By Kate Rodger
The cult hit Reservoir Dogs launched the career of a young writer/director called Quentin Tarantino, instantly making him a cult figure.
More than a decade and a half later, Tarantino has won an Oscar and a Palme d'or for Pulp Fiction, he has added Jackie Brown and the Kill Bill films to his CV, plus a little "grindhouse" for old times sake.
Now, Tarantino is back, re-writing history with a World War II movie eleven years in the making.
Tarantino spoke to Campbell Live at the Melbourne Film Festival about Inglourious Basterds.
Inglourious Basterds is a war where the bad guys mostly get what is coming to them, and when one of those bad guys is Hitler, its not hard to cheer along.
Brad Pitt is the bankable Hollywood star of this film, and his Nazi-scalping Aldo Raine is certainly a memorable role.
Pitt and Tarantino had always wanted to work together, and the cinematic gods finally smiled upon them.
“He’s probably the most in demand actor in the world. Well it just worked out. He wasn’t doing a movie at that time. Angie wasn’t doing a movie at that time. So he wasn’t on double duty taking care of the kids,” says Tarantino.
“He doesn’t book himself three movies in advance, which a lot of actors do. He doesn’t, he wants to be available for good stuff. So he read the script, and was in,” says Tarantino.
Pitt might be the touch of Hollywood to nudge this film along at the box office, but even he would be the first to admit this movie belongs fair and square in this man's camp, and Christoph Waltz has the best actor award from Cannes to prove it.
Colonel Hans Landa is the quintessential Tarantino bad arse. He hunts Jews, and he loves his job.
Casting this role was make or break, and it was not easy.
“I was just seeing one after another and none of them were doing it for me. The thing about Hans Landa of the SS, one of his qualities is, he is a linguistic genious. And I knew I had to cast a linguistic genious, or else it just wouldn’t work,” says Taraninto.
“It was starting to get scary, like maybe I have written a role that is unplayable. Until - excuse the expression - Christoph waltzed into the room and when he did, half way through the opening scene. I looked at my producer and we knew we had the guy,” he says.
Tarantino's career is a classic video-store fan-boy to cinematic superhero story, and since storming Sundance with Reservoir Dogs he has been banking box office cheques all over the globe becoming a Hollywood golden boy in the process.
He has given us some of the most memorable and enduring pop culture moments of modern movie history..
It is Tarantino we have to thank for some of the greatest lines in cinema history.
His Inglourious Basterds has divided critics since the premiere at Cannes, but those who love it say its his best work since pulp fiction.
And its work that almost never made it to the screen.
“There were a couple of times I considered not making it. One point, maybe I am passed this, maybe the time to do it was then and I passed it,” says Taraninto.
“Then I realised that I can’t do that because it’s inside me, even if I don't make it, I have to write it, I have to climb this mountain in order to see the mountains on the horizon, on the other side,” he says.
“Well, the big movies are like Mt Everest, Kill Bill was Mt Everest - I definitely planted my Basterd flag on top,” he says.
source: newshub archive
