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BUMP AND GRIND
Tarantino’s homage to the past with his latest, Death Proof
Q uentin Tarantino’s latest film, Death Proof, is a
deliberate throw-back to the days of what was coined ‘Grindhouse Cinema’, whose US heyday was the 60s and 70s before the multiplex and state-of-
the-art home theatres ruled the movie-going experience.
The origins of the term are fuzzy: some cite the types of films shown
(as in ‘Bump-and-Grind’) in rundown former picture palaces; others point to a method of presentation – films were ‘grinded out’ on ancient projectors, one after the other.
Frequently the films were grouped by exploitation subgenre: Splatter, Slasher, Sexploitation, Blaxploitation, Cannibal and Mondo, usually shown with graphic trailers.
Tarantino, a consummate fan of this kind of cinema ever since the days before fame when he worked in a video store, presents his homage to Grindhouse’ with Death Proof, about
a psycho serial killer’s roving, revving, racing killer - a Dodge Charger.
Starring Kurt Russell as the killer Stuntman Mike, the film, shot in Austin, Texas, and California also
features Sydney Tamiia Poitier (daugh- ter of you-know-who), Vanessa Ferlito, Rosario Dawson, Tracie Thoms, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and real-life Kiwi stuntwoman Zoe Bell.
After a very bloody first half in which Mike wreaks messy havoc on four of the women, the second part of the film takes the form of an extraordinary revenge, featuring notably, a long climactic car chase in which Bell demonstrates her amazing, nerveless skills.
Death Proof marks Tarantino’s debut as a Director of Photography following previous feature collabora- tions with cinematographers Andrzej Sekula (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs), Guillermo Navarro (Jackie Brown) and Robert Richardson (Kill Bill Vols 1&2)
It’s perhaps an unusual first ven- ture as a DP because so much of the look is involved in the process of aging the film. But he designed the look of the film with authenticity in mind.
“I actually have a tiny reel in my movie in black-and-white, and I printed it on black-and-white stock. My print is made as a Frankenstein monster, which a lot of my prints are. They’re made up from different sources.
“So this reel is crappy, washed out and dirtied up then this one is Technicolor – ‘Oh my God, this is gorgeous’. That’s what I’m going for.”
Skin is alternately bathed in smoke and neon, then moonlight, fluorescent light and ultimately the bright Tennessee sunshine, and in keeping with 70s cinematic trends, flares are common in the chase scene.
Notes Russell: “They’re [referring also to Tarantino’s collaborator, film- maker Robert Rodriguez who directed Planet Terror which was originally intended to be released as the other half of a ‘Grindhouse’ double-bill with Death Proof] trying to recreate a feeling, an evening.
“I refer to Quentin as the profes- sor of ‘directology’. I think that if Quentin could take the world into his cinema class he would say now this is the way movies were made, looked, and experienced in the late 60s and early 70s.” ■ ROGER SALIS
Death Proof was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573
“My print is made as a Frankenstein monster, which a lot of my prints are. They’re made up from different sources.”
Photos top and above: Director/Actor/DP Quentin Tarantino; Kurt Russell as the killer Stuntman Mike and some of the girls from Death Proof
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 11
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