In Quentin Tarantino's dark and cynical 2015 Western The Hateful Eight, Kurt Russell played the bounty hunter John Ruth, who's taking his murderous prisoner Daisy Domergue, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, to her execution. There's a scene in the film where Leigh plays a song on guitar and Russell grabs it away from her, smashing it on the beam of the tavern where the characters wait out a snowstorm. Soon after the film's release, we learned that the guitar Russell smashed was an antique from the 19th century, on loan from the Martin Guitar Museum.
According to sound mixer Mark Ulano, the Hateful Eight prop team made doubles of the antique guitar. After Leigh played the song on the antique guitar, the scene was supposed to cut so that they could switch out guitars and Russell could smash one of the doubles. Because of some kind of miscommunication, Russell ended up smashing the real guitar, which got a genuinely horrified reaction from Leigh.
The Martin Museum wasn't happy about it, and neither was Kurt Russell. Talking about the accidental smashing in 2024, Russell maintained that it was an accident and that he felt bad about it. He also said that he was under the impression that the instrument was worth $15,000 — the price of one bird automaton, before inflation — and that people inflated that price when they retold the story over the years.
We've got another update on the saga now. Last week, Dick Boak, the former director of the Martin Guitar Museum, went on Eric Dahl's Gear Gab podcast and had a bit more to say about the Hateful Eight guitar-smash. He retold the story of loaning the guitar out to the film production, with assurances that it would be taken care of, and he put forward the idea that Tarantino made sure the antique guitar would be smashed on purpose, to get that aghast reaction from Jennifer Jason Leigh.
From what I know about Tarantino, that seems perfectly plausible. Boak said: I think they filmed at night on purpose — Tarantino filmed at night on purpose — so that the guitar tech wouldn't be there. He had gone home, and they never brought the [stunt double] paper mache guitars out.
They just had the regular guitar, and she played her little thing. And Kurt Russell grabbed it out of her hands: "Music time is over." And Tarantino wanted to get a genuine reaction out of her. Boak went on to say that the whole incident worked out just fine for the Martin Museum: I was so upset.
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