Quentin Tarantino is an Academy Award-winning writer, producer, and director known for films such as "Pulp Fiction" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Roger Avary is an Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer known for "The Rules of Attraction" and his collaboration with Tarantino on "Pulp Fiction." Together, they host the second season of their podcast, "The Video Archives," available now. www.patreon.com/videoarchives Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the origins of Video Archives?
the joe rogan experience train by day joe rogan podcast by night all day all right here we go we're rolling
So you're saying that someone was telling you how to kill someone with coffee?
Okay, so I got to know all these. You were talking about some... His name's John McPhee. Some operators. And I got to know through a friend, through a billionaire friend who loaned his plane to Clinton to fly those people out of, I think, North Korea. And so from that point on, he was surrounded by these guys. And one of them, this guy Mikey, which isn't his real name.
I think he's actually named, they name them all after the archangels. So he was like Michael. Oh, Jesus. Gabriel. They take on these names.
There's nothing creepier than an assassin with a biblical name. Name after an archangel.
Yeah. And well, you know. And so he, you know, we got to know each other because of our mutual friend. And I think what happened was he and a couple of the other guys, you know, they were placed on me as like for surveillance purposes, like, you know. find out what this Avery guy's about maybe, or just keep an eye on him or whatever.
And they told me right up front, like, be nice to your surveillance, you know, like, don't try to lose us or anything like that. Because I heard stories about how, you know, they're surveilling somebody in wherever, Bolivia. And suddenly some gang attacks their surveillance and they step in, kick the shit out of the gang. And so I got to know these guys.
And naturally, you know, I'm a writer and filmmaker. And so I, of course, want to talk to them about stuff. And they immediately started volunteering. Oh, yeah, we've learned all these different ways when I became an operator, blah, blah, blah. I learned how to kill people without. And I was just making a list now of the 10 ways to kill someone without leaving a trace. I was like, well.
Just like when I told Quentin about this, he's like, well, what are those? I'd like to hear those. Everybody wants to hear those. And so one of the ones that I think is the best one is you inject someone with coffee, caffeine, like just inject coffee into their bloodstream, gives them a heart attack. And it's untraceable. Later on, they do an autopsy and they just discover caffeine in your system.
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Chapter 2: How do Roger and Quentin connect over film discussions?
I didn't think the theater experience was going to go away either.
But one of the things, though, that was the...
death keel to video stores that no one ever like when they're talking mom and pop when they're talking old people uh to like hey you know you you've retired from your business you've got a nice little nest egg if you want it if you want to invest in a nice little business where you get to work with your neighborhood and be in a nice little store with your family you know video stores that's a that's a good business
I don't know anything about movies. Well, you have people who help you, you know, help you choose the titles and everything. So there's a lot of people that like invested in this stuff. And it seemed like a good idea. The reason that it seemed like a profitable idea was the idea like, well, you know, I sell you this video cassette. And you pay for the videocassette.
But the minute you rent it past the point where you paid for the videocassette yourself, then everything else is you. All that other money that you make from here on in is just all profit once you pay for the actual cassette. Of course, you'll have some cassettes that don't rent as well. But that's the way it works out. But it should work out great.
Well, again, that sounds like a pretty good business model. Well, if I spend this money and then five years from now, boom, everything is a profit. Where it all fell apart is the idea that you always have to get new shit. Because, like, life... It's not a bookstore. Well, bookstores need to get new stuff, too, but it's not a library. Life doesn't stand still.
Every month, there's new titles coming out, and you have to be competitive, and you have to get the new titles. And so... Even if that were the issue, that wouldn't be that big of a deal. But if you're a mom and pop star, you only have so much room.
It's literally a shelf space issue.
Within three to four years, you're bursting out of the seams of videos. Yeah. You're just bursting out. You've got no more room. You've got no more room. And so now all of a sudden, rather than having your face, your tapes facing out now, everything is, you know, sideways, spine facing, spine facing. And and you've got to really and it just never stops. It never stops. Next month.
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Chapter 3: What lessons did they learn from working in video stores?
Everyone is afraid. Everyone's afraid. Everyone operates out of fear.
The only people that don't operate out of fear, I think, is the director and the actors. Those are the ones who, if everything's working right, you're fearless. It's always executives that fuck everything up.
But it's the scene. My favorite scene is the scene with Hugh Anglon when he walks into the close-up. Oh, yeah. And he's just like, wait a minute. He's like remembering what he heard and he realizes... Okay, so that's a good example of... Because the movie was shot for... Explain the scene better.
The scene was shot for... Explain the scene better.
Explain the scene. I will.
The movie was shot for very little money. We had no money to make it. So I had to shoot the entire upstairs first and then the downstairs because it's like doing a company move. But I had kept – I knew that when writing – and this was sort of a kind of a rule that we had was, one, make a genre movie.
Explain the scene.
I'm going to. I'm going to.
I said explain the scene. Don't tell me what you felt about at that moment.
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Chapter 4: What makes writing by hand special for screenwriters?
Yes, yes. And usually you go on the road with a headliner and then the people get to see you. Oh, I remember he was here when Tom Segura was in town. That guy's really good. We saw him then and he did 15 minutes. Now he's going to do an hour. This should be great. And it's sort of that kind of a deal.
But it's the same sort of situation where most people don't, like if you're in Pittsburgh, you don't know what to do. You go up, there's a couple open mic nights, everybody sucks. And there's no inspiration.
It's not set up for comedy and it's in a fucking pizza parlor. Exactly.
And it's good on the weekends.
And it doesn't work and you go, well, I guess this is not for me.
Right. It's good on the weekends because they'll fly in, you know, Greg Fitzsimmons, some headliner, and you'll get to see a real comic for a weekend. So you get a little bit of an education from that. And maybe if you're lucky, the club owner will let you open for him or do 10 minutes on that show. And you kind of like get a feel what it's like to perform.
in front of a real audience that's there to see a real comic. But you gotta be around, comedy doesn't exist in a vacuum. There's no great comedian that lives in some small town by himself. You could find some great blues artist. Or a great novelist. Yes, novelist is probably the best one, because you kind of live in your own head. But you have to be around the other people that are doing it.
Which is exactly why Quentin moved to Hollywood. Yeah, exactly.
Got away from these losers.
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Chapter 5: How did Roger's experience in jail influence his writing?
And and his first idea was it wasn't called cops. It was called the real Miami Vice. Yeah.
The problem was it doesn't scale out to the whole country.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they defined it. They refined it.
I asked him, I said, John, you've worked in this business a long time. He was an AD for a long time. What kind of advice can you give to a guy like me who's trying to work my way up? He's like, well, what do you want to do ultimately? I said, well, I want to direct films. Well, then be a director. Don't work your way up the ladder. Don't try to be a grip and work your way in. Just be a director.
And I heard that. And he's like, start at the top. It's the best way to go. Just start at the top and, you know, just tell people you're a director. Put yourself in that. Otherwise, people will just pigeonhole you. They'll just say that's who he is. He's a grip or he's a PA or he's you'll you'll have to work your way up. Just tell people who you are. So I thought about it. I was like, OK. I quit.
He's like, what? I said, I quit. I'm a director. And I left. I walked out. I mean, I gave him notice. And I walked out. And he sat there, and he later told me, years later, told me, man, I thought that was the most audacious, ballsy thing. I gave you advice, and you took it right away. And OK, never mind the fact that it took me years of just telling people I'm a director.
I directed Super 8 movies like I was not a director. I was a poser. I was faking it until I made it. But I told people what I was and what I was doing. And eventually it stuck. Eventually enough people hear it. And all those people who you end up going into a room and pitching your idea and they say no. Eventually they see you at Cannes running around, you know, trying to do foreign sales.
They're like, maybe that kid is a director. It was just believing in yourself when no one else believes what you believe.
The guy he's talking about, John Langley, who created Cops, he was a really good customer, and his wife Maggie was really lovely.
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Chapter 6: What insights do they share about their filmmaking journey?
never never like you know if i am in the right place in the right environment and the right uh food is is there like if there's a like if i'm in on an island in greece and the guy comes up from the boat with a basket of fish and which one would you like i'll take that one you know sure like uh do you at least eat eggs oh yeah yeah okay so you dig like they're going out of style
Yeah, that's good. So you're probably getting what you need. As long as you eat eggs, I tell people, like, eggs are free. No one's getting hurt, especially if you have your own chickens. That's the greatest thing in the world. We have 15 chickens.
There's nothing like eggs straight from a chicken. Oh, it's great.
But it's also, it's karma-free. Like, the chickens are having a good time. No one's getting hurt. They're all treated like pets. Like, hey, girls.
I love chickens. I actually really have, I've always actually thought that An exotic pet would be to have, like, a chicken. You know, like one chicken. Yeah. And just, like, treat it like a dog. Hey, that's my chicken. He hangs around.
You got to get a couple of them. They need to have a pecking order. Yes.
They like to hang out with each other.
I think Goebbels figured that one out.
Yeah. He was a chicken farmer.
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Chapter 7: How do they view the current state of the film industry?
But you know what?
But you weren't a theoretical sort of Damocles.
Most times when you've used the kill switch, you've used it on your own.
I use it on myself.
You used it on yourself. You actually haven't used it on any of my things that I've wanted to do, which is really cool. But basically, we're doing the same thing we used to do. We used to sit around and talk about movies. And so during the pandemic, you know, Quentin called me up. And we hadn't talked for, I mean, we had bumped into each other.
We bumped into each other a few times, but.
But we hadn't really... We had had a little bit of a... We had a falling out. We had a falling out. And I call it sort of a business-related falling out. And maybe if I had been a little more mature... I was young as a filmmaker and probably unprepared to deal with the complexities of agents and attorneys and Hollywood and money and fame and the press and the press's agenda and all of that.
I was just approaching it like I'm a... SoCal gen X punk filmmaker. That was how I approached it. I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want to do. I'm going to make the movie that I want to make. And I, with that attitude of, you know, I know what I want and I know what's right. And nobody can tell me I'm wrong. Cause you have to be a little bit of a megalomaniac to be a director.
You have to be willing to say, no, I'm right. Even when everyone is telling you you're wrong. And, um, is that how Joker two got made?
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Chapter 8: What are their thoughts on censorship and creative freedom?
But I would maintain that for the rest of Deadwood, after Carradine's gone, it's just things are happening. Stuff is happening. But I don't remember anything about that show other than the town and, you know, the various actors that I liked on the show. But really, all they had was those first six to eight episodes. I can't remember exactly what it was.
And the thing about it is I'm not. I don't say all this and the sum up of it all is it's useless. It is very compelling while I'm watching it. But it just doesn't compare to a movie, real story that stays with me for the rest of my life in some cases. Right. I know what you're saying. We'll watch a lot of – I try to watch at least one movie every episode that I haven't seen.
And sometimes it's like, well, I haven't seen it since I was 12. Right. You know, or I haven't seen it since.
Those are actually the scariest ones to watch, because if you loved something when you were young, it's almost.
Well, and I'm expecting not to. I'm tougher on stuff now than I used to be. All right. I was a big champion about. So now I'm not such a champion. Now I see all the problems with it. All right. But I will watch something I haven't seen since I was 22. And I saw it like the day it opened. And I, you know, and I, I watch, you know, I, I watch it again. I think I just lost my train of thought again.
Well, actually, I can jump in really quick if you want.
I'm talking like I'm stoned and I'm not.
Strong cigars. Yeah, strong cigars. One of the movies we saw that we had seen a million times and we didn't even think that it was going to be anything was Dressed to Kill. Yeah.
Okay, let me set this up a little bit. Yeah, set it up. And then you can take it. Yeah, yeah. It was one of those things where we were doing a thing, a special episode with Eli Roth. We were taking the Italian Jallo thrillers and saying, okay, what are the American versions of Jallo thrillers? And we figured out there was like four of them. And one of them was Dressed to Kill.
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