Remember that scene (as if you could forget) in Pulp Fiction in which Uma Thurman’s Mia is revived from a drug overdose via a shot of adrenaline directly to her heart? Thought that sprang forth wholly from Quentin Tarantino‘s twisted imagination? No, that incident, more or less, is something witnessed personally by Steven Prince, who tells that story (among many, many others) in Martin Scorsese‘s 1978 documentary “American Boy.” Virtually unavailable these days, Scorsese completists have always placed a premium on “American Boy.” The champion raconteur and former junkie was at one time the road manager for Neil Diamond before turning to acting and other things (he appears in Richard Linklater‘s Waking Life and, most famously, plays the gun dealer in Taxi Driver. Now Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly producer, Tommy Pallotta, has made a new documentary, “American Prince,” that visits with the cult figure to catch up on the last 30 years. “American Prince,” premiered at SXSW this past spring, and was double-billed with a rare screening of “American Boy.” The film is now available for BitTorrent download by clicking here, and an interview with Pallotta, a former Austin filmmaker now living in Amsterdam, is available here.
This article appears in June 12 • 2009.
