IFH 819: How Quentin Tarantino Changed Independent Film: A Conversation with Dale Sherman

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Dave Bullis 1:16
All right, everyone, thanks again for joining me. Joining me today is Dale Sherman. Dale is an author who has written several books about rock music, including several books on Kiss and Alex Cooper. His latest book is The Quentin Tarantino FAQ, which is out right now. Dale, how are you doing today?

Dale Sherman 2:12
I'm doing pretty well. Thank you. Book just came out, so I'm very excited right now, or I'm anxious to see how it does.

Dave Bullis 2:21
So you know, Dale, could you give us a little bit about your background and how you got started in publishing?

Dale Sherman 2:26
Sure, sure, I've been writing since I was in coverage, where I started working on a kiss band thing with a few other people. And it got to the point where Dick was back in the very early 80s, and that was the point where the band was suffering from not having a lot of exposure at the time. They're just taking the makeup off or just about you at that point, and nobody was really paying a lot of attention to them. So the fan scene, which are fan press magazine regard how local websites are today, MSM, except for, we are doing it, mainly for like, 50 people, and printing off at the Xerox somewhere, like a Kinko's anyway. We were doing that, and I started getting a lot of letters from people Natural Born cures, as a matter of fact, which is a movie that he had told people as fans to avoid, and he doesn't particularly like that film, but I felt it was worthy of a history in his career, of his career, to talk about that, and ended up being one of the longer chapters in the book, dealing with all the weird, weird kind of things that went on Behind the scenes.

Dave Bullis 3:41
So you know, before we get into, you know, discussing the book, you know, I just want to ask, you know, is there any particular reason why you chose to have Tarantino as a subject for for your book?

Dale Sherman 3:53
Well, as I stated a little earlier, I was wanting to get more into doing books about movies and getting a little away from the music stuff. And so are trying to think of someone that everyone knew but everyone didn't really know everything about. And a lot of people know Quentin Tarantino movie. A lot of people in a big kind of sense of like, oh, Quentin Tarantino, Ooh, there's a lot of people like that. But in his cape, people know of his films, and they may even know, like, oh, there was a problem with one of his movies or something, but they don't really know or the background. They don't really know a history. And I think it's a very interesting study of a guy who actually came from relatively a small background. I mean, this was a guy who with a high school dropout, he was a video store court, and yet he had the vision to actually get to the point where he was making deep movie where now he basically. Really iconic, a lot of films that come out an hour a day that are very much in his style. So he had set a precedent a certain type of director. And I find that fascinating. And we don't really hear a whole lot about that, for that where I thought it would be a good study for a book,

Dave Bullis 5:20
Yeah, you know, that's a very good point. You know, he did, you know, work as a video store Clark, and he diminished, you know, you know, write a couple screenplays there, which is, as you you said earlier, one of them was, you know, Natural Born Killers. I think this is around the time to wrote room True Romance. And finally, he wrote Reservoir Dogs, which he ended up directing. So, I mean, you know, just to get into the book, you know, could you take us through, like, you know, just about each chapter, you know, and just tell us again, could you about be about each one?

Dale Sherman 5:53
Oh, sure. I had a copy of the brochure, fortunately, so I can kind of go through a lot of the stuff here. And the first couple of chapters here are, namely, trying to give readers a good background on his history before he started doing movie, and the relevant point in his early life that read to him actually becoming a director or becoming the person who he is, which is the first chapter is the path of the righteous man with deal with government of where he was born. And I do have a bit of a on segment in that chapter, doing with the idea that people seem to think that because he were born in Tennessee, he's some kind of hick, or because he grew up in Los Angeles with some kind of wacko sandwich guy. And instead, I see a lot of the elements of somebody who was born of the 70, like a lot of people my age, actually, who may be born in 60s and kind of grew up from there and a run of it, movie kind of represent the thinking movie we saw back in the 70s, that kind of free, willing anything can go feeling of such film. And then the chapter tend to go on to some of the jobs he had, like he used to work at porn theater when he would eat before 18, actually, which is kind of little element. Ended up going to Joe for a few days for traffic fine. And of course, the stuff about his first real job in video production being working for Dr Ron green fitness video where basically his sole job with picking up dark PC. So at the start, the kind of thing you gotta do when you get started. And then from there, really the next chapter, built with a subject that some people may know about, another first attempt to try to make a movie, which was my best friend's birthday, I would want to start saying My Best Friend's Wedding, and definitely not my birthday. And in looking at it, it's fascinating to look at it, because I guess maybe I see elements of dang Titan friend do back at that time in the 82 where we fight with get a camera, I got a script with do a show, this is going to look great, and he started putting this movie together. And the script, which I actually enjoy. I read the script. The script is actually funny stuff, and I think it's a very sweet script. It's a very sweet idea for a movie. And you look at that script and you think, this really works. This could actually be something. And then you see the clips, which are on YouTube and other places of what he actually filmed. And he agrees with this. He said a few times in different interviews over the years, that video, for that film footage he actually did. It's not anything like this script, and it just doesn't work anything like what you envision in your head about it. And I thought that was fascinating. So I've been a good chapter in the book talking about how they tried to put the movie together, what the script was about, where he tried to do that, and how it just kind of fell apart. And from there, it essentially going through talking about being in Hollywood and trying to get started. The first few chapters really deal with the same kind of thing most people who go into Hollywood end up having to do, which is, I'm here. I need somebody to see that I can do this work, and struggling to get somebody to see that work. And pretty much the first four or five chapters of the book are just doing with her.

Dale Sherman 9:59
Yeah, just like everybody else and how it would juggling to get somebody to see hit writing and struggling to get somebody to pick it up. And then the ball started rolling with the cell, or what became truer map, and we could actually part of a different script, which I also discussed in the book called the open road. That was also where Tarantino got his script for natural born children. So the original script for that. So this one script he did, called the open road, which a lot of people don't really know about, or know anything about, and it's very hard to find details on, was actually the genesis of two scripts. He wrote, one for two romance, which was done by one director, and, of course, natural born clear words, which were done by arlber stone. And then, because he was getting paid for those, he was able to do Reservoir Dogs and rich poor dog, with the situation where he thought he was going to end up having to do this movie that would cost maybe $50,000 and hoping he could get away with it, do it in black and white with himself, if one of the characters, and if brand the other character, basically the whole thing he had gone through with my friend birthday, and it turned it just snowballed into this thing where he had, like Harvey Keitel and all these other well known actors appearing in his film that He's directing, and he really a first time director, and a serious sense, because all we had with just the experience of that previous my best friend birthday situation and how that ends up becoming this phenomenon. And then going into the other film, which I think most people know from the then you get into the pulp fiction situation. You get into Jackie Brown, which is the film that he did, much different from his normal one. Then Kill Bill you got, and just goes on from there. And so each chapter deal with the making of and creation of each of those movies, along with the two directed by other people, as well as different chapters that deal with the context of what kind of movie angle do we see? A lot of from him in movies, like the whole thing with the beat. We see a lot of stuff with beat in most of its movies. And so we talk about that, or I talk about that. And like, what are some of the movie that he saw the impressive images upon him that he would take into his own movie, what kind of movie that he had done, that had read two other films in his style. There was also material about some of the gifts you can buy, some of the merchandise that had come out over the years in relation to his movie, some weird stuff, like trading cards or the bad MF or walrus from Pulp Fiction actually being something you can buy. And chapter doing with the TV appearance. He think we've done a few of those. I also discussed his run on Broadway in waiting until dark, which ran for a few weeks, and how the perception of that being a bad thing for him actually wasn't quite what it was. In reality. People remember it that way, but he actually did get some good review during that time, and just all that kind of stuff. Some the dealing with concepts about how his music, how he uses music in his film, he got, I remember, I think, one of my favorite chapters where it's actually writing about places you can go to see where he filmed, which is one of the later chapters in the book. So if you wanted to know where he filmed certain things, and there are some iconic types of sites that you can still see where he filmed. A lot of them are around, around the thing he had, like the jackrabbit swim. Place in Pulp Fiction actually doesn't exist. There's nothing like it. There is a building that you can't even get to where they filmed that. So you can't even go there and say, Here where they shot Jack Rabbit swim. You can kind of say, well, here's the area, and you can kind of stand outside it, but you probably can't even see the building for a bit. But there's other places where you can go and say, hey, you know, this is where he shopped. That's where he shot that. And you could even plan a card trip and just kind of go through all these different places to see these areas and things. And. Were talking a little bit about his contribution to films and things, and how he got the new Beverly cinema in Los Angeles, kept that running and going, how he helped out the Alamo drop house, with some film festivals, that kind of thing. So that's where the book is about. It's essentially to cover all the different elements of that man career that people tend to cross over just so they can say, Oh, I saw Pulp Fiction, or I saw Jenga and Chang Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a short run type situation. He was on Broadway for what's supposed to be just a few weeks. And when they did try out with the typical for Broadway show, when they tried out in, say, Boston, I think Boston actually were tried. I may be misremembering now, but it's definitely writing the book anyway. When they did try out, it went over so well that it actually they extended the length of time it was going to be on Broadway in New York, and so to go out to Broadway. And here's this guy who's a director the rock people tend to pitch across about being an actor, even though that's how he started. He did try. He really did want to be an actor for instead of a writer, instead of a director, that when he had this chance to be on Broadway and play the role of the villain in wait until dark, which is one that if you see the film, our can play the same part in the film. And so we found Brooklyn does it. Then a lot of people just got on his case, because here Quentin Tarantino are taking a role that should have a serious actor, quote, unquote, doing it. And so if anybody had a problem with it, they tend to dump on Tarantino. But in looking at the review, a lot of people tend to say, well, you know, he job or, and he's not that bad. He got, he does pretty good job, or the role. And usually where they both critique the show, if they're being honest about it, that the prey is kind of old fashioned and kind of creche now, and it doesn't really work anymore. And so people tend the reviewer tended to say, well, the praise not really like modern to watch anymore, and so we're just so sir. And people tripped down said, Oh, we're Tarantino. We're terrible in this. And it right where the review weren't quite like that. Some of them were, but not all of them.

Dave Bullis 17:52
Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned that, because, you know, when I read reviews for Django Unchained. That's one of the things they harped on as well. Was they said, Oh, you know, Tarantino was cast in this, you know, by him, obviously. And then, you know, they would always say, you know, it kind of takes you out of the movie. And they kind of sort of harped on that for the review. Was it actually talking about the movie?

Dale Sherman 18:17
Yeah, when it came to you by Django Unchained, and actually, with some representative film, and you're dealing with the language issue, and I think that's a big part of what people tend to talk about nowadays when it comes to Tarantino, besides the virus, and with the virus thing, the side track vertical with the virus thing, where you talk about guns and thing, and You just get tired answering questions about violence aspect, and it's the same thing, I think, with the language situation, with Django and chain her Corp, we're talking about situation where you use the N word in here the scripts, and when you read Some of the interview with those who actually were working in the film, especially there by Sam Jackson and others like him, who said, Well, this is how people talk. This is what people said. And so the attitude was, this type of material speaks to how the people would have actually talked when you get to something like the other big one more go back to actually Jackie Brown with Sam Jackson again, we had one particular line of dialog and then Q And real quick, but especially one particular round of dialog where he sent the N word about five times and one sentence, and that got the hackles that certain people wrote, because here's this white guy who's writing that script that has this word. Admit that very offensive to another race for court. And so there's that question about the word, but I think the element of that woman that comes across by the people who had actually worked on the film, the people who were actually dealing with the Esteem world. This is how we build a character with talk. But I don't think it's going to be something he ever going to really be able to quite put away. And as I stated in the book, in one chapter, I actually deal with crash it, where we've had argument with other people, and one of those argument the courts were by Glee, who had used the word himself, but also used in a way the he's probably bored, says their offensive word, and it shouldn't be you. And here this guy who just act like it no big deal. And so there's been about a clash in between the two big directors, by Glee and Quentin Tarantino over that. But it's a tough subject talk about, because it is a topic just that you start discussing it, it just rides people into getting very defensive about it and very upset over it, so it's hard to deal with. Now, I don't think he's ever going to be able to quite escape from that. On the other hand, I think he of the attitude if I'd, well, if everybody going to ride me anyway, I might would just use it and not worry about it.

Dave Bullis 21:44
Yeah, you know, that's a very good point you brought up. And you know is, you know, I remember some of the, you know, the the interviews you've done to me about when Jack, who came out, you know, he got interviewed about the violence, you know, Spike Lee, then you gave him criticizing for using the N word, you know, and you and you're right. I don't think he ever will, you know, you know, escape it, even with this upcoming movie, The Hateful Eight. I mean, I, I've heard from people who've, you know, either read the script or what, or what have you that you know, there is some, there is similar tones and things like that already in the Hateful Eight. So Dale, I wanted to ask you, you know, how did you research this book?

Dale Sherman 22:33
Well with something like that they could like with all my book, actually enjoyed the aspect of really digging into other interviews, other articles over the years would take the bit of work, but I find that they actually tend to give me a better, round, rounder review or the history of somebody. And what I mean by that, it it's easy to interview somebody remembering from 20 years ago a thing that happened, and they get their story and they need to print it, but if you go back to when that actually occurred 20 years ago, you know, I get, are there people interpretations of that incident, but you also get perhaps their own different interpretation of the incident. So you can end up with a situation where somebody's talking about something that just happened, and say something that they hated about it, and then you get to 10 years later and to talk about something amusing about it, and then you get to something 20 years later, and they're talking about something where that's really a good thing, because this and this and this happened because of it. So I think research on the rebel just digging into what's out there, digging into interview, digging into articles, digging into things like that, looking for bits and pieces, even in other people, biography and things like that, really help shape a rounder view with somebody than if you just, if you just, I say, interview somebody. And that basically all comes down to just a lot of research. I'm doing a new book now on a old sitcom from the 70s, mesh. And in that case, I brought up the research is digging through articles of the 70s, digging through books by the people who were participants, digging through episode, digging through scripts, things like that. And that's all part of the job.

Dave Bullis 24:50
Yeah, you know, I once heard that journalism, you know, is a lot of like that. We just have to dig through the old articles. And, you know, sort of, you know, dig through a lot. And ask a lot of questions. It was good. You're able to, actually, you know, interview some people and talk to them, because, you know, it's some of the people I know, you know, like Roger Avery, I don't know what he's up to, you know, all those guys who used to work with Tarantino at the video store. And so, you know, for your next book and for your next projects, you know, what do you know when the book about mash will be out,

Dale Sherman 25:26
And that that gonna be mash, and then I'm already fine for a book after that, doing with another iconic director that when we done a handful movie quite parenting, or, actually, I haven't signed, quite signed that deal yet. So that's all I can basically say there. But mash is the dealing with the books, with the movie, with the series. There are people don't rewrite the match with something that actually had 1515, books, novels written over the years. So people just don't even know about that aspect anymore. And then, of course, you had the movie that was fairly famous, and you had the series that were definitely famous, and how the federal meant all kind of changed, like match chain, the raw things in television, the movie changed the map back movies in the 70s that were remember came out in 69, 69, 70 I mean, it argue, arguably, considered the first movie with the F word and as a matter of fact, and that the dubious kind of thing to be known for, something unique that became something of standard in Ruby nowadays, and so actually, that's why I ended up wanting to write that book. Because if i Here is another famous show, another, another theme, thing that had ever meant most people don't even realize are there, and that's where I'm going with it.

Dave Bullis 27:08
Yeah, it's very cool. So, you know, Dale, you know, we've been talking about half an hour now, you know, is there anything we haven't discussed, you know about, about, you know, the book that, or anything else that you wanted to talk about,

Dale Sherman 27:22
Um, anything else I want to talk about,

Dave Bullis 27:27
Yeah, like any, anything that we, you may have wanted to talk about that we didn't get a chance to,

Dale Sherman 27:33
Umm, with the Quentin Tarantino book, the book itself, I'm very happy with. It took a lot of work to do. It was kind of a tough climb on writing one more than a couple of my other book. But I think it gets a lot of effort to the man career that people aren't used to thinking about. I think it gets a good biographical history of him, and the rebukes have probably been pretty good for it. I think bands of peers will find one or two things they didn't know about, or some aspects of it, but they enjoy reading. I'm sure that there's a little bit of humor in there as well, or we try to throw a little bit about in there. And I think it's I'm very happy with the results. I think band will be too.

Dave Bullis 28:24
Yeah, awesome. And you know, also, Dale, I will link to that in the show notes. So anybody out there, you know, if you want to click on the link, I will it'll take you right to the Amazon page where you can buy Dale's new book, The Quentin Tarantino. FAQ, everything, excuse me, everything left to know about the original reservoir dog Dale, where we will find you out online.

Dale Sherman 28:49
Well, I do a lot of my stuff through Facebook, but of course, I do have a blog out there. You can get by it. Dale Sherman, writer at large, and it brought we're where I deal with some of the things that are coming out. I usually try to get people things based with my based around my book, but also some new information there. That's the way I check it out. You can find out from new things, where I discuss some of the things. What's going on with Kiss, what's going on with my rap book before this, which was actually a book about end of the world movie called Armageddon film epic year, and also the new book as well. So just check that out. And I'm out there doing some interviews and things. And course, like you just mentioned, you can pick up the book through Amazon and separate other programs like that, and I hope people enjoy it

Dave Bullis 29:41
Awesome. Dale, thanks so much for coming on and you know, I wish you the best luck with the book.

Dale Sherman 29:47
Hey bro, thanks a lot.

Dave Bullis 29:48
Take care, buddy.