Hollywood Director 1992.

Chapter 15 Selling Scripts

The flight from Los Angeles to New York took 4 hours and 50 minutes. By the time I took a taxi from Queens to downtown Manhattan, it was already pm.

New York City is at a higher latitude than Los Angeles. At six o'clock in the afternoon, the sky was gloomy and the light on the streets was dim surrounded by many high-rise buildings.

However, New York City is currently the most prosperous city in the world and one of the most densely populated cities in the world, especially in the Manhattan area, which is many times more lively and prosperous than the bulky Los Angeles.

At dusk, cars are coming and going on the streets of the downtown area, horns are honking one after another, and people of all kinds of clothing and skin colors are walking on the sidewalks. The ratio of handsome men and beautiful women is no worse than that in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital.

Link spent $8 to buy a bottle of unknown brand red wine at a roadside supermarket and brought the wine to Quentin's apartment.

The 45th Street Apartments are a taller and more dilapidated apartment building than the West Hollywood Youth Apartments.

It is more than ten stories high, with exposed walls on the side wings.

It looks like the building where the six male and female protagonists in "Friends" lived.

This should be where Quentin lived when he worked in New York.

Before becoming a director, Quentin was originally an artist at James Best Film Company in Los Angeles, preparing to debut as an actor.

However, every time he was in acting class, Quentin always liked to criticize the teacher's acting methods, thinking that the teacher's teaching method was wrong, so he was kicked out of the class.

Quentin worked as a trainee in a film company for more than two years. Seeing that he could not learn anything new in the company, nor get any movie roles, he left the film company and went to work as an administrator in a video store called "Video Archives" in Manhattan, New York, similar to a librarian.

During the four or five years he worked as an administrator, he took advantage of his position to watch a large number of western and Hong Kong films.

After accumulating a certain amount of film knowledge, Quentin began writing scripts for movies. Last year, his film "Fatal Romance" sold for $5.

He became famous again at the beginning of this year with "Reservoir Dogs" and officially embarked on the path of being a director.

Link took the elevator to the 8th floor of the apartment complex, turned right to the door of the third apartment, and rang the doorbell.

After more than ten seconds, the blue door was opened, revealing Quentin Tarantino's hideous and funny face and messy hair.

"Oh my God, Link, you really came to New York?"

"Of course. I'll come when I said I would."

"Okay, this is crazy. Come on in."

When he walked into the apartment, Link realized that there was someone in the room. It was a woman who was scantily clad, wearing black stockings, with her feet on the low table, and Quentin was also wearing an open-necked pajamas.

"Quentin, you said on the phone that it was just you, how come there are two of us? Two people will have to pay extra."

The woman twisted her waist and looked Link up and down with ambiguous eyes.

"Debbie, I have something to do, so that's the end of our date for today."

"Spoof! I won't return your money."

The woman put on her high heels and walked away, twisting her slender waist.

Link had been in America for four or five months and had seen a lot of messy things. He was not surprised by this kind of thing and didn't even have the interest to tease Quentin.

"Sorry to interrupt your date."

"Haha, no, I'm writing a script. Yes, I have a habit when I write a script. I like to find a lady to be the audience. I will tell her the story first. If she thinks it's good, I will write it down and then find other women to be the audience. If they all think it's good, it means that my idea is very good."

"It's a good idea. I'll try it if I have a chance."

Link nodded, sat down on the sofa opposite, took out the script of "Kill Bill" from his backpack and handed it to Quentin to read.

"You flew all the way from Los Angeles to New York just to look at the script with me?"

Quentin held the script and looked at the cover with a surprised expression.

"Take a look at my new script first, and we can talk about other things later."

"Okay, let me read your script, you can watch TV, eat something, and feel free to do anything you want in my place."

"I will."

While Quentin was reading the script, Link sat for a while, then stood up and turned around.

The main reason was that the sofa was too soft, and he was worried that he would accidentally fall asleep on it and miss a good opportunity to discuss the script with Quentin.

He made a cup of instant coffee in a glass and came to the half-open rear window. The sky outside had completely darkened. The night breeze was blowing gently. Many windows on the opposite apartment building were lit up. In the distance, there were twinkling stars. From nearby, he could almost see the living room opposite.

On the 6th floor of the apartment building opposite, a woman was lying on the windowsill. Someone was doing something bad behind her. The pig-slaughtering screams could be heard even from the window.

When Link saw the scene opposite him, he subconsciously turned his head away and avoided looking at what was inappropriate.

But suddenly I thought, since the residents across the street chose to stand at the window to perform this sacred ritual, it means they need an audience to enhance the sense of ritual.

Link drank the slightly sour coffee and looked at the scenery opposite, feeling a little comfortable.

Unfortunately, human power is limited. With a muffled grunt like a wild boar hitting a wall, everything calmed down.

Shhhhh!

"No, man. It's too weak."

"Hahaha!"

There were a lot of teasing voices coming from upstairs and downstairs.

Link returned to the sofa and sat down. Seeing a script on the coffee table, he asked Quentin if he could read it, and Quentin said it was up to him.

Link took it and looked at it. It smelled like foot odor. The script didn't have a title, but from the first few names, dialogues, and scenes, it was clear that it was the script for Quentin's second film, Pulp Fiction.

There are traces of a lot of revisions on the manuscript, as well as a lot of grammatical errors and spelling errors. If you don’t have a deep understanding of the plot of the movie "Pulp Fiction", it’s almost impossible to tell that it’s a script.

Link reluctantly read a few pages. It was indeed the plot of Pulp Fiction, but there were also many differences from the movie. The completion was less than 1/3 of the movie's plot.
“How’s my script?”

When Link put down the script, Quentin also put down the script.

"Not bad, it's a good story."

"Do you understand what I'm writing?"

"I barely understand it. It's a multi-line narrative technique, right? There is a protagonist in each story, but in other stories, he becomes a supporting role. Just like each of us, from my own perspective, I am the protagonist, but from the perspective of others, I am a supporting role.

You use familiar character relationships to connect several stories together to form a logical closed loop. This design is very cool. I look forward to the release of your new movie."

"Do you really understand? Is my story so simple that you can figure out the whole storyline after just a quick glance?"

Quentin looked a little crazy and couldn't accept that this was true.

He spent more than a year writing the story, and he thought it was profound and unfathomable. After the film was released, many viewers would be confused and unable to understand what was going on. However, after listening to others' explanation, they would suddenly understand and praise the film.

It's like a master of mazes who spends several years setting up a maze that he thinks is very advanced and no one can easily see through it.

The result was not like that at all. Link took the script and took a look at it casually. Without thinking too much, he could clearly understand the story context and logic.

This shows that the maze he set up is not very clever.

After Link finished speaking, he realized that he had said something rude and accidentally expressed his feelings about the movie in advance, which seemed to have hit Quentin hard.

“Is it that complicated? Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film, The Killing, is also of this type. After reading the second story of your script, I knew you might be learning Kubrick’s style.”

Stanley Kubrick is a famous American director. He entered the director circle in the early 1950s and shot many Oscar-level films. His representative works include "The Shining", "A Clockwork Orange", "Full Metal Jacket", and the unfilmed "Eyes Wide Shut".

"The Killing", filmed in 1956, uses a multi-line narrative to show a racetrack robbery from the perspectives of several different characters.

This film had a great influence on later black violence films, especially Quentin's films.

Quentin has also publicly expressed his love for Kubrick's films.

"Okay, you're right. I did use Kubrick's multi-line narrative method, but it's more complicated and more interesting than the setting in The Killing. Wait until I finish writing the script before you read it."

"OK! Then come and review my script. What do you think after reading it?"

Link leaned back on the couch, crossing his legs.

"Your script is very good. Although it is not as complicated as mine, the story is also very interesting, especially the plot of revenge and killing, which suits my taste very much. Is this the script you prepared for your next movie?"

"No, I'm short of money. I'm going to sell the script. If you like it, I can sell it to you."

"Sell it to me? You flew from Los Angeles to New York to buy your script from me?"

"Yes, I've seen Reservoir Dogs. Only you can make this type of script well. I don't think it will work if I sell it to anyone else, so I want to sell the script to you."

Link said it directly, without beating around the bush.

Quentin looked at him, then looked down at the script, a puzzled expression on his rough face.

"Link, your script is of high quality. Whether you keep it for yourself or sell it to other film companies, it is a good project. Why are you selling it to me? You said you are short of money. How much money do you need? What do you need the money for?"

"To be honest, I plan to release Buried Alive at my own expense. I have already contacted the cinemas, but I am short of a deposit."

"Damn it, it's Buried again. After so many days, you still haven't given up on Buried. You even sold a good script for it and are ready to release the film at your own expense. What's your purpose in doing this?"

"The first thing is to make money. If Buried can be released, the box office will not be worse than Reservoir Dogs."

"Humph!"

"Secondly, more people will see Buried and like it, which proves that my opinion is right and that this movie should not be buried."

"You are such a crazy guy!"

"Okay, so are you willing to buy this script? If you are not satisfied, I have a few more scripts on hand."

In addition to "Kill Bill" and "Django Unchained", there are several other scripts submitted to film companies, but they are of different types and Quentin may not like them.

"How much are you going to sell it for?"

Quentin stroked the cover of the script.

"How much are you willing to give?"

"Are you sure you want to sell this script for that movie Buried that no one sees?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"How about fifty thousand dollars? That's all I have in my account for now."

"make a deal!"

Link held out his hand and smiled.

Quentin looked at him suspiciously and held out his hand uncertainly.

(End of this chapter)