The opening bar scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof is set in Texas.
The film begins in Austin, Texas, where Arlene, Shanna, and Jungle Julia spend time together before becoming targets of stuntman Mike. The Austin setting connects Death Proof to the city’s music, nightlife, and filmmaking culture, and it establishes the first group of women before the story later shifts to Tennessee.
Death Proof was released in 2007 as one half of the double feature Grindhouse, paired with Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. Its first section and later section use different groups of characters, locations, and visual textures.
The state is easy to confuse with Tennessee because the second major storyline follows women working around Lebanon, Tennessee. The film therefore has two important Southern settings, but the opening bar sequence belongs to Texas.