Sean Penn inspired Quentin Tarantino to make ‘Death Proof’
Death Proof is probably the strangest film that appears in the Quentin Tarantino extended universe. Although it is canonically the director’s sixth film (or fifth, if you consider the Kill Bill films a single effort like Tarantino does), it remains perhaps his least seen and least acclaimed work to date. Produced as a double feature along with close friend Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, Death Proof doesn’t have the pedigree that is afforded to most of Tarantion’s work.
Unlike the rest of his films, Death Proof doesn’t make allusions and nods to the genres that Tarantino is obsessed with. Instead, the film leans fully into the exploitation genre that was paramount to Tarantino’s budding movie-going experience as a kid. While movies like Jackie Brown and Kill Bill had plundered the depths of blaxploitation and kung-fu, respectively, Death Proof was less of a homage and more of a direct attempt to replicate the tones of cinema’s past.
The idea for the film came from an unlikely source. According to the 2007 book Grindhouse, author Kurt Volk credits actor Sean Penn with inspiring Tarantino’s future project. The two were sharing drinks one night when the filmmaker expressed his desire to buy a Volvo car for himself. His rationale was simple: Volvos have a strong reputation for safety. But Penn gave Tarantino another idea: buy whatever car you want and have a crew of stuntmen “death proof” it.
The concept of “death proofing” a car can be traced back to the early days of stock car racing. Eventually, film chase sequences required more dangerous actions from stunt car drivers. To help protect them, stuntmen had devised various ways of “death proofing” cars so that they could take massive amounts of damage without killing the driver. The idea appealed to Tarantino’s film buff personality, and the image of “death proofing” a car stuck with him after he departed Penn’s drinking session.
Around the same time, Tarantino and Rodriguez came up with the idea of paying tribute to grindhouse films. Grindhouse theatres were often dilapidated cinemas that showed low-budget films that often were in the genres of action, horror, kung-fu, or B-movies. Exploitation films and pornography were also frequent fixtures of grindhouse films, with theatres attempting to attract viewers with the promise of shocking visuals.
While Rodriguez decided to dip into the zombie horror genre with his contribution to the project – Planet Terror, Tarantino decided to expand upon his Death Proof concept. He made the film’s central anti-hero, Mike, a stuntman and cast Kill Bill stuntwoman Zoë Bell as one of the film’s female leads. Although it proved to be a box office bomb both inside and outside of its Grindhouse release, Death Proof is one of Tarantino’s most unique films. It wouldn’t have existed without a little inspiration from Sean Penn and a bit of alcohol.
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