What did we do right to deserve a lovely and brilliant and not-to-be-fucked-with force of nature like Pam Grier? When she came along in the 1970s, singing over her own entrance in THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, moviegoers’ notions of what constituted a strong woman were demolished. Grier’s protagonists – Blossom, Coffy, Foxy Brown, etc. – were righteous, but lethal; get on their bad side, and you’d catch an ass-whipping at best (for a vivid illustration of “at worst”, check out her indelible collaborations with director Jack Hill). There was nothing like Grier at the time, and there’s been nothing like her since – which may explain why writers and directors still have a problem creating roles worthy of her. She’s just too much for them to handle.
Fortunately, Quentin Tarantino was undaunted when he decided to adapt Elmore Leonard’s RUM PUNCH for the big screen. He reinvisioned the white female protagonist as Jackie Brown, an African-American woman who’s blown through middle age as a cash-smuggling flight attendant. When Jackie gets popped by the ATF, she enters the life of Max Cherry, a lonely, fifty-ish bail bondsman who hears the Delfonics whenever she comes around. Max is smitten, and Jackie’s willing to use his affections to help extricate herself from trouble with both the feds and the downright insidious gun-runner Ordell Robbie.
Much as I love all of Tarantino’s films (yes, even DEATH PROOF), none of them linger in the heart like JACKIE BROWN. It’s an uncommonly wistful film about getting old. While all of Tarantino’s characters are colorful and fascinating in their own right (particularly Robert De Niro's dangerously placid Louis), it’s the quiet, unrequited romance between Jackie and Max that keeps me coming back. This may not be Tarantino’s most audacious film, but, fourteen years later, it’s beginning to look like it may be his best. And it all sprung from his cinephilic crush on Ms. Pam Grier.
With JACKIE BROWN and PULP FICTION hitting Blu-ray on October 4th, I had the opportunity to chat on the phone with Ms. Grier about the film and whatever else we could squeeze into fifteen minutes. For the most part, she talks about Tarantino’s craft, but we did briefly touch on her early triumphs with Jack Hill. Grier is, of course, amazing. I could've easily gone for another hour.
Mr. Beaks: How was it getting back together with Quentin and Robert after fourteen years and looking back on the film? How do you guys feel about it now?
Pam Grier: For me it was just extraordinary to see a film that has legs and people are still interested in - and is going into Blu-ray, which is another audience if you will. The whole technology and filmmaking, and the fact… that all of us are still passionate about our work and it wasn’t a fluke. I don’t know if the audience remembers, but Quentin invested two years of his life to write that for me. How humbling is that? You fantasize of working with fabulous, great, creative artistic writers and directors and actors, and then to know that this person who so loved the ‘70s… a lot of his interest, his craft on filmmaking is from the ‘60s and ‘70s. He is just an extraordinary historian on not only film, but music in film, and to see him delve into such an intricate and complex story based on Elmore Leonard’s RUM PUNCH, that he didn’t have the ego to say “No, it must be my piece. I have to invent it and write it and create it.” He used another format as an original story to create JACKIE BROWN, with me as a part of his orchestra. He’s a true maestro and so I love being a part of other people’s dreams. It’s just amazing to do that. And 14 years later, he has more knowledge and more interests: we’ve all evolved. And you just want to sit down for another hour with him fourteen years later and go “ Okay, what have you done? Did you have any surprises in your life?”
Beaks: The film came along at such an interesting point in both of your careers. But primarily because it was the first film for Quentin after PULP FICTION, it was invariably going to be judged against it. And yet JACKIE BROWN is such a different kind of film. I don’t mean this to slight PULP FICTION, but it’s a more human film.
Grier: Right. He was exploring his psyche and his craft and his humanity and his female side. He would say, “This is probably the female side of me.” Men were getting in touch with their female side, and it was a part of that. But, you know, he’s a big fan of Elmore Leonard; he’s a big fan of writing and writers, and he wants it to evolve. The fact that he went from PULP FICTION to that is [amazing].
But he also brought me up in RESERVOIR DOGS, which fit in the dialog very well. I guess that had a lot to do with me just being the woman who is out of the kitchen, not so much barefoot and pregnant, but, hey, her grandfather taught her how to go hunting and fishing and bring the boat in and drive the tractor. I brought that to film. And then [Tarantino] said, “Okay, this is the thinking woman that may have to handle a gun, who may have to protect herself,” and he just extraordinarily used a lot of my own personal history and my film history in [creating] this more quiet, more thoughtful, more cerebral character. It was interesting to see him go from one pendulum side to the other, where in the middle he would have this very vast interest of storytelling. If you look at the pendulum swing and then go from JACKIE BROWN to working with Robert Rodriguez… what was the one he did with him?
Beaks: GRINDHOUSE?
Grier: Yeah, GRINDHOUSE and KILL BILL and then INGLORIOUS BASTERDS. It’s amazing if you watch artists; you want to almost second guess what they are thinking, why are they selecting and choosing certain subject matter and making certain choices. And then as you look back 2020, it will be incredible. I mean, we will look at what he has done, and he might talk about why and what interests him and what moved him. What moves us all is why we take certain roles at certain times. I’m offered certain roles at certain times I can’t participate in, because of the emotionality or the psychology or the gore or the drama. I don’t know how it works with him, but moods are [what] allow me to make certain choices. There are some things that happened in my life that were really tragic, where I can’t participate in certain films that show a type of abuse towards women. I could in the earlier part of my life, but it was very uncomfortable and I see that, as I have matured, I can’t tolerate abuse. I can’t see a lot of things because it’s too close to me. If Quentin and I had done a very graphic violent film then [in 1997], I could do it then. But today I couldn’t do it. So we all have an interest in our art and how our lives influence our art and our art influences our lives.
I got to hear Tarantino on the panel with me, which was amazing. He was talking about how he came about shooting the film, the choices he made then, and would he make the same ones today? He’s moved. He’s evolved. It would be different. So it’s interesting, because we don’t meet up but every 14 years; it’s not like we see each other daily and we discuss our craft and our art and our choices, and the fact that we had this wonderful homecoming just to extend our gratitude. Because it absolutely elevated our lives and our careers, and gave us more open doors to explore, which was fantastic. He did it. It was just him and Elmore. And I just thought, “What a great gift? Now is the time to extend my gratitude and see everyone in it.” Michael Keaton was a dear friend that I knew even before he made his first film. Robert Deniro I met when his wife became my dear friend when he was doing RAGING BULL. And I had seen Robert Forster and thought, “Oh my God, what a great actor! I love his sense of peace and quiet.” And Sam Jackson in the Spike Lee films. It was just such a wonderful ensemble of characters. [Tarantino’s] a true painter, and his textures and colors of characters that he blends on a canvas: that happens once in your life. But, hey, I’m good to go. I have been to the mountaintop.
Beaks: (Laughs) There’s such a poignant interplay between you and Robert Forster. There’s that line in the movie that gets me every time: “Max, how do you feel about getting old?” That scene is so beautifully done. And fourteen years later…
Grier: Everyone will [get older]. All of the young actors and actresses in their twenties don’t think they will age in fourteen years.
Beaks: Yeah and it comments on two things: one is just us getting old, but also revisiting you and your work. You are still this vibrant wonderful performer, but it’s different from when when you were Coffy and Foxy. There’s so much poignance and dignity to that scene. It absolutely gets me every time.
Grier: Me as well. It’s so interesting. If you notice… when it starts out with Ordell and Chris Tucker, and then it has these wonderful waves of rhythms and beats. It’s almost melodic or lyrical. He’s like a lyrical filmmaker. There are writers and novelists that are lyrical - some are minimalists, some are maximists. But [Tarantino’s] lyrical, F. Scott Fitzgerald-lyrical. He’s a lyrical filmmaker in his writing and his direction.
Beaks: When you said melodic, I was thinking [JACKIE BROWN] definitely grooves to those ‘70s soul classics.
Grier: The pacing.
Beaks: Oh, absolutely.
Grier: He has such rhythm. I bet he can dance. I bet he could bust a move.
[Both Laugh]
Beaks: Can he dance? Do you know?
Grier: I don’t know. Have you heard?
Beaks: No, actually. That’s something I’m going to have to ask about.
Grier: Yeah, he’s got rhythm, so it seems like he might be able to. Maybe he can’t. But I just find him very lyrical and with that comes… the cerebral and the physical and the textures. It’s like a dance. You know how music resonates and recreates a time and a place for you. It can be ten years later, and all of a sudden a song will come up that takes you back to that time and place, whether it’s romance or angst or something political. He has that; it did it to him, and he’s doing it to us.
Beaks: Inn shooting this movie, there are a lot of long, complicated takes. I think the scene where Ordell comes to kill you early in the film is such an elegantly constructed sequence. But I think about how Tarantino had the luxury to orchestrate these long takes, whereas the films you made with Jack Hill, I mean I imagine you guys had to just move along due to budgetary constraints. Could you compare the two styles of filmmaking, and how they impacted you as an actor?
Grier: Back in the day we didn’t have the budgets to do a lot of post production. Today, someone might make a cut because there was an error or a flub or a fly in the scene or a plane flying over. But [Quentin] wanted to recreated the scenes from the ‘70s, which were very long and had a lot of detail and a lot of winding. They just didn’t have the technology then in camera and sound, and you had these things that were really long. The scene we did with Ordell, when he comes to Jackie’s apartment, I remember Quentin saying that they were lighting that scene for three days, hiding lights where the actor would stop and give a line. He wanted this long fifteen-minute scene, and he said, “I want you guys, you and Sam, to know your lines. I don’t want to have to cut. I don’t want you to drop a line. I want to recreate the filming as if we were in the ‘70 with the minimum amount of production and technology and postproduction. I want that feeling.” And he absolutely achieved that. It was mesmerizing. It’s just exhausting to do work on that level. The day that I had to prepare for that I said, “This is the day I’m going to get fired. This isn’t the day when I want to get quirky and adlib and throw something in. Nope! Follow the book that’s written for you to get to the light for you to listen to the director.” It was an exercise, I must say, but it was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant to be not only in someone else’s dream, but to be with someone that says, “I have faith in you to do my work and my level of work.”
And that is worth more than anything, to have someone have that much faith in what you can do and the ability to achieve their work: their level of work, their art, and be in their dream. I liked that. And Jack Hill… I remember if you look at some of the scenes, they could go on forever – and reuse a wall for five or six scenes. But we just didn’t have the time. We didn’t have the budget. Today it could be different. Would it lose its effect? Probably. However, I so enjoyed the moment and the moment in time, which is what it was supposed to be.
Beaks: I was just thinking of this idea that [in JACKIE BROWN] you were occupying Quentin’s of dream of you, if you know what I mean.
Grier: Yes. I was an artist in the ‘70s, and now, in the ’90, I was that artist that had a certain persona that would fit with what he was looking for. If you notice RESERVIOR DOGS, they had the fabulous suits and clothes. That was kind of OCEAN’S 11-ish, I guess: the ties, the clothing, the suits, the grittiness of it… you just had something spectacular. That’s one of my favorite films - and not the fact that he mentions me. I was sitting in the theater with a group of friends seeing RESERVIOR DOGS, and… they mention my name, and my friends look at me and start screaming. I’m going “Okay, okay…” It was like “Let’s not get kicked out of here!” But the fact that he had this fixation on the symbol of what I meant: my persona, my characters, my political stance… it was very, very influential in films, the liberation movement and women’s independence. They enjoyed that. And the fact that he wanted to see that again in another time: “What would Pam Gier do in the late ‘90s?” So it was interesting. It was full of politics, social commentary, art, film… I mean, it was so complex: his choice to not only write JACKIE BROWN, but to put me in it.
And that was our time. So many questions left unasked. But Ms. Grier promised there will be another time, and I’m going to hold her to it.
JACKIE BROWN and PULP FICTION are now available on special-features-laden Blu-rays. Go get ‘em!
Faithfully submitted,
