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Thursday, December 12, 2024
Famous movie prop "accident": 1870s Martin Guitar destroyed during filming of "The Hateful Eight"
Boing Boing: There's a scene in Quentin Tarantino's 2015 Western, The Hateful Eight, where Kurt Russell grabs Jennifer Jason Leigh's guitar and smashes it against a wooden column.
Turns out that wasn't just any old guitar — it was a priceless 1870s Martin acoustic on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum.
This was so interesting. Props need to imitate items from the time period or setting of the play or film. They need to look realistic within the piece of media for an average audience. But a lot of media surpasses this, going far to find exact replicas or perfect pieces for a scene. I’ve seen how detailed CMU’s designers are! Props used on movie sets often need to be practically perfect, since the camera can capture it up close as opposed to a theatre-goer at least 15 feet back.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that a “priceless” 1870s Martin acoustic was used for a western film. While its terrible that its been smashed, part of me is glad to see the realism in the film. Like the article said, the reactions out of the other actors are so much more genuine.
It surprised me that the film crew told the museum it had been an accident, and tried to cover up their miscommunication to the actor. That seems low, and I don’t know how they could’ve thought they would get away with it. But the rest of the article hints at Tarantino intending to smash the guitar- a jerk move to pull with a 40k rented artifact.