Welcome to #FlashbackFriday, where we look at past moments with filmmakers, actors, etc. and highlight something in cinema history that’s fascinating, amusing, perhaps something you never knew or have seen, you name it.
For our latest #FlashbackFriday, we wanted to take a trip back to the early-‘90s. It was a much simpler time, for sure. But it was also a time when a fresh-faced, but eager, Quentin Tarantino went to the Sundance Institute to workshop a script he was working on, titled “Reservoir Dogs.”
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As they do at the Institute, Tarantino was teamed up with some more accomplished filmmakers, who would, of course, read his work, listen to his pitch, and give him notes. On this occasion, the young director happened to be teamed with Terry Gilliam. And from there, the two struck up an incredible friendship, with Gilliam receiving thanks on the finished film.
In two separate interviews, we get to hear both sides of this fateful meeting between what would become two highly-influential filmmakers, as Gilliam shows Tarantino the ropes and gives sage advice. As Tarantino describes, in a 2012 interview, Gilliam gave him the “best advice.”
“I asked him, ‘Look, your movies all have a very specific…you have a vision, your movies have a vision, and that specific vision is in all your movies, how do you do that?’” asked Tarantino.
“He said, ‘Well, Quentin, you don’t have to conjure up your vision. What you have to do is just know what your vision is and then you have to hire really talented people. And it’s their job to create your vision,’” the director continued.
When Gilliam explains the meeting, in another interview, the filmmaker goes over how he was taken by this “extraordinary” talent that he saw in Tarantino and how the other people chosen to help mentor the young director just “didn’t get it.”
Both interviews are well worth a listen/watch, as you hear how one legendary filmmaker was able to help shape another director. And if you hate Tarantino’s work, then clearly, you can blame Gilliam!