Quentin Tarantino tells a tale of revenge, violence and humor in 'Inglourious Basterds'

Quentin Tarantino

December 15, 2009, is an important day for "Inglourious Basterds," the World War II action drama written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It’s the day the of the movie’s release on DVD and Blu-ray in North America. And it’s also the day that it was announced "Inglourious Basterds" received four 2010 Golden Globe nominations in these motion-picture categories: best drama, best director, best supporting actor (for Christoph Waltz) and best screenplay.

"Inglourious Basterds" follows a group of renegades called the Basterds whose mission is to kill Nazis. Brad Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, the leader of the group. Award-winning Austrian actor Waltz is Colonel Hans Lander, who becomes a chief nemesis of the Basterds. It took more than 10 years for Tarantino to bring this story to the big screen, and he talked about the journey at the "Inglourious Basterds" press junket in Los Angeles.

How did you come up with the idea for "Inglourious Basterds"?

It’s the feel-good World War II movie of the year! [He laughs.] When I sat down to write it, it literally was, "Oh, I’m going to do a bunch of guys on a mission World War II movie," which is a special sub-genre of World War II movies. It is that: a bunch of guys on a mission, but it’s more than that. I want all my genre pieces to be more than what I first set out to do. But that was how I first sat down [to write the screenplay]: It was a bunch of guys on a mission World War II movie adventure.

Quentin Tarantino on the set of "Inglourious Basterds"

Most of your movies are contemporary. How did you approach doing a period film?

Well, I had never done a period thing before, and I didn’t want that to become almost a thing about the movie. I didn’t want that to stop any of my instincts, but it is true. It is a period film, and I never dealt with this genre before. But when I first started writing it, I was probably a little precious about it, because I started writing it after [the 1997 film] "Jackie Brown," so that would’ve made it my first original [screenplay] after [the 1994 film] "Pulp Fiction."

Can you talk about how Brad Pitt was cast as Aldo Raine in "Inglourious Basterds"?

All that the time I had come up with before, I had no idea who was going to play Aldo. Aldo was just Aldo, and I wasn’t thinking about it during the first half of writing, but about midway I through, I thought, "Who could possibly do this dude?" And once I came up with Brad, I couldn’t come up with anybody else. And it’s not like I’m trying to be flattering or something, but there was no second or third choice.

And usually, I like my second or third choice. Usually, it’s the next guy on the list; it’s something far afield. You make it with this guy, it’s this movie. You make it with that guy — whoa! — it’s this movie! But there was no other guy. And I happened to be thinking about this, about the most in-demand guy on the planet Earth. Not only that, I’m going right away. It’s not like I can even wait for him. It’s like when the script’s done, we’re shooting. And it all worked out.

Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt an "Inglourious Basterds" press conference in Tokyo, November 2009

A lot of people are talking about Christoph Waltz’s performance as the Nazi colonel Hans Landa in "Inglourious Basterds." How did you discover Christoph?

I didn’t have him in mind. He just came in and just auditioned for the role. I didn’t know who he was. He came in, and literally halfway through the reading of the first scene, my producer Lawrence Bender was in the room, and we just exchanged looks at each other and it’s like, "This is the guy!" …

There is an aspect to my dialects that’s kind of poetry, kind of not, kind of musical. There’s a songwriting quality, almost, to it that’s rap, whatever, comedy beats. It has all that in there. And basically, you can either read my poetry or you can’t. You can either make it poetry or you don’t. And he does, and he does in three different languages.

When people think of your movies, they usually think of the action and the unique dialogue. Can you talk about how you come up with the dialogue and why you have certain actors in mind to say it?

That becomes a by-product of working with me. You can’t be afraid of dialogue, all right? You’ve got to embrace it and you’re going to make it your own. And you’re not afraid of it. It’s not a mountain that you’re afraid to climb. But I think ever more important than that — not more important, it just goes with it — but I think the bigger thing that you’re talking about, is the match-up between the right actor with the right character.

You know, that’s why three years ago, you could say, "So, would you like to work with Brad Pitt?" And I would say, "Yeah, I would love to work with Brad Pitt." But it doesn’t work like that. It’s got to have the right character. And then when we actually work together, it’ll be something special like I hope this ["Inglourious Basterds"] is.

Photo credits: Photos #1, 3: AP. Photo #2: The Weinstein Company.