QUENTIN TARANTINO

An archive of 16 postcards from Quentin Tarantino mailed to his friend and Video Archives colleague Jerry Martinez during the writing of Pulp Fiction. 17 postcards comprising sixteen from Tarantino and one from Roger Avary, co-writer of Pulp Fiction, all dating from 1992-93, mailed from Amsterdam, Cannes, London, and Portland, Maine soon after Reservoir Dogs was released and while working on the script for Pulp Fiction. A few of the cards with small drawings. General wear from handling, a few with water stains affecting legibility, one badly stained.

An excellent series of postcards sent from Europe by Quentin Tarantino during the release of Reservoir Dogs and the writing of Pulp Fiction. While not all are dated or with clearly dated postmarks, context helps order them. The cards themselves, as expected, are carefully curated with Tarantino-esque film references: Bruce Lee kicking in Enter the Dragon, Janet Leigh screaming in Psycho, Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke in a still from Rumblefish, Angela Davis speaking, a portrait of Marcello Mastroianni, Tin Tin, and film noir stills. Further, in many of the postcards Tarantino mentions the wealth of films he is able to access in Holland at "a video store in Amsterdam called 'Cult Videoteck' ... So I've been smokin' weed watchin' old Hong Kong Kung Fu movies and Italian horror films all night long."

In May 1992, Tarantino writes from Cannes where Reservoir Dogs was screened at the famous film festival and he writes Jerry that "the Palai where the film is shown is huge (3000 seats). The sound is so good I'm hearing dialog in the print for the first time. I met the artist Julian Schnabel ... [he] is going to interview me for Interview mag." In January 1993, while visiting a friend in the Northeast, Tarantino writes "in downtown Portsmouth w/ Lori some guy in a record store recognized me. The movie hasn't even opened there yet" here referring to the American theatrical release of Reservoir Dogs. After the release, in February 1993, Tarantino writes from London: "Here we're not some small little film. We're the number one film in London! In the U.S. after three months of release, we cracked 2 million. In the U.K. after six weeks of release we've passed four million. Big fuckin' hit."

A question in one postcard written in April 1992 recalls a passage in Pulp Fiction. Tarantino asks Jerry in big red letters "HOW'S MY CAR?" The concept of an American abroad in Amsterdam asking about his car in California recalls the excellent scene in Pulp Fiction where the drug dealer Lance (Eric Stoltz) asks Vincent Vega (John Travolta) "Still got your Malibu?"

Likely the last card in the series, one features a bloodied still of Vincent Vega and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) above a production shot showing Tarantino filming the scene where Vincent wins the dance competition with Mia (Uma Thurman). Tarantino describes this card as his "postcard debu" (sic) and notes that "Pulp Fiction p[ost].c[ards].'s are everywhere." While Reservoir Dogs gave Tarantino his start, Pulp Fiction made him a household name after winning the Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival when the film premiered in May 1994. These postcards, written just before Tarantino's spectacular rise, offer great insights to the salad days of this auteur filmmaker.