[captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: od evening. tonight, a conversation with oscar-winner quentin tarantino. his latest film, "inglourious basterds" opened at number one. it stars brad pitt. a conversation with quentin tarantino starts right now. >> there are so many things that wal-mart is looking forward to doing. like helping people live better lives and building better communities and relationships. because with your help, the best

is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. nationwide insurance and tavis smiley. working to promote financial literacy and the power that comes with it. >> nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioned by the national captioning institut --www.ncicap.org-- [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: please welcome quentin tarantino back to the program. he should be in a good mood today. he has all th blue on today, i said, you cannot be blue today. >> not today. tavis: you are in a green mood.

his latest film, "inglourious basterds" opened at number one. it s some guy named brad pitt. here is a ene. >> my name is lt. aldo rne and i need me eight soldiers. eight jewish-american sdiers. you may have heard about the armana happening soon. we will be leaving earlier. we are going to be put in france dressed as civilians. as a grilla army, we are going to do one thing. killin' nazis. sound good? >> yes sir. >> nice to see you. in the last few days, three

things i nt to ask you. there is a lot ridng on those shoulders. the weinstein brothers have their backs against the wall. quentin has to save them. and the is an article about if stars need $20 million a picture. and if he doesn't pull it off, we have to reduce the deals. can tarantinoa this for the movie industry? that is a lot of pressure, but you delivered. >> it is not transformers 3, it is my own quirky, weird war movie. people would ask me, questions about, the weinsteins are riding

on this. does this put pressure on you? i say, not really. the movie is the movie. it is not like i can make it a pretzel and bend it for the whims of that weekend. they are all big bobo. we all decided to do the movie. the movie is the movie, i can't change. it will catch on or not. tavis: you feel good it caught on? >> heck yeah. last time ias here for "grindhouse" and it didn't catch on. tavis: the last time you were hear was after it opened. i can only get you on mondays. for those who haven't seen this, this is not a remake. >> it follows a fe different

storylines. basically, you have brad pitt as a hillbilly who leads jewish american soldiers, doing an apac resistance against the nazis. they ambush them and scalp them and leave them there for other germans to see and to get in their heads. tavis: not to ct anything on this, whether or not you think the audience comes for the storylines, how important is that? or all the action? >> with the exception of kill bill vol. 1, i don't have a lot of action. there is suspense and dialog and

then something explodeses or doesn't. i kind of deliver a big clax. most of my movies are undercut and this is the first one -- a "guns of the navarone" kind of thing. it is part and parcel. you e the dialog and how i tell the story, which is different than the way people tell the story. i remember when "jackie brown" opened, and i saw it nine times. it would play here or there. i would go to see how it was playing. i sit down next to a gal, and there is a big section with the money exchange from three different points of view.

the audience doesn't know at first what's happening. then you see two more things. the sequence was over and i turn to her and say, "did you get that?" she said, "yeah." i say, "did you understand it?" she says, you don't know what's going on until you know what's going on. tavis: compare and contrast the quirkiness of this project. >> this is in line whh the same things. i like a novelistic structure for many things i've done. breaking it up into chapters.

each of them are independent but they build a accumulate rather than getting behind certain characters. i go back and forth and it is a slgihlight overlap. in capter fou--hapter four or five, they t together. for me, one thing we lost in america, used to be -- compared to europe. storytelling is what hollywood did better, anow we are the -- and now we are the worst. they set up the situation in 20 minutes andhat is what you see. the rest of the movie lives up to that. that isot a story. speed is a fun movie. they liv up to the situation.

but a story is supposed to unfold. you can't know everything in 15 or 20 minutes. you wouldn't go to the beginning of a movie. you come in whenever, and watch it. and you'd stay to watch until you came in. and we would see the beginning, how did they get there from here? this is so different from where we came in. that doesn't happen at all. i want to tell a story that is unfolding and you don't know everythi until the deep part of the movie. tavis: what led to this? >> trying to break movies down into a sentence.

die hard on a bus. you don't have to say much more. and then, like i said. i am not a snob about that. some movies do that well. an intriguing premise and if you live up to it, you've had a good night. but the storytelling thing, when you see one of the hbo miniseries, like district 9 it is terrific. that movie seems like it is going to be what it is, and it unfolds and it is a different thing going on. >tavis: a lot of us, our attention span is shorter. >> i don't bu that.

tavis: you have to hold my attention for a long time. >> that falls on me. tavis: how do you do it? >> i have to like my story well enough. if i do a big sequence with 20 minutes of dialog, it has to be sharp and bang-on and razor sharp. the performance has to be terrific and the casting has to work. these actors can now play my characters. it is up to me to pull it off. where i am coming from iss wheni come to the auence, i am the audience. if i please myself, i betet thee are more like me out there. i am just trying to make it for

me and hoping there are more like me. tavis: what is it abo the way you see movies that makes you think others want to. why are you so on point about this? >> i go to the movies a lot. and one thing that gives me an edge over other audience members to work my knowledge is the fact that i am conscious about the subconscious things to the audience. we see so many differe movies and know what is going to happen. it is not intellectual. y just feel something will happen. you feel the cliches or this guy won't die.

they won't do that. something will happen -- it is not always a negative. but we see a lot of movies and know the cliches. even if this is an intellectual thought, is a subconscious thought. i like to use that information against you. alright? i will lay the breadcrum down to take you down the road that every other movie has gone. then i do a left turn. iwas leading -- i was leading you -- tav: one of your past project,s, give me an example of this. >> let me use a different movie, in the "basterds" scenaria.

"guns of the navarrone." david niven is the demolitions expert. without him there is no mission. ut they are escaping gunfights and theyclimb up this rock face, a sheer drop, and a storm is going on. niven could fall off that mountain and then they don't blow anything up. that doesn't happen. he needs to blow uphe guns. my david niven could die. there is no bill of health that they could get. anything could happen and the characterhave to deal. if the one guy dies, what do we

do? >tavis: that makes it more interesting. >> it duplicates war, more than anything else. you don't know who is going to live or die. tavis: you said earlier, you are knownor going to movie theaters and watching your movieie did you do that? what happened? >> i went to see it at the dome. saw it at the bridge and in westwood, and in south bay. at the magic johnson. one thing that was funny. you see the movie -- there used to boe -- the mag-- be, the magic johnson was a showcase.

we just don't need to have ghetto theaters, now it is a grindhouse. but it is humbling to see your movie. people are texting and talking, and a lunatic walks in, and has an episode. entire families are -- they are not asking for this. but one thing with "grindhouse" is i grew up going to black tehaters -- theaters with blaxploitation and kung fu. i talked about the love and nostalgia, isn't this a shame it doesn't exist anymore. pity that. then i go to the magic johnson,

and it hit me exactly what it was right. there was no -- you had bored apathy. people kind of miserable being there. they are not talking back. if it was full, you got that. or a running conversation, not abou the mie. >> on a weekend like this one, hwere -- where your movie just opened. you are funny about it but ere is a point that you are learning something, seeing it in different cultural settings. what do you take from this when his is opening? >> this is not research, but it is, here is the reality.

put this in your brain. tavis: for the next project? >> this is how it plays. one reason i do this in los angeles is because i am from los agele i would not have thehe authority to do this. i know the areas and where to go. i see this with people making this money. these people are more sophisticated over re do they get more than the sophisticated people. it is very easy if you are in a certain situation. you see this and say, ok. everyone loves it. you have to see this with the audience. they can do everything and pay money for your movie.

tavis: you are known for reintroducing certain stars. >> rasputin, i am. ion't want to say -- tavis: i mean -- >> they seem dead. tavis: you did this for travolta and pam grier, reintroducing them. what is your casti process? you have to make sure they can do this. why brad pitt? >> this is different, because it was in my mind a long time. the main characters -- tavis: how long is this? >> about 10 years ago. many b characters, aldo raine and shoshanna have been bumping

around for 10 years. nobody was attached to them. so they really became the character. the way a novelist would write them. i was not held back by limitations. even the head nazi guy, l. landa. he speaks so many languages is because he could. now i have to find somebody. with brad, halfway through the script i started to think, who could play him? when i came up with brad, i couldn't think of anybody el. second choice is not the next guy on the list. warren beatty is not bill, in

"kill bill," that is david carradine. brad seemed like he could fit this well anything else would be more of an artistic interpretation. tavis: why did you think he could do this? >> it is a combination of two things. i think, i am working with brad at a great time. he has been around about 17 years. he is really growing into his iconic stature as a star. he is not the pretty boy. he is handsome but he is a man now. and he has grown into that western iconic stature. he is from missouri. he doesn't tlk in a southern

accent. but if you give it to him, you buy it. you can buy him as a hillbilly. you buy him as jesse james. and those kinds of parts are hard to pull off. he could be a folkloric mountain main character. he had the star quality to lead the mie on his shoulders, and ead these guys. tavis: you mentioned "grindhouse" which didn't do this, you didn't have less energy. how do you do this when it doesn't go how you wanted it to? >> that's my first flop, f-l-o- p. monday morning was very hard.

i took it personal. i felt like my girlfriend broke up wth me, and i didn't see it coming. i didn't know the talk was coming. how could i not see this in retrospect? one of those things i did, i am not much of a pity party guy. i tried to snap out of it afterr a week. i called up some friends to get their take on how to get through this. i called up tony scott and speilberg, and ehre's the -- here's the thing. you are happy th the movie. it didn't work out but think

about how lucky you are, to make the movies you want to. you are fortunate. and the thing speilberg said was, there is going to be a good side. the nextccess you have is going to be sweeter than the others because of this. t idea of another was so far off, like that could never happen again. but i was thinking about his words last sunday and today. tavis: it has happened again, with "inglourious basterds" starring brad pitt, written and directed by quentin tarantino. catch me on pri and get the podst at pbs.org, good night

from l.a. and keep the faith. >> you are the jew hunter. >> i am a detective. finding people is my specialty. some of them were jews. but jew hunter is just a name at stuck. >> it is catchy. >> do you control the nicknames your enemies put on you? aldo the apache and the little man? >> my name is the little man? >> you are a little fellow, b notircus midget little. >> for more information, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> join me next time with a conversation with rheba cintyre on her new cd.

->> there are so many things that wal-mart is looking forward to doing. like helping people liveetter lives and building better communities and relationships. because with your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports tavis smiley. nationwide insurance and tavis smiley. working to promote financial literacy and the power that comes th it. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your bps station -- pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> we are pbs.