Quentin Tarantino and The Poetry Between The Lines: Intro

1
Cold Open
She’s reviewing Godard’s movie and she says, “It’s as if a couple of movie crazy young
Frenchmen were in a coffee house, alright, and they’ve taken a renown American crime novel
and they’re making a movie out of it based not on the novel, but on the poetry that they read
between the lines.” And when I read that, I was like, “That’s my aesthetic, that’s what I want to
do. That is what I want to achieve.”1
Quentin Tarantino and the Poetry

Between the Lines
Written and Edited by Jack Nugent & Andrew Fernandez
Intro
He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1963 to a woman who was half-cherokee, half white…
she named him after Burt Reynolds character Quint in Gunsmoke. They moved to LA when he
was two and she took him to the movies regularly.2
When I was a really really little boy… like four, or something, I’d watch TV, movies with my
stepfather. Now, I didn’t know anything about movies, I’m four, I don’t have a backlog yet. So,
you know, my watching with my stepdad Curtis, and we’d be watching some movie, and he’d
say, “Quentin, see that guy right there? It’s Thomas Mitchell. He was the father in the original
Swiss Family Robinson from the 30’s, not the Disney one we saw, alright, but the original one.
Oh, really, huh. And then we see some other movie, oh no, see that’s Roddy McDowall, he’s a
really good actor, I like him, he was a star even when he was a little boy, he did a movie called
National Velvet that you would like. I thought my stepdad was a movie genius! Because he just
could point people on the TV and know their names. Well, we can all do that, I mean… and, uh,
he could point at the people he knows and he likes. But I actually thought “Oh, well I guess
that’s what happens. When you get to be an adult, you become a movie genius. So I better
start, you know, preparing!”3
I would like be acting out all the parts with all the G.I. Joes, and I would be like, you know, kind
of like directing these little plays just for myself with the G.I. Joes. And the same thing is-- like,
you know, I would and you know, and I'd see some movie -- because I saw all kinds of stuff, not
just Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, but like all kinds of like-- you know, my mom took me to see
1
On.His.Role.Models.mp4 (5:15)
2
Siskel.and.Ebert.The.Tarantino.Generation.mp4 (14:01)
3
Opie.Anthony.Quentin.mp4 (25:03)
2
Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid, and so,
like--4
To me the greatest job a person could ever have was being an usher at a movie theater. You
know. You get to go to a movie theater all day long, and then you get to see all the movies for
free. All right, well, irony of ironies, I end up getting a job at a movie theater that I could care
less about the movies and was totally bored by them.5
There was an aspect about the job that was you were almost like a movie critic because people
would want you to recommend movies to them and put them in their hands. And it wasn’t about
just trying to take some wild Quentin movie that I like and put it in Dan Rathers hands, but I
actually prided myself on watching what you had rented before and getting a sense of what you
liked so I could actually recommend something that you would like. And I was pretty good at
that.”……
Quentin would go on to tell you who the supporting cast was, who the DP was, who wrote the
screenplay, and probably do a couple scenes from the film, with the dialogue verbatim.6
it was not a film school7…..you know, at the store, putting films in people's hands and, and
arguing my points of why this movie was good or why that movie was bad and everything. But
the way I got the job was I-- it wasn't like I got this job and all of a sudden saw all these movies,
and then just decided to-- and then became knowledgeable about them. ''Hey, listen. Let me
make some of them.'' I was like I got the job because I already was a film expert, so to speak. I
mean, that's why they hired me.8
“There was a whole aspect of getting in touch with an audience beyond just myself - of what
actually worked with audiences and what they liked.9

When I wrote Reservoir Dogs, um, on the title page of the script, I dedicated, I said, the
following inspirations and I named a bunch of people. I actually wanted to put it at the beginning
of the movie but then I thought it was too cheap, like “Like me because of who I like,” alright?10
Pulp Fiction
You want to see three movies that, if I were gonna be like trapped on a desert island. Before
that, if I had, what three movies would I take with me?... One of the movies would be Brian de
4
Charlie.Rose.1994.mp4 (3:45, Charlie Rose clips are a little past the transcript time)
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Charlie.Rose.1994.mp4 (5:39)
6
Boy.Wonder.Dance.mp4 (10:17)
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8
9
Dan.Rather.Interview.mp4 (24:46)
10
On.His.Role.Models (0:00)
3
Palma’s Blowout, I think it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. John Travolta, by the way,
gives one of the best performances of all time in that movie…11
Travolta
He just went into this… “Do you know what Francois Truffaut thought of you? Do you know what
Pauline Kael thought of you? Do you know how brilliant you were in the blah blah,” and I was
almost in tears now, thinking, “well, yeah, but I didn’t know somebody cared so much about all
that,” and clearly he did… and he said “but I want to fix all that.”12
It was like “Look, I think he’s a terrific actor, what you should do is watch him in Brian De
Palma’s Blowout13, and if you don’t think he is a terrific actor, then we should talk about if we
should do this movie together.14
That night, he decided that there is only one person that can play that role, and that’s you. And
then, he has to fight with the studio because they don’t want me in it. Daniel Day Lewis is hotter
at the time, and Bruce Willis, and all these other people that wanted that role really badly, but he
only wanted me. And, I thought, ‘My God, you know, he doesn’t even have a career yet, and
he’s putting his whole life on the line for me.’ And I was so deeply touched that I couldn’t stand
it.15
I want to dance.16
Pulp Fiction Dance

The day of the dance, I took them to my trailer, and I showed them the scene from this m ovie,
Band-a-par, the little like, where the three of them… and I go ‘That’s what I want.’ They’re not
dancers, they’re not executing a dance perfectly. For my money, they’re the greatest dancers in
the world. They’re having fun, dancing well, but they’re actually dancing great because they’re
having fun and I’m having fun watching them have fun. And that’s what I want you to do! And
they both got it. Once they saw that they knew exactly what I want.17
11
Video.Archives.mp4 (10:30ish)
12
John.Travolta.mp4 (2:44)
13
He has a moment in the flashback about his police work when he sees the officer hanging by
the wire. He cries out, takes a few steps away, and then turns and looks again. He barely does
anything—yet it’s the kind of screen acting that made generations of filmgoers revere Brando in
On the Waterfront: it’s the willingness to go emotionally naked and the control to do it in
character. (And, along with that, the understanding of desolation.) --Pauline Kael’s review of
Blow Out
14
Opie.Anthony.Quentin.mp4 (26:45)
15
John.Travolta.mp4 (4:34)
16
Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction
17
Boy.Wonder.Dance.mp4 (47:50)
4
When Vince danced, I wanted him to be kinda rigid… But when Mia twists, I had a particular
dance in mind. The Ja Ja Gabore Cat from The Aristocats. And there’s that one scene where
The Aristocats dance, and she’s kind of like [does the dance].18
He talks about how much he lovers classic scenes and what he does is he knows classic
scenes and he shows one… after… another19
Side-By-Side Montage
[talking about influences] His lack of any type of film style, wanting to make movies because of
it. Godard is one of the ones who taught me the fun and the freedom and the joy of breaking the
rules. You know, setting the close up on the back of somebody’s head [Marsellus Wallace] and
just fucking around with the entire medium, breaking rules.20
“Commenting on cinema while you’re watching cinema, you know, phony process shots in the
background, and stuff like that.”21
There are words we all know but we apologize for. If we use them within a certain context
nobody would think to apologize for that language in the movie theater because what it is it's
American vernacular and Tarantino is able to listen to it very carefully and to run riffs on it in
such a way that his characters become extremely colorful and interesting. And so that would be
my first point about what's good with the movies right now is the dialogue is getting to be more
carefully written, more character oriented, and more interesting instead of simply being easily
subtitled for the foreign release.22
When a movie really really does it to me its because it’s made me feel many emotions during
the course of it, and especially if I can pull of contradictory emotions that can work out. I’m the
kind of director—I want to play you, as an audience....
Jules: Oh, what the fuck’s happening?
...I want to be the conductor and you’re my orchestra. The sounds that I make you to make and
the feelings I get you feel to feel and then I stop you from feeling that and I make you feel
something else again. If a director can do that, well that’s a real lucky audience member,
because you had an experience that night. You went to the movies”23
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Graham.Norton.Dance.mp4
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Siskel.And.Ebert.The.Tarantino.Generation.mp4 (7:30)
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Siskel.Ebert.CSpan.mp4 (23:10)
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Dan.Rather.Interview.mp4 (30:43 + 9:00 from getting it from his website)
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Piercings: That was fuckin’ trippy.
Conclusion
There's a French director named Jean-Pierre Melville, who came out in the '50s and basically
started doing a whole series-- He was like a total, like, entertainment director. He did a whole
series of, of crime films. Always like set in Paris or Marseilles or something. They were basically,
the Warner Brothers Bogart-Cagney films, all right, but, completely set to this like French
Parisian rhythm. And they starred like Delon-- Alain Delonor Jean-Paul Belmondo--
All right. But, they've, but they do it with a whole different style and a whole different
perspective. And here they've, basically, reinvented the genre. They've created something new
that didn't exist before. Now that's what I'm always, kind of, trying to do with my genre films. I
don't know if I'm succeeding or not, but that's the attempt....
...I'm delivering the goods, but I'm also trying to, you know, reinvent it, in a way. All right, do
something, you know, do it in a much different way you've ever seen before.24
Transition
Quentin takes these genre elements and shifts them and in my perception raised them onto a
different level. Yes, he does utilize the genre. But that’s not really what it is about.25
Django Unchained
Introduction
Now, we move right along to the Western section, and in the Western section, we find, trickling
along, Howard Hawk’s Rio Bravo. This is, as far as I’m concerned, another one of the greatest
movies ever made.” Ricky Nelson is so cool in this movie.26
I’ll tell you what I’m a lot better at, Mr. Wheeler, and that’s minding my own business.
If you’re really going to try to make the Western genre work its magic, you gotta do your version
of it.27
I came up with a cool bit because Franco Nero is actually in the movie. It’s a sequence where
we see the two Djangos in the same frame, Jamie Foxx and Franco Nero. So I have Franco
Nero look him up and down, ask him his name, Jamie says “Django.” “Can you spell it?” And
24
25
Reimagine.Spaghetti.Western.mp4 (21:25)
26
Video.Archives.mp4 (11:25)
27
6
after he gets spelling through the whole thing, I had him say “the D is silent” and Franco Nero
says “I know.” Little meta-movie moment there.28
I’m not really a big fan of the art film Western, you’ve gotta still make a Western first. I’m proud
that my films, as offbeat as they may be in my take on the given genre, they still deliver the
goods.29
Side by Side montage30

If you like a Western, you might like mine.31
Since Quentin knows everything about every movie that’s ever been made just about, there’s
references in the script to a lot of great shots. Quentin referenced Taras Bulba the good part is
we have horses that we can do anything on, so when quentin referenced taras bulba, when Yul
Brenner walks up to a guy that gives him a smart-aleck response, Yul Brenner... From Wild Bill,
there was a shot of a guy falling face first in the mud and not saving himself.32
The Twist
It would be silly for me to try to do a John Ford type movie now. Who would I be making it to?
Those movies - you can appreciate them, but as far as actually being a piece that goes out and
entertains the world on a friday night, they were made for a different audience, a different
America, in particularly made for white people of America of that time.33
Most directors had their own version of the West. Corbucci had the most brutal, violent, bleakest
west and surreal...Using that fascist led, bleak barren brutal violent surreal west as a jumping off
point, well, what is the true American equivalent of that, and that would be being a slave in the
Antebellum Southt.34
I wanted to do it like an exciting Western adventure, as a genre movie first, that uses slavery
and the Antebellum South as a backdrop in order to tell this adventure and the adventure… is of
a black male rising up becoming a cowboy becoming a spaghetti western hero a folkloric hero
and goes out and saves his woman. She’s in the pit of hell and he’s going to extract her from it.
35
28
?
29
Dan.Rather.Interview (13:54)
30
eferences: Sergio Corbucci, Sam Peckinpaw, William Whitney
R
31
Dan.Rather.Interview (13:52)
32
Horse.Making.Of.mp4 (12:45)
33
34
Charlie.Rose.2012 (6:06)
35
?
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I wanted to give black males, particularly young black males, a black cowboy hero. And not just
a fancified one. He actually was a slave and he was even doing it during slaves time. It was like,
this is the Western for you. This is a hero.
I watched with my father The Searchers… it was our Dad and Son movie.
Yeah, for me, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was my Western that was the Dad and Son film.
To me, the Good the Bad and the Ugly was my western was that was the dad and son film.36
Kill Bill Transition37

I always hoped Django Unchained might be a rite of passage that black fathers watch with their
black sons when they get old enough.38
Kill Bill Sidenote

What’s so fantastic, is that Uma Thurman is Clint Eastwood in the man with no name. She holds
this masculine pose, and she takes this whole rule all the way through this film.39
Bill, it’s your baby.
It empowers girl by the fact that she’s a female warrior, she’s a female avenger. Revenge is one
he's not only the girlfriend. This is a movie about women.”40
of the classic staples of genre. S
They don't ask permission to kick ass. They just kick ass. They live by a code of honor and they
die by a code of honor too.41
It's also quite radical because what he does is take the other side of the feminine the dark side
and puts it in foreground that constantly the other reason why I think it's a masterpiece. And I
wasn't looking forward to this - in fact I'm not really a big Tarantino fan. He’s constantly
referring back to films you know.42
This woman was violated in a coma... she deals with that. She’s not a victim. She’s never a
victim.43
36
37
he Good, The Bad, and The Ugly p
T arallel shots with D jango Unchained.
38
Dan.Rather.interview.mp4 (15:53); (Visual Transition to Kill Bill: John Wayne shooting native americans
in Red River/The Searchers, 50s Cowboys and Indians, Django in his blue costume)
39
Kill.Bill.Clint.mp4 (3:45)
40
Kill.Bill.Violent.mp4 (1:49)
41
Kill.Bill.Violent.mp4 (2:23)
42
43
8
It’s funny, the one example I keep looking towards is the way Josef von Sternberg and Marlena
Dietrich had their relationship, all right, and then there's a even little bit Jean Luc Godard and
Ana Karrena had their relationship on cinema. And she’s not the only person I have it with, I have
it with Sam Jackson too, I have it with a lot of people.44
I always tell people, I don’t understand why they can’t look at his work, and realize that every
character that he’s ever given me has been the smartest character in the room, that has the
most dignity and respect and is not a fool of any sort.45
Going to a mostly black school when it came out and I was like almost everybody else in
America, was glued to the TV set for those seven or eight days that it -- that it aired. However --
I mean I don't think "Roots" actually aged that well if you look at it 30, 40 years later. Partly is
some of the casting. And some of the casting is really good, but some of it -- especially the
white people is just really cheesy TV actors playing roles really beyond them and kind of
cheapening the whole process. But the thing that really gets me about "Roots" and a lot of
people I've talked to -- is you watch this whole thing that's on for 16 hours or something, and
you're actually living the lives of these people, and putting yourself in that place.And if you
remember the last episode of it, you know as Lloyd Bridges, is one of the most hateful of all the
racist guys in the movie, has Chicken George, played by Ben Vereen, he's one of the guys that
you've been following the most. And at the end of the movie, they have Lloyd Bridges and they
tie him to a tree and Chicken George is going to whip him. He's going to give him a peeling to
end all peelings. And you've been waiting 16 hours for this. And naturally, he does the thing that
they normally do in these movies like, "no, no, no, I can't do that. That would make me as bad
as you." And when he said that, all over America, 100 million people said, "No. Whip his" --
He had it coming.
He had it coming. It's about time for some payback.
Yes.
Well, you don't have that problem in my movie.46
You get payback
You get payback
Conclusion/Transition
“It’s really interesting that Quentin, being the product of the culture that made the western
possible at all, because it’s the American west, of course. Quentin would take the genre once
removed into the Italian, and brings it back to America. He takes a double turn.”47
44
45
Sam.Charlie.Rose.mp4 (1:12)
46
47
Reimaging.Spaghetti.Western.mp4 (22:10)
9
Inglourious Basterds
“In the laserdisc section… we find the criterion version of Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver. Starring
Robert DeNiro, Jodie Foster, Martin Scorcese… but no Harvey Keitel, which is odd, because he
has one of the finest performances in the movie, as we all know, Sport. Taxi Driver, Rio Bravo,
and Blow Out48
And they, they share-- if they share one thing,what is it?

I don't know what they share.
I don't know, either.
Other-- you know what? Other than the other, I guess, probably other than-- a, a, a major
directorial vision.
Right. Vision of a director.
Yes, exactly.49
Casting
I started casting actors in Germany, and I wasn’t finding anybody who had everything that I
needed 100%. They could do the poetry in this language, they couldn’t do the poetry in that
language. They could do the poetry in this language and this language, but not in that language.
And he had to say the poetry in every language. And I literally had a moment where I didn’t think
I was going to find it. And I called the producers and said “look, if we can’t find the right Landa,
I’d rather just publish the script and do something else. And, if I’m gonna pull the plug, and I was
financing the movie, we were gonna get our cash flow money on Friday, this was Monday. I go,
if I’m gonna pull the plug, I’m gonna pull it this week while it’s still only my money involved. So I
go “if we don’t find him, I’m pulling the plug on Thursday, and we’re just gonna publish the
script, and that’s gonna be it.” And the producers, Lawrence and everybody, they were very cool
about it. They didn’t overreact, they said “well, then you know what? Here’s the deal. We just
spend, you know, this week is just Landa, Landa, Landa, Landa, Landa. And I can just tell you
the day that Cristoph came, walked in the room, sat down, and read two scenes. I remember
thinking “we’re making a movie.”50
Language
“This guy speaks several languages...what does it mean to speak a language? To what aim and
what goal does a person employ the uses of language ? and what level does he communicate?
Is it just verbalization of quotidien necessities or is he actually using language to put ideas into
48
Video.Archives.mp4 (12:28)
49
50
Casting.Christoph.mp4 (1:19)
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other people’s mind? Is language something that creates reality or is language something that
adapts to reality. I think Quentin being a poet uses language to create, so this character does
the same thing.”51
“Quentin being quentin - these german parts will be played by german actors and the french
parts will be played by french actors and we will not do the blue contact lenses bleached hair
funny accent business”52
They leave out of the other war movies, apparently Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood speak
German great… all they have to do is put on costumes and they can hang out in the General’s
club… forget about the fact that I don’t buy it, it’s also the fact that you’ve got possibly the most
suspenseful sequences here, but you’re pissing it away by English being German.53
You have to realize something. When it comes to WW2 movies, Germans are used to cringing,
all right? That is their constant state of being. They are used to watching these movies through
the eyes of guilt, and that is always how it is. But there comes this moment in the film, where the
laughs kind of start. And then, they kind of keep going. And then all of a sudden, you actually
had a German audience thinking to themselves, “Wait a minute, I’m actually watching a WW2
movie that I’m allowed to enjoy. I’m actually laughing at this. I’m actually allowed to enjoy this
movie. I’m actually not looking through eyes of guilt. I’m actually into this story.” And it ended up
being a very liberating thing for the theatre... 54
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.
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 startin to see what’s underneath.55
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, 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.
Mr. Orange: “Hold Me”
51
Waltz.Charlie.Rose.mp4 (6:38)
52
Waltz.Charlie.Rose.mp4 (2:52)
53
Pitt.Tarantino.mp4 (13:12)
54
Pitt.Tarantino.mp4 (15:35)
55
Charlie.Rose.2008
11
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… Mr. White keeps saying,
Mr. White: "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.56
...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.57
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... 58
56
57
58
Charlie.Rose.2008.mp4
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Ending
I saw Quentin direct, and it was the most exciting, exhilarating thing I’ve ever seen. He sits
behind the cameraman, whether he’s on the sticks or on a dolly, he’s sitting right behind him,
and he’s focusing on the scene, and he loves his actors, and there’s only three of us in the
whole scene. And he’s focusing with delight on his face or intense kind of interest in every word.
And there’s none of this crap about a monitor in another room, he’s right there on top of it, loving
every single minute of it.59
I’m very lucky to have worked with some monumental directors, George Stephens, John Ford,
Hitchcock, Jack Cardig, what I noticed about Quentin immediately, I never met such a
passionate young director. I think Quentin, by his sheer outrageous going against the rules and
making something exciting and electrifying, will stand out more than any of the people I’ve told
you I admire.60
The violent intensity of Pulp Fiction calls to attention other films that were considered classics at
their time and still are. Hitchcock’s Psycho, Bonnie and Clyde, A Clockwork Orange. Each film
shook up a tired bloated movie industry… showed how dull other films had become. I predict
this will be the ultimate honor of Pulp Fiction. Like all great films, it criticizes other movies.61
If you truly love cinema with all your heart and with enough passion, and you can’t help but
make a good movie. You don’t have to go to school, you don’t have to know a lens 40 or a 50
or, fuck all that shit, crossing the line, none of that shit is important. If you just truly love cinema
with enough passion and you really love it, then you can’t help but make a good movie.62
When you’re pleased to think, you know, that take really worked, he’d say “fantastic!” Let’s go
again, why we go again? Because WE LOVE MAKING MOVIES!63
WE LOVE MAKING MOVIES64
Loving the movies that formed his tastes, he uses this nostalgia for old movies as an active
element in his own movies. He doesn’t, like many artists, deny the past he has outgrown;
perhaps he is assured enough not to deny it, perhaps he hasn’t quite outgrown it. He
reintroduces it, giving it a different quality, using it as shared experience, shared joke.65
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Rod.Taylor.mp4 (2:30)
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Siskel.and.Ebert.The.Tarantino.Generation.mp4 (6:30)
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Reimagine.Spaghetti.Western.mp4 (23:00)
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auline Kael on Jean-Luc Godard
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Quentin Tarantino embraced the classics and elevated them to a new level in his genre movies,
creating something entirely unique. His directorial control and incredible knowledge of cinema
from all over the world allows him to twist universal movie tropes into new, innovative stories.
“The story of a genre. The three stories in Pulp Fiction are more or less the oldest stories
you’ve ever seen: The guy going out with the boss’ wife and he’s not supposed to touch her --
that’s in The Cotton Club, Revenge. T
he middle story, the boxer who’s supposed to throw the
fight and doesn’t -- that’s about the oldest chestnut there is. The third story is more or less the
opening three minutes of Action Jackson, Commando, every other Joel Silver movie -- two hit
men show up and blow somebody away. Then, they cut to “Warner Bros. Presents” and you
have the credit sequence, and then they cut to the hero three hundred miles away. Here, the
two killers come in, BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-- but we don’t cut away, we stay with them the whole
rest of the morning and see what happens to them . The idea is to have these old chestnuts and
go to the moon with them.” Quentin Tarantino Interviews, pg. 78
15
Reddit Post
3 years ago, I submitted this post on /r/TrueFilm asking for feedback on my first ever YouTube
video about Quentin Tarantino’s message in Inglourious Basterds.
Now, 50 videos later, our latest video is sort of a challenge to what I have done in the past and
what I think many video essays do -- overreach or under research. In this video, I can’t really
overreach, because I don’t talk. We only quote what Tarantino and his peers have said (you can
look at our script, with all of our references and notes here). Creating a video using only what
other people have said forces you to research like crazy. And even harder still, we wanted to
construct several narratives within it. It’s been a journey, to say the least.
I guess I wanted to make this post to talk about the current state of film discussion on the
Internet. I think at the end of the day, there’s a shortage of really good YouTube videos talking
about film. Anyone with talent seems to do pretty well, pretty quickly But for every great video,
there are 100 not-so-good ones. Sometimes, I fear video essays are an echo chamber,
especially with the fact that half of them are Nolan, Fincher, Anderson, or Tarantino (whoops, I
just did that!).
But I also think we have the potential to enter a film criticism Golden Age. Tarantino has
mentioned his disdain for online film criticism, and a lot of it sucks. Where’s Pauline Kael?
Where’s Roger Ebert? Granted, there are some knockouts writing right now, but again, it’s a
shortage. The Internet could bridge the gap between academia and the masses, and that’s
really what I want to be a part of.
So, what should be the future of film criticism on the Internet? And to put it bluntly, what kind of
stuff do you guys want someone like me and other video essay people to do about it? I may or
may not be in close contact with some popular video essay people.
16
Online Resources
Every quote is city with a footnote referenced here. The timestamps given in the footnotes of the
script are not all accurate.
On.His.Role.Models
Siskel.and.Ebert.The.Tarantino.Generation: from Siskel and Ebert
Opie.Anthony.Quentin: from the Opie and Anthony show
Charlie.Rose.1994: from Charlie Rose
Waltz.Charlie.Rose: from Charlie Rose
Dan.Rather.Interview: from Dan Rathers
Boy.Wonder.Dance: from BBC Special Hollywood’s Boy Wonder (1994)
Video.Archives: from Tarantino le cinéma dans la peau
John.Travolta: from Inside the Actors Studio
Graham.Norton.Dance
Siskel.Ebert.CSpan
Reimagine.Spaghetti.Western: from the Django Unchained BluRay
Horse.Making.Of: from the Django Unchained BluRay
Kill.Bill.Clint
Kill.Bill.Violent
Sam.Charlie.Rose: from Charlie Rose
Casting.Christoph
Pitt.Tarantino: from the Inglourious Basterds BluRay
Rod.Taylor: from the Inglourious Basterds B luRay
Print
Pauline Kael review of Band of Outsiders
Quentin Tarantino Interviews Edited by Gerald Peary
17
18
19
Important Tarantino Quotes from Print

Quentin Tarantino -- Interviews (Book)
I love Breathless, but my favorite is Band of Outsiders. That’s what I named my company after.
6.
And one of the reasons I liked it was that it sounds like something in an Alain Delon movie of
Jean-Pierre Melville, who very much influenced me. I could see Alain Delon in a black suit
saying, “I’m Mr. Blonde.” 7
The Killing is my favorite heist film, and I was definitely influenced by it. 9
In some ways [The Thing] is exactly like my movie. 10.
So what I’m looking for is that wonderful blend of highly stylized artistic aesthetic and a
completely realistic aesthetic. An example is they’re all wearing black suits. 25
I know, I know, I know! It’s like Jean-Pierre Melville’s French gangster films. He was basically
taking the old Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh Warner Brothers gangster pictures with Cagney
and Bogart and almost doing them verbatim story-wise. But by putting them in Marseilles and
giving them a French feeling, French pace, French sensibility, they were not only realist but, to
me, insanely absurd. A French sensibility to an American pulp genre: I loved that! What I’m
trying to do is put the American vernacular back into what Melville was doing. 26
In fact, on the first page of Pulp Fiction, I describe two characters talking in “rapid-fire motion,
like in His Girl Friday [Howard Hawks, 1940].” 37
I got together with Oliver recently. When we were talking, he goes, “You know, Quentin, you’re
like Brian De Palma or John Woo. You like making movies. You make movies and your
characters are movie characters -- I am making films.” And it’s true. I am not into making films.
Pg. 42
GF: Why do you think pop culture, comics, and movies themselves proliferate your scripts?
QT: I guess it just comes from me, from what I find fascinating. If I have an interesting take on it,
it’s not that I’m necessarily lacing it with irony or showing it to you so you can laugh at it. I’m
trying to show the enjoyment of it. 45
re more or less the oldest stories

“The story of a genre. The three stories in Pulp Fiction a
20
that’s in The Cotton Club, Revenge. The middle story, the boxer who’s supposed to throw the
[Talking about Ezekial in Pulp Fiction] This quote had a funny origin. I heard it for the first time in
a kung fu film, The Bodyguard, where it appeared in the prologue. Then I located it in the Bible
in a slightly different version. I’d also seen a Japanese ninja series on TV called Shadow
Warriors, which is the best cartoon I’ve seen on the screen. The action takes place in ancient
Japan, between the good guys who want to open the country to Western influence and the bad
guys who are isolationists. There’s this group of ninjas who answer to no one and who, during
the day, are complete imbeciles working as waiters in a restaurant, but at night, they are
fearsome warriors.
At the end of each episode, there was a mortal combat where the chief of the Shadow Warriors,
before killing his adversary would make an interminable speech about the necessity for
exterminating evil. The guy who had to listen to this speech was sure to die in the end! My
friends and I were always fascinated by these endings, which we found cool and poetic. It was
in this spirit that I put the quotation from Ezekiel 25:17 in Jules’ mouth. When I was writing the
scenario, I realized that in the final scene in the coffee shop, Jules couldn’t say this religious
epiphany in the same way as he’s said it before. After using it for ten years, for the first time he
realizes what it really means. And that’s the end of the film. 57
That’s the spirit win which I worked, this back-and-forth between day-to-day problems and
unexpected dissonances like the appearance of Harvey Keitel in a role a la James Bond. 58
I don’t consider myself just as a director, but as a movie man who has the whole treasure of the
movies to choose from. I can take whatever gems I like, twist them around, give them new form,
bring things together that never have been matched up before. But that should never become
referential to the point of stopping the movement of the film. My first concert is to tell a story that
will be dramatically captivation. What counts is that the story works. Then movie buffs can find
additional pleasure in getting whatever allusions there are. 60
The starting point is, you get these genre characters in these genre situations that you’ve seen
before in other movies, but then all of a sudden out of nowhere they’re plunged into real-life
rules. 63.
The thing I’m coming from is listening to music to be the guide to a movie. That’s the beat or the
rhythm the movie’s to play at. I fancied Pulp Fiction as a modern-day spaghetti western. The
surf music just fit in there perfectly. In the case of Jackie Brown, old-school Soul is the rhythm
21
and feel this movie takes place to. Not high energy stuff, but Bill Withers, the Delfonics song you
hear. That’s how we’re supposed to take it in. Once I decided that, it became the easy process
of diving into my record collection and finding the right pieces. 103
22
Miscellaneous Notes/Scribbles
Quentin Tarantino on his role models
https://youtu.be/F4DkfxEv7ZU
0:00
“When I wrote Reservoir Dogs, um, on the title page of the script, I dedicated, I said, the
following inspirations and I named a bunch of people. I actually wanted to put it at the beginning
of the movie but then I thought it was too cheap, like “Like me because of who I like” Alright? Ya
know. So I though it work better without it. But it was definitely in the script. To kind of let you
know where it’s coming from”
Timothy Carey
Crazy… not as bad as Lawrence Turney. He had this voice. And he was in these Kubrick films.
Crazy fucking guy. One of the weirdest fucking actors ever. He had this thing, this passion about
farting.
Andre DeLot
Wrote an autobiography and everything.
2:58
Chow Fun Fat
Kind of over him.
“I was hugely influenced by Hong Kong cinema at the time.”

I was really fascinated with him.
When I saw not even The Killer but when I saw Better Tomorrow Part 2, I got a big long coat like
him and I got a pair of glasses like him and but a match stick in my mouth. 3 months dressing
exactly like Chow Yung Fan.
3:34
Jean Lou Godard
If you’re a young artist… I think Godard is like Frank Frizetta. You like him and then you outgrow
him. I’m not
He was so influential for me.
His lack of any type of film style, wanting to make movies because of it. Godard is one of the
ones who taught me the fun and the freedom and the joy of breaking the rules. You know,
setting the closeup on the back of somebodies head and just fucking around with the entire
medium, breaking rules. I consider Godard to be to cinema what Bob Dylan was to music. I
23
haven’t run out of Dylan, I’ve run out of Godard. I’m not picking the guy, I’ve just grown out of
him.
5:20
The most influential piece of film criticism I’ve ever read of my aesthetic, that applied to me, very
young… I remember reading it a felipes, the french sandwich place. Pauline Kail’s review of
Band of Outsiders also know as band of par, which I named my company after. She’s reviewing
Godard film and she says “it’s as if a couple of movie crazy young Frenchmen were in a coffee
house, alright, and they’ve taken a renown american crime novel and they’re making a movie
out of it based not on the novel, but on the poetry that they read between the lines. And when I
read that, I was like “that’s my aesthetic, that’s what I want to do. That is what I want to
achieve.’”
Jean Pierre Melville

7:32
Melville is the Godard I haven’t grown out of…
Serio Leone
Jean Pierre Melville.. the best deconstructionist of a genre, completely, in his own way. He
knows the rules of Gangster films and he was in love with the Gangster films of the 30s of the
40s. And he took the same, similar plots and did them his own way. Not in the my way, in his
own way, had real life intrued upon them. Another critic said this about his work, and boy it is so
true, and it is, again, one of the things I’ve held onto.
Melville is probably one of the major French influences on the new way. The French New Wave
was battling what they consider the boring, fucked up, burgeouis cinema of the time… and if you
look at Ledolos or Bapi Flan beau or second breath or something like that, and then, uh, Le
Samurai, “you do get a sense that there is an aesthetic of Melville’s work that you get a sense
that that you don’t need to know how to make a movie if you truly love cinema with all your heart
and with enough passion, you can’t help but make a good movie. You don’t have to go to
school, you don’t have to know a lens 40 or a 50 or, fuck all that shit, crossing the line, none of
that shit is important. If you just truly love cinema with enough passion and you really love it,
then you can’t help but make a good movie.”
Lionel White
Lionel White wrote the novel that the killing was based on. I never read his novel… but,
Reservoir Dogs was never… people took a sense that I ripped off The Killing. I was making a
heist film. I would say this was my “The Killing,” and that means, basically, it’s like, I didn’t want,
I wrote Lionel White cause I didn’t want to like thank Kubrick. I have a similar writing thing with
Kubrick, same thing with Orson Welles, fuck those guys I didn’t need those, I mean, they’re
okay, Jesis Christ.
John Woo
24
John Woo was a major hero of mine. I was so influenced by Hong Kong cinema, and I still think
it’s the most invigorating cinema made in the world, alright. And to just, there had been no
really, in the 80s, jesus Christ, it was like the worst time for action films ever, it was really, walter
hill was off his game, ya know, all the older guys died. Aldridge, peckinpaw. There was James
Cameron, and that was it. And he was fantastic. There had not been a Sergio Leone that he
would come out and show something no-one has ever seen before, until John Woo.
Lawrence Tierney
Who I didn’t know I was gonna be able to cast him. I wanted a couple of guys too crazy out
there eccentric actors, that were still alive, that could, I could mention a lot of guys that are
dead.
A wild actor that basically, you shoot them and you send it in the lab and it’s worth developing.
they’re worth sending it to the lab, and he was one of the people of the touchstone of what I was
trying to do.
Storytellers: “How to be Creative: Steal like Tarantino”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7LBHe5-01Y
Last 2 minutes are about Tarantino, basically saying “Look, Tarantino steals ideas and that’s
fine”
Quentin Tarantino destroys a movie reviewer during interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL3k5NtBUaI
Uma Thurman is a female warrior.
Have the girl not be the girlfriend. This is a movie about women.
“Revenge is one of the classic staples in drama, and to have girls. This movie is about women…
These girls just kickass, they’re warriors. They live by a code of honor, and they die by that code
of honor, too.”
The interviewer is missing the whole point of the movie.
Quentin Tarantino Freaks Out on Reporter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2R9IVv2h50
I’ve always wanted to explore slavery in a film before. I’ve always wanted to explore slavery.
The reason that made me put pen to paper is to give African American males a Western hero.
Give them a cool folkloric hero that could actually be empowering and actually pay back blood
for blood.
In the case of laying waste to a genocidal white racist class, yes, that would be the reason to do
it as opposed to a historical story where this happens and this happens.
I don’t think you can actually make a movie about slavery in America without it being
controversial.
I couldn’t be happier with the reaction to this movie. The people who don’t like these movies are
actually… I am responsible for people talking about slavery in America in a way people have not
in 30 years.
25
Charlie Rose: 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTge-hrbU30
It’s not as bizarre as people keep making it, just remember when you were back in school.
There’s always kids that had a natural inclination towards something. Some kids have sports,
some kids study, some kids it’s cars, some kids it’s drawing… for me it was movies. The only
difference was I had this weird tunnel vision. When I got into it, I didn’t have room for anything
else. And that reflected in my schoolwork. I couldn’t spell anything, but I could go to the movie
and know who directed, who starred, everything. I’ve had something… Anything that I’m not
interested in, I can’t even feign interest in. I was interested in stories, and I was really interested
in reading.
03:45
Quentin Tarantino: --and then I would like be acting out all the parts with all the G.I. Joes, and I
would be like, you know, kind of like directing these little plays just for myself with the G.I. Joes.
And the same thing is-- like, you know, I would and you know, and I'd see some movie --
because I saw all kinds of stuff, not just Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, but like all kinds of like--
you know, my mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of
movies when I was a kid, and so, like--
05:39
Quentin Tarantino: To me the greatest job a person could ever have was being an usher at a
movie theater.
05:41
Charlie Rose: Right.
05:43
Quentin Tarantino: You know. You get to go to a movie theater all day long, and then you get to
see all the movies for free. All right, well, irony of ironies, I end up getting a job at a movie
theater that I could care less about the movies and was totally bored by them.
06:33
Quentin Tarantino: Yeah, now, I don't know if it's that much of a film school. A friend of mine,
Roger Avery, who -- I just produced a film that he, he directed called Killing Zoe -- he'sbeen
putting out this theory and the press has been eating it--
06:39
Charlie Rose: I know, I know.
06:41
Quentin Tarantino: --up like it was pudding, all right, you know. And I don't think he believes in it
in two seconds, and I don't even believe in it that much, all right. What, what that store was,
more or less, is not a film school. It was kind of a, it was-- a closer equivalent would be-- it was
like my Village Voice.
06:53
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
06:55
Quentin Tarantino: And I got to be J. Hoberman. I got to be Andrew Sarris at the store, you
know--
26
07:01
07:02
Quentin Tarantino: --be like the little Mr. Critic--
07:04
07:06
Quentin Tarantino: --you know, at the store, putting films in people's hands and, and arguing my
points of why this movie was good or why that movie was bad and everything. But the way I got
the job was I-- it wasn't like I got this job and all of a sudden saw all these movies, and then just
decided to-- and then became knowledgeable about them. ''Hey, listen. Let me make some of
them.'' I was like I got the job because I already was a film expert, so to speak. I mean, that's
why they hired me.
10:56
Quentin Tarantino: People who knew me could look at-- ''Well, that's a Quentin-- ''
10:58
Charlie Rose: ''That's-- Quentin made that.''
10:59
Quentin Tarantino: ''--movie.'' Yeah, that's a-- that has my spirit in it.
11:02
Charlie Rose: You've had that--
11:03
Quentin Tarantino: It has my personality.
11:05
Charlie Rose: --from day one, then.
11:07
Quentin Tarantino: Yeah. But the thing is, though, it just-- it was like this was going to be the
thing that like set me up, all right--
11:49
Charlie Rose: Had something-- Yeah. And what di-- what made the difference? What had you
learned after you got past the story stuff, and is that what is best about even Pulp Fiction, where
you got beyond the story stuff?
11:57
Quentin Tarantino: Well, no, to me, actually-- I actually think one of my strongest, my-- one of
my strengths is my storytelling--
12:03
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
12:04
Quentin Tarantino: --you know, because I actually com-- am committing to telling a story. It was
just--
12:09
Charlie Rose: Because you're a writer?
12:10
27
Quentin Tarantino: More as a viewer.

21:48
Charlie Rose: Right. Why, why do you work in the crime genre?
21:51
Quentin Tarantino: Well, it's a genre I've always really got a kick out of--
21:55
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
21:56
Quentin Tarantino: --you know. I always--
21:57
Charlie Rose: From the '30s and the '40s and Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett--
22:00
Quentin Tarantino: Yeah, and then even like--
22:02
Charlie Rose: --and all that?
22:03
Quentin Tarantino: --and stuff from the '70s, and just all kinds of stuff like that. I mean, I've
always, I've always-- It's a genre--
22:08
Charlie Rose: Elmore Leonard, or--
22:09
Quentin Tarantino: Oh, I love Elmore Leonard. In fact, to me True Romance is basically like an
Elmore Leonard movie--
22:13
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
22:15
Quentin Tarantino: --that he didn't write, you know. And like, actually, I actually owe a big debt to
like kind of figuring out my style from Elmore Leonard because, you know, he was the first writer
I'd ever read -- and, but also like Charles Willeford did it as well -- but he was one of the first
writers I had ever read that just let mundane conversations--
22:27
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
22:28
Quentin Tarantino: --actually inform the characters, you know, and then all of a sudden, ''Boof! ,''
you know, you're into whatever story you're telling. But the thing is, though, it's just a genre I've
always really liked and always had a lot of appreciation for and liked going to, and I thought I
would do a good job with it.
23:09
Quentin Tarantino: Yeah, well, it's like, it's like, to me, when I look at it and I, I watch it, to me I
kind of see like, you know-- it was like you, when like the French new wave would do their
version of crime films, I mean Jean Luc Godard and Truffaut--
23:18
Charlie Rose: Right, right.
28
23:19
Quentin Tarantino: --and then like Jean-Pierre Melville before them, would do their kind of like
crazy French version of American movies. And then I also see like a, kind of like a, a, a modern
day spaghetti western playing there, as well as a blaxploitation movie from the '70s all kind of
like mixed up together.
24:22
Quentin Tarantino: You know, and, and so, like you know, like, like for instance when I was a,
you know-- still now he's one of my favorite filmmakers, but like in, particularly, when I was in my
20s, you know, I, I loved Brian DePalma, all right--
24:29
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
24:31
Quentin Tarantino: --and I would, just like, obsess about, about like his stuff, the way like any
like big fan would obsess about either a movie star or a baseball, you know, star orwhatever, is
that when his movies would come out, I'd be countin' down the days to like the first show of his
movie, and I would collect all the reviews and all the interviews--
24:42
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
24:44
Quentin Tarantino: --and I'd put them in like these DePalma scrapbooks and stuff that I had set
up. You know, and then I would go see his film, you know, a movie of his, Scarface or
something would open, and I would go see the first show, first day. All right. No one could go
with me. I didn't want anyone else to ruin it. It was too like-- it was like a religious experience.
And I didn't want anyone to share it, you know-- I, I didn't care what anyone thought, all right. I'd
just sit there and watch the movie. All right. That's sort of like just kind of taking it in, seeing all
what the story was and everything.
33:19
Quentin Tarantino: A big significant influence, okay, would be, like Howard Hawks, the director
Sam Fuller, all right, who's this like, kind of, one of, he's one of the greatest wild men of cinema.
He made a series of films in the '50s. He, he's, he was probably the, he was probably the king of
making war films, because he was, he fought in the big red one and everything--
33:35
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
33:36
Quentin Tarantino: --and, and he, he makes really crazy movies. And he also made a lot of
westerns and stuff. And, Sam Fuller's just crazy style was a big influence to me. DePalma was a
big influence to me. And one of the things about DePalma that people never talk about-- and I, I
think DePalma is probably the greatest black-- satirist of the last 20 years in cinema. I mean his
films are, are, are hysterical, biting black comedies. I mean they're-- I mean, you know, no one
has his wit, at all, you know, great. His wit is just fantastic, even though he never makes official
comedies. But like, you know, Scorsese his, just, daring.
34:14
Quentin Tarantino: Or they say, ''Well, he's obviously ripping off Scorsese.''
29
34:17
Charlie Rose: Yeah, well, they don't say ripping off, but they do say, influenced by DePalma and
Scorsese.
34:21
Quentin Tarantino: Yeah. And, Sergio Leone was a big influence on me.
34:24
Charlie Rose: Because of the spaghetti westerns?
34:26
Quentin Tarantino: Oh, definitely because of the spaghetti westerns and also because of like,
one, he actually, you know, he was like the first, like, like, you know, director where I, where I
when I started like really thinking about becoming a filmmaker, where I was like, wow, I mean
well that's a director. That's, that's a film that's directed.
34:39
Charlie Rose: That's a director because?
34:41
Quentin Tarantino: Well, his films are so stylized, they're--
34:43
Charlie Rose: Yeah, right, right, right.
34:44
Quentin Tarantino: --so, they're, I mean, they, they are so directed. I mean that, it's, you know--
34:49
Charlie Rose: You could watch that film and you knew who made it.
34:52
Quentin Tarantino: Yes, exactly. And you could even like watch the whole filmmaking process,
you know, I mean, if you're thinking along those lines. If you're just trying to watch an
entertaining story--
35:00
Charlie Rose: Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Quentin Tarantino: --it's there. All right. But, and then also, a major influence, was, Jean Luc
Godard has like influenced me quite a bit.
35:10
Charlie Rose: There comes the European art film there.
35:12
Quentin Tarantino: Yeah, exactly. Basically because his, his inventiveness and his, like,
breaking the rules and commenting on cinema while you're watching cinema.
Quentin Tarantino: You know, phony process shots in the background and stuff like that. The
other thing, also, is, there's a French director named Jean-Pierre Melville, who came out in the
'50s and basically started doing a whole series-- He was like a total, like, entertainment director.
He did a whole series of, of crime films. Always like set in Paris or Marseilles or something.
They were basically, the Warner Brothers Bogart-Cagney films, all right, but, completely set to
this like French Parisian rhythm. And they starred like Delon-- Alain Delonor Jean-Paul
Belmondo--
35:42
30
Charlie Rose: Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.

35:43
Quentin Tarantino: --you know. And they're great. And they work very much in the same way
that, like, Sergio Leone's films do, where, they take a genre that like we know left, right,
forwards, up and down and backwards.
35:51
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
35:52
Quentin Tarantino: All right. But, they've, but they do it with a whole different style and a whole
different perspective. And here they've, basically, reinvented the genre. They've created
something new that didn't exist before. Now that's what I'm always, kind of, trying to do with my
genre films. I don't know if I'm succeeding or not, but that's the attempt.
36:06
Charlie Rose: To?
36:07
Quentin Tarantino: To take something you've seen before. I love it, I respect it, and I'm going to
deliver the goods. I'm not--
36:12
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
36:13
Quentin Tarantino: --just going to be some arty guy going off and, you know--
36:16
36:17
Quentin Tarantino: --but I'm, I'm delivering the goods, but I'm also trying to, you know, reinvent
it, in a way. All right, do something, you know, do it in a much different way you've ever seen
before. Like in the case of Reservoir Dogs, again, it's not trying to just be a clever boy. It's not
just like, clever--
48:17
Quentin Tarantino: I mean, it's a wonderful melodrama, absolutely terrific melodrama. And I'm
sitting there watching it, and there, there was a-- the thing is because I think Dogs is really
funny, too. That's a really funny movie. But the thing is, I'm watching Back Street and tragedy is
almost like another character in the movie. It's hovering over every scene. You know this is
going to end horrible for her, all right. And, and so even when a light moment happens, and you
laugh, you only laugh so much because it's just tragedy is like this other thing in the room. And
in a way Reservoir Dogs, that was the relationship violence had to Reservoir Dogs. Even though
there was only-- like you could count the number of scenes of there's actually a violent incident
happening in it. Violence was like another character in the room. It hung over the proceedings.
You kept waiting for every conversation to break out into it. So even if it was funny, the audience
might have laughed, but when they get out of the theater, they don't remember laughing.
Charlie Rose Quentin Tarantino 2008

31
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.
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 Murphysoldier, 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.
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.
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
32
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?
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
33
you go with somebody andthey 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.
Tarantino's Best Visual Film References... in Three Minutes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGheyJKDwrM
Kiss me deadly (1955) case opening

Flinstones square
Lady snowblood
Death Rides a horse (1966) and Kill Bill siren flashback thingy
Samurai Fiction (1998) silhouettes
The Searchers door shot - Kill Bill vol 2 and Inglourious basterds
Quentin Tarantino Writing Masterclass (A collection of advice)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFWODEPd2wg
So I loaded up on a bunch of CD soundtracks. On my day off…
Quentin Tarantino Shares His Three Most Influential Films // SiriusXM // Stars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7hRNh-gFEE
3 Most influential films: The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Black Sabbath (dir. Mario Bava), Abbot
and Costello Meet Frankenstein
The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Black Sabbath (dir. Mario Bava)
(0:58) “I have to say I think it was Sergio Leone and Mario Bava that got me thinking in terms of
shots as opposed to just, “oh I like this movie, oh this guy did a movie I like, well then I’ll see
another movie that that guy does cause I like that movie” as opposed to just recognizing the
name and hoping that another good movie would come out, I started recognizing a cinematic
34
style and a signature and a quality in the movies that was just just beyond a good movie and
another good movie or a not so good one. So even when I saw a Mario Bava movie that I didn’t
like I still recognized the style, that same operatic quality
About and Costello Meet Frankenstein

(1:33) “That was probably my favorite movie when I was really, really young”
(2:20) “It bended my mind that my two favorite genres could be put into one movie.”
Quentin Tarantino : 5 movies to see before The Hateful Eight (interview)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nV0a7yHJo
Intimate interview with Quentin Tarantino

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkd3RBfPTQI
1:52
I want to bring back some of the showmanship, some of the fun of going to the movies. Used to
be going to the movies was a thing, it wasn’t just a thing you did at the mall, and I want to bring
some of those things back
( 9:55) “I you’re really going to try to make the Western genre work its magic, you gotta do your
version of it. It would be silly for me to try to do a John ford type movie now. Who would I be
making it to? Those movies - you can appreciate them, but as far as actually being a piece that
goes out and entertains the world on a friday night, they were made for a different audience, a
different America, in particularly made for white people of America of that time.”
Dan Rather
(11:52) “As I look at your body of work, several notions come to mind. You relish the traditions
and the history of filmmaking. You celebrate different movie genres. And then there’s the
subject matter. Holocaust, slavery, oppression, redemptions. I’m curious to know what your
body of work says about what matters to you”
“When I decide that I’m going to tell a story….its my fun and my love of that genre that leads me
to make that idea”
(13:54) “I’m proud that my films, as off beat as they may be in my take on the given genre, they
still deliver the goods” (show classic western shots in Django, Hateful Eight, Inglrouisous
basterds” “if you like a Western, you might like mine” (getting the audience who might not
normally like progressive art.)
ON DJANGO
(15:53) “I always hoped Django Unchained might be a rite of passage that black fathers watch
with their black sons when they get old enough”
35
(16:15) “To me, the Good the Bad and the Ugly was my western was that was the dad and son
film”
On what matter to him as a person:

“I think what keeps revealing itself in my work…..I have a vast interest in race in this country, in
the way blacks and whites have dealt with each other, in particularly these last hundred years.
Its a theme I can’t get away from, I keep going back to it.”
(18:47) Rather “you like corrupting the audience to a certain degree’

Tarantino “To a certain degree, to actually show you something and maybe show you
that your little right and wrong world may not be as neat and pretty as you might think it is”
20:13 “The thing that drove my parents crazy was the fact that I actually had a great memory, I
just didn’t apply it to schoolwork. When I was an actor I never had any problem really
memorizing lines, I’d go see a movie and I would know everybody who was in it and who
directed it and who wrote it and I’d know all the different actors and I’d hold all that stuff in my
head.”
24:46 “There was an aspect about the job that was you were almost like a movie critic because
people would want you to recommend movies to them and put them in their hands. And it wasn’t
about just trying to take some wild Quentin movie that I like and put it in Dan Rathers hands, but
I actually prided myself on watching what you had rented before and getting a sense of what
you liked so I could actually recommend something that you would like. And I was pretty good at
that.”……“There was a whole aspect of getting in touch with an audience beyond just myself - of
what actually worked with audiences and what they liked.”
on use of pop music in films

(26:55) “When you do it right and the music and the movie kinda goes in sync with eachother for
a sequence or so its just like you’re flying or skating. Those are always just the funnest parts to
watch with the audience because they’re so engaged.”
On violence
“When a movie really really idoes it to me its because its made me feel many emotions during
the course of it, and especially if I can pull of contradictory emotions that can work out. I’m the
kind of director—I want to play you, as an audience. I want to be the conductor and you’re my
orchestra. The sounds that I make you to make and the feelings I get you feel to feel and then I
stop you from feeling that and I make you feel something else again. If a director can do that,
well thats a real lucky audience member, because you had an experience that night. You went
to the movies”
Charlie Rose about Jackie Brown

36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=58&v=Y2veVerzb0k
Living directors he could learn from

31:07
Quentin Tarantino: Spielberg would be one. I don't-- I think I could learn-- I think I could learn
things about-- from-- I could learn from Scorsese, but how I could learn from Scorsese is not,
like, how he does anything, you know what I mean, because how he does it is how he does it
and how I do it is how I do it. But Spielberg-- I mean-- I mean, Scorsese is so much film and love
of film, I might be a better director if I just had dinner at his house every week and we just
talked. Does that make sense?
31:34
Charlie Rose: Oh, of course it does. Yeah.
31:37
Quentin Tarantino: All right? Not about filmmaking per se. And I wouldn't doubt that he didn't
feel that way about Fellini, too.
31:43
41:32
Charlie Rose: Let me-- I don't want you to get away with this question. You named two actors.
Give me-- two directors. Give me three others that could inform you about the craft of directing.
41:43
Quentin Tarantino: Well, he died just recently, but I have to mention him because, actually, I
learned a lot from Sam Fuller.
41:48
Charlie Rose: Yeah.
41:50
Quentin Tarantino: All right? Just-- so much of this stuff is very instinctual, you know? It just kind
of seeps in.
41:56
41:58
Quentin Tarantino: But I-- you know, I have to also say-- you know what? I-- okay, let me tell you
about the people who I could know and what they could teach me, as opposed to from osmosis.
Living directors-- you know, I actually think, off the top of my head, those are the two that by
knowing them-- knowing them--
42:14
Charlie Rose: Right. Right. Spielberg, Scorsese.
42:21
Quentin Tarantino: Spielberg and Scorsese, yeah. I mean, I don't think I would really learn
anything from Godard. I don't really think I would-- I don't think I would learn anything from
DePalma except how he does his set pieces and I want to my set pieces my way, all right? And
37
like-- it would be, like, the-- and I love DePalma, but that's like learning writing from David
Mamet. Well, you learn how to write like David Mamet.
42:41
Charlie Rose: Yeah. Exactly.
42:45
^^^ he clearly wants to have his own style. Sort of evades the question
Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino

As you imagine, he’s about as knowledge about cinema as anyone you’ll run into, and that’s
infused into the day’s work. But the set is church, he is God, the script is the bible. (beginning)
One reason I wanted to make a big deal about language in it.. Is that “look, world war 2 is the
last time a whole bunch of white people fought a whole bunch of white people.” So you had a
situation where if you could pull off the lingo, you could survive in enemy territory, you could
infiltrate a different army… that was a possibility, but it depended solely on language.
They leave out in other movies, apparently X and Clint Eastwood speak German great… all they
need to do is put on costumes and they can hang out in the general’s club… to me, forget about
the fact that I don’t buy it, it’s also the fact that you’ve got possibly the most suspenseful
sequence here, but you’re pissing it away by English being German. (13:30)
It’s a fantastic role, but it took a fantastic actor to pull it off.
Daniel Bruhl, was like, born to play the role. I almost can’t imagine the movie without that guy.
I’ll tell you what was great, was seeing this film with a German audience. It was fantastic. I think
they enjoyed it more than any audience.
I can’t imagine, actually, that screening will ever be duplicated again. There was something
really special that happened that night there was something German about, there was a mood
in the room. There’s two things going on in particular, I think, one, was the fact the movie’s filled
with all these terrific German actors, and so, there was this genuine pride, absolute pride of
what was going on. Man, look at our guys, they’re kicking fucking ass. I mean, they’re usually
relegated to national cinema because they’re stuck in the lagnuage. And here, they’re on the
international forum and amazing performances, really.
But there was something else, and this was the lightning in the bottle. Was the fact that there
was this moment in the film, well, as the movie’s going on, you know, at the beginning, we made
a big point about, most of the movie, it’s Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. But in Aldo’s speech, it’s the german
will fear us. And we will do this to the German…
There is a moment where you’re kind of cringing.
But you have to realize something. When it comes to WW2 movies, Germans are used to
cringing, all right?
That is their constant state of being. They are used to watching these movies through the eyes
of guilt, and that is always how it is. But there comes this moment in the film, where the laughs
kind of start. (15:53) And then, they kind of keep going. And then all of a sudden, you actually
had a German audience thinking to themselves, “Wait a minute, I’m actually watching a WW2
movie that I’m allowed to enjoy. I’m actually laughing at this. I’m actually allowed to enjoy this
38
movie. I’m actually not looking through eyes of guilt. I’m actually into this story.” And it ended up
being a very liberating thing for the theatre.
Think about any of the German actors in my movie. Almost every single one of the males, man,
they put on a Nazi uniform before.
Language really is a character in the film (24:00)
Rod Taylor
I always admired Quentin, and I was here with a couple Aussie journalists, and they said
“Tarantino really digs you.” I said aww forget it. (1:00)
We start talking like a couple of old women, for at least an hour, talking about his movies, my
movies, our movies, somebody else’s movie. Movies, movies, movies, like we’ve known each
other for 20 years.
He said “I’m making a movie about World War 2.”
He said “Well, not really world war 2, it’s kind of.”
What do you want me to do for you? I’ll do anything.
I want you to play Winston Churchill
I said uhhh, you’re shooting in Germany? You’re right across the channel from England and
there’s albert finny he’s done Churchill about 13 times. If Rod Taylor turns me down, I’ll call
Albert Finny.
I saw Quentin direct, and it was the most exciting, exhilaring thing I’ve ever seen. He sits behind
the cameraman, whether he’s on the sticks or on a dolly, he’s sitting right behind him, and he’s
focusing on the scene, and he loves his actors, and there’s only three of us in the whole scene.
And he’s focusing with delight on his face or intense kind of interest in every word. And there’s
none of this crap about a monitor in another room, he’s right there on top of it, loving every
single minute of it.
When you’re pleased to think, you know, that take really worked, he’d say “fantastic!” Let’s go
again, why we go again? Because WE LOVE MAKING MOVIES! (2:41 left)
I’m very lucky to have worked with some monumental directors, George Stephens, John Ford,
Hitchcock, Jack Cardig, what I noticed about Quentin immediately, I never met such a
passionate young director. I think Quentin, by his sheer outrageous going against the rules and
making something exciting and electrifying, will stand out more than any of the people I’ve told
you I admire. He will make a difference to the way people regard movies. I saw things like Pulp
Fiction like 6 or 7 times, it became a drug. He did things and got inside you and got a message
across that the others were merely giving you as a gift… we photographed this scene, look at it.
He says can you take this??? Look at it! It’s different, and it’s exciting, and it’s new, to do in
movies.
The set was electric, I thought, because of him. He’s crazy. Genius, crazy. I loved every second
of it. It was a treat.
Quentin Tarantino interview (Director/Writer) - Reservoir Dogs (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceG1c9eh0Kc
39
Quentin Tarantino - Hollywood's Boy Wonder 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejlRORZWui8
Quentin Tarantino - A Life in Pictures

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9wKVjWKHdo
Quentin Tarantino interview on the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDHqDEa1ed4
*Quentin Tarantino - Visits Video Archives*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUMZ6CPL9hk
This is awesome
Showing his favorite movies
Quentin Tarantino On The Graham Norton Show Full Interview (11-1-13).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-bPjtUvWTg
5:20
“I wanted him to dance a particular way.” —John Travolta in Pulp Fiction
6:05
“But when Mia twists, I had a particular dance in mind. The Ja Ja Gabore Cat from The
Aristocats. And there’s that one scene where The Aristocats dance, and she’s kind of like (does
the dance).”
John Travolta interview on Pulp Fiction - Inside The Actors Studio

3:10
“He just went into this… do you know what Francois Truffaut thought of you? Do you know what
Pauline Kael thought of you? Do you know how brilliant you were in the blah blah and I was
almost in tears now, thinking, well, yeah, but I didn’t know somebody cared so much about that
and clearly he did… and he said ‘but I want to fix all that’”
Siskel & Ebert At The Movies: The Tarantino Generation (1995)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfFClNzq_WA
6:57
Like all great films, it criticizes other movies.
Opie and Anthony -- Quentin Tarantino

3:08
My favorite subgenre is spaghetti westerns… so I wanted it to have that kind of vibe… the larger
than life aspect of it all.
40
25:09
When I was a really really little boy… like four, or something, I’d watch TV, movies with my
stepfather. Now, I didn’t know anything about movies, I’m four, I don’t have a backlog yet. So,
you know, my watching with my stepdad Curtis, and we’d be watching some movie, and he’d
say, “Quentin, see that guy right there? It’s Thomas Mitchell. He was the father in the original
Swiss Family Robinson f rom the 30’s, not the Disney one we saw, alright, but the original one.
Oh, really, huh. And then we see some other movie, oh no, see that’s Rody McDow, he’s a
really good actor, I like him, he was a star even when he was a little boy, he did a movie called
National Velvet that you would like. I thought my stepdad was a movie genius! Because he just
could point people on the TV and know their names. Well, we can all do that, I mean… and, uh,
he could point at the people he knows and he likes. But I actually thought “Oh, well I guess
that’s what happens. When you get to be an adult, you become a movie genius. So I better
start, you know, preparing!”
“Nobody in the studio wanted John Travolta, but not only that, but it was considered a really hot
script. And at that time, when he was turning everything down, Daniel Day Lewis expressed
interest in playing Vincent. I like Daniel Day Lewis, but I really wanted John, I had my heart set
on him. And it’s one thing, it’s one thing to want the guy who is out of fashion when nobody else
wants him, but when there’s a hot guy you can get, and you want to go with, you know, the guy
from Brarbarino. I want Barbarino, I’m sorry!..
It was finally, well, the truth is, it was kind of a two prong thing. One was the fact that I was just
kind of tough on it in so far as they really wanted to do the movie, and I just said “Look, if I want
to go this way, and if you don’t agree that this is the way to go, then maybe we shouldn’t make
this movie together, I should maybe make it with somebody else, because we kind of just don’t
agree. And it wasn’t a “take it or leave it” kind of situation. It was like “Look, I think he’s a terriffic
actor, what you should do is watch him in Brian De Palma’s Blowout, and if you don’t think he is
a terrific actor, then we should talk about if we shoudl do this movie togther. That’s one way to
do it, alright. It wasn’t a threat, it’s just that we are’t on the same page. And you’re not coming
up with anybody else, that is a legitimate alternative as far as I’m concerned. And, so, you know,
it kind of was that.”
I think it’s a three-prong thing. I write interesting characters, okay, I cast them well. But part of
casting well… it’s about the character first, it’s not the actor first.
Well, you know, um, actually, I don’t think there’s anything about his character in blowout that’s
similar to Vince Vega…
But also not only that though, aside from that, there was this aspect, John Travolta is a movie
star. Just because everyone in Hollywood had forgotten him, that just shows how dumb they
are. I actually walk down the street with John Travolta at his lowest eb, in preproduction of the
movie, and people would lose their minds when they’d see him. We’d walk into a regular
restaurant and we had to leave. The tourists in Hollywood would see him and just lose their
41
mind. It’s like, people are dying to see him in something worth watching, it’s just stupid
Hollywood that doesn’t realize it.
As far as black folks are concerned, the Legend of Nigger Charlie is far more empowering.
Quentin Tarantino -- Interviews (Book)
I love Breathless, but my favorite is Band of Outsiders. That’s what I named my company after.
6.
And one of the reasons I liked it was that it sounds like something in an Alain Delon movie of
Jean-Pierre Melville, who very much influenced me. I could see Alain Delon in a black suit
saying, “I’m Mr. Blonde.” 7
The Killing is my favorite heist film, and I was definitely influenced by it. 9
In some ways [The Thing] is exactly like my movie. 10.
So what I’m looking for is that wonderful blend of highly stylized artistic aesthetic and a
completely realistic aesthetic. An example is they’re all wearing black suits. 25
I know, I know, I know! It’s like Jean-Pierre Melville’s French gangster films. He was basically
taking the old Michael Curtiz and Raoul Walsh Warner Brothers gangster pictures with Cagney
and Bogart and almost doing them verbatim story-wise. But by putting them in Marseilles and
giving them a French feeling, French pace, French sensibility, they were not only realist but, to
me, insanely absurd. A French sensibility to an American pulp genre: I loved that! What I’m
trying to do is put the American vernacular back into what Melville was doing. 26
In fact, on the first page of Pulp Fiction, I describe two characters talking in “rapid-fire motion,
like in His Girl Friday [ Howard Hawks, 1940].” 37
I got together with Oliver recently. When we were talking, he goes, “You know, Quentin, you’re
like Brian De Palma or John Woo. You like making movies. You make movies and your
characters are movie characters -- I am making films.” And it’s true. I am not into making films.
Pg. 42
GF: Why do you think pop culture, comics, and movies themselves proliferate your scripts?
QT: I guess it just comes from me, from what I find fascinating. If I have an interesting take on it,
it’s not that I’m necessarily lacing it with irony or showing it to you so you can laugh at it. I’m
trying to show the enjoyment of it. 45
“The story of a genre. The three stories in Pulp Fiction are more or less the oldest stories
42
that’s in The Cotton Club, Revenge. T

he middle story, the boxer who’s supposed to throw the
[Talking about Ezekial in Pulp Fiction] This quote had a funny origin. I heard it for the first time in
a kung fu film, The Bodyguard, where it appeared in the prologue. Then I located it in the Bible
in a slightly different version. I’d also seen a Japanese ninja series on TV called Shadow
Warriors, which is the best cartoon I’ve seen on the screen. The action takes place in ancient
Japan, between the good guys who want to open the country to Western influence and the bad
guys who are isolationists. There’s this group of ninjas who answer to no one and who, during
the day, are complete imbeciles working as waiters in a restaurant, but at night, they are
fearsome warriors.
At the end of each episode, there was a mortal combat where the chief of the Shadow Warriors,
before killing his adversary would make an interminable speech about the necessity for
exterminating evil. The guy who had to listen to this speech was sure to die in the end! My
friends and I were always fascinated by these endings, which we found cool and poetic. It was
in this spirit that I put the quotation from Ezekiel 25:17 in Jules’ mouth. When I was writing the
scenario, I realized that in the final scene in the coffee shop, Jules couldn’t say this religious
epiphany in the same way as he’s said it before. After using it for ten years, for the first time he
realizes what it really means. And that’s the end of the film. 57
That’s the spirit win which I worked, this back-and-forth between day-to-day problems and
unexpected dissonances like the appearance of Harvey Keitel in a role a la James Bond. 58
I don’t consider myself just as a director, but as a movie man who has the whole treasure of the
movies to choose from. I can take whatever gems I like, twist them around, give them new form,
bring things together that never have been matched up before. But that should never become
referential to the point of stopping the movement of the film. My first concert is to tell a story that
will be dramatically captivation. What counts is that the story works. Then movie buffs can find
additional pleasure in getting whatever allusions there are. 60
The starting point is, you get these genre characters in these genre situations that you’ve seen
before in other movies, but then all of a sudden out of nowhere they’re plunged into real-life
rules. 63.
The thing I’m coming from is listening to music to be the guide to a movie. That’s the beat or the
rhythm the movie’s to play at. I fancied Pulp Fiction as a modern-day spaghetti western. The
surf music just fit in there perfectly. In the case of Jackie Brown, old-school Soul is the rhythm
43
and feel this movie takes place to. Not high energy stuff, but Bill Withers, the Delfonics song you
hear. That’s how we’re supposed to take it in. Once I decided that, it became the easy process
of diving into my record collection and finding the right pieces. 103
https://www.npr.org/2013/01/02/168200139/quentin-tarantino-unchained-and-unruly
https://www.npr.org/2013/01/14/169343956/the-big-picture-the-takeaway-from-django-unchaine
d
Pulp Fiction Special Features
The Facts Behind the Fiction

Mario bob’s black sabbath
The Killing - Kubrick movie -- the last guy said it
“Everybody in the movie imagines themselves in the movie”
It’s not just that quentin references movie in his movies it’s that the characters have an
awareness.
Quentin knows so much about the history of filmmaking
Citing the briefcase
It’s hard to find another 90s movie that has contributed more to the pop culture discorse
Pulp Fiction: the facts

I hadn’t seen him used in a movie like he should be used
“Cain” from Kung Fu
“It’s the way movies should be made”
“Re-Delivering the Burger” --Uma Thurman, towards the end
Roger Ebert
He shows the other parts of crime movies, the sloppiness, the humor
It has resonance in the kind of things that are left out of other moveis
Instead of the ordinary crime sequence,
6:30 “Intensity calls to attention other films. Hitchococks Psycho, Bonnie and Clyde, clockwork
film. Each film shook up a tired bloated movie industry… showed how other movies were boring.
I predict will be the ultimate honor of Pulp Fiction. Like all great films, it criticizes other movies.”
“What he does is he knows classic scenes and he shows one… after… another”
“They named him after Burt Quent in Gunsmoke”

44
Palme Do’r Acceptance speech
Ignlourious Basterds Extras
If the casting isn’t perfect, the character doesn’t matter.
Getting a good performance - acting

Character
Casting
Actor
I’m really damn precious about them

People don’t say no to me
I can’t imagine anybody else but him
Tarantino character… we all wanna get one of those
Parody of exposition in movies
Rod Taylor
He loves his actors
We’re gonna do one more because we love making movies!
… I’ve worked with a lot of actors, what I noticed about Quentin immediately… I never met such
a passionate, young director. I think Quentin, by his sheer outrageous going against the rules
and making something exciting and electricfying, will stand out more than ay of the people I’ve
told you I admire. He will make a difference to the way people regard movies.
He just did things that got inside you and got a message across that the others were merely
giving you as a gift, we’ve photographed a scene now take it, he says take this!!! And look at it.
The set was electric, I thought, because of him, and that’s Quentin. Genius, crazy. And I loved
every second of it! And to watch a man like that work was a treat.
He’d been showing my movies at night… he was showing the crew… he was saying “look who
we’re working with tomorrow.” He still has a photograph for when I asked for an autograph.
Django Unchained extras

“It’s got that Quentin Tarantino twist to it”
Putting legends into the movie
This is the best set we’ve ever worked on
“He knows everything about every movie that’s ever been made…”
45
“Quentin referenced when leo brenard pulls the guy”

“From wild bill, there’s a shot of a guy falling face first into the mud and not saving himself.”
“He’s gonna act out just about every stunt”
Production design
“There’s a combination of every spaghetti western that I’ve loved, but with the race thing.”
“Line between spaghetti western and reality”
Costume Design
If I didn’t have them, then just scrap the whole movie… it wouldn’t have been right.
Collection promo
Reimaging the spaghetti western

“We’ve never seen this… it’s such a different dynamic”
“They’re gonna grow up in a world where django unchained exists… and he’s a great cowboy”
“This movie has been blessed with a magical casting”
“Let’s go over the top to get to a place that’s authentic”
“Quentin takes these genre elements and shifts them and in my perception raised them onto a
different level. Yes, he does utilize the genre. But that’s not really what it is about.”
“When you think something is going to be a spaghetti westner, he mixes it up… whether it’s the
wardrobe or the costume or the actor”
“I love eastwood, leone. Like Quentin, they define their era with their style.”
“It’s really interesting that Quentin, being the product of the culture that made the western
possible at all, because it’s the American west, of course. Quentin would take the genre once
removed into the Italian, and bring it back to America. He takes a double turn.”
“BECAUSE WE LOVE MAKING MOVIES”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fXRgKtx7A
Jean-Luc Godard. Exclusive Interview with the Legend (Part 2) Cannes 2014 - Canon
A line uttered by the painter Calude Monet… he looks at his flowering swamps and only half
sees, and he says to his friend, “I see nothing.” But, how should it be paointed since you should
paint only what you see? So he says, “One has to paint that what one cannot see.” This is a
painter saying that you should paint how you do not see. We should not paint what we are not
seeing. Since we do not see anything, we should paint nothing.
http://www.newwavefilm.com/interviews/godard-1962-interview.shtml
We were all critics before beginning to make films, and I loved all kinds of cinema – the
Russians, the Americans, the neorealists. It was the cinema which made us – or me, at least –
want to make films. I knew nothing of life except through the cinema, and my first efforts were
46
“films de cinéphile,” the work of a film enthusiast. I mean that I didn’t see things in relation to the
world, to life or history, but in relation to the cinema
https://newrepublic.com/article/93946/godard-among-gangsters
He reintroduces it, giving it a different quality, using it as shared

experience, shared joke… And movies, because they are such an
encompassing, eclectic art, are an ideal medium for combining our
experiences and fantasies from life, from all the arts, and from our
jumbled memories of both.
He plays with his belief and disbelief, and this playfulness may make
his work seem inconsequential and slighter than it is: It is as if the
artist himself were deprecating any large intentions and just playing
around in the medium. Reviewers often complain that they can’t take
him seriously; when you consider what they do manage to take
seriously, this is not a serious objection.

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1

Quentin Tarantino and the Poetry

Pulp Fiction Dance

Jules: Oh, what the fuck’s happening?

Piercings: That was fuckin’ trippy.

Side by Side montage30

Kill Bill Transition37

Kill Bill Sidenote

Bill, it’s your baby.

And they, they share-- if they share one thing,what is it?

Mr. Orange: “Hold Me”

WE LOVE MAKING MOVIES64

Important Tarantino Quotes from Print

In some ways [The Thing] is exactly like my movie. 10.

​ re more or less the oldest stories

“I was hugely influenced by Hong Kong cinema at the time.”

He was so influential for me.

Jean Pierre Melville

Storytellers: “How to be Creative: Steal like Tarantino”

Quentin Tarantino destroys a movie reviewer during interview

Quentin Tarantino Freaks Out on Reporter

Charlie Rose: 1994

Quentin Tarantino: ​More as a viewer.

Charlie Rose:​ Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.

Charlie Rose Quentin Tarantino 2008

Tarantino's Best Visual Film References... in Three Minutes!

Kiss me deadly (1955) case opening

Quentin Tarantino Writing Masterclass (A collection of advice)

About and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Quentin Tarantino : 5 movies to see before The Hateful Eight (interview)

Intimate interview with Quentin Tarantino

On what matter to him as a person:

(18:47) Rather “you like corrupting the audience to a certain degree’

on use of pop music in films

Charlie Rose about Jackie Brown

Living directors he could learn from

Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino interview (Director/Writer) - Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino - Hollywood's Boy Wonder 1994

Quentin Tarantino - A Life in Pictures

Quentin Tarantino interview on the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast (2015)

*Quentin Tarantino - Visits Video Archives*

Quentin Tarantino On The Graham Norton Show Full Interview (11-1-13).

John Travolta interview on Pulp Fiction - Inside The Actors Studio

Siskel & Ebert At The Movies: The Tarantino Generation (1995)

Opie and Anthony -- Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino -- Interviews ​(Book)

In some ways [The Thing] is exactly like my movie. 10.

that’s in ​The Cotton Club,​ ​Revenge. T

Pulp Fiction Special Features

The Facts Behind the Fiction

Pulp Fiction: the facts

“Re-Delivering the Burger” --Uma Thurman, towards the end

“They named him after Burt Quent in ​Gunsmoke​”

Palme Do’r Acceptance speech

Ignlourious Basterds Extras

If the casting isn’t perfect, the character doesn’t matter.

Getting a good performance - acting

re more or less the oldest stories

Quentin Tarantino: More as a viewer.

Charlie Rose: Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.

Quentin Tarantino - Visits Video Archives

Quentin Tarantino -- Interviews (Book)

that’s in The Cotton Club, Revenge. T

“They named him after Burt Quent in Gunsmoke”