Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Movies take up most of my time and geeky focus, but I'm also very partial to original art. It's sadly a rich man's hobby and I am far from rich, but over the years I have lucked into a few original pieces that range from animation cels to comic pages to Mexican pulp cover art and even one original movie poster painting for White Lightning by the legendary Tom Jung.
Pop imagery fascinates me, which is why you see me talk about stuff like Mondo and Drew Struzan and limited edition art here from time to time.
SXSW is nearly here and two of my favorite worlds collide thanks to Robert Rodriguez's efforts to show off the late, great Frank Frazetta's original art. During the fest he'll open up an original art museum with Frazetta's paintings being the centerpiece.
You don't need a badge to get into the event, just $10 to donate to the preservation of these incredible pieces. I'm hoping I can make it over this year since I missed it last year and the chance of seeing these things live and in person is too good to pass up if I have any choice in the matter.
Below you'll find us chatting about the Frazetta Museum, the limited edition giclees and canvas prints that will be available, how awesome Drew Struzan is, that time Robert snaked an original piece of art away from me and even a bit about his Director's Chair series on El Rey in which he sits down with legendary filmmakers and goes in-depth about their process.
Mostly it's just two nerds geeking out together a little bit. Hope you enjoy!
Quint: Hey, man. How's it going? You're at the beginning of Season 2 of From Dusk Till Dawn, right? How are you holding up?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, it's so fun! It's the opening episode, so I get all the good stuff!
Quint: I heard Alejandro Brugues, the guy who directed Juan of the Dead, is coming in to do an episode.
Robert Rodriguez: Oh, yeah. He'll be here in a couple weeks. He's doing a really cool episode, actually.
Quint: Nice. I really like that guy. Juan of the Dead is a lot of fun and you can tell his heart's in the right place when you talk to him about telling stories.
Robert Rodriguez: He's super enthusiastic. Great energy. I can't wait to see how that translates. Hey, were you there for the Director's Chair screening? Did you like it?
Quint: Yeah, I liked it a lot. My only criticism is that I wanted more of you talking with Francis Ford Coppola. That's always the trick when talking with someone like Coppola who has such a huge, impressive career... Everybody has favorites and would want to hear more about one movie over another. I understand that your average film fan wouldn't want a 3 or 4 hour long conversation with that guy, but I could have easily watched that.
Robert Rodriguez: We're doing the [famous director's name withheld, sorry] one right now and my editor, Paul, said “Hey, we could do an hour and a half cut of this.” I said, “Shit, we can't do that because then Francis' one should have been an hour and a half!” We have to figure out this format. Quentin's was already two episodes. Maybe we should do two one-hour shows.
Quint: Well, you are the Lord Overseer of El Rey, so you can decide how long the show's gonna be!
Robert Rodriguez: (laughs) I guess so. It does kinda throw the formatting off when you put a couple back to back and one of them is 90 minutes and the other one's an hour, but we'll see.
Quint: Or just release the Cinephile Cut for Super Movie Nerds Only.
Robert Rodriguez: I think those are the people who are watching! I'll figure it out one of these days. At least we have all the materials.
Quint: No, it's great that you give these guys a platform to discuss their work long form. That's not something we get on TV... maybe with political shows sometimes, but never focused on filmmakers. It's a great idea and it certainly plays into the stuff I like. I've done those longer interviews for the site with people like Carpenter and recently Kurt Russell and no matter how much time I have it never feels like I scratch the surface. I mean, I had almost an hour and a half with Kurt Russell and we didn't get past his '80s stuff.
Robert Rodriguez: Your stuff is great. You can tell it's because the amount of time you're taking and it's never enough. Know who I was talking to before I started this? Peter Bogdanovich. I've known him for a while and I told him I wanted to do this show with directors. I asked him how he did it with the directors he has written about. He said, “Oh, I'll write about 130 questions per guy.” “Wow, how long did that take?” “About 4 or 5 days.” No wonder! We can barely scratch the surface in 3 or 4 hours! You can do that when you're not shooting video. When you're filming you can only keep them there so long.
Quint: It's like that amazing Hitchcock/Truffaut book. I don't know if you ever read that, but it's just two directors who respect each other talking and it took place over a long period of time. A week or more, I think.
Robert Rodriguez: I did read that. Bogdanovich worked 8 hours a day, start with a 130 questions and each one would spin off into 10 other questions. Who the Devil Made It is a really interesting book as well.
Quint: It is interesting to see how directors speak with other directors, too. They come off differently. Maybe it's because you start on equal level... they know they don't have to dumb down the process for you because you know the process as well.
Robert Rodriguez: Right. They get real excited by that. That's the best part of the show for them.
Quint: We should probably get around to talking about the Frazetta Museum since that's the reason we're talking today.
Robert Rodriguez: Did you get to visit last year?
Quint: I actually couldn't. Since it's during SXSW I'm always super pressed for time and didn't make it over. That opening weekend in particular is nuts.
Robert Rodriguez: You'll have to make it out this year!
Quint: I'll do my best. Did you have the Drew Struzan stuff up last year as well?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, I did because he had done some mock ups of some Spy Kids posters for me. He even did a sketch of me as a gift. It was done in that Indiana Jones style and it's pretty cool. When he was selling all his originals I went to go get my Spy Kids stuff. He had done a color poster for me as a test. The studio ended up going with photos. They got cheap on me, but I really wanted a Drew Struzan poster. I had already had a Frank Frazetta poster for From Dusk Till Dawn and I really wanted a Drew Struzan poster.
All I got were three really badass black and white drawings, full size, and a color pencil sketch of the whole thing. When he was selling his originals I went ahead and bought his First Blood painting. That is one of my favorite paintings he's ever done and it is just stunning. You look at his best book on it and doest compare at all. You can not capture that in any kind of printed form. It's unbelievable. Just gorgeous.
That's up at the museum and I also bought the first study he did for The Thing. The sketch... not a sketch, but a full black and white drawing he did before the final poster.
Quint: Oh, I know that one well. Believe it or not I was saving up my money to buy it from him. It was the only original piece he had that I could feasibly spend a few lean years saving for! And then you snaked it from me!
Robert Rodriguez: (laughs)
Quint: Now that I know it's gonna be at the museum you better keep an eye on me 'cause I will try to walk out with it.
Robert Rodriguez: If you want a really good giclee copy I can get you one.
Quint: That's like insurance, isn't it? A way to keep me from attempting to steal the original. I see what you're doing. So, what's the story with the Frazetta From Dusk Till Dawn poster? Why didn't you get to use that for the key art?
Robert Rodriguez: That was the year he had his stroke, so he turned in the painting late. It was just about a month late for us to be able to make it the official poster. So, by the time we got it we just made some posters we gave away at comic book stores. The way they print posters of original art is just a shamble. I mean, if you look at the First Blood poster compared to the painting you'll see what you're missing out on. I should have them side by side, actually. I think I'm going to do that. The same with the Frazettas.
Quint: I've seen Struzan's stuff in person at a small show he had at Forest Lawn in LA and it was ridiculous how much more vibrant and alive these classic images looked when seeing the originals. I've never seen an original Frazetta painting, though, just some sketch work he's done.
Robert Rodriguez: Then you know what I'm talking about. It's even more striking with these because they're not behind glass or anything. You can see the brush strokes up close. They floor you. They have so much power, they just knock you back. People start crying when they see it. I've seen grown men cry when they see the Frazettas! It's their childhood. They never thought they would be that close to the man himself. Even his self portrait is there.
I think people are under the impression that I own all of them, but I don't. Most of these are lent by the family. I'm helping them promote him again and show them around because they were all just in a vault after he passed away. It was always his dream for people to see the originals. That's why he had a museum open, that's why he kept them. I interviewed him with my video camera ten years ago when I first went and saw him and he told me how he did them. We play that in the gallery. I also got a great little video of Frank Miller seeing them for the first time in person. I had them in my house and I got his reaction and it's just stunning seeing what another artist thinks of Frazetta's work. It really humbles them.
At the gallery we have a bunch of art. The Drew Struzan stuff, we have ten or twelve Frazettas up in a row, which you would never find anywhere except maybe in Frazetta's original museum by his house when he was alive. If you never saw that then you never will see it. This is the only way you get to see it, this little tour we do. It's a once in a lifetime chance to check it out.
Quint: Is that why you pick SXSW to open up this show, because of the huge influx of people for the fest?
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, any chance we have at promoting his work to a large group of people. I noticed this with Frank Miller's art... as popular as he was before the Sin City movie came out, it was 400 times bigger after. I think once we do a movie people will know much more about who Frank Frazetta is and they will want to see the art, so we can keep the museum open full time, but right now it's just these big events until the movie (FIRE AND ICE) hits.
It's also a great chance to pick up giclees and these limited edition museum quality canvas prints that I've done. You can hold them up to the originals and it's the closest to the originals that you've ever seen. That benefits the preservation of the art and it benefits the Frazetta family.
Quint: That's how you're bankrolling the archiving, then.
Robert Rodriguez: Yeah, for repair and to be kept in a climate controlled environment, essentially.
Quint: Is there a particular piece that you can't help but stop and examine every time you walk by?
Robert Rodriguez: For me personally, the ones that stand out are the images I used to cut out of The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta and put up on the wall when I was a kid. Now they're up on the wall, but the real ones!
Clete Shields, the sculptor... we have a bunch of his sculptures that he's done for a bunch of my movie characters over the years and he did a huge 4 ½ foot tall Moon Maid sculpture in the style of Frazetta. That's in there, alongside the original Moon Maid he did. I think that's like his Mona Lisa. It's freaking amazing when you see the original.
Let's see... any of the Conans and the Death Dealers, of course. At Earth's Core is one of my particular favorites. I kind of used that as a model of what Salma was in From Dusk Till Dawn. That's why when Frank Frazetta saw the movie originally he called me and said “Where did you find this gal? I wish I was painting her when I was painting these things!” I said, “She's based on your paintings, that's why she looks like your paintings!” He said, “Oh, okay.” The whole costume design and headdress was all based on that painting.
Quint: Ha! Well, if you've seen more than two Frank Frazetta pieces in your life you'll probably notice he had a thing for short, curvy women, so I can see why he'd be obsessed with Salma.
Robert Rodriguez: His whole comment on the poster is “That's all you need on the poster. You don't need anybody else but her and that snake.” I said, “Well, we kind of have to put in the other actors, too, because it's George Clooney and Harvey Keitel...” He said, “Alright, alright.” But if you look at the painting it's 90% Salma and at the very bottom is George Clooney. He didn't even bother to put Harvey Keitel on the poster! It's just George Clooney, Richie and he didn't even draw in the vampires, he just the monkey guys he usually does. Quentin and I thought that was the best. Alright! He didn't even bother with our vampires, he put his own creatures that he always has in his paintings! It's so fantastic.
Quint: That's awesome because in a weird way that actually opens up the mythology of the From Dusk Till Dawn world. It's on the poster and those subhuman guys could be somewhere in that temple! We don't know!
Robert Rodriguez: Totally could. Could be explored in Season 2 of From Dusk Till Dawn!
If you're in Austin while the museum is open, why not go in, donate to a good cause and see some amazing art up close and personal? Why not indeed!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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