We are mourning the passing of the great MICHAEL MADSEN today, tomorrow, for the rest of our lives. The following took place and was documented before July 3. For now, everything stops; as it should.
No work today; everyone was sent home. People have already been put up in houses and hotels, but they were told to “wait it out” for… well, that will be determined. I’m not sure what Mr. Fincher’s up to right now (probably examining light bulbs), but Mr. Tarantino and I decided to play hooky today. “I love playing hooky,” he tells me, “just unplugging the phone, let everyone look for me… I used to do this in the early-1990s with Robert Rodriguez. We strung up a sheet in my old apartment, I had my first 16mm projector, and a totally pink, fucked-up print of White Lightning. I remember just turning to Robert at one point, and, totally sincere, asking him, ‘Robert, isn’t this the life?’” Quentin says he smiled and they both laughed. I’m sure Mr. Rodriguez enjoyed the Burt Reynolds movie, and many more with Da Man. Yeah, I’m kind of calling him “Quentin” now, while throwing in a stray “Mr. Tarantino” every now and then just to keep people off the scent. I’m his buddy. I’m his sounding board. I’m going to be the breakout star of this movie.
…And it was all such a nice day…
That moment. “I’m going to show you a René Clement movie.” Seriously? René Clement? What’s next Quentin, The Incredibles? Show me something a little more sophisticated. Dangerous. I want to feel moved, violated. Break me. Make me love you. “…” A considerable silence followed. “Alright… I’m going to show you a Phil Karlson movie.” We go into another building on his property (I’m staying in the guest house). It’s a private movie theater; Quentin calls it “The Church.” And Godly it is: red velvet, vintage movie posters, 35mm and 16mm prints, and, when appropriate gourmet popcorn, sushi, and champagne. I got so drunk my first time here—Quentin was showing Navajo Joe—that I had to leave and relieve myself outside. I tried to find a palm tree on which to whiz, and I did, and off I went, but all the while I was streaming onto the pant leg of Edgar Wright. I really didn’t mean to, I like his movies very much, especially Dawn of the Dead.
Quentin shows me Karlson’s Framed, the director’s second collaboration with Joe Don Baker after the enormous success of 1973’s Walking Tall. It was also Karlson’s last film; he lived another decade, but 1975 was the end of his film career. This is all that Quentin talks about. By now, of course, you know that he plans to retire after his next movie; it’s been six years since Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and once 2026 hits, he’ll have the longest gap between films in his body of work. Everyone knows that the longer an artist goes without releasing something, the more likely it is that whatever it is that they produce eventually is going to suck. Look at Chinese Democracy. I was there. I kept Axl from releasing it in the 1990s, because I was a drug addict. That’s my bad. But I’m not getting in Quentin’s way. I just wish he would show me something I hadn’t seen before, or, God forbid, a movie I hadn’t heard of before. He’s showing me movies I was in, all the drive-in exploitation films he loves. Remember how all those AIP and Corman movies had a bunch of “chickens” in them? Was a metaphor for PUSSY. Learn, bitch.
We watch Framed, but we’re both stilled keyed up. Joe Don Baker is such a son of a mother. He won’t let get nothing in his way. And he’s a bad guy, not someone you’d want in or anywhere near your family, but nevertheless you root for him, you identify with him. Why? Because he’s charismatic, and in his persecution, as if ordered by the Lord himself, is perhaps our most powerful point of identification. I talk about all of this with Quentin, of course, and for once he shuts up and listens; maybe my off the cuff riff on Framed will make it into The Adventures of Cliff Booth just as David Carradine’s philosophizing on Superman in a Beijing cigar lounge made it into the end of Kill Bill.
Quentin asks me what we should watch. Piranha? Alligator? Crocodile? No, sorry; I want to watch the movie Love and the Midnight Auto Supply. Quentin gets up and screams and tells me that he love that movie; of course he does, it has Monica Gayle in it. I ask him whatever happened to Monica Gayle. He told me but I can’t tell you. You’re loved. You’re loved, though. We watch Love and the Midnight Auto Supply and talk about Monica Gayle and Michael Parks. The sun’s coming up, but it’s always dark inside the church. No, dim. The light’s perfect. We start The Gumball Rally at seven in the morning. By 10, we’re onto William Richert’s Winter Kills; by the time Jeff Bridges has thrown John Huston out of a skyscraper, I excuse myself, because I don’t want to relapse on cocaine. There will be work on the set the next day, and Quentin is completely locked in, mouthing the words to every movie as if it were his own. Don’t wait up for another movie from this guy anytime soon, he’s pretty busy studying, praying, paying homage—in The Church.
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