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Carty Talkington Hits the Mark with Love and a .45
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MM: Is it pure economics or some other reason that draws you artistically to such graphic violence? We know that in the beginning of one’s career it sometimes helps to throw in gratuitous sex and violence because there’s an established market for that kind of thing, and good grosses can attract financiers for your subsequent films.
CT: I have an obsession not so much with violence, but…let’s put it this way, if I were not making films I’d probably be a criminologist. I’m very interested in criminal psychology, and of course there’s a lot of violence associated with that. And I’m really interested in the relationship between art and crime, the psychological relationship. But I don’t think the violence is gratuitous. For example when the girl in the convenience store gets shot, I didn’t show it. Everything occurs behind the counter, which to me is more terrifying because it piques the imagination. And the guy bleeding to death in the car, that’s done in black and white. You get a glimpse of things but you don’t really see it. I don’t know; maybe because it is gratuitous. But like I said, man, nothing was considered, it just came out.
MM: The film has a unique style, from the psychedelic car inserts to the scene transitions to the characterizations. Can we credit a successful collaboration between you and your DP?
CT: Me and Tom [Richmond] had an extremely successful collaboration. I knew from writing it what I wanted and how virtually everything should look frame-by-frame. The movie is a real roller coaster ride. I wanted to make a rock ‘n’ roll movie, and I wanted to have some raw feeling in it, some energy, some soul. That’s what came out. It’s the moral ambiguity element that I really groove on. I didn’t want anything to be black and white. You’re working against type, playing with people’s expectations. Tom and I would discuss [each scene] and then he’d execute it and throw in some of his cool stuff. And it was through him we wound up getting Peter Fonda. He had shot this movie called Killing Zoe starring Eric Stoltz, who was going out with Bridget Fonda. Through that bizarre connection, we got [Peter Fonda] to read the script and he was like, “I’m there!” and worked for scale. I think he’s really good in the movie. He’s so in the character.
MM: How about Darin Scott? When did he come into the picture?
CT: He had just done Menace II Society when I hooked up with him through my agent. It’s kind of crazy. This guy’s incredible. We’re going to work with each other hopefully for the rest of our careers. He did Fear of a Black Hat and Menace and all of these sorts of black kinds of films. And then he turns around and likes my script, which is like this crazy white trash movie. He’s a very cool cat who marches to his own drummer.
MM: The soundtrack is fantastic. How were you able to afford such first-rate music?
CT: I got really lucky because a guy who’s friends with my agent saw the film and got us a record deal. The record company gave me enough money to get all this source music, and in return they’re planning to put out a soundtrack album on Epic. So I really scored. It wasn’t a very big budget, and the budget for songs was like nothing, zilch. So [with the record deal] we got to have like “King of the Road,” “Ring of Fire” and all these songs. We got The Breeders to record an original song for us, “Love Hurts”; we got Maria MaKee to do an original song; we got The Flaming Lips. And there’s sort of a consistency to the music. I wanted it to have a very western feeling. Old country-western-psychedelic is what I was going for. The film to me is a western psychedelic road opera.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Fun Online Games on 4/19/11 at 12:39 pm
Carty Talkington is terrific. That’s all I have to say… lol
If you enjoy online games, then play fun Shooting Games online
- Comment by العاب on 5/31/11 at 7:52 pm
Thanks for providing such a العاب تلبيس بنات تلبيس مكياج حلوة وجديدة تحميل العاب تلبيس
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This story was published in the November 1994 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Talkington Hits the Mark with His "Western Psychedelic Road Opera" / A good screenplay, a lot of luck and a "small little lie" land Talkington $2 million in financing a directorial debut.
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