QUENTIN TALKS INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Quentin Tarantino sat down with the New York Times’ T Magazine to discuss his latest film, Inglourious Basterds, and his role in the famed Cannes Film Festival.
Inglourious Basterds is an epic WWII film that follows a group of Jewish-American soldiers called “The Basterds” who are chosen to spread fear through the Third Reich by slaying and scalping Nazi soldiers. It was shot in Berlin and Paris, Quentin comments:
“I only cast actors who could speak English with their native accents. The Germans have accents, the French are French, and the English are English. During the war, your understanding of German, whether you were a French citizen or you were in a concentration camp meant the difference between life and death. In Hollywood movies, Germans usually have English accents, and I can’t go for that contrivance. The proper accent could be the difference between success and failure.”
Basterds stars Brad Pitt and Diane Kruger and will make its debut at Cannes later this month. Tarantino calls it “the hardest movie I’ve ever made.”
[see the Inglourious Basterds trailer]
The Palme D’or, or the “Golden Palm”, is the grand prize at Cannes and is awarded to the year’s best film. Tarantino’s cult masterpiece Pulp Fiction (also the best movie of all time) won the award in 1994. Quentin recalls the screening:
“It certainly wasn’t, ‘Oh, they’re going to win this, this is obviously the movie of its time’. The violence not being 100% accepted, and there were some boos at the end. They were reacting against the idea that this could be considered art.”
Quentin was head of the Cannes Jury in 2004, the year in which the Michael Moore political piece Fahrenheit 9/11 won the Grand Prize, which drew some criticism:
“You know what? As time goes on, I put that decision under a microscope and still think we were right. Fahrenheit 9/11 may not play the same now as it did then, but back then it deserved everything it got.”
[interview source: T Magazine]
In the meantime, check out this video mixtape of Tarantino’s previous works. A must-see for fans:
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An amazing Tarantino inspired 45 min movie/music mash-up with edited 2 minute version of which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-eDTJwAbYA
How Tarantino endorsed the mash up:
http://www.jameshyman.com/blog/archives/000740.html