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You’ve premiered Inglourious Basterds. Tell us about the reaction.
It was actually overwhelming. It’s been really, really good. There was this weird rollicking laughter through the whole thing and I was like ‘wow this is really entertaining, this is freaking me out!’
Were you comfortable telling a different version of the history here? It’s sensitive stuff.
I didn’t plan on changing history as such but I did plan on the Basterds doing this Apache resistance against the Nazis. The Hitler scenario that occurs was not on the cards for me until I got right there. It really was just a development of the story. Some people say that makes this movie a fairy tale or a “World War 2 fantasia” and if you want to look at it that way that’s fine, it works that way, go ahead. But that’s not where I’m coming from. Where I’m coming from is this; my characters changed the course of the war. That didn’t happen because they didn’t exist. But if they had existed everything that happens is quite plausible.
It’s almost as much about movies as it is about war...
That wasn’t necessarily in my brain when I started writing the movie, it just started developing. I was like ‘pfft, how can I do a World War 2 movie and it turn in to a love letter to cinema!’ I just can’t help myself! Cinema is saving the world in this movie and people are thinking, ‘wow what a juicy metaphor isn’t that great?’ But on the other hand it’s not a metaphor at all, it’s actually practical.
Tarantino on Tarantino: He reviews his life in film!
Didn’t this movie have a 600-page script at one point?
Yeah, the reason it took so long is because I came up with the idea back in 1998. The idea of the Basterds was there, but I followed a different storyline and that story got to be too big. And also, back in 98, it would have been my first original since Pulp Fiction, so I was understandably precious about it and I ended up having the opposite of writers' block - I couldn’t stop writing! I couldn’t shut my brain off! I kept writing more and more and more. It just wasn’t a movie, so I put it away. When I came back to it in 2008 I realised it was the story that’s going to stop me from completing these themes and these ideas. So I came up with a different story.
Is it a revenge story? It’s a strong theme with you.
Normally I deflect that question with the simple fact that revenge is just a staple of pulp and genre, movies and literature; every third Western is a revenge story and every fourth crime film is a revenge story. But I can’t really deflect it any more with this movie because the WW2 genre doesn’t deal with revenge that often, not in a personal way. So I do have to step up and accept it in the case of this. One of the intriguing and exciting elements and one of the things that made me want to tell this story is the concept of Jewish revenge.
How important is it for you to build a cohesive career to make movies that fit in to your body of work?
Very important. When it comes to a director’s career it’s all about your filmography; it’s all about your body of work. It needs to be of a piece, hopefully it grows and shoots off in other directions, but it’s recognisable. There are certain qualities that I want them to have, a quality I want all my work to have is exuberance. I want there to be an exuberance of storytelling, an exuberance of film making and when that starts to leave, I’m out. I don’t want to make old man movies – and they might be an honest reflection about who I am at 66, but I don’t want it. It’s at that point that I want to become a man of letters, I would love to write a novel now but I can’t because I’ve got to give my all to cinema.
Are you always up against Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs?
Yes, there is an aspect of competing with myself. But at the same time I love the competition. The truth of the matter is that I can only hope that that’s the case. I can only hope that my own work is my biggest competition.
