00:02: Charlie Rose: Quentin Tarantino is here. He burst into the film world in 1992 with his movie, "Reservoir Dogs." His second effort, "Pulp Fiction," turned him into an icon in the film world. His movies often mix sparkling dialogue with sensationalized violence. Here is a look at some of his work.
00:33: Michael Madsen: Is that supposed to be funny?
00:36: Steve Buscemi: Look, we think this place ain't safe.
00:38: Harvey Keitel: This place just ain't secure. We're leaving, you should go with us.
00:43: Michael Madsen: Nobody's going anywhere.
00:45: John Travolta: You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Paris?
00:49: Samuel L. Jackson: They don't call it a quarter pounder with cheese?
00:52: John Travolta: They got the metric system, they wouldn't know what a quarter pounder is.
00:55: Samuel L. Jackson: And what do they call it?
00:57: John Travolta: They call it royale with cheese.
00:58: Samuel L. Jackson: Royale with cheese.
01:00: John Travolta: That's right.
01:01: Samuel L. Jackson: What do they call a Big Mac?
01:03: John Travolta: A Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it le Big Mac.
01:06: Samuel L. Jackson: Le Big Mac. What do they call a whopper?
01:10: John Travolta: I don't know. I didn't go into Burger King.
01:13: Pam Grier: Beauty case.
01:15: Unidentified Male: What's in it?
01:17: Pam Grier: Beauty products. Alarm clock. Glass case. Birth control.
01:27: Unidentified Male: What's that?
01:31: Pam Grier: My diet.
01:34: Unidentified Male: Let's see what else is in there?
01:37: Pam Grier: Here, here, here.
01:39: Unidentified Male: What's this?
01:43: Sonny Chiba (Through Translator): What do you want with Hattori Hanzo?
01:50: Uma Thurman: I need Japanese steel.
01:54: Sonny Chiba: Why do you need Japanese steel?
01:59: Uma Thurman: I have vermin to kill.
02:03: Sonny Chiba: You must have big rats to need the Hattori Hanzo steel.
02:10: Uma Thurman: Huge.
02:14: David Carradine: If you want to be old school about it, and you know I'm all about old school, then we could wait until dawn and slice each other up at sunrise like a couple of real-life -- now if you don't settle down, I'm going to have to put one in your kneecap, and I hear tell that's a very painful place to get shot in.
02:39: Kurt Russell: Well, Pam, which way are you going? Left or right?
02:44: Rose Mcgowan: Right.
02:46: Kurt Russell: That's too bad.
02:48: Rose Mcgowan: Why?
02:50: Kurt Russell: Well, because it was a 50/50 shot on whether you would be going left or right. You see, we're both going left. You could have just as easily been going left too, and if that was the case, it would have been a while before you started getting scared. Since you're going the other way, I'm afraid you're going to have to start getting scared immediately.
03:12: Charlie Rose: Tarantino's latest film may be his most ambitious yet. "Inglourious Basterds" features a band of Jewish-American Nazi hunters who unleash a plot to end the Second World War. Here is a look at the trailer.
03:28: Brad Pitt: I'm putting together a special team. We're going to be doing one thing and one thing only -- killing Nazis. Sound good?
03:37: Unidentiifed Males: Yes, sir!
03:40: Brad Pitt: I'm going to assume you know who we are.
03:42: Richard Sammel: Everybody in the German army has heard of you.
03:47: Brad Pitt: You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-taking business, we in the killing-Nazi business. And cousin, business is a- booming. If you ever want to eat a sauerkraut sandwich again, take your wienerschnitzel-licking finger and point out on this map what I want to know.
04:02: Richard Sammel: I respectfully refuse.
04:04: Brad Pitt: Hey, Donny, got us a German here who wants to die for his country. Oblige him.
04:14: Mike Meyers: An American secret service effort is deep behind enemy lines. The Germans call them the Basterds. These yanks have been to them the devil.
04:26: Brad Pitt: We're all tickled to hear you say that.
04:29: Mike Meyers: The Germans are holding a gala premiere. In attendance will be most of the German high command. You'll rendezvous with our double agent. She'll take it from there.
04:38: Brad Pitt: You are getting us into that premiere.
04:40: Diane Kruger: That's suicide.
04:41: Brad Pitt: What else are we going to do, go home?
04:43: Omar Doom: What's the plan?
04:45: Eli Roth: We punch those goons out, take their machine guns, and burst in there blasting.
04:51: Diane Kruger: That's the plan?
04:54: Brad Pitt: That's about it. Or not.
04:56: Diane Kruger: There's something you don't know. Hitler is attending the premiere.
05:01: Brad Pitt: Getting to whack Uncle Adolf makes this a horse of a different color.
05:09: Mike Meyers: We have all our rotten eggs in one basket. The objective of the operation -- blow up the basket.
05:16: Brad Pitt: We'll give you a little something you can't take off.
05:23: Eli Roth: You're getting pretty good at this.
05:26: Christoph Waltz: You are now in the hands of the SS. My hands, to be exact.
05:32: Martin Wuttke: Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!
05:35: Brad Pitt: Yes, yes, yes.
05:37: Charlie Rose: I'm pleased to have Quentin Tarantino back at this table. Welcome.
05:42: Quentin Tarantino: It's good to be back. Actually, that was a little fu -- if I say so myself, that was a fun little oeuvre. I was kind of getting off on my own work there for a second.
05:49: Charlie Rose: A body of work right there. So what is a Tarantino film?
05:53: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, gosh, I might not be the best person to describe that.
05:58: Charlie Rose: Well, I once read where you said that I can do film criticism as good as anybody I've ever read.
06:02: Quentin Tarantino: I would -- I would agree -- probably not Pauline Kiel and maybe be short of Andrew Sarris, but after that.
06:07: Charlie Rose: OK.
06:09: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, you know, you know part of the, actually, one of the things is, you know, actually a good way to describe this is, like in this movie, for example, people have asked me questions about, like, well, were you concerned about the level of humor that is in a World War II film? There have not been really a lot of humorous World War II movies made in the last 30 years. And were -- were you worried about that? And it was like, I can't help it. That's just kind of what I do, you know. I write these stories, and then humor comes out of it. And you know, so it's -- if that stuff wasn't in there, if the set pieces, if the kind of love of cinema, if the humor, that wasn't in there, I would -- I would question my authorship, probably it wasn't done by me.
06:52: Charlie Rose: Dialogue is one great thing for you. Some sense, you have always liked a camera in motion too.
06:55: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes, yes.
06:57: Charlie Rose: It goes around.
06:58: Quentin Tarantino: All right. Yes.
07:01: Charlie Rose: You like -- what else? Tell me what are the elements for you, that you want to see in your films because they represent a Tarantino signature.
07:09: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you know.
07:12: Charlie Rose: Music is another.
07:14: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, that's definitely -- that's definitely one of them. But like I guess when it comes to the actual writing of the piece, where it really, really becomes what it is going to become is it's about character, when the dialogue just comes out of the character. And I don't lead the characters. I let the characters lead me, both as far as who they are and the conversations and even the scenario itself. I mean like, for instance, if I've got a character here with this glass and I have every intention of getting him to where that glass is.
07:44: Charlie Rose: Yes.
07:46: Quentin Tarantino: Well, that is a good idea on my part, I think.
07:49: Charlie Rose: Yes.
07:50: Quentin Tarantino: But once I get them going there, they might not -- they might reject the glass .
07:52: Charlie Rose: Right.
07:54: Quentin Tarantino: And they go somewhere else. And they are the ones that know best.
07:57: Charlie Rose: Yes. In your -- when you are writing that, are you thinking of particular actors in mind?
08:02: Quentin Tarantino: You know, it's all -- it's all different. Actually in this movie in particular, almost everybody, I didn't think -- I didn't have anybody in mind at all. And I actually think it's one of the reasons why the characters became so vivid, because it was more like a novel. I wasn't thinking about actors or their limitations. It's one of the reasons, like the character, Colonel Landa, speaks so many languages. I didn't have to worry about that. But in the case of like say "Kill Bill," that was completely designed for Uma Thurman.
08:23: Charlie Rose: It came out from "Pulp Fiction."
08:24: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
08:25: Charlie Rose: You knew her. You wanted to make a movie.
08:28: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, and I was like -- I was actually building the movie around her. I couldn't do it without her.
08:35: Charlie Rose: So if I said to you, you have always wanted to make this movie, what would I be talking about?
08:40: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you know, it's funny. Well, you know, I think in particular in this case is part of the thing that I like to do is I like genre. I like working in genre. And I like working very personally and very minutely inside of a fun movie genre. And I even like the sub- genres inside of genres. So like in the case of this being a war movie, it's not just a war movie. It is a bunch of guys on a mission war movie.
09:05: Charlie Rose: Right.
09:07: Quentin Tarantino: But you know, that's kind of what -- that's kind of what it is I do. In another movie, it could be a western. In another movie, it could be a swashbuckler.
09:14: Charlie Rose: Does that mean you're going to do a western, and you're going to do a musical, and you try to in your life career span, you will touch most genres?
09:20: Quentin Tarantino: I -- you know, more or less, yes. I mean, I started off with crime films, but I didn't want to just go down that road. I mean, it's been a while since I have done a crime film. Actually, I might go back and visit it again because I think now it would be fresh. But I do like genres. I do want to make a western. I keep kind of making this half-assed westerns, you know, that aren't really officially westerns. But even like when you bring up musicals, that might be one I don't know if I would do because I like the musical aspects that are in my movie right now. I get in and get out whenever I want.
09:48: Charlie Rose: This movie, how long did it take you to write it?
09:52: Quentin Tarantino: Well, it's -- you know, I came up with the idea about 10 years ago, in 1998.
09:55: Charlie Rose: And the idea was?
09:57: Quentin Tarantino: Well, the idea was, you know, let me do a bunch of guys on a mission war movie. And I thought.
10:01: Charlie Rose: So this was "Dirty Dozen".
10:02: Quentin Tarantino: Yes exactly.
10:03: Charlie Rose: Plus.
10:04: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. So I thought of the idea. I came up with most of the characters that you see in the movie now. And I came up with the idea of the character Aldo Raine, played by Brad Pitt, who leads these Jewish American soldiers behind enemy lines to basically do an Apache resistance against the Nazis. So I had that in my head, Shosanna in mind, the character that Melanie Laurent plays.
10:25: Charlie Rose: Right.
10:26: Quentin Tarantino: And then I had the first two chapters written, which is -- I have chapter starts, I had those first two chapters. But I had a different storyline in mind. And I was writing that, and it was just too big. It was just -- it wouldn't have been a movie. It could have been a miniseries, maybe, but it wasn't a movie. People were saying that I had writer's block. I had the opposite of writer's block. I could not shut my brain off. I couldn't stop writing. And that, also you have to remember back in '98, this would have been my first original since "Pulp Fiction," so I was very precious about the whole thing.
10:54: Charlie Rose: Right.
10:56: Quentin Tarantino: So I put it aside and decided to go to "Kill Bill" to tame myself, cut to "Kill Bill" volume one and two. I had epicitis at that time. So when I came back to it in 2008, I realized it was that story that was just too all encompassing. So I got rid of that story and came up with a new story. And the new story was the whole idea of a German Audie Murphy soldier, played by -- Fredrick Zoller -- who has done this wonderful thing for Germany, right, at a bad time in the war for them. And so Josef Goebbels is going to make a movie about him, and there is going to be a premiere, and then the actual mission, the "Guns of the Navarone" section would be blowing up the premiere.
11:34: Charlie Rose: Yes. I can see.
11:37: Quentin Tarantino: Movie on the Navarone.
11:38: Charlie Rose: And the idea, the idea of cinema in this movie is everywhere.
11:42: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. Exactly.
11:45: Charlie Rose: It takes place at a cinema. Goebbels loved movies and you love movies.
11:48: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
11:51: Charlie Rose: So tell me where it all comes together.
11:53: Quentin Tarantino: Well, the thing that kind of cracked me up was there's a scene early on in the movie where you really are being introduced for the first time fully to the Shosanna character, who plays the -- who is a Jewish woman, her whole family was murdered by the Nazis, and you cut to her four years later and she is hiding inside of Paris. And she owns -- she owns a cinema. And that Fredrick Zoller character I talked about is a German soldier who likes movies too and starts talking to her, chatting her up a little bit.
12:14: Charlie Rose: And he is going to be -- he is going to be in a movie because he is a war hero.
12:18: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. He's a war hero. Yes, it's kind of like -- the idea really is like an Audie Murphy kind of fellow, but for Nazis. And all of a sudden they are talking, and I'm writing the script, again, I don't know exactly what they are going to say there. I get them talking and they do it. And so all of a sudden, they start having a conversation about Max Linder versus Charlie Chaplin, versus Pabst versus Leni Riefenstahl, and when the whole scene is over and I put the pen down, I'm like, man, I go to do a World War II movie and it ends up being a love letter to cinema. I just cannot not, apparently. But you know, even the whole -- I actually was really fascinated once I got up the idea of doing the whole Nazi propaganda film as a premiere, just the whole idea of dealing with German cinema under the Third Reich. That's really never been done before. Even dealing with Joseph Goebbels not as necessarily architect of evil as he is always presented, but at his job as the studio head, which was one of his main jobs.
13:11: Charlie Rose: Right. Right.
13:14: Quentin Tarantino: You know.
13:15: Charlie Rose: And he fancied himself David O. Selznick, did he?
13:19: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, well, he considered himself a very artistic producer. He made over 800 films, and except for the movies of Leni Riefenstahl, he had his hand in almost every single one of them. One thing I.
13:28: Charlie Rose: Had nothing to do with hers?
13:30: Quentin Tarantino: No, no. He wasn't allowed to. That was the one - - he had control over everybody in the German film industry with the sole exception of Leni Riefenstahl.
13:38: Charlie Rose: Because she was Hitler's favorite?
13:40: Quentin Tarantino: She was Hitler's favorite, and they despised each other. And she was the one that did not have to kowtow to him. But you know, one thing I thought was really interesting, is I read Goebbels' diaries preparing for this movie. And he had some very, very interesting takes on cinema. And he had some very, very interesting takes on propaganda itself. Like for instance, when he saw "Battleship Potemkin," all right, he thought it was brilliant technique but very bad propaganda. He thought it was too heavy-handed. He said if it had been less heavy-handed, softer on the propaganda side but just as much technique, it could have accomplished far more.
14:18: Charlie Rose: I can't imagine -- is there anybody that was better at propaganda than he was, albeit for evil purposes?
14:23: Quentin Tarantino: Yes exactly. Well, you know, what he considered the greatest piece of propaganda of the war, and he spent a long time trying to duplicate it, was William Wyler's "Mrs. Miniver." That really stirred up the homefront.
14:35: Charlie Rose: So he knew cinema too.
14:37: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, yes yes. That was, you know, that really boned up the homefront in England, and he spent a lot of his career trying to re-create a "Mrs. Miniver" for Germany.
14:50: Ok: Yes.
14:52: Charlie Rose: There is "Dirty Dozen." There is sort of the Cherokee idea, which is we're going go in there, we're going to kill them, we're not taking prisoners, and we're going to scalp them and we're going to leave a mark.
15:01: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, the idea there, the idea behind them doing an Apache resistance is the idea that it, you know, they will ambush seven soldiers, say, all right, and they kill them and they take their scalps and they desecrate the bodies and leave them there for the Germans to find. It's not about those seven guys they kill. It's about the story that is going to go about the Basterds and how it is going to get into the psyche of the German soldier.
15:23: Charlie Rose: How did you create the idea of the German guy who is, in fact, his great -- he was a sleuth.
15:27: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes. That's exactly how I see him.
15:31: Charlie Rose: That's exactly what he was. He was the guy who would find out where the Jews were.
15:35: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. His name is Colonel Hans Landa, played by Christoph Waltz. And his nickname that the Jews have given him in France is the Jew Hunter.
15:43: Charlie Rose: We'll talk about the acting in a minute. How did you create the character? What was it based on? Or was it simply out of your mind?
15:49: Quentin Tarantino: It, you know, he just -- just flowed out of me. I mean, I really can't really tell you, well, I did this or I did that. I think the first scene that I wrote in the movie was the opening scene. I always have to kind of write in order. The opening scene in the film where he's interrogating the French farmer at the film.
16:07: Charlie Rose: But then you believe then that that character is fully formed in your mind, because the dialogue that takes place, the mannerisms that take place continue through the film in every encounter he had.
16:16: Quentin Tarantino: He's not really fully formed. They grow. They teach me who they are. Like to give you an example, one of the things about his character that is one of the most striking things is that he's obviously a linguistic genius. I didn't know that when I wrote that first scene. I knew he could speak French, but I didn't know that he was such a linguistic genius until he just kept being able to speak one language after another.
16:38: Charlie Rose: Then did you have to find an actor who could do that?
16:41: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, yes, that was the thing. That was the big deal. One of the things -- when I finished that script, I knew that Colonel Landa was one of the greatest characters I have ever written and one of the greatest characters I will ever write.
16:53: Charlie Rose: Hans Landa is played by Christoph Waltz, a German actor, a German actor who was not at the height of his career.
17:00: Quentin Tarantino: No, no, no, he is a TV actor in Germany.
17:02: Charlie Rose: And in fact, he said at Cannes, he basically, in a very emotional moment, said you had given back his career. And you said something interesting too -- you gave me my movie.
17:11: Quentin Tarantino: That's very true.
17:13: Charlie Rose: That dialogue could hardly be written, could it?
17:16: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, no, no, no. It's a thing, like I was saying before, when I wrote that script, I just knew that Landa was this -- you know, I'm aware enough to know one of my best creations I've ever written, and he was one of them.
17:29: Charlie Rose: But OK, let me just understand that. A great creation has, first of all, he's larger-than-life in some way? Or he has mannerisms that are defining or he has a style?
17:38: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I guess it's.
17:41: Charlie Rose: Or the look he has.
17:43: Quentin Tarantino: I think it's, you know, I've been doing this for like 17 years now, so I do have a little rogue's gallery of characters that are like my characters. And he was just one of the strongest that ever -- that had ever come out. And maybe in some way he revealed himself more to me as far as I really let the character live. So I was really -- I discovered him as I was writing him.
18:04: Charlie Rose: What's interesting about him is that he does everything with drama.
18:08: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
18:10: Charlie Rose: Every set piece is a dramatic piece. Whether it is because he discovered a shoe at a scene of a massacre and he knows where to go find the person who the shoe belongs to. Rather than just saying "is this your shoe," there is an elaborate ritual.
18:23: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, yes well, that's the thing. Everything Landa does -- I mean, he is a detective. That's first and foremost where he is coming from. He is a detective. And everything he does, his scenes are basically almost all interrogation scenes.
18:35: Charlie Rose: At a moment, he says that somewhere in the film.
18:37: Quentin Tarantino: That's it, yes. And every scene he does is some version of an interrogation. And every piece of interrogation is a piece of theater, or a mind game with the participant. Just give you an example. And there was also -- it helps describe how me and Christoph worked on the film, just to give you an idea. In the script, in the opening scene when he is interrogating this French farmer, the French farmer takes out a pipe and starts smoking it. And at some point, Landa says, "Hey, can I take out my pipe?" And he goes, "yes." And he pulls out this big giant calabash, which is the pipe that Sherlock Holmes smokes, and it's a very funny moment when it happens.
19:13: Charlie Rose: And he drinks milk.
19:16: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, and he drinks the farmer's -- they're dairy farmers, so he drinks his milk as opposed to wine. But he has this pipe, and so I wrote that in the script, and then I actually had a couple more moments where I had Landa take out the pipe and like, you know, smoke and think. And so it was obviously -- it was Landa's pipe. But I started thinking about it more and more as pre-production was going on, and I had dinner with Christoph. And I asked him, I go "let me ask you a question." In the script, you know, it implies that this is definitely Landa's pipe and he uses it to think. But let me ask you a question. What if Landa doesn't smoke a pipe? He knows the farmer smokes a pipe. And so at a certain point, he brings out this pipe. And what pipe does he bring out? He brings out the Sherlock Holmes pipe. One, you can say it's a sexual thing because my pipe is bigger than yours. All right? And the other thing you can say, I know you're lying and I got you. I've got the Sherlock Holmes pipe. So maybe he doesn't smoke a pipe at all. It's simply just an interrogation technique to throw the farmer -- send him more to hell. And I go, "So what do you think, Christoph?" He goes, "He doesn't smoke a pipe at all. It is simply an act of theater."
20:24: Christoph Waltz: If one were to determine what attribute the German people share with the beast, it would be the cunning and the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat. If a rat were to walk in here right now as I'm talking, would you greet it with a saucer of your delicious milk?
20:48: Denis Menochet: Probably not.
20:50: Christoph Waltz: I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn. He looks in the attic, he looks in the cellar, he looks everywhere he would hide. But there are so many places that wouldn't have even occurred to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the fuehrer has brought me out off my ass in Austria and placed me in French cow country today is because it does occur to me. Because I am aware of what tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity.
21:37: Charlie Rose: He won the Cannes film festival best actor award.
21:41: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, and deservedly.
21:43: Charlie Rose: So the other characters, the two women.
21:45: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you know, it's funny because the character of Shosanna.
21:50: Charlie Rose: Brad will speak for himself.
21:52: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, exactly. Well, the three characters have been in my mind for the last 10 years in particularly would be Brad's character, Aldo Raine, Hans Landa and the character Shosanna Dreyfus, played by Melanie Laurent. And Shosanna in the film is a Jewish woman who -- a Jewish young girl who saw her family massacred by the Nazis, and she's been hiding in Paris. And the thing is with Shosanna, years ago when I wrote the character, I had a much, much more like her being a real badass. And she was killing Nazis and she had a list of officers, she was like a real Joan of Arc of the Jews. And you know, she's snipe Nazis from the rooftops of Paris and all this kind of stuff.
22:35: Charlie Rose: I like this.
22:37: Quentin Tarantino: It was a lot of fun, all right, and I wrote these really great action sequences for Shosanna, and that was the deal.
22:43: Charlie Rose: So why didn't you use it?
22:45: Quentin Tarantino: Well, because I put it away and I did "Kill Bill," and almost everything that I liked about Shosanna, I gave the Bride. And so the Bride did all that stuff and the Bride is the one with the list and the Bride is the one going down the list and kicking butt. And -- so when I come back to it after "Kill Bill," I go, I can't do this again. But what I liked about that aspect was it's actually enabled me to make Shosanna more realistic. As opposed to being this tough Joan of Arc girl, she's just -- she is a survivor. She's a survivor. Actually made her much more like Jackie Brown than the Bride, because I think Shosanna's strength is keeping it together in tight situations where anyone else would crumble, when anyone else would melt, she manages to keep her poise.
23:29: Charlie Rose: Were they planning to go down in flames with everybody else or did they think they were going to be able to get away? Because what they did was on film?
23:38: Quentin Tarantino: Shosanna is thinking she is going to go up with the theater, she can't imagine living through something like this. So it is a suicide mission on her part. As far as the Basterds are concerned, if the first group which -- well, I don't want to explain right now -- but if the first group were to get in, they could actually drop the bombs off and get out. But when Brad's group goes in, they are such bumbling idiots as far as their situation that -- let's just get us in the building. If we can get in the building, we'll let off the bombs, all right? We don't have to pull this of 100 percent, just get us in the building. And then in the case of the other female character, Bridget von Hammersmark, played by Diane Kruger.
24:17: Charlie Rose: Who is a brilliant British, I mean German actress?
24:19: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, she is terrific. She's terrific.
24:24: Charlie Rose: A real character?
24:26: Quentin Tarantino: No, well, she is -- there is a lot of shadow things in this movie, where I take a real life thing and I do a shadow version of it. And her character to me is based on two characters. One, there is a Hungarian actress that came to Hollywood named Ilona Massey. And I just kind of based it on -- like, if Bridget von Hammersmark had gone to Hollywood during the Dietrich craze, her career would have been like Ilona Massey. But the thing that I was really thinking about is there was a singer and actress in Germany at the time named Zarah Leander. And she was really the Nazi poster child. Big chanteuse and big singer and starred in tons of musicals. Now, this is not for sure, it's just a rumor, but as much as a Nazi poster child that she was, there is a rumor -- because in my movie, Bridget von Hammersmark has that kind of cache with the Germans, but she is actually working for England. Zarah Leander, rumors exist that she was actually working for the Soviet Union.
25:24: Charlie Rose: Ah, I know, I know the story, exactly. Weren't there two of them that were working for the Soviet Union?
25:28: Quentin Tarantino: Well, that's, yes, there was somebody else too. I can't.
25:33: Charlie Rose: Both of them were working for the Soviet Union.
25:35: Quentin Tarantino: Yes exactly. And Zarah Leander was the one -- that's one of the things that actually.
25:39: Charlie Rose: That gave you the idea?
25:40: Quentin Tarantino: That gave me the idea.
25:42: Charlie Rose: To create this storyline? What do you call it, create a back story for an actor?
25:45: Quentin Tarantino: Yes exactly. You create a back story for an actor and for the character. That's one of my things. Whether or not the audience knows about it, I know about the characters past, and I just want the actors to know. Now, the audience doesn't need to know. Like for instance, Brad Pitt's character Aldo Raine has a rope burn.
26:00: Charlie Rose: Exactly.
26:01: Quentin Tarantino: Around his neck. But I never wanted to explain how it happened.
26:05: Charlie Rose: I desperately wanted to know.
26:07: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you just figure it out, all right. That's up to you to supply where that rope burn came from.
26:11: Charlie Rose: I mean, I would have loved to have had a little bit of a conversation that he would have referred to that.
26:14: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, if I wanted you to know, I would have told you. I like the idea that.
26:19: Charlie Rose: But your idea of cinema then is to keep a lot of stuff. You want mystery in the film itself. You want us to not to know everything.
26:28: Quentin Tarantino: I like the idea, I like the idea that, OK, if you contemplate why there is a rope burn there, and somebody else contemplates why there is a rope burn there, and somebody else contemplates it, and three different people come up with three different reasons why he got a rope burn, those are three different movies you all saw. And I like that idea. I like the idea that you open up the briefcase in "Pulp Fiction" and I don't tell you what is in there, but it is up to you to figure out what is in there, and now that's your movie. And you'll make that decision somewhere down the line. Now if I tell you at this table what it is, then you will throw that away, and I don't want you to throw away. That's your movie.
27:00: Charlie Rose: All right. In the end, this is a movie, it is a revenge movie, in the end?
27:04: Quentin Tarantino: I go for that. I go for that.
27:07: Charlie Rose: Didn't Eli Roth say it was a.
27:09: Quentin Tarantino: Kosher porn.
27:11: Charlie Rose: Kosher porn. What did he mean by that?
27:15: Quentin Tarantino: I think what meant by that was I have been waiting to see this for a long time. Watching Jews bash the heads in of Nazis is almost sexual gratification.
27:22: Charlie Rose: Scalp them and everything else.
27:23: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. Exactly.
27:26: Charlie Rose: And beat them up -- and he's in the film.
27:28: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, he is. He plays the Bear Jew, Donny Donowitz.
27:32: Charlie Rose: Now there was a story that I read that originally you wanted Stallone and Bruce Willis and others. Does that have any merit at all?
27:37: Quentin Tarantino: No, that was -- I mean, those are all terrific actors. I have worked with Bruce Willis. But as you can see from the movie, there is not a part for them. I don't see them playing Jews, all right? But no, that was just internet rumors.
27:49: Charlie Rose: All right. The movie you made is two and a half hours, how long, 2:52?
27:52: Quentin Tarantino: No, no, no, no, not that long. It's actually shorter than "Pulp Fiction". It's like two hours and 30 minutes.
27:58: Charlie Rose: And that's about right for you?
28:00: Quentin Tarantino: No, actually think -- I think it's paced just fine. I wanted it to -- I actually was very -- I was more disciplined on the writing of the script than I'd been in a while as far as just the script writing was concerned, because I didn't want it to be a three-hour movie. It is the kind of movie that could easily be something like that, especially the way I write. And then also even the thing is, because I wanted to make the Cannes film festival, I didn't have time to muck about.
28:21: Charlie Rose: You did it in six weeks.
28:23: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, exactly. Well, a little longer than that.
28:26: Charlie Rose: Why did you do that? Why couldn't you make the Cannes film festival in 2010?
28:29: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, man that would be too far away, man. And I wanted to.
28:32: Charlie Rose: And you were convinced you could do it.
28:34: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, I was convinced I could do it, or at least give it the old college try. But I know if I am going to climb that mountain, I will make it. But I also liked the idea of bringing more of a disciplined aspect to the film in itself. Let me, I mean, look, when you get to be a director in my lucky situation that I'm in, you don't make yourself normally less comfortable. You make yourself more comfortable. And that can be all well an good, but maybe you shouldn't be so comfortable.
28:58: Charlie Rose: You don't believe that at all, that you should be more comfortable?
29:04: Quentin Tarantino: No, I don't. But it kind of starts happening, though. And you know, you don't have -- if you didn't finish this scene, there is always manana. I took away manana.
29:14: Charlie Rose: Where is it inside of you some sense of where the brass ring is?
29:17: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I guess at the end of the day, the brass ring -- it's actually funny. I used to be able to answer that question more, but I actually -- the more that I've accomplished and I'm satisfied with what I have done so far, that that brass ring -- it's not that it is getting further away -- I just kind of feel like I'm kind of doing it. I just want to keep it up.
29:33: Charlie Rose: It's a continuum.
29:35: Quentin Tarantino: The brass ring is the filmography. The brass ring is an oeuvre that you can be proud of and everything is of a certain quality that never goes down from that. And I have to say, just looking at that little clip that you had of my movies, I was feeling pretty darn good about myself. But that.
29:50: Charlie Rose: Any missteps at all in your judgment?
29:52: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you know, not really. In the case of like say, I mean not as far as writer/director. That is -- I've done.
29:59: Charlie Rose: And that's a mistake, was it not?
30:01: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I learned a lot from them. I learned a lot from them.
30:05: Charlie Rose: You said an interesting thing too. You said that if you want to be a writer, one damn good thing to do is to go be some kind -- go to acting class, go be an actor.
30:11: Quentin Tarantino: I agree with that, definitely.
30:13: Charlie Rose: What does it give you?
30:16: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you know, one, it actually, one, especially if you -- if you want to be a writer actually learning about acting and everything, actually just -- it gives you more of an insight to these characters. I mean like, I can do what I'm talking about, where I can just get the characters talking to each other and they can just be. And they come from me. Well, a lot of that comes from me studying acting as opposed to writing classes. I studied acting classes. Also as a director, it gives you a sense of how to talk to an actor. You understand, you are walking a mile in their shoes and you kind of understand it.
30:47: Charlie Rose: You understand how to speak to actors if in fact you've been an actor.
30:51: Quentin Tarantino: Exactly. Yes, I mean, that's one of the things that actor-directors have over most other directors who are more technically directed is they can -- they speak actor talk. They know how to elicit things from an actor and make them comfortable. I mean, if you work -- I mean, look, I actually believe very much so that if you could make anybody comfortable enough when they're going to perform that anybody could be a really good actor. It really is can you make them comfortable. If you could make a -- you know, if you could make anybody, your uncle, your uncle Ernie, if you could make him comfortable enough on camera, he would give a good performance. It's all about comfort.
31:27: Charlie Rose: Exactly. Christoph in this film, it's almost like he has created in his own mind who this character was, which is what a good actor does. And Brad does that with his accent and style.
31:38: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes.
31:41: Charlie Rose: And then inhabits that character. That is not so much being -- what's that about then? I mean, you know the character, and so you get inside the character and you make him become real.
31:50: Quentin Tarantino: Well, yes, in the case of say --in the case of actually both Christoph and Brad, on one hand, it's right there on the page. It's right there. And they don't have to go and find somebody that they can pattern the character after. They have me. I know this person. I can explain who they are. And so if they end up living through the war, I can explain to them what happened to them afterwards.
32:12: Charlie Rose: Can you really?
32:13: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, very much so.
32:15: Charlie Rose: You read film criticism. You could make film criticism. That was what you wanted to do. Some people -- tell me about some of the criticism, it is about what you are doing here.
32:23: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes.
32:25: Charlie Rose: You know, I mean first of all, you suffer from this idea that once you make "Pulp Fiction," everything would be compared to "Pulp Fiction".
32:31: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. I don't consider that a suffering, though. You said to me when I came on for "Jackie Brown," like, you know, your competition is yourself.
32:39: Charlie Rose: Exactly.
32:40: Quentin Tarantino: I wouldn't have it any other way. I mean, that's a great place to be, all right? And you know, and then everyone is arguing, oh, this is better than "Pulp Fiction", no, this better than "Pulp Fiction" -- actually "Pulp Fiction" wasn't so good -- and there are a whole lot of people, actually the "Film Comment," "Sight & Sound" crowd actually look at my work and say, there is "Jackie Brown" and then there is everything else.
32:59: Charlie Rose: Do they really?
33:00: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes, "Jackie Brown" has swung completely in the other direction when it comes to the hoity-toity serious American critics.
33:07: Charlie Rose: But you sat down here and you and I were talking about how much we both love Uma Thurman, and you said you think "Kill Bill" is maybe your best movie.
33:14: Quentin Tarantino: Well, it's like -- well, it's definitely my most personal movie. I mean, forever when people would ask me what my favorite film is of mine, I almost felt like sacrilege to say anything but "Reservoir Dogs," because it just changed my life. And there will never be that again, you know. And I actually think it's kind of a perfect movie for what it is, and actually it has been 17 years so I can actually say that now without sounding like I'm self-aggrandizing myself. It's just what it is. But I watched "Kill Bill Volume 2" just about a month ago, I think maybe spurred on because of David Carradine dying. And I screened a print at my house and watched it, just by myself. And at that moment, it was -- actually became my favorite movie I've ever done. I actually enjoyed it so much. And you know, when I was like joking before about that masterpiece line when it comes to this, would I like this to be my masterpiece? Yes, I would like each new movie to be my masterpiece. And this one has got a lot behind it. But truthfully, as far as me judging it, it would be -- I would need at least three years of distance to actually really see where it would fit in my oeuvre.
34:18: Charlie Rose: All right, a couple of criticisms. One, actually you once were on this program with some critics, who had a nice interesting discussion about film. This is David Denby of "The New Yorker." "Inglourious Basterds is not boring, but it's ridiculously and appallingly insensitive. A Louisville slugger applied to the head of anyone who has ever taken the Nazis, the war or the resistance seriously. Not that Tarantino intends any malice towards such earnest people. The Nazis for him are merely available movie troops, articulate monsters with a talent for sadism. By making the Americans cruel too, he escapes the customary division of good and evil along national lines, but he escapes any sense of moral accountability as well. In a Tarantino movie, everyone commits atrocities. Like all the director's work after "Jackie Brown," the movie becomes pure sensation."
35:02: Quentin Tarantino: Now, OK, but one thing, OK. It's hard to talk about that criticism about yourself without sounding defensive. All right?
35:09: Charlie Rose: Defensive is OK.
35:12: Quentin Tarantino: But the thing about it is, you could actually say that exact same sentence and put a positive spin on it, and that would be actually a positive thing, all right? Because it is a method. I actually do have a thing where I don't -- I actually make it a point not to apply morality to my -- I am not Quentin being this moral judge on my characters any more than an actor can really terrifically be a moral judge.
35:35: Charlie Rose: So if you are looking for moral lessons, don't come to me.
35:41: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I actually think they are refreshingly free of them, all right. The characters are the characters. Now, one of the things is, on one hand, I've set up this nice little fantasy, masturbatory kind of thing of Jews turning the tables on Nazis, and there is an aspect you can have a lot of fun with that. At the same time, like I've always done in my characters, I try to make that very, very complicated. Like for instance, there is a sequence early on where you see Brad Pitt interrogating a Nazi sergeant, and the Bear Jew comes in there, does what he does.
36:12: Charlie Rose: That was in the trailer.
36:15: Quentin Tarantino: Exactly. Now, the thing about it is, yes, there is this -- there is this movie kind of moment about it that could be kind of fun. But at the same time, that German sergeant under any criteria of bravery in the face of enemy passes the test. And you can't help but even kind of admire the German sergeant for his not -- his knowing he's going to die.
36:37: Charlie Rose: He's operating on a code. His own code.
36:40: Quentin Tarantino: Exactly.
36:42: Charlie Rose: Or.
36:44: Quentin Tarantino: Well, just a code. A code of bravery that would apply to anybody in a war.
36:48: Charlie Rose: Exactly. A military code.
36:51: Quentin Tarantino: And even the character of Frederick Zoller.
36:52: Charlie Rose: And so you create him to be -- is that.
36:53: Quentin Tarantino: Well, it's complicated. It just complicates -- doesn't make it so easy to applaud. You can still applaud.
36:58: Charlie Rose: There's no whimpering on that guy.
36:59: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, there is no whimpering at all. And by the way, if he was a cringing coward when Donny the Bear Jew comes out there, it would be a lot easier to have to -- to have fun at his expense.
37:06: Charlie Rose: Right. No, I agree with you. Let me just read one other thing. This is from the "New York" magazine. "The common view of Quentin Tarantino as a sicko gore freak overlooks his real gift, which is prolonged and fraught and winding dialogues before the carnage erupts. Watching his World War II action thriller "Inglourious Basterds," you might wish the blood would never come. The payoffs are common, but the foreplay is killer. Even more than his other genre mashups, this is switchback journey through Tarantino's twisted inner landscape, where cinema and history, misogyny and feminism, sadism and romanticism collide and split and rebond in bizarre new hybrids. The movie is an ungainly pastiche, yet on some whacked-out Jungian level, it's all of a piece." That's pretty good, though.
37:50: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, that was a lot of adjectives.
37:52: Charlie Rose: That is pretty good, though. I like that.
37:57: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, I like that too, actually.
37:59: Charlie Rose: I mean, but you know what this says. It says that somehow, you are different in terms of filmmakers. You wouldn't have this conversation, or maybe you could, with a lot of other people. I mean, I think of some of the people who have been here recently.
38:11: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I mean, well, look, just for instance, I mean, one of the most talented filmmakers of my generation is David Fincher.
38:16: Charlie Rose: Right.
38:17: Quentin Tarantino: All right. But he's not in the same category as me because I'm a writer-director, and that makes a difference. That makes it a different thing. You know, and I think one of the things is, you know, one of the things that I've really don't -- that I have been focused on is there is a lot of writer-directors that come out, and they make -- they write and direct one movie, a second movie, a third movie. Well, there is a real voice there. There is a real voice. But you know what, it's hard work to go to that blank piece of paper and start from square one, start from scratch every single solitary time. You are at the bottom of Mount Everest every single solitary time, and everything you have done before not only does not help you, it can even like hang over your head. And that is a tough row to hoe, and you make less movies that way. And it is a lot easier to go and look at the scripts that are out there and available, and you can maybe work with a writer or do a little rewrite or do that kind of thing, and you get more movies made. But cut to six years down the line and where is that voice? It's gone away. And I'm proud of the fact with the exception of "Jackie Brown" -- I mean, I love "Jackie Brown," but I don't really have any intention of doing any more novel things. Never say never, but I don't.
39:25: Charlie Rose: Nobody -- you are not going to adopt anybody else's novel.
39:28: Quentin Tarantino: I mean, I don't see that happening right now. Because to me, the glory in what I do is the fact that it starts with a blank piece of paper. You look at something like "Inglourious Basterds", and that did -- if my mother never met my father, that would not exist in any way, shape or form. If my mother hadn't met my father there would be no "Inglourious Basterds" in anyway. It started off with a pen and a piece of paper, and now I have a movie.
39:49: Charlie Rose: You say if you weren't born, there would be no "Inglourious Basterds," because only you could create it, although there was a movie of that title.
39:53: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. But made by.
39:56: Charlie Rose: Made by some Italian.
39:57: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. It is a fun movie, though, it's a fun movie, but it is not a remake.
40:00: Charlie Rose: When was it made. In the '30s?
40:03: Quentin Tarantino: No, no, no. 1978.
40:05: Charlie Rose: Oh, oh. It had to be that. And why did you do that?
40:07: Quentin Tarantino: It's just an artistic stroke. You know, to actually put it under the microscope --
40:10: Charlie Rose: (INAUDIBLE) these questions about it.
40:11: Quentin Tarantino: Yes. Well, just to describe it means I might as well not have done it, you know. It's a Basquiat, Basquiat-esque touch.
40:18: Charlie Rose: Oh really?
40:19: Quentin Tarantino: Why did he take that restaurant check and then Elmer's glue it to his paintings? Who knows.
40:27: Charlie Rose: Can you imagine ever wanting to do from your own pen, a story of a real person, a kind of smart, innovative, different bio-pic? Let's assume it's someone interesting like Van Gogh or Picasso or someone like that, where there is a creative force to be reckoned with?
40:44: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I'm going to -- I will say exactly how I feel about that and then I am going to do a little caveat to it. I don't like bio-pics at all. At all. I think it is one of my least -- it's my least favorite genre.
40:58: Charlie Rose: Why?
41:00: Quentin Tarantino: I actually think there's hardly anybody whose story from, you know, beginning to end is very interesting to me.
41:05: Charlie Rose: Oh, I could not disagree with you more.
41:07: Quentin Tarantino: But not for -- not for a movie. I mean, to me they are .
41:09: Charlie Rose: Not for a movie. So let's take one example. I mean maybe this is not what we are talking about, let's assume something like "Patton."
41:16: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
41:17: Charlie Rose: Is that a good movie or not a good movie in your judgment?
41:20: Quentin Tarantino: That's OK.
41:22: Charlie Rose: Let me just ask, what is the closest story of which it maybe they took literary .
41:25: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I will tell you exactly -- I will tell you exactly --
41:31: Ok: Right.
41:33: Quentin Tarantino: I would not be interested in doing the life story of Elvis Presley, but I could do a day in the life of Elvis Presley. Like the day he decided to walk into Sun Records and he changed the music. Now, that could be an interesting movie. I'm not interested in somebody's whole life.
41:46: Charlie Rose: I know.
41:48: Quentin Tarantino: But to actually crystallize it to the moment. And even the idea that like the end of the movie is him walking into Sun Records, but what happened to him that whole day? Now having said that, there is one story that I could be interested in doing. And it would probably be one of the last movies I do. Is -- my favorite hero in American -- is John Brown.
42:07: Charlie Rose: Exactly.
42:09: Quentin Tarantino: John Brown is my favorite American who ever lived.
42:12: Charlie Rose: Now, why is that?
42:14: Quentin Tarantino: Well, just .
42:15: Charlie Rose: Because of what he did?
42:16: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, you know.
42:18: Charlie Rose: And what happened to him.
42:20: Quentin Tarantino: He basically, you know, he basically single- handedly started the road to end slavery, and the fact that he killed people to do it, you know. He decided
42:28: Ok: Yes, how many people -- how many movies have been made about John Brown?
42:31: Quentin Tarantino: Not very many. I mean, you know .
42:35: Charlie Rose: There is one people were talking about several years ago.
42:38: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, there was, you know, Raymond Massey played him as a bad guy .
42:41: Charlie Rose: Right.
42:43: Quentin Tarantino: In a couple of movies, and he's popped up from here and there as little parts. But again, I wouldn't go the dreary, solemn historical route. I mean, that actually is a very exciting story about him and his sons, you know, doing these raids and freeing slaves and stuff. You know, that could be -- that could be a true adventure movie.
43:01: Charlie Rose: You wouldn't have to make it as biographical, do you? I mean you could make it simply .
43:06: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I would make it true, all right, but .
43:10: Charlie Rose: You wouldn't have to do his entire life.
43:11: Quentin Tarantino: No, yes, I wouldn't. I wouldn't -- I wouldn't -- I just don't like that musty thing. To me those movies are just -- they are showcases for actors, but they are not really showcases for storytellers or directors.
43:21: Charlie Rose: Where does this love of dialogue come from? This sense of -- I mean, there is a setup, there is a set scene. Your movies are famous for set scenes.
43:28: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes, yes. No, they are very big, they are very big -- they're set-piece driven.
43:33: Charlie Rose: Exactly. There is a set piece that takes place.
43:36: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
43:38: Charlie Rose: And so you see the competition through words of people sitting at a table like this and one is trying to detect
43:40: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
43:42: Charlie Rose: And one is trying to detect whether this person is real or authentic.
43:44: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
43:45: Charlie Rose: And turns out that he is a film critic.
43:46: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, yes, right, exactly. Based on Graham Greene, actually, that character.
43:49: Charlie Rose: Graham Greene?
43:51: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, he was a commando. He was a film critic and a commando in World War II. Yes, I mean -- I mean it is just -- it's glancing off that it's based on him, but it was an idea. But you know, to give you an example on that. I -- one of the, you know, that is a scene that is built around both dialogue, but dialogue as a mechanism for suspense. And I remember after I came out with "Pulp Fiction" -- I had two movies by that time. Some critics said something to the effect of Tarantino will never be a master of suspense because he is too far in love with minutia, and I actually thought that was a fair enough criticism back then. So now I want to actually do a movie where I actually indulge in suspense and I go for it. And my method of it, to use that scene and the opening scene of the movie as an example, it's like -- it's like there is the scene above ground and the scene below ground, and the scene aboveground is what is going on and the dialogue and them sitting around that table and talking. Underneath it, it's like the suspense is a rubber band, and I'm just stretching it and stretching it and stretching it to see how far it can stretch. Now, normally in a situation when you do a movie, you try to make your scenes as compact as possible so there is not air and you don't wear out your welcome with the audience. But in this method, as long as that rubber band can stretch, the longer the scene can hold, the more suspenseful it is. That scene is more suspenseful at 22 minutes than it would be at eight. So you want to just stretch it until the rubber band breaks.
45:17: Charlie Rose: David Carradine. It is said that because he was in "Kill Bill," obviously, you were terribly fond of him.
45:24: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, yes.
45:26: Charlie Rose: Moved by him.
45:28: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, very much.
45:29: Charlie Rose: You know. And had a hard time adjusting, you know.
45:32: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, it's like, well, you know.
45:35: Charlie Rose: Appreciate David Carradine for us.
45:37: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, well, I mean I think he was one of Hollywood's great, you know, wild men acting geniuses. And he truly had a fantastic life. His autobiography, "Endless Highway," is one of the best autobiographies I've ever read. I mean really, he had a Dickensian life, when you -- even the whole thing raised by John Carradine and all the stuff he went through. I mean, there is an aspect that when he died, to me I look at it a little differently than a lot of people. I don't think it's sad for him. I think it's sad for his loved ones. I think it's sad for us who miss him and won't have him around anymore. That guy lived a life of five people, man. He put a lot into that life and he lived it his way in every way, shape and form. And that it's almost like, I mean he lived a Kerouac style life. Kerouac would have been proud to write about David Carradine. So, you know, and he died an old man, so I mean, you know, he went out, but as far as I'm concerned, no regrets, living a good life. It's sad -- it's not sad for him. It's sad for us. It's sad for us who know him because he's not around anymore.
46:37: Charlie Rose: When you look at your future, what will be the greatest impediment to being able to achieve the things that you want to do? Are you your own worst enemy or will it be something else?
46:47: Quentin Tarantino: I hope not. I think I'm -- I think the rudder of my boat is pretty good, you know.
46:54: Charlie Rose: Yes.
46:56: Quentin Tarantino: And definitely so far, so good. And if anything, I have learned not to get distracted by side things which are the things that -- my failures.
47:02: Charlie Rose: Things of normal life?
47:04: Quentin Tarantino: No, no, no. Well, a little bit. A little bit, a little bit. I mean, look, well, just for instance. You know, I'm not married.
47:13: Charlie Rose: Right.
47:15: Quentin Tarantino: I don't have kids. And I've got nothing against that. And you know, about four years ago, you know, within those four years, I had a couple of situations that if they had worked out in a different way, maybe I would be married now, maybe I would have kids. And that would have been fine. But I wouldn't be sitting here at this table talking about "Inglourious Basterds." And--
47:32: Charlie Rose: I don't understand why. Why can't you have kids?
47:34: Quentin Tarantino: Well, I wouldn't be sitting here right now talking about it.
47:39: Charlie Rose: OK.
47:41: Quentin Tarantino: And -- but those little things could have made it very, very, very different. And truth be told, as much as I -- I did have baby fever for a while, but I got over it. And truth be told, look, I would rather -- I don't want anything to be more important than my movie right now. I don't want this other thing out there that is -- that is more important than my movie. I mean, I look at it -- like I keep -- the metaphor I keep using and it is a whipped metaphor, but I use it anyway, is I keep using mountain climbing metaphors. You know what? This is my time in life to climb Mount Everest. And there are other times to hang out in the chalet and there is other times to, you know, mow the lawn. But this is the time to climb Mount Everest. And I don't intend to climb mountains forever. I want to -- you know, I don't want to be an old man director. And so I intend -- who knows what is going to happen exactly -- but I want to retire, I want to hang up the megaphone at 60. And then that will be my last movie, that will be my last film, and then I will become a man of letters. Then I will write the novels that I'd like to write now, but I don't divide my focus. Then I will write cinema books and even be more of a -- more of a professor on cinema.
48:50: Charlie Rose: But right now, you don't want to do anything that distracts you from making films.
48:55: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, I don't think I can serve two masters right now.
48:59: Charlie Rose: Give me the argument -- the best argument you know for the power of cinema.
49:05: Quentin Tarantino: Oh, gosh, you know, you know, one of the things about cinema that I just find very moving, that's why it is my favorite art form, is -- and there is a lot of things -- there's a lot of -- and people have much different aesthetics about what it is that they like about cinema. To me, what gets me is when you go to a movie and you see a certain sequence, and if there is real cinematic power and the cinematic flair, like there are these -- there are certain filmmakers out there that you feel were touched by God to make movies. And there would be a combination of editing and sound and some -- usually it's like visual images connected with music or something. But when those things work and they really connect -- and you know, an example could be the final gun fight sequence in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," like a sequence I can't ever imagine topping. That's like the one sequence I can't ever imagine doing anything that good, is -- it's just like you forget to breathe. You are really transported to a different place. And music doesn't quite do that on its own. And novels don't quite do it and a painting doesn't quite do it. It does -- they do it their way, but in cinema, especially if you are in a theater and you are sharing the experience with a bunch of other people, so it's this mass thing going on, it is just -- it's just truly, truly thrilling. And if the movie is more than that, if there is a lot underneath, if there is more there, there and you go out and you have a piece of pie and coffee and you talk about it and you find that there is more to talk about -- I mean, one of the things that is actually fun is if you go with somebody and they don't like a movie and you do and you start talking about it. And yet they start digging deeper and deeper in the movie, you are not really talking about a movie -- this is not like you don't like it -- you're realizing there is a lot there. I love -- that is one of the things I love about film criticism when it is really good, is just the digging deep. And just to give you an idea about how that affects me as far as my work method is concerned, I never deal with subtext when I'm writing. Ever, ever, ever. I keep it about the text. I keep it about the scenario. Because I know there is a lot there. But I don't want to -- I don't want to know it right now. I don't want to -- I don't want to hit that nail hard. I am really not about hitting things on the head. I'm about glancing blows. And I trust that it's full. I trust that it's full. And I try to be very, you know -- I'm a very analytical guy too. I try to be very unanalytical when it comes to both writing and directing. Now, one of the things that is nice about this process right now is it allows me to be analytical and I actually start seeing what it is I've done.
51:41: Charlie Rose: You mean this process at this table?
51:43: Quentin Tarantino: Yes, this process at the table, this talking about the movie. And now it's done and I have seen it now a few times. And actually well, I'm starting to see what the subtext is, I'm starting to see what's underneath.
51:52: Charlie Rose: That is the interesting part, is whether you know at the time what all the subtext is .
51:56: Quentin Tarantino: Yes.
51:58: Charlie Rose: or how it is somehow there and you act necessarily -- not necessarily consciously but subconsciously.
52:05: Quentin Tarantino: Well, you know, actually, when I went to -- when I went to the Sundance workshop to work on a scene from "Reservoir Dogs" before I shot it .
52:11: Charlie Rose: Right.
52:13: Quentin Tarantino: I shot a scene, and then I got together with these resource directors, and they go, "well, have you done your subtext work?" I go "what's that?" And they go, "see, you wrote it so you think you know everything, but you don't know everything. You need to do your subtext work." I'm like, "well, I never thought about that before, so let me give it a shot." So I took the scene where Mr. White brings in Mr. Orange to the warehouse, and Mr. Orange wants him to take him to a hospital. It's very - - seems like a very obvious scene. So, I wrote -- took a piece of paper and I wrote down, OK, what does Mr. White want from this scene? And what does Mr. Orange want from the scene? And what do I want the audience to take away from this scene? Now, the very basic things from, especially from where Mr. Orange is coming from -- I'm dying and I want to go to the hospital. But just in writing those words, just all this stuff just started pouring out. And that was when I realized it was a father/son story going on. And all these weird connections that happened later, I mean just little things in the case of "Reservoir Dogs", Mr. White keeps saying, "well, wait until Joe gets here, wait till Joe gets here," and what happens when Joe gets here, he goes to kill him, all right? And Joe is Mr. White's version of a father and all this kind of stuff. So I finished it all, writing this subtext thing about that one scene, and I go, wow, there is a lot there. That was a very interesting exercise. Now I never need to do that ever again. I don't want to know these things. I don't want to know it is a father/son story. I want to keep it up top, I want to keep it about the scenario. Because now I know it's there, but I don't want to know it's there as I'm directing. I don't want to hit that nail hard. I like finding it out now.
53:40: Charlie Rose: It's great to have you here.
53:42: Quentin Tarantino: It's always great to be here. I look forward to it every -- in the writing stage, I look forward to coming to this table and talking to you.
53:49: Charlie Rose: Quentin Tarantino. The film which opens on Friday, August 21st is "Inglourious Basterds," Brad Pitt and others. Thank you for joining us.