Quentin Tarantino, at the ine Festival Rome 2021. Stefania M. D’Alessandro (Getty Images for RFF)
Quentin Tarantino doesn’t smell like gunpowder at close range. If I had to smell something, it would smell of triumph: the one he had in Barcelona on Sunday, speaking to 1,500 enthusiastic people about his book Meditations on Cinema (Reservoir Books and Columna, in Catalan) during a tour in Europe is being carried out and is now being completed in Berlin. After celebrating how well the evening went at the Coliseum theater and ending it late at night in a bar, the filmmaker, who set the appointment for the interview, leaves La Central bookstore, where he will go to his hotel should, has moved, somewhat on tired but satisfied. His presence with that strong face with iconic features is impressive: after all, Tarantino (Knoxville, USA, 60 years old) is the man who has shot some of the most impressive scenes in recent cinema and directed many of the most popular actors. .
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Questions. What about yesterday’s experience?
Answer. Very funny! were you? Yes? You like me? I’m very happy to hear that. It was great. I loved!
Q He makes us all very concerned that he is going to stop making films. After the film you are preparing about a film critic, won’t there be more?
R That’s the intention.
Q Won’t we have a sci-fi movie from him? He’s missing the genre he likes so much.
R Might not. But let’s let a little time pass.
Q Do you have a good katana? I mean a samurai sword.
R I have, yes, I kept Kill Bill’s.
Q In other words, he has Hattori Hanzo swords! Wow!
R Haha yes.
Q The sword thing stems from the fact that when he talks about Steve McQueen in his book, whom he praises a lot, especially for Bullitt and The Escape, he explains that he only reads car magazines but is very concerned about the gun his characters should wear.
R Yes, he was a weapons expert. Choosing the right weapon is very important in an action movie.
Q What do you prefer: katana, .44 magnum, sawed-off shotgun under the desk, Warren Oates’ Gatlin machine gun, flamethrower?
R Generally in modern cinema, when I have to choose a gun, I use a 9mm because it looks like a .45 automatic but doesn’t jam.
Q What do you think of Alec Baldwin’s accident on the set of Rust that took the life of Halyna Hutchins?
R A tragedy. I don’t know how that could have happened. There are many security measures in filming. We are very careful.
Q How do you feel about the gun ownership debate in the US?
R There is always both sides. We certainly don’t need as many automatic weapons as there are. There should be more specific laws. I have a gun at home.
Q A pistol?
R yes for protection
Q A few years ago, speaking to the father of Uma Thurman, a promoter of Tibetan Buddhism in the US, a friend of the Dalai Lama and a former monk, he defended his cinema and told me that we have to distinguish between real violence and that on the other Page differ would need screen.
R Robert, yes; I can’t say it any better. There is no real violence in the films. We play.
Q Are you tired of the violent debate in your cinema?
R Yes very much; In fact I hope you stop asking hahaha.
Q But you talk about Bambi’s unbearable violence in your book, how it upset him, and yesterday you made big headlines about it.
R Bambi… terrible. And when I said it, the audience responded by showing that they knew exactly what I was talking about. A large part of my generation was very traumatized by the film. Everyone remembers it.
Q Let me joke that you should identify more with Tambor because of the barrel of a revolver.
R You emphasize that.
Q He talks a lot about the brutal rape of one of the main characters in his film Meditations of Deliverance, John Boorman’s powerful film.
R The analysis of this film is one of my favorite parts of the book.
Q His summary “What happens in the forest stays in the forest” is great. Some of us who saw the film were also too young, although not as young as you, we were introduced to archery by the character of Burt Reynolds.
R Funny, maybe you got over it like that.
Tarantino fans at the entrance of the Coliseum theater in Barcelona ahead of the filmmaker’s talk on Sunday. MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI
Q How did you come up with killing Hitler in Inglourious Basterds?
R Good question. I wrote the script and got stuck. I thought, “Okay, it looks like the bastards and the resistance are getting there, now what?” I didn’t know how to proceed and had no idea. So I thought, “What if I just screw Hitler and kill him?” I said to myself, “Can I do this?” And I answered myself: “Sure, it’s my film, I can do what I want”. So I wrote the idea down on a piece of paper, and when I saw it the next morning, I decided, “Here I go.”
Q Aside from rewriting the history of Hitler and letting him die in a French cinema instead of the Führerbunker in Berlin amid a massacre of Nazis that trumps that of Dirty Twelve by a landslide, he had a very fine actor playing him, Martin Wuttke .
R It’s definitely him, a great Hitler, even with a cloak.
Q How do you achieve the suspense in those signature sequences, like the one in the La Louisiane tavern in Inglourious Basterds that ends in gunshot salad?
R I don’t know how to explain it. I have a talent for it. I find it easy to create situations where the characters start talking and things fall into place and there’s a climax. You throw a ball to the actors and they catch it.
Q What is your favorite tense moment?
R In the movies? The one from the farm at the beginning of Inglourious Basterds. With Nazi officer Hans Landa in conversation with the owner of the farm that hides Jews underground.
Q And the tense strudel and whipped cream sequence from the same movie?
R Hahaha that too.
Q Humor plays an important role in its creation. A memorable moment in this regard is that of the pathetic Klu Klux Klan riders in Django Unchained. By the way, have you seen a hooded procession these days?
R No, but I know they have nothing to do with the KKK.
Q Was the order of the riders improvised?
R Not at all, it’s in the script, all the dialogue, from start to finish. The goal was to make it look that fresh.
Q There are two anthological dance moments in his films. The one with the Pulp Fiction twist and the one with the dance of Mr. Rubio by Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs. Are you particularly interested in dance?
R A dance sequence can work very well in a movie, but the two cases you mentioned are very different. The one with Reservoir Dogs is weird, a torture dance, the one with John and Uma is a real dance. And then there was John Travolta!
Q In the book he reaffirms his appreciation for Spanish cinema. His assessment of Matador is somewhat surprising as he was never considered Almodóvar’s best here.
R I’m not saying it’s the best movie, but I really like it. At the bar chat last night, we remembered that Orson Welles also liked Matador, who also loved Antonio Isasi’s films. Very relevant is what surprised us in the eighties in the United States, when cinema was so anxious, sequences as brave as that of Almodóvar Extorero masturbating with slasher movies [de psicópatas asesinos].
Q Antonio Isasi-Isasmendi quotes in his book A summer to kill.
R I’m an Isasi fan. And this film is a revenge-themed genre that I talk about a lot. A great Christopher Mitchum came out.
Q He rode an Ossa-Enduro, a very popular all-terrain motorcycle at the time.
R Did the movie make her famous?
Q It was previously a legendary motorcycle. How is it related to the platforms?
R I don’t watch Netflix. At home I prefer to watch films on DVD than on platforms. I like to stick with DVDs.
Q Is your personal Arcadia the old Manhattan video store where you worked as a clerk?
R Yes, when they closed I bought their entire inventory, I didn’t want it to be lost, I have the entire collection.
Q Are actors very special beings?
R Yes they are. So far I’ve always gotten along very well with them. We had a great time together. My job is to get the best out of them. I always tell them I hope they think their next movie is crap after working with me. Let her tell you, “How good I was in the last movie I did with Tarantino.”
Q His enthusiasm for Rocky is somewhat surprising.
R I think I saw her at the ideal age, 13 years old. Sylvester Stallone is a really good actor.
Q Cornered was worse than David Morrell’s novel First Blood, which was great.
R This is true. I really like Morrell and have read the novel before. I like Stallone but the Rambo character is way better in the book.
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