David Fincher Wanted to Limit Himself to Five or Six Takes on ‘Cliff Booth' — Quentin Tarantino Demanded 28: “I Want the Full Effect, Man"

An amusing detail inside Empire Magazine's joint interview between David Fincher and Quentin Tarantino. You read that headline right. Tarantino wanted more takes from Fincher, the man who has become a punchline for shooting scenes into oblivion.

For once, Fincher walked into “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” wanting to keep things lean. Five, maybe six takes per setup. That was the plan, which I’m sure must have pleased all actors involved. Then Tarantino heard about it and lost his mind.

Here's Fincher:

I remember at the beginning I said to Quentin, 'I want to make sure I know this inside out because I want to limit myself to five/six takes. And he was like, 'WHAT?! I want the full effect, man. I want 28 takes for every single fucking set-up!' I was like, 'Okay, okay!'"

Tarantino wanted Fincher to just be Fincher. For the record, Tarantino seems to have gotten what he wanted. He showed up on set, and saw enough of Fincher’s obsessive compulsive directing to call him an "intense marionette artist," and does a pretty good impression of him: "Okay, no, no, no, that's not right. Come in. Okay, stop, stop, stop. Okay, okay, do it again."

That said, 28 takes isn't some crazy number for Fincher. This is the same man who stopped a take on “Zodiac” because a tiny thread was out of place on someone's shirt. The same man who spent an entire afternoon on that film getting a closeup of Jake Gyllenhaal's hand tossing paperwork inside his car. Andrew Garfield said the laptop smash in “The Social Network” took 13-plus takes — that’s a lot of destroyed laptops).” Mindhunter” had a 75-take scene.

Then there's “Mank.” Charles Dance told Total Film the climactic dinner party scene went past 100 takes, to the point where Gary Oldman finally snapped: "David, I've done this scene a hundred fucking times." Fincher's response? "Yeah, I know, but this is 101. Reset!" Amanda Seyfried guessed that one scene took a full week and maybe 200 takes.

Honestly, what Fincher does is fairly uncharted territory. There aren't many directors who push their actors this way. The only real comparison is Kubrick, who holds the Guinness record for the most takes of a dialogue scene (148, on "The Shining") and put Shelley Duvall through 127 takes of the baseball bat scene. Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood famously wraps a scene after one or, at most, two takes. Legend.

“The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” opens in IMAX on November 25, and hits Netflix on December 23. It starts screening for most press on November 17.