#465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking
Episode publishedPodcast: Lex Fridman PodcastLex Fridman Podcast
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The following is a conversation with Robert Rodriguez, a legendary filmmaker and creator of Sun City, Al Mariachi, Desperado, Spy Kids, Machete from Dusk Till Dawn, Alita, Batalangel, The Faculty, and many more. Robert inspired a generation of independent filmmakers with his first film, El Mariachi, that he famously made for just $7,000. On that film, in many since, he was not only the director. He was also the writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, visual effects supervisor, sound designer, composer, basically, the full stack of filmmaking. He has shown incredible versatility across genre
Oh, all the time where you're just like or just you know how long it'll take to reset, and you're just but then you know what you you you gotta just work with what you got. You know, you gotta look work with your results. You
get nervous or no in that moment?
Oh, yeah. You're you're nervous going, like, just, I hope it goes off. Because then to fix it, I'll have to go do a bunch of other steps, which we don't have time for. But a lot of times, you know, I've just learned that if something happens, it's just meant to be that way. And, and I got used to doing things in one take and, and just living with it. It didn't bother me. In one movie, it was even a low budget movie. They had, Rigged a car to implode, because I was gonna throw a guy at it. So we needed the car to implode and then we're gonna throw him and marry it together. Right. And, the stun
it all goes to shit, when it fails, you just what's the next thought. So I'll tell you two
things happened on dust till done. First was, okay, you know how those explosions when somebody walks away in slow motion from an explosion that's become kind of, you know, that started with Desperado. Desperado is the first. If you look at all the montages, Desperado is the first. That's
right. That is the meme. Doctor. Because
it was an accident. It was just supposed to be, it was just two grenades, not a nuclear bomb. He throws them over the side. I just wanted like some body parts or, you know, something to fly up some shrapnel. It said, literally says shrapnel. And my fixed guy was so ragged running so ragged. We get to there and I go, do you have any body parts and stuff we can throw up or or something you can shoot up? Pat, I didn't realize it's so high to get past that Second Floor. He's like, no, I don't. I can give you a fireball. I can give you a nice, you know, fireball with propane, but it burns away real
go. With
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