Have you read the news today? Quentin Tarantino, My Sensei, is back. I’m not talking about the revelation that he fired Isabelle Huppert from Inglourious Basterds after she failed to show up to the table read; I’m not talking about Melanie Laurent giving a “terrible” audition only to plead with My Sensei for a second chance, which won her the role of Shoshanna Dreyfus; and I’m not talking about Maggie Cheung, who replaced Huppert, being cut out of the movie entirely. We still haven’t seen her scenes. Why? Because My Sensei is like Stanley Kubrick: whatever doesn’t make it into the final cut—“My ‘director’s cut’ is the one that gets released in 3000 theaters”—is not only vaulted but incinerated. Quentin Tarantino burned the only full copy of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood script. Overdramatic? Not at all; unlike so many human beings in the modern world, My Sensei isn’t deracinated from the mystical, the spiritual, the cosmic order of the universe. He understands the primal power of the flame, whether it’s ringing the barrel of a gun or consuming his handwritten magnum opus.
“Magnum Opus” is what Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was referred to during production. My Sensei was—is—superstitious, and he didn’t want anyone to know the title of his masterpiece before he was ready to tell the world. I asked him what The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth was supposed to be. Where do you go after making your “Magnum Opus”? He looked at me wearily in the editing room—we’d been up for five days at that point, finalizing the cut with Mr. Fincher in order to secure an MPA rating—and he waved it off, whispering to make sure that Mr. Fincher didn’t hear: “This is kind of a left-handed movie. It’s not really mine.” I was astonished. Left-handed? I didn’t even know movies had limbs. But then I remembered that this was a human being applying human standards to a non-human entity. Been there, done that. You’re not the center of the universe, people. Don’t you think you’d be able to, you know, FLY if that were the case?
Bet you’re smarting from that one. Bet you don’t think so little of Bennington anymore. I’m gonna git you suckas.
The MPA rated The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth “R” for “some strong/disturbing violence, bloody images, pervasive language, sexual content, nudity and drug use.” People—not just humans, birds are people, too—are going to be surprised by that “sexual content.” If you recall, My Sensei doesn’t feature sex in his own films. Ironically he’s a bit of a prude, a little jumpy when it comes to anatomy. But Mr. Fincher? This man could’ve been a neurosurgeon. The vagaries of human behavior leave Mr. Fincher cold, so you’re just as likely to see a head in a box as a dick in a box in one of his films. My Sensei makes colorful, life-affirming movies with memorable characters and catchy music; Mr. Fincher makes realistic and often disturbing thrillers and procedurals. His films are infamously “underlit,” while My Sensei prefers the bright lights of the 20th century. Both are valid moods, and I’m looking forward to how the world responds to their first collaboration.
I doubt My Sensei and Mr. Fincher will work together again. They’re both in their 60s, My Sensei is already busy preparing a play in London, along with a potential script for his 10th and final film; Mr. Fincher just abruptly left Netflix after 13 years, and while I’m sure he’ll continue to direct, it may be on a smaller scale. He wanted to work “lean” this time, limiting himself to six takes per setup, but My Sensei demanded “the full effect.”
Now, I like the movie we made. I hope you do, too. But there are tensions that I can’t detail yet. Keep in mind, the movie comes out in two weeks and we just finished it. Not a good sign. We should’ve gotten more reshoot days, we shouldn’t have been answering to Dan Fucking Lin. But what can you do? I only hope that it eclipses that awful Narnia movie coming out with Meryl Streep playing Aslan. The fuck kind of idea is that? Meryl Streep isn’t a lion. She’s a human woman. Give the role to a lion—a tiger, even! I’m fired up about this and no one else seems to care. Why? Not even the LIONS are upset about it.
But I’m in a mood. And it’s a potent one. I hope it breaks in time for our big premiere at the DGA tomorrow.
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