Sex, gore, swearing! Quentin Tarantino directs on the set of Inglourious Basterds

We were lucky enough to attend the press conference for Quentin Tarantino’s new film Inglourious Basterds, released worldwide on 21st August. Quentin’s segment clocked in at just over 20 minutes and in it he talks about his favourite scenes from the film, how he chose the soundtrack and how nervous he was to finally finish his most gruelling and ambitious project since Pulp Fiction.

Please note that this interview does contain one light spoiler, which is marked in case you want to skip it! Questions asked by attending journalists.

When you’ve had a project going on for such a long time, where’s the eureka moment of turning this huge process into a film?
Quentin Tarantino: “When I decided to chuck the first storyline I came up with, which was more of a mini-series rather than a movie, then I decided to go with the movie… I was still nervous that I could actually make it a movie. I didn’t want the film to be any longer than Pulp Fiction and the only way I could do that was to make sure the script wasn’t longer. I had the Pulp Fiction script right next to me so as I was writing my story I’d do maybe 20 pages then I’d look at that and see where I was at page… 42, ok I was at this place, and then see where I was with Inglourious Basterds and how much I had left to tell. It was the closest I’ve come to policing my work. I was trying to get it done in time for Cannes and I knew I wouldn’t have the luxury of being able to shoot a bunch of shit I wasn’t going to use – though I kinda did that anyway.

It wasn’t until I got until the third act that I realised it might work, that I could actually wrap this up in movie form.”

You seem like a man on a mission with this film – how much do you tend to plan ahead in respect of how your career is going or do you just think, okay, this is a story I have to tell?
QT: “It really is a mix of the two, which I guess is probably as it should be. Whatever turns me on to writing a story is how I’ll start. This was supposed to be a fun little thing and it turned into something much bigger. I am thinking about my filmography, but I think if you muck about too much then you cheapen your artistic standing. I know directors that retire at a certain age so they don’t cheapen their filmography with old man movies. Kill Bill was my first movie in six years and that was a big fuckin’ deal. I’ve seen where directors have gone wrong and there isn’t that excitement about their work that there once was and I don’t want that to happen with me.”

What film inspirations did you look to for Inglourious Basterds?
QT: “There were no specific films themselves, it was more genres and sub-genres, spirits of films that were inspiring to me. What was interesting though was that what I found inspiring in the beginning became very passé [by the end]. What I took true inspiration from was whatever I thought about. When I sat down to write about this I thought, ok, ‘men on a mission’ film – so I turned to Dirty Dozen, The Devil’s Brigade, movies like that. But what I found so inspirational when I was doing this film was watching American ‘propaganda’ movies, most of which are done by foreign directors in the 1940s who are living in Hollywood because they have been pushed out of their home countries because the Nazis had occupied them. Films like This Land Is Mine, Man Hunt, Nazi Agent. The thing very interesting to me was that these movies were made at the time of WW2, when the Nazis weren’t this theoretical ‘evil’ thing from the past, they were actually a threat and this was actually going on. Many of the directors had personal experience with the Nazis and had people they were concerned about in their home countries. Yet these movies were entertaining, thrilling, exciting and many had humour (particularly something like To Be Or Not To Be). I didn’t do anything stylistically like them, I didn’t try to recreate them, but I might be inspired by their set design or something. Those are the ones I felt myself very inspired by.

Though doing it in black and white wasn’t something I considered, I almost wanted to do a silent chapter in the film, but in the end I thought it would be too reflective. I had a ton of fun exploring the idea though!”

The last line of the movie – Brad Pitt doing something unspeakable says “I think this just might be my masterpiece” – was this line always in your mind? Do you regard this film as your masterpiece?
QT: “I didn’t have that line until it was time to write it, it was definitely in the script but it wasn’t the last line I wrote.

It’s not really for me to say whether this is my finest film.” [Quentin makes a joke here that we don't catch, giving the impression that he is extremely proud of the film whether or not it is regarded his finest work]

Brad Pitt behind the scenes on the set of Inglourious Basterds

Hitler meets a grizzly end in Inglourious Basterds, when did you decide this should happen?
QT: “It wasn’t until I was pretty much up against it, trying to head it into the climax of the piece. I had no intention of doing that before. One of the things when I write – I write a scenario and there are many things that become available to you as you go down whatever road you choose and screenwriters tend to put road blocks against some of those roads, to make the script more sellable or whatever. When it came to writing this movie I came across one of those road blocks and that was actually history itself. I did a little “no I refuse, I’ve never done that before and now’s not the time to startâ€�. My thinking was that history has not been written yet for my characters, there isn’t one thing they can or can’t do, there is only action and reaction. Some people ask me if this movie is a fairytale which is funny because the first thing I wrote in the script was “Chapter One – once upon a time in Nazi-occupied Franceâ€� and in that sense I guess it is a fairytale and it works well that way. But I don’t see it that way, I see it as if my characters had existed then everything that happened [in the film] is humanly possible [to have happened in real life].”

SPOILER QUESTION: What things are you most proud of – when it comes to seeing your vision translate on screen?
QT: “The two match heads, the opening sequence, the chapter, that is everything I could’ve hoped it would be. And that’s a three-way collaboration, it never would have been what it is without Christoph Waltz and Denis Menochet; it’s impeccable. I’m probably the most cinematically satisfied with the last scene too because it was nailed to such a degree, I can’t believe it. It’s a sequence in the projection booth between Sosanna Dreyfuss and Daniel Brühl. The music, the camera coming up and seeing them in this almost twisted Romeo and Juliet tableau on the floor, and then the film continues and you see they’re alive and will they die and so on.. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get enraptured but that is the moment I go “oh my god!â€�

Was it difficult to say I’ve finished now after spending so long writing the film?
QT: “Not really no. I had the opposite of writer’s block, I couldn’t stop writing, I couldn’t shut my brain off. I kept coming up with new things and more new things and that’s why I had to put it aside. I didn’t want this to be Basterds 1 & 2 like Kill Bill so I forced myself to use a discipline I haven’t imposed on myself in a long time. I was very focused, working towards the end, I was like a train trying to get into the station.”

How early do song choices come to you and how important is music in your films?
QT: “Music is very important in my movies. It happens in a three-way stage. One of the most important stages is when I’m coming up with the idea [of a scene itself] and haven’t started writing yet, I go through my huge vinyl collection in my record room and I just dive in, whether it’s rock or soundtrack or lyrical piece. I’m looking for the spirit of the movie, the beat it will play with. I try to visualise myself sitting in a movie theatre watching something on screen and the images are provided by my imagination but the music is just there, I can feel it.  All through the writing process I go back there to reinvigorate and remind myself of what I’m doing. I’m a very precious writer and I can get caught up on what’s on the page but it’s not just about that. That process continues going on through the shooting and then the final wave, sometimes there’s a big moment or whatever in the film and I go back and go through the music again until I know it’s right. In the editing process it becomes really fun looking for the small, short bits of music to add to your soundtrack.”

• Many thanks to Celeste at Universal Pictures International.

Inglourious Basterds is in cinemas from 21st August via Universal Pictures