Quentin Tarantino Discusses Inglourious Basterds Screenings in Germany and Israel, Plus His Prequel Script
Posted 12.26.09 by Ryan
Fans who would like another Inglourious Basterds may get their wish ... eventually. Writer/director Quentin Tarantino told NY Magazine that he's written 40 pages of a Basterds prequel, though he plans to make a "smaller, less epic" movie first. Tarantino wouldn't reveal much about the proposed project, other than that it would be in a "different genre entirely" from Basterds. Tarantino is hoping he can finish that script in about five or six months.
Tarantino was fresh from a foreign press tour for Basterds, where, even in Germany, the movie won over audiences.
When Germans are watching World War II movies, they're used to cringing. Why they make themselves endure it, I don't know. That is just the way it is for them, and they expect that that's the way it's going to be. And they're always forced to look at it from the guilt perspective.
[It's a] World War II movie, and nothing's going to f**king change that. But, as [Basterds] goes on, all of a sudden, that starts dropping away, and they actually got caught up in the story. And they're really caught up in the story — it starts getting really funny. And it gets laughs. And all of a sudden, you have a German audience watching a movie about World War II — and they're allowed to laugh! They're allowed to enjoy it! And the fantasy [of assasinating Hitler] is just as much their fantasy as anybody else's.
In Israel, however, the audience was more openly enthusiastic.
So now, in Israel, I'm watching the film, and we get into the theater sequence. And literally, not when Hitler gets killed, but when you hear Shoshanna's [Melanie Laurent] voice say, "This is the face of Jewish vengeance," the whole theater just erupted in applause. I think there were two guys that started it, but everyone jumped in. And you know something? It was violent. It was scary. There was violence in that cheer. It wasn't like cheering Indiana Jones. There was something bloodcurdling about it. I don't want to overstate it, but there was an edge to it. There was violence in it ... there was blood in the air, which was wild. It was a wild thing to experience. It was a great experience, and it was real.