for violence.
•Tarantino says True Romance is the most autobiographical film he's made and that the character of Clarence is partly based on him.
•Tarantino mentions that we first began writing the script he had Joan Cusack in mind for the role of Alabama (Patricia Arquette) and Robert Carradine in mind for the role of Clarence.
•In a scene where Alabama is watching TV the movie A Better Tomorrow II is on. Despite Tarantino's love of that movie, it was actually Tony Scott's idea to have that movie on. In the script the movie playing was the kung fu movie Master of the Flying Guillotine.
•Tarantino mentions that exploitation film director William Lustig almost directed the film but Tarantino didn't think he'd be ready to make the jump into more commercial big budget filmmaking.
•Tarantino starts talking about how much he loves Tony Scott's work. He says at the time around the early 90s it wasn't popular to like Tony Scott and his work but he specifically names Days of Thunder and Revenge as movies he likes by him. He got to meet him on the set of The Last Boy Scout and Tarantino let Scott read his script for Reservoir Dogs and Scott wanted to direct that film but Tarantino said no and wanted him to direct True Romance instead.
•Tarantino mentions how Michael Rapaport's character Dick Ritchie, a struggling actor, is also semi- autobiographical of him when he was auditioning trying to become an actor.
•Pulp Fiction was in preproduction around the time of True Romance's release. Tarantino's first viewing of True Romance was at the premier of the film where he brought along the whole cast of Pulp Fiction.
•Tarantino had a chance to direct True Romance after the success of Reservoir Dogs but turned it down wanting to move on and pursue other things. He compared it to an ex-girlfriend you've had good times with but have moved on from.
•Tarantino mentions he was never on the set of the film. He was trusting in Tony Scott and wanted to see his world through another director.
•Tarantino mentions how close the final film was shot to his original script except with the structure. It written as non-linear.
•Tarantino considers the scene between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper to be one of his proudest moments of his entire career. He considers it to be almost too good and that a lot movies can't survive having such a great scene so early in the movie because the rest of the movie can't live up to that scene, but that True Romance survives in this case.
•Tarantino says the Sicilian scene about how the Moors conquered Sicily and reproduced with their women to give Sicilians their look came to him from his mother's friend's brother Big D who told him the story. He based Samuel L. Jackson's character in the movie on him.
•Quentin praises Brad Pitt's performance as Floyd saying he steals the third act of the film. Floyd is Tarantino's imagining of a stereotypical roommate who does nothing outside of getting stoned and laying around watching TV.
•Another change made to Tarantino's original script was the rollercoaster scene. Tarantino originally had it taking place at a zoo but thought it was a good change.
•Tarantino says using Doctor Zhivago as a codename for cocaine is one of the most clever things he's written. He says when you think of Doctor Zhivago, you think of snow.
•Tarantino considers it to be a perfect date movie because it's fun and has action and romance. He says he often gets asked if he'll do a romantic movie and he says he has referring to this movie then they'll say "I mean a real romantic movie."
•Tarantino mentions this is his mom's favorite movie of his.
•Tarantino mentions he's not a fan of the posters hanging in Dick and Floyd's apartment. He says there's $4,000 worth of framing that they wouldn't be able to afford.
•Quentin mentions that footage playing in the movie producer's apartment that supposed to be for a new film of his is actually from Platoon.
•Clarence says "most of these movies that win a lot of Oscars, I can't stand them. They're all safe coffee table, geriatric dog shit. All those assholes make are unwatchable movies from unreadable books. Mad Max that's a movie. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly that's a movie. Rio Bravo that's a movie." Quentin says that was exactly his philosophy at the time being an opinionated movie geek. He goes on to say that movie geeks know more about movies and have stronger opinions than most of the executives and agents in Hollywood. He says having a strong opinion in Hollywood is like a super power.
•Tarantino admits his love of Mexican standoffs leading up to the films climactic shootout. He also wants to clarify that he didn't steal the standoff from John Woo's earlier films such as the Better Tomorrow movies that he had written the script before those movies came out even though True Romance came out after those movies. Reservoir Dogs also ended in a Mexican standoff.
•The original ending that Quentin wrote had Clarence dying and director Tony Scott wanted to change it to let him live and Tarantino pleaded with Scott not to. However, Scott convinced Tarantino to let him live and Tarantino agreed and said that it worked best for Scott's vision of film.
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