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• "Director Spotlight" on Mr. Tarantino
• Article on Mr. Tarantino
• "Greetings From Horrorwood"
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Quentin Tarantino explains how he films car chases (1:39).
 

Full Interview (12:47).
 

Tavis: Pleased to welcome Quentin Tarantino to this program. The award-winning director and writer's movie resume includes seminal films like "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," and "Jackie Brown." His latest project is "Grindhouse," which opened this past weekend. The unique project is actually two films in one, with Robert Rodriguez directing one half of the double feature. Here is the trailer for "Grindhouse."

[Clip]

Tavis: So Kurt Russell in a Death Proof car which kills everybody but him.

Quentin Tarantino: But him, yes, exactly. (Laughter)

Tavis: Nice to have you here.

Tarantino: Hey, good to be here.

Tavis: For those who haven't - didn't get a chance to get out last weekend to see "Grindhouse," explain the two movies in one thing, and the Rodriguez part and the Tarantino part.

Tarantino: Yeah, well, what we were trying to do is back in the day, back in the seventies, you'd have these drive-ins and you'd have these places called grindhouses, which were the old, dilapidated theaters in the urban areas. And they would show these, like, cool exploitation movies and they'd be double features or triple features.

And we were trying to create a whole night at the movies like that used to be. And so the idea is we have a double feature, two distinct movies. One is Robert Rodriguez's, which is a movie called "Planet Terror," it's like a zombie film. And then another one is mine, which is "Death Proof," which is like a high action car chase horror film.

And then in the middle of there there's trailers and stuff, and the way it was supposed to work is look, the movies have to be good movies. You pull them out and you show them and they can stand on their own. But you put them together in a double feature, we're creating all that movie experience - the intermission stuff and the trailers and stuff - it's like a night at the - it's like a grindhouse ride, and that's what we were going for.

Tavis: How do you - and this is really inside baseball, but the concept notwithstanding, how do you make car chases, even in a grindhouse concept, interesting? Is there something to do creatively, artistically, with a movie around a car that's involving a bunch of crashes that we haven't seen before that is interesting?

Tarantino: Well, I think there is because well, one, to me, actually, car chases - like from the time that they, like, really started, like the way we know the modern day car chase pretty much started with "Bullitt." And there was stuff in the silent days, obviously, but that's - what we think of as a car chase kind of started with "Bullitt."

I think it's one of, like, the coolest cinematic action set pieces in cinema history, is a good car chase. But my feeling about it, though, is I really haven't seen what I would consider a great one since "Terminator II," when they had that big - where the truck is chasing the motorcycle in the reservoir. That was fantastic. To me, since then, since I've been making films, all of a sudden CGI has come into the car chases and so now they're not even really doing it.

It's not about good driving; it's not even about really going for it and doing it with cars. It's about computers doing everything, and I'm not gonna get excited about that when I've actually grown up watching real cars and actually stunt men who had to do it. So when I was gonna do mine my whole thing was, okay, there'll be no CGI.

Everything we're doing, we're really doing it. One of the stars of that - of the film, of the piece, is a gal named Zoë Bell, who was Uma Thurman's stunt double in "Kill Bill." I put her on the hood of the car so it's actually - she's playing the part, so she's doing the whole thing. There's no stunt double. And we didn't do any undercranking, which is when you film it at a quicker speed so when you watch it back it plays faster?

No, we shot it all real so, like, it's really about the speed. We were driving, in the entire car chase, between 70, 80, 90, and 100 miles an hour. All the time. Every time we rolled camera. And to put it even more in perspective, if the camera is ever in front of the car, the camera car, that means that well, okay, they're going 100, that means we're going 110.

Tavis: Right.

Tarantino: Just to film it.

Tavis: Yeah. It means you better be.

Tarantino: Yeah, yeah, exactly (laughter) (unintelligible) we're gonna have a collision.

Tavis: Exactly.

Tarantino: We'll have a car crash of our own (laughs).

Tavis: Exactly, yeah. Tell me how - one more inside baseball question, I promise I'll do some other stuff, 'cause I'm curious about this. I get the sense - and this is my first time meeting you - but I get the sense, watching your work and reading about your work that with every project, you're looking to find a different way to present whatever it is that you're presenting.

And I guess that's, on a certain level, true of every director. You wanna shoot it the way you wanna shoot it. But I don't know that everybody who directs a project is trying to find a unique, organic, different sort of way to do what everybody else has done. You stay up at night trying to figure out different ways to do the same stuff?

Tarantino: You know what, it's really funny. The answer probably is yes to that, but also the other answer, and it's equally as valid, is even when I try to do it like somebody else, it always comes out like the crazy, cockamamie Quentin version, all right, (laughter) which goes its own way. Even when I try to play ball or by the rules, I (unintelligible) playing cricket. (Laughter)

And so it's like - that was, like, the thing. But I like that and I think my fans like that. That's one of the reasons I like taking on genre films, because I've grown up watching them, and I love them, and I love throwing my hat in that ring. But then, I'm gonna do it my way, which is gonna be this crazy reinvention way about it. But it's just organic to me.

Tavis: I had read a number of times over the years, and heard about the fact that you really love going to the theater to see movies with real audiences. I wanna ask two questions about that. First of all, a statement, I should say. I didn't know that that was altogether true until this guy who's got you on camera three here, Mike, guy back over there, was actually in the theater the other night when you walked in.

Tarantino: Oh, really (laughs)?

Tavis: So Mike says, "No, he really does do this." So -

Tarantino: By the way, thanks a lot, Mike, I appreciate that money (laughs).

Tavis: (Laughs) So where -

Tarantino: Good on you (laughs).

Tavis: Wherever you went the other night, Mike was in the audience when you walked in, so now I know that is the case. That said, though, what do you get out of going to see a movie with Mike and his friends at a movie theater after it's done, versus when you're trying to test this thing on the front end?

Tarantino: I tell you, when I'm trying to test it on the front end I'm - of course you're listening to laughs, and where they laughed, and where they didn't laugh and the joke's just kind of hanging in the air there. You listen to that; you're watching that kind of stuff. But I try not to take it too seriously, an audience, before I lock picture.

Before I solidify everything. Because it's like, well, that's that audience, who knows, all right? And I gotta make the movie for me. And I feel I'm a good audience member, so if I make the movie for me and I like it and I think it's funny or I think it's exciting, then I'm betting that there's a whole lot of other people out there who will feel the same.

But my reason for doing that is basically - well, there's kind of two reasons. One is the fact that it's kind of the payoff for me. It's the - for lack of a better word, the orgasm, if you will, all right? I've been working on this project for so long, and I'm thinking about the audience. Because like I said, I'm a good audience member, so I want them to ooh and ahh and scream and cheer.

Tavis: But that's what every good sex partner does - think about the other person.

Tarantino: Exactly, yeah. I'm a very sensitive lover, all right? But the thing is, though, it's like that's my payoff. All along the way, while I'm editing, "Oh, man, they're gonna like this. Oh, they're gonna laugh at this. Oh, they're gonna love this. Oh, they're gonna scream here." And then I get the chance to do it. Not only that, it's like you watch your film before it comes out, all right, and you see it with market research screenings, and those are people who go into a market research screening.

You see at the premiere a bunch of Hollywood people. You see - even if you go to a film festival and see it, well, this is an audience at a film festival. There is no audience smarter and actually more - want to understand your movie than an audience who, on that Friday, Saturday, Sunday, whenever it is, they could have done anything in the world they wanted to do that night, but what they decided to do was get out of the house and pay to see your movie.

They wanna like it. They wanna be in there. And they're smarter, they get it more. The stuff that always kind of fell through the cracks, they get. And so it's just the big payoff. Now the other side of that, though, is - so that's, like, a gratifying thing for me. The rougher part is to go everywhere. Go - and I can do that, 'cause I'm from Los Angeles, so I can go and watch it at Montebello, I can go watch it in east L.A., I can go watch it at the Magic Johnson Cinemas.

I can go watch it at this place; I can watch it in Westwood. How is it playing with the college kids? How is it playing in the Oxnard Six or the Winnetka Five? I can do that. And sometimes, they don't get it, all right? And I gotta face that. I gotta deal with that. You know what? They didn't quite get it. I also gotta watch it with bad projection and bad sound, and it's still gotta deliver.

Tavis: Here's where I'm stuck now. Earlier in our conversation, you admitted - and I think anybody who knows your work has to accept this, 'cause again, you admit it - that you're a little quirky, you're a little different. You're not like the rest of us. There's something that makes Quentin Tarantino a little different than the rest of us. And yet, I'm trying to juxtapose your admission of being different from the rest of us with thinking that if you like it, the rest of us are going to like it. There's a disconnect here for me.

Tarantino: Oh, I see what you're saying.

Tavis: You're weird. I'm not weird. Why am I gonna like what you like?

Tarantino: Well, here's the thing. Okay, well, one, well, there is a duality in that statement going on. All right, the thing that makes me go my own way and write my own way, well, that's the artist in me. I'm gonna go my own way. But the audience member in me, the movie audience in me, oh, I'm like everybody else. My taste be a little more rarified when it comes to this subject, and I might have more tolerance for something over here than this person or that person, but no, I laugh and I have a good time, and I'm there to be entertained.

Now at the same time, though, if I'm doing a more challenging piece of work, well, what does that challenging mean? It means it's challenging to a popular audience. They might go with you; they might not, all right? And at that time, I still know what I'm talking about there. Okay, yeah, now I'm a little more rarified audience, but I'm still the guy. I'm still the audience member. It might be a little more rarified - everybody's not going to be like me - but hopefully the ones that are will really love it.

Tavis: I've always wanted to ask you this question - how it is that I should, as an African American, view you? And by that what I mean to suggest is on the one hand, I celebrate Quentin Tarantino's work because I see in it that he gives people of color work. Good work. Major roles. That he gives women major roles. Pam Grier and Uma Thurman and other women can kick as much butt as Sam Jackson and John Travolta.

So he's celebrating people of color in these characters; he's celebrating women. And then you get this Spike Lee controversy about how many times you used the word "nigger" in a said film. Am I supposed to like Quentin Tarantino, or have questions about Tarantino?

Tarantino: Well, that's your decision, all right? That's where you fall, all right?

Tavis: Well, thank you for that, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Tarantino: Yeah, that is. It's like - just to put it in perspective, the Spike Lee thing was 10 years ago (laughs).

Tavis: It was. It was indeed. It was indeed.

Tarantino: But the thing is, though, part of the thing is I know what you're talking about, but it kind of is up to the - it's in the eye of the beholder to - I don't want to - my thing is I don't want to have to explain my work. I actually don't think any artist should do that, and actually, after 16 years, the work speaks for itself. I think where I'm coming from is pretty darn clear, all right, if you watch it and view it. And so kind of that's where I'm coming from on it.

But the thing about it though is you're not alone. One of the things that's happened, I've noticed - it's very similar to what happens to the British cinema press when it comes to me in England, is the Black intelligencia that writes about me, they've kind of drawn a line in the sand, and they almost define themselves - not entirely, but to one degree or another in this time we live in, they've defined themselves by what side of the line they fall in terms of me, all right? If you're Stanley Crouch or you're Bell Hooks -

Tavis: Stanley loves you, yeah.

Tarantino: - or you're Elvis Mitchell, then you fall on this side of the line. But by the way, Elvis Mitchell didn't start on this side of the line. He started on this side of the line and worked his way over to this side of the line over the course of years. Bell Hooks has been on my side. Now you're Armand White, you're on that side of the line.

But because I actually am a White guy who deals with race and deals with it head on and doesn't make it pretty and doesn't try to - doesn't say a party line - anybody's party line - and I'm actually trying to push things, and also knowing that it might be another decade before people really -

Tavis: Get what you're trying to say.

Tarantino: - get what I'm saying. I really think, like, your kids are gonna really get me (laughter) when they grow up. "Yeah, he had it going on, that guy."

Tavis: Yeah, "I will take your money now. Your kids will get me in 10 years."

Tarantino: Right. But the thing about it is if you think about it, if you are a Black critic that is dealing with current pop culture, you are living in my time. And you can't be blasé about me. You gotta be one way or the other.

Tavis: Well, I'm glad to have you on the program.

Tarantino: Hey, it's really great to be on here.

Tavis: I'm honored to have you here. "Grindhouse," the new project from Rodriguez, one part from him, one project from Quentin Tarantino, in theaters as we speak.