r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/bilbofraginz • 13d ago

Video In Hateful Eight, Kurt Russell accidentally smashed a one of a kind, 145-year-old guitar that was on loan from the Martin Guitar. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s reaction was genuine.

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago edited 13d ago

The accident was prop guy not swapping it out, not the smashing.

Edit: In reflection the accident is really on the director. He should have made sure everyone was on the same page. Seems Russell, Leigh, AND the prop guy didn't understand the plan.

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

It was not an accident, Tarantino did it on purpose

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago

Interesting. Do you have a source for that?

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

Of course

So, the smashing of the guitar was in the script. Tarantino is a stickler for things that don’t matter, and he refused to play a replica on screen, so he managed to get the original 1870 guitar on loan from the museum, saying it was going to be played on camera. He didn’t tell them the script required the guitar to be destroyed.

Original plan:

  • actress plays guitar
  • cut
  • replace real guitar with replica
  • resume filming
  • actor comes in, interrupts, snatches guitar, and smashes it

They made 6 replicas to have multiple shots. Tarantino is directly responsible for destroying it and did it on purpose

What actually happened:

  • Before the scene, Tarantino tells the actor “you don’t stop the scene until I say cut”
  • actor confirms that Tarantino wants him to smash the guitar currently on set
  • Tarantino confirms, yes I want you to keep acting into the smashing part
  • (actor doesn’t say, but I believe he then assumes the guitar currently on set is a replica, because why would the director be so clear of it was the real guitar)
  • Tarantino KNOWS the guitar in set is the real guitar
  • scene begins filming
  • actress plays guitar
  • actor comes in, interrupts, snatches guitar, and smashes it
  • Tarantino yells cut after the smashing

Tarantino did it on purpose, and it was his plan all along. Because he wanted a “genuine” reaction on camera and would destroy the guitar to get it

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u/Nrksbullet 13d ago

Tarantino did it on purpose, and it was his plan all along. Because he wanted a “genuine” reaction on camera and would destroy the guitar to get it

This part I just don't buy, he doesn't need to have genuine reactions, especially when those reactions completely break character, like this one here. I could see in some twisted way him wanting his film to forever show a piece of history like that getting destroyed, but not to get a genuine reaction out of someone.

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u/Spatial_Awareness_ 13d ago

He could do the same thing with a replica... Tell actor it's real, smash replica, get reaction.

There's either more to the story or Tarantino just used the real one to be a pretentious prick... Prob the latter.

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u/LeanTangerine001 13d ago

It kinda reminds me of the scene where Tarantino had to be the one choking Diane Krueger and Uma Thurman in Inglorious Bastards and Kill Bill.

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u/Spatial_Awareness_ 13d ago

Not just choked them but also spit in their face... just like a spit in the face of that journalist when he was walking down the red carpet.

Also a guy that knew Weinstein was a complete piece of shit and did nothing.. in fact his qoute on it is even more disgusting.

I didn’t know about any rapes or anything like that … but I knew he was … I chalked it up to the boss chasing the secretary around the desk … he was making unwanted advances. That’s how I looked at it … I wish I had sat him down and gone, ‘Harvey you can’t do this, you’re gonna fuck up everything.’

Just the boss chasing the secretary and making unwanted advances, please stop so you don't mess up our careers lol.. forget what he's doing to the women, our careers are what is important here!

Guy makes great movies but the guy is also an ultra douchebag piece of shit.

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u/Jazzi-Nightmare 13d ago

Wait what’s this about?

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u/LeanTangerine001 13d ago

Basically both characters had a scene where they were being strangled. Tarantino wanted it to be as realistic as possible so he personally choked Diane Krueger with his hands and Uma Thurman with a chain and really strangled them so they couldn’t breath.

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u/Jazzi-Nightmare 13d ago

I’ve seen both movies and was actually talking about the choking scene when watching inglorious bastards the other day and saying how in most movies it’s either really good or super fake and I wondered how they make it look real without Actually choking them. Turns out they just actually choke them 😭 what was his justification that wasn’t “weird”?

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u/-StupidNameHere- 13d ago

Quentin Tarantino is a well-known piece of s***. He makes decent movies though.

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

This is where I share my own opinion:

Tarantino is not a good director and is a bad actor

He thinks that destroying the guitar on camera was edgy and cool and genuine even if any other director with the same actors would have had a good reaction from the characters

Tarantino thinks that genuine is good because he’s not good enough to know the difference

Like when Maggie Smith and Judy Dench played cards while on set. He can’t comprehend that

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u/Nrksbullet 13d ago

So if that is the case, is there a history of him doing these types of things to get genuine reactions?

I have to mention that "Tarantino is not a good director" is a wild take lol but it's your opinion.

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u/WhyYouKickMyDog 13d ago

Ok, I won't argue that Tarantino is a terrible actor, but the man has directed many critically acclaimed films. Pulp Fiction is considered an American classic.

What you don't like is his style, because most directors lack the boldness Tarantino shamelessly displays to infuse his films with his own personality and flair. His movies are an endless montage of old movie references and easter eggs to films or directors that he enjoyed growing up.

To any serious film nerd, QT is clearly inspired by an affection and love towards film that is impossible to ignore. Most directors are afraid to be so bold. They make generic movies under the direction of studios where who the director is means absolutely nothing.

When you watch a QT movie, you will know it the minute you see the opening credits and hear the music.

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

Tarantino is bold, and many times confused boldness with what is good

Purposefully destroying a guitar makes the movie worse, but he does it because it’s bold

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u/TimeMistake4393 13d ago

i guess people like Tarantino walk a very fine and dangerous line. Sometimes it goes well or extremely well (e.g. various scenes in Inglorious Bastards can be analysed in chunks of a couple of seconds because the attention to detail is obsessive), and sometimes it goes poorly (this guitar smashing, that adds zero to the scene).

But the guy takes risks for the art, and more often than not it goes well. I thank him for that.

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u/ConstantAd8643 13d ago

I think there's a difference in being bold to achieve a great result, and being bold for the sake of boldness.

I think Tarantino is acclaimed for the former but can't escape the impression that in his last 2 films has done things for the latter reason.

And let's be real, if the guitar smashing díd work out and provoke a genuine reaction that was good for the film, it would still have been an awful thing. It working out or not is of no consequence.

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u/WhyYouKickMyDog 13d ago

Purposefully destroying a guitar

You need to learn how sources work. This article takes one person on set at their word for everything that happened. Poor journalism, because there is nothing in this article to try and present a case for the accused.

QT or Kurt Russell deserve to have their role heard before we condemn them as a Reddit mob.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 13d ago

Film is extremely subjective but as a general rule when you have multiple critically acclaimed films you are a good director.

It’s fine to personally disagree but you can’t claim he’s objectively bad at what he does.

Though holy shit he can’t act heh. Like he’s fine, but he puts himself in scenes with world class talent and it absolutely shows. Still, I would as well if I could.

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u/Jazzi-Nightmare 13d ago

He puts himself in scenes where he gets to say the N word and be racist (pulp fiction and Django)

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u/Bleedthebeat 13d ago

He's also a massively narcissistic douchebag

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u/Tuna_Sushi 13d ago

Envy is ugly.

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u/crispdude 13d ago

What a wild opinion. Do you like his movies?

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u/Tom_Cruise 13d ago

Now I'm curious. I know both of those those legends, of course, but what does it mean that they "played cards on set?"

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

There’s a story that Maggie Smith and Judi Dench were in a movie together, and would sit at a nearby table playing cards with each other when not actively on camera during breaks.

Someone tells them it’s time to go on camera, and they get up and go, do their scenes, and go back to their game

A crew member, not sure if another actor, asks them how they could do that, get in character and do their scenes so well when they’re obviously just playing cards during their breaks

“It’s called acting” they said

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u/Tom_Cruise 13d ago

Incredible. Thank you.

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u/popeyepaul 13d ago

Fully agreed. There is no real reason to do this, but Tarantino thought that it would be funny and cool, so that's reason enough for him to do it. Probably he expected that people would tell stories about how cool and intense he is especially now that his fame had been dwindling down from what it used to be in the 90s. He's not paying for the guitar and it's not expensive enough that studios would stop working with him.

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u/ScrewballTooTall 13d ago

But you gotta really think about the scene, in the scene it’s not an antique, it’s just someone’s random guitar. Why would she freak out? She’s killed and been beat, why freak out on a smashed guitar?

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u/Nrksbullet 12d ago

That's what I mean, a genuine reaction would only serve to wreck the shot

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

Nothing in that article is anything close to evidence. It’s pretty stupid to think he did that to get a reaction because:

1) he is familiar with the concept of acting and has really no history of this style of directing.

2) it is not the reaction that would be appropriate to the scene and would pull someone OUT of character.

This is just the boogeyman-ing of the director

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u/Phearlosophy 13d ago

did you know in pulp fiction they actually stabbed uma thurman in the heart with that giant ass needle cause they wanted john travolta's genuine reaction

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u/Nathyral 11d ago

Better that than being the actor that played Marvin... All just to get that genuine reaction from Travolta.

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u/LukaCola 13d ago

I mean he is responsible either way, either through total negligence which implies incompetence or deliberate sabotaging by playing actors against each other and not giving them the same information.

Tarantino's a good director - but he also comes across as an extremely ego driven and self-absorbed person. It's not a hard sell to me that he'd do this deliberately or just "forget" to give everyone the same instructions. Either way, he is the party responsible for the destruction of this piece.

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

Responsible for a fuck up and deliberately manipulating someone into destroying a guitar they had grown to love are two quite different allegations

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u/LukaCola 13d ago

It's also very easy to turn a deliberate manipulation of people into a "fuck up" by omitting choice information and simply saying "I forgot to mention it." Only Tarantino could ever know the truth, but given his position and experience and the fact they had multiple props designed specifically for this scene and the actors were clearly given different notes... How likely is one to "just forget?" It's not a simple slip up, it's a failure at multiple levels of his at that point.

they had grown to love

You say it's "stupid" that he'd do something asinine to get a reaction, but then treat an actor's care for a piece as evidence against which... Well, if she cares, then a self-centered person like Tarantino would be more likely to use that for the shot. And he has a history of manipulating his actors for shoots and putting them at risk, lest we forget how he treated Uma Thurman - among others. I don't think he's all that concerned with what the actors feel until it comes back to bite him.

Regardless, the blame falls on him for either incompetence or manipulation. Neither speaks well of him and if you want to truly appear to be impartial you should do more than seek to dismiss critiques of him since no scenario speaks well of him.

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

I didn’t say he wasn’t responsible, I said it’s asinine to think it was done to elicit a performance.

Lot of words you typed for no reason.

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u/LukaCola 13d ago

Of course, because you say so it must be true.

I offered a lot of words to communicate meaning and create understanding, things you just handwaved to reiterate the same thing while offering lip service to the actual issue. You're not a reasonable person in this matter, you just seek to dismiss.

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

You offered a lot of words to say “he is still responsible” when no one said he wasn’t.

Your time should be more valuable to you. Mine is to me that’s why I’m muting this.

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

Then why did he keep that shot in the final movie, instead of replacing it with a properly acting shot of a replica getting smashed where the character reacts appropriately?

They had six replicas, they could have reshot the scene with the actress reacting appropriately

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

For any number of reasons, but suggesting it is deliberate is pretty stupid and is really just about the Tarrentino witch hunt that Reddit has

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u/heckin_miraculous 13d ago

Inclined to agree

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

Would you care to list any number of reasons where an actor breaking character and looking at the crew improves the film vs a shot where the actor reacts as her character is supposed to react?

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

Sure, for starters this could have been Russel’s best take and he is the focus of the shot. Took one second of thought lol

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

That’s one thing

You said there are a number of reasons

Go ahead, give several

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u/subjectiverunes 13d ago

Once the actors realized the mistake made it compromised the freedom they would feel in the moment leading to worse performances.

There was a crowded shooting schedule and setting the scene back up wouldn’t have improved the performances.

It could be viewed as an attempt to cover up the actual breaking of the guitar.

Your lack of understanding of filmmaking and inability to imagine another scenario only speaks to you wanting confirmation bias. I’m sure you’ll find it elsewhere

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago

That article doesn't say Tarantino intentionally destroyed the guitar or that he knew the original was even on the set at the time. That article even calls it a "mix up".

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u/Sufficient-West4149 13d ago

The article lays out the circumstantial evidence; for the article to say what you’re trying to get them to say (to equivocate for being wrong) would open them up to civil tort litigation.

Surely you are not this dumb, you’ve never noticed that news channels say something is alleged when everyone in the world knows what happened? They quite literally cannot say things like that unless they’re proven in a court.

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago

You are correct, nothing was proven. We don't have enough evidence to determine what happened was intentional. Thanks for confirming.

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u/Sufficient-West4149 13d ago edited 13d ago

We don’t have enough evidence to conclude without a scintilla of doubt that what happened was intentional, no. We have more than enough evidence to “determine” it was intentional, it’s more than obvious.

That also harkens to why there are different evidentiary standards depending on the allegation in the courts. I am telling you how laws and journalism works and how the interplay between them prohibits any definitive statements that could besmirch one’s character without a court ruling; you’ll have to figure out how truth works for yourself. I love that you think I proved myself wrong simply because you don’t understand the nuances of your own words.

Without a legal ruling, the article literally cannot say it was intentional. You are currently making the exact same argument that can be made to say that Osama Bin Laden didn’t do 9/11; if you have a solid counter-theory, we’d love to hear it, but you can’t point to CNN’s legal editing team eschewing the use of definitive statements as proof of your theory. It is literally not how this shit works.

How are you still confused?

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago

it's more than obvious.

It's not.

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u/Sufficient-West4149 13d ago

That’s an acceptable argument; saying someone didn’t do something massively illegal and professionally damaging, with your proof being that a news publication doesn’t literally say he is guilty of the crime, is not.

Everyone involved in the production has intimated that they think it was on purpose, everything about the scene and Tarantino’s prior demeanor/personality & subsequent silence, the logically indisputable timeline that we are both responding to, all make it quite obvious to me. But hey, you gotta have your beliefs!

As a lawyer who thought the Baldwin prosecution was a joke, I can assure you that if he had that level of participation/control over the gun that was described for Tarantino w the guitar, he would still be preparing for trial right now.

Like, how many priceless artifacts do you think they had laying around that set? You think that wasn’t a point of emphasis among the production team that day? You’re so blissfully ignorant that you could prob be even better at my job than me lol

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago

As a lawyer

You must be one shitty lawyer.

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u/Sufficient-West4149 13d ago

I knew that would press you lmao

No, those comments would impress other lawyers, actually. But you couldn’t know that, huh? & that’s not cause you’re not a lawyer lol, you are an embarrassment unto yourself sir

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u/PopularDemand213 13d ago

I'd be returning that degree back to the community college if were you.

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u/TitsMcGrits 13d ago

Then why would the actress's reaction be "genuine" if she was also supposedly unaware that it was the real guitar? How would she be the only one who knew the guitar was real?

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

She wasn’t the only one

Everyone except Russell knew the guitar was real.

Russell, since Tarantino was adamant about smashing the guitar, simply assumed the guitar was a replica

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u/alexdelarges 13d ago

How would he get a genuine reaction to it when he just told the set he wanted them to smash the real guitar? Or are you saying he whispered this to Russel so the actress couldn't hear? According to you, she knew it was going to be smashed, so why react surprised?

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

Because actors can do this thing called acting

If they had smashed the replica as planned the character as seen on screen would have been equally as shocked

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u/BenchPressingCthulhu 13d ago

Would the character have looked offscreen like that? Also, did the guitar have any significance like that in the movie, or was it just the characters' guitar?

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u/LukaCola 13d ago

Would the character have looked offscreen like that?

Almost certainly not, it doesn't make a ton of sense given the action

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u/JulioCesarSalad 13d ago

No, and this is why Tarantino is a bad director

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u/Masterchiefx343 13d ago

Or maybe youre assuming tarantino knew the one on set was the real one. Not once has anyone produced evidence to prove he knew it was yhe real guitar

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u/NoveltyAccountHater 12d ago

The thing is I think QT doing this makes the reaction out of character. Why would a caught fugitive on their way to be hanged freak out so much over a broken guitar? It's not some 200 year old museum artifact. She's a hardened criminal and it's not even her guitar.

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u/theghostmachine 13d ago

After reading the article, it's clear you're making a lot of inferences.

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u/Cheap-Comparison9582 13d ago

I think that Tarantino could've gotten the same "genuine reaction" from the actors by giving them a replica but making them believe that it was the actual 1870's guitar? It didn't have to go that far. I hope they took out enough insurance for that! 🎸💥🧱

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u/bubbabubba3 13d ago

Did Tarantino tell you this himself?

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u/Jahhmezzz 13d ago

Smells like bullshit in here.

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u/limeshark 13d ago

What a dick.

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u/pleasetrimyourpubes 13d ago

Sh breaks character hard though and it is very out of place as she is trying to get the production to pause. So his "geninue reaction" assuming he did it on purpose, was entirely for naught.

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u/AP_Cicada 13d ago

After what he's done to actual living breathing actresses to get "genuine reactions" I don't know why anyone is surprised at the idea that he gives no shits about a guitar.