Visiting Four Rooms

Quentin Tarantino doesn’t like to talk about Four Rooms—ya heard of it? If he wanted to, he could say he’s made 9½ films and up one on Fellini, but he doesn’t like to talk about Four Rooms. Shot in the fall of 1994, this was an anthology film initiated by Alexandre Rockwell; the final film included segments directed by Rockwell, Tarantino, Allison Anders, and Robert Rodriguez. Tim Roth plays the bellhop in the Hotel Mon Signor standing in for the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. I always assumed that this was the crew from the beginning—along with Richard Linklater, who reportedly dropped out during preproduction—but because of the film’s horrid reputation, I hadn’t seen Four Rooms until last Friday. It’s only 97 minutes. What was keeping me?

Miramax wasn’t involved from the beginning, either, and Rockwell had some tantalizing partners at first: "Fall of ’92, after In the Soup, Reservoir Dogs and Gas Food Lodging hit Sundance, Micky Cottrell and Doug Lindemann hosted a dinner party. And I talked out this idea: make an omnibus movie about a bellhop and multiple characters in different rooms at the Chateau Marmont on New Year’s Eve… We talked about Paul Bartel doing one, maybe Alan Rudolph. After that, I went to Quentin. Quentin got up on it; Lawrence [Bender] got into it. And [they] went to Miramax.” But Harvey and co. demanded a film made by the class of ’92, not down on their luck Bartel and Rudolph. (Especially crushing for Bartel, who tried throughout the 1980s to get a sequel to Eating Raoul made and failing every time.)

And I didn’t know how quickly things changed for Anders and Rockwell from 1992 to 1994—just as quickly as Tarantino and Rodriguez, but in the other direction. “I don’t know how Alex put it to Quentin, but I cried—and that was genuine. I’d just lost a movie last year—Paul is Dead—thanks to Mr. Big Adventure on Sunset Boulevard suddenly walking out on it. And Alex had made a movie—Somebody to Love—but couldn’t get it distributed. So we both had a lot riding on Four Rooms… I didn’t know what we would do. I’m sure I didn’t know what I would do. But, I mean, Quentin was overwhelmed, beat. He was even thinking, we’ll just give the money back to Miramax. And I understand dropping out—I dropped out of high school. [Laughs.] But this was a killer to us. And Quentin hadn’t quite thought this out. But once we told him about it... he did think it out. [Laughs.] And the deal stayed.”

Rodriguez is just as effusive in the above interview, happy with his experience on Four Rooms and his career circa 1995, but all Tarantino has to say is “No,” followed by “You gotta get famous. [He is scrambling through boxes of free merchandise sent to his office.] Look, they just give you all these things. Free shoes. [He holds up a pair of oversized fire-engine red tennis shoes.]” Run ragged by Pulp Fiction promotion, he still managed to contribute “The Man from Hollywood,” the only true comedy he’s ever directed. This is his Martin & Lewis movie, even if it’s only half an hour; Lewis’ directorial debut The Bellboy was only 70 minutes. This is the film mentioned at length by director Chester Rush (Tarantino) to Roth’s bellhop, trying to convince him to take part in some wild and truly stupid celebrity hotel behavior: these people (Tarantino is joined in his segment by Bruce Willis, Jennifer Beals, and Paul Calderón) are so rich, so famous, and so bored that they have to contrive some finger-chopping game with a hapless bellboy just to get their nightly kicks.

Tarantino shot the segment in long takes, likely so his segment couldn’t be butchered by Miramax—then again, he probably could’ve gotten Harvey Weinstein to bend more than any other filmmaker in the world. But even though “The Man from Hollywood” does show an artist run ragged—reusing material, settling for subpar performances, resigned to threadbare sets (but, then again, these sets really do look like those Jerry Lewis movies)—it’s still the work of a great artist, or at least someone with the right instincts to keep making movies in Hollywood. Alexandre Rockwell’s segment is the only one that doesn’t work, but both Anders and Rodriguez deliver shorts undercooked but with potential. If only they all had more time.

None of them, besides Rodriguez and Tarantino, ever worked together again. The “New Movement” Weinstein tried to promote was really just Tarantino and friends. Rodriguez persisted due to his versatility and workaholic career choices; Tarantino’s success is global, but Rockwell and Anders continued struggling—for distribution, for work other than television. Richard Linklater would’ve made more sense in the rooms, and that’s not just hindsight: Tarantino, Rodriguez, and Linklater are all distinct directors. So is Anders, but Rockwell’s segment, if you’re not familiar with his work—and it’s likely that Four Rooms remain his most widely seen film—is bootleg Tarantino. But he was older, and he made his first film in 1982, right when Tarantino started working at the video store.

—Follow Nicky Otis Smith on Twitter and Instagram: @nickyotissmith