The Drink Tank 061 (2006).pdf

The DrinkTank

Issue 61

The ‘It’s ALl

Coming in the

Future!’

Issue

Warning! The Issue you are about to read is

fake. Nothing you read in Issue Sixty-One of The

Drink Tank is real. It’s all just a bunch of articles

about things that haven’t happened yet. The odds

of any of them happening? One in No C hance

in Hell. It’s a good thing too, because there are

things here that are an afront ot God and Man.

Everything other than this disclaimer is

false...yeah. The Management.

Quentin Tarantino’s

Miserable Failure of

Two Thousand Nine: The

Remake of Greed

C hristopher J. Garcia

When I was in col-

lege, the two greatest

movies of any generation

came out. Some Video

Clerk in SoCal made two

movies, Reservoir Dogs

and Pulp Fiction. The thought that ilm had

changed right before my eyes never escaped

me. Nothing was the same when I sat alone

in the dark again. When Bryan Singer’s The

Usual Suspects came out, we all knew that

the Tarantino Way had changed ilm for-

ever. So, I always look forward to the next

Quint ilm, whatever it may be. His two-part

masterpiece Kill Bill had me in the palm of

his hand, and when I heard what his next

project was, I nearly fainted with glee.

In the 1920s, ilm making was, in

many ways, still forming. There had been

some great ilms, even complex and power-

ful ilms that have managed to stay at least

somewhat relevant today. One of those few

ilms that pulls it off is Erich Von Stroheim’s

Greed. Based on McTeague: A Story of San

Francisco by Frank Norris. It’s an amazing

piece of cinema, and one that is so

powerful, so amazing that it chang-

ed not only ilm making, but acting

in general. And though Greed is

top-notch stuff, it’s lawed. That

is to say that what’s on the screen

is only about 1/5th of what Von

Stroheim wanted to do with Greed,

and in fact he had shot and edited

a nearly 10-hour version. To this

day that long cut of Greed is con-

sidered the Holy Grail of lost ilms,

alongside London After Midnight

and the longer version of The

Magniicent Ambersons. The long

version was sorta recreated in 1999 when

Turner Classic Movies took a shooting script

and a ton of the production stills and put

out a six hour version using the stills and

the script notes.

I think that’s what caused it all to

happen, that somehow Quint watched that

six-hour version, possibly while high, and

came up with a plan: he’d remake the Greed

that was meant to be shown.

The irst part was to get Turner, who

owns the original, on-board. It wasn’t that

dificult, as they simply seemed to be happy

to get Quint to work with them. They then

signed on with MGM to do the ilm itself,

which was a giant task that involved jump-

ing through many hoops. Tarantino talks

all about it in his article Why I’ll Never Work

In This Town Again , about why he left LA

and settled in San Francisco. He said “MGM

wanted a blockbuster, I wanted to do Greed.

I gave a lot and got a little. It sucked.”

The thing he gave on irst was that it

wouldn’t be a silent, but a talkie. Quint had

pitched it as the ‘Last Silent’, a picture that

would oficially end the silent era nearly 80

years after it ended the irst time. MGM said

that there was no way they would do a silent

picture and threatened to end things right

there. Quint gave in.

Next, even though it was a talking

who thought that he was far too pretty to

be playing McTeague. He talked with Depp’s

people and was told that he was unavailable.

Returning to the MGM suits, he then pushed

for Madsen, though he was too old-look-

ing for the part. The MGM team said that

Madsen could not be McTeague, and that

was the irst time Tarantino walked off the

project. The standstill lasted three months

before both sides gave a little. Tarantino

agreed to withdraw Madsen from considera-

tion and the MGM brass agreed that they’d

only have to approve the top four actors (Mc-

Teague, Trina, Marcus and Maria) and that

he and his casting director, Johanna Ray,

would be given free reign over the rest of the

casting. This seemed like a victory to Quint,

who was grabbing for whatever he could get

after being told that he’d not be able to make

the ilm any other way by the Norris Estate

as well as by Turner’s people.

The role of Trina, originally played

perfectly by Zasu Pitts, was the irst to be

inalised. After a long search and wooing

of starlets including Scarlett Johannson,

Kate Bosworth and even Parker Posey, Ray

had managed to secure Laura Fraser. While

Fraser was hardly a household name, she

had been dependable in small roles for more

than a decade. MGM was surprisingly happy

with the choice and Quint saw it as an open-

ing for a bold move on the part of McTeague.

On June the 30th, a meeting was called with

all the execs where Tarantino introduced

Michael Rooker. Rooker was older (actually

ifty-three) than any of the other candidates,

but he had the look and a long string of

picture, Quint wanted to use certain title

cards, and that was nixed quickly too. They

did give in and let him shoot entirely on

location in San Francisco and Death Val-

ley, plus they let him set the ilm in 1899

instead of the modern remake that most in

MGM were pushing for. Quint also gave in

when he wanted to cast three unknown ac-

tors, two from the stage and one who was a

well-known commercial actress, and instead

was told that he’d have to submit the names

of any potential hires to the MGM ex-

ecs and they’d make the inal call. This

would be the downfall of the ilm.

Tarantino came up with a list

of four actors he’d be OK with play-

ing the role of McTeague. The irst on

that list was Michael Madsen. Then,

according to newspaper articles, the

list went Johnny Depp, Michael Chik-

lis and Zach Galiianakis (though that

may have been a joke. The MGM team,

looking at the choices, said that Quint

could use Depp. This bothered Quint,

roles which showed

he could be trusted

with handling such

an iconic character.

Quint gave a twenty

minute speech and

then gave the loor

to Rooker for several

minutes. After that,

Rooker was asked

to leave. He went

and waited outside

in a lobby, drink-

ing can after can of

coke from the vend-

ing machine. Quint

emerged two hours later and told Rooker to

go home and he’d give him a call.

The battle that took place in the con-

ference room was heated, with Quint twice

saying that he would walk off the project if

he wasn’t given Rooker and the execs twice

saying that they’d be able to do what they

wanted with the material since they had

secured deals with the holders of the various

rights. Around 4 am, nearly sixteen hours

after the meeting had started, Quint called

Rooker and asked him to join him for a

drink at a local coffee shoppe. They met and

Rooker was told that the studio had taken

away his right to cast McTeague himself

and they’d decided on Rufus Sewell, who

had never even been mentioned in any pre-

vious conversations, but whose agent was

well-prepared for the supposedly impromtu

phone call they made to her at nearly mid-

night.

The next two weeks were the most

important in the casting process. Tarantino

regulars Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth were

both cast in smaller roles, as were directors

David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch and Sir Richard

Attenborough. The two other ‘Approval-Re-

quired’ roles, Maria and Marcus, were left

uncast until sixteen days before the start of

shooting.

Marcus, a dificult and meaty role,

was offered to a number of people by the

MGM executives, but no one seemed willing

to take it as it was a long commitment. Kyle

McLaughlin, who

had little interest

in the role initially,

was offered it and

accepted for a few

days before pulling

out before Taran-

tino had even been

told of the choice.

Dougray Scott was

the next favourite of

the MGM crew, and

they held a meet-

ing to tell him about

it. Quint said that

MGM had ‘illed this

production with a bunch of limey creeps!’

but, after calming down, said that he’d like

to spend some time thinking about it and

rewatching Scott’s work. He supposedly bor-

rowed a screening room and watched Enig-

ma, then returned and said that Dougray

was a ine choice and that he’d go along with

it.

Maria was the last role cast. With only

four days until production, Maria was sup-

posed to be a Mexican woman, but MGM

wanted to use a black woman instead, push-

ing for name like Vivica A. Fox and even

Halle Barry. Quint came up with Selma Hay-

ek and Mia Maestro. The MGM group called

a meeting, and when Quint brought tapes of

both Hayek and Maestro, they said which-

even of them Quint thought would work the

best would be ine with them. Maestro was

chosen and immediately lown to San Fran-

cisco.

The ilm's nearly 100 million dol-

lar budget was astronomical in relation to

Tarantino’s other ilms, but he was shooting

a nearly ten hour ilm on location. They had

troubles inding areas of San Francisco that

would work as an 1899 lower-class area.

The answer, which MGM didn’t like, was the

ind one area that could be used as the inte-

riors and limited exteriors of the Polk Street

boarding house, and then build a series of

large avenue sets on Treasure Island. This

drove costs up, but the sets produced will

likely go on to win the Oscar for set direc-

tion. The costumes were also spectacularly

expensive, but they were also worth the

money.

The story of Greed is the story of Mc-

Teague, a brute who is an unlicensed den-

tist. He falls for Trina, a German immigrant

girl who is semi-betrothed to Marcus. After

knocking Trina out and working on one of

her teeth, he kisses her and then says that

she needs to return again and again to get

more teeth removed. They fall in love and

end up getting married. Trina, very shortly

after leaving Marcus, wins an illegal lottery

and ive thousand dollars. This leads Mar-

cus to report McTeague’s dentistry business,

which then gets shut down.

This section of the ilm is powerful,

and Tarantino directs it remarkably well.

The problems with production start here

as well. These scenes, shot in the irst 10

days of production, are heavily featuring

Sewell and Scott, as well as Fraser. Sadly,

the chemistry between Sewell and Fraser

never materialized. Tarantino did everything

he could but nothing could make the two

of them click. Tarantino wanted to replace

Sewell, who he saw as too ‘British’, but

instead he was convinced to let Fraser and

Sewell work together for an extra two days of

rehearsals. This seemed to work, as they re-

shot many of the irst weeks scene after the

rehearsal time and the chemistry grew from

cold to merely lukewarm, but it was still bet-

ter.

As the story continued to be built, so

did the problems. There were script issues,

as MGM had hired script doctor John Milius

to do touch-ups. Tarantino, despite loving

Milius, thought that the changes were ruin-

ing the ilm and walked off again, this time

for only two days, one of which had been

a planned off day, so production was only

slightly slowed. Tarantino demanded that

he be given control over the script (which

he hadn’t wanted to have written in the irst

place as he would have been making a silent

ilm with the original script) and MGM said

they’d yank what footage he had and go on

with someone else. Quint shrunk back and

inished up shooting the ilm in roughly 120

shooting days.

In the editing room, Tarantino and his

editor, Sally Menke, worked on piecing to-

gether a Nine Hour Film. The last few weeks

of shooting had been rough on Quint, who

argued with star Sewell on many occasions,

but the ilm that made it to Menke was, by

all accounts, very strong, though there were

rumblings from the execs even before edit-

ing started that they wanted something far

shorter.

“They wanted to cut it off at the knees

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