The Circuit

by Winter Miller
At the Provincetown high school, Quentin Tarantino was on hand to pick up his "Filmmaker on the Edge" award at the 10th annual film fest.

Hard to say who had a better ensemble between Tarantino and John Waters as the two sat onstage as Waters interviewed Tarantino. It was like boys night on Project Runway.

Waters had on a slate blue two-toned oxford, navy blazer and brick red pants. Brick red.

Tarantino had a brick red jacket over a black button down and black pants. Brick red. What's with the Frik 'n Frak outfits? But even QT can't compete with Waters' pencil-thin 'stache.  

Waters asked about violence and the ratings board, "they don't hassle you at the MPAA, do you sleep with them? They always let you off!"

"I have a good relationship with the MPAA," Tarantino gloated.

"Mine's terrible," Waters blank-faced.

Waters wondered about Tarantino's foot fetish in his films, to which Tarantino admitted yep, he has "an affection for that appendage."

"Let's talk about casting, you reinvented John Travolta as a man, and I helped reinvent him as a woman," Waters quipped, and then asked if Tarantino writes with actors in mind.

Tarantino said he wrote "Pulp Fiction" with Michael Madsen in mind but just before they started lensing, Madsen took "Wyatt Earp."

 Tarantino added that Friday night he finished his World War II pic script "Inglorious Bastards." (Subtitled, "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France.”) It's a screenplay he'd been working on for eight years.

"Just as I thought I was gonna throw it out, I cracked it," he said. Tarantino is hoping to lens by October and turn it in for Cannes.

An audience member presented Tarantino with a gift. On cue, Waters asked, "What's the best gift you were ever given?"

"Pussy," said Tarantino. "It just keeps giving, you have pussy, and then the memory of pussy."

In the annals of something I'd file under "things I can't picture," Tarantino shared an anecdote about boxing Bob Dylan in Dylan's own gym. More than once.

Dylan? Boxer? Why not?

Later, as Tarantino stepped up to receive his award, he blushed and paused. "I think I feel like Miss Mexico too," he said. "My heart is full."

Photos by Henny Garfunkel.