The crime movie Quentin Tarantino made Robert De Niro watch before ‘Jackie Brown’
Throughout his career, Robert De Niro has had the fortune to work with several of the greatest directors of all time, which comes as no surprise given his stature and talent. Over the years, De Niro has offered his acting services to the likes of Martin Scorsese, Kenneth Branagh, Francis Ford Coppola and even Quentin Tarantino.
De Niro played in Tarantino’s third feature film Jackie Brown alongside Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridger Fonda and Michael Keaton. He portrayed Louis Gara, recently-released-from-prison criminal colleague and former cellmate of Jackson’s gun runner, Ordell Robbie.
Before the production of Jackie Brown occurred, though, Tarantino had De Niro watch a particular crime film to get him into character. Seeing as De Niro’s character has recently been released from prison, he had to learn to be somewhat reformed from his former ways rather than throwing himself straight back into being a criminal. Tarantino suggested the 1978 Ulu Gorsbard movie Straight Time, starring Dustin Hoffman.
Straight Time arrived in 1978, with Hoffman starring alongside Theresa Russel, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton, M. Emmet Walsh and Kathy Bates. It tells of a career thief from Los Angeles who finds difficulty in returning to normal society after serving a six-year prison sentence.
De Niro was not the only person Tarantino recommended watch Straight Time, though. When working at a video store in Los Angeles in his youth, Tarantino would recommend the customers a wide range of movies from his widespread knowledge, including the Hoffman classic.
“Because I knew a lot about films, if I wanted to see something, I would buy it,” Tarantino once told fellow filmmaker Dennis Hopper. “I’ve been collecting videos since videos came out. And so my collection was able to completely enlarge. Most of the stuff I already had knowledge of before, but I was able to completely indulge myself. And more important than that, I kind of fancied myself the Pauline Kael of the store.”
He continued: “People would come in, and I would kind of hold court with them. Eventually, and this was great for the first three years and a major drag the last two years, people would come in and just say, ‘What do I want to see today, Quentin?’ And I’d walk them through it: ‘Well, this is Straight Time, it’s with Dustin Hoffman, it’s one of the greatest crime movies ever made,’ and so on.”
Check out the trailer for Straight Time below.
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.