SHOW:

Charlie Rose

October 14, 1994

CHARLIE ROSE, Host: Welcome to our broadcast. Tonight, we will spend the hour with the writer and director, Quentin Tarantino. In one of the tensest scenes in any movie this year, a gangster played by John Travolta drives his boss' wife, who is near death after an overdose, to the home of a drug dealer in the middle of the night. She needs an adrenalin shot to the heart, but neither Travolta nor the drug dealer have ever administered one. The men fight about who is responsible for the OD before Travolta plunges a needle into the chest of the comatose girl. Pulp Fiction, which won the top prize at Cannes this year, is the second film written and directed by Tarantino, a self-described movie geek, who spent five years working at a video rental store. Pulp Fiction opened the New York Film Festival in September. It stars John Travolta, Samuel Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and Harvey Keitel. And we are pleased to have the director right here, Quentin Tarantino.

Thank you for coming.

QUENTIN TARANTINO, Director, Screenwriter: Thank you. I've, I've, I was looking forward to being here for-
CHARLIE ROSE: And saying hello to my table.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, exactly. The table.
CHARLIE ROSE: The table. Everybody, when they talk about you, talk about- you get this sense of a, of a young person, a kid early on falling in love with movies. Is that- is- tell me about it.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, that's- well, that's totally true. I mean, the things is I- it's not as, as bizarre as people keep making it-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -or as, as special as people keep making it because like, you know, just remember back when you were in school and stuff, you know, and even in elementary school, there's always- you always have kids that have like a natural inclination towards something.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. Some kids it's sports, some kids it's studies, some kids it's cars, some kids it's drawing. You know, there's always that kid in the back of the room always-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -like drawing, doing sketches. With me it was movies. The only difference is I had kind of this like weird tunnel vision, where it's like once I got into it, I didn't have room for anything else, all right, you know, as a kid. And it was like- and it actually even reflected in my schoolwork, you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: You didn't do so well in school, but you could name every character, every plot line-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, exactly, I-
CHARLIE ROSE: -and, and evaluate every movie.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I couldn't spell anything. I couldn't remember anything, all right, but I could go to a movie and I, I knew who starred in it, who directeded [sic] it, you know, who wrote, who directeded it- who directed it, who wrote it, everything. And it was also- but it, but it's also funny, I've had something - and I guess I still have it to this day - that stopped me in school a little bit, quite a bit, actually, where it's like anything that I'm not interested in-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I can't even feign interest. I can't do just this little bit-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -to just get by. So what I would do like in school, for instance, I loved history because to me, in a way, history was like watching a movie. Actually, I had the leg over all the other kids in history because I would see- I'd seen Nicholas and Alexandria [sic] or, you know, watching movies about this or that and the other. To me, that was stories, so I was interested in stories, and I was really interested in reading. All right, so I was like getting like, like A's in history and reading, and, and, and failing miserably in, in other things.
CHARLIE ROSE: And, and when- Did you know then that this is what you wanted to do? You knew you loved them, but did-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: -you say-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It was the only thing that I-
CHARLIE ROSE: -director, screenwriter. 'Just get me in this-'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well-
CHARLIE ROSE: '-business. I want to be there.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it was funny. I didn't say director-screenwriter because I mean, I guess I always knew movies were written, but I didn't know what a director was.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: But actually my, my, my parents, all right, said, 'Oh, he's going to be a director someday,' and everything and I didn't know what that was. I wanted to be an actor because when you're a little kid-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you want to be involved in-
CHARLIE ROSE: You identify with the people on the screen.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -movies. So you say, 'Well, I want to do what they do.' And so all through my childhood, all right, I thought, you know, 'I'm going to be an actor. I'm going to be actor.' And I wanted to be an actor, and the- but oddly enough, though, I remember my, my mom tells stories and I remember them; she doesn't have to remind me of them - where I would like see a movie, and I'd like it. And I used to play with G.I. Joes all the time. You know, I had a whole bunch of G.I. Joes, those dolls, and I would always play movies. Basically, I would just kind of like do my version of whatever I saw, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and then I would like be acting out all the parts with all the G.I. Joes, and I would be like, you know, kind of like directing these little plays just for myself with the G.I. Joes. And the same thing is- like, you know, I would and you know, and I'd see some movie - because I saw all kinds of stuff, not just Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, but like all kinds of like- you know, my mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid, and so, like-
CHARLIE ROSE: Because you wanted to do it? Because she wanted-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, she just, like, 'A movie's a movie.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: 'There's nothing he's going to see in a movie that's going to mess him up,' you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. Exactly.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And it's like, I mean like- and there are some kids that would be-
CHARLIE ROSE: Is she still saying that?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, today she's very happy she did that. Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: But it's like funny, though, because it was like, I would like, you know, I would act them out like I saw in the movie, so I'd have like, they'd go, 'Aw, you dirty ra-ra-ra-ra,' you know, and 'Oh, you mother-r-ra, ra, ra ra' you know, and being like yelling. ' Quentin, what's going on up there?' you know. 'It's not me, mom. It's them!'
CHARLIE ROSE: Them, yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: 'It's the G.I. Joes. That's just the dialogue from the movie.'
CHARLIE ROSE: What was your first job you got?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: First job I got, actually. Actually, I had some really seedy jobs for a little kid because I was- I wanted to quit school and become an actor when I was about 16, and my, my mom said, 'Okay, if you're going to quit, you've got to get a job.' Now the fir- actually, the first two jobs I got, actually totally had to do with like the porno industry, all right.

CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know. And I was like, I'm so not interested in porno films, I can't tell you, all right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: But the first job I got was working for this guy who had a bunch of, you know, those newspaper racks with all the, the sex rags in them.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. Right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, he owned a whole bunch of newspaper racks, and what we would do is we- he would drive around all night long in his van, and we would just collect the quarters and put in new papers, all right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: So at first, I did that. That was my first, like, official job job, all right. My second official job was I got a job as an usher at the Pussycat movie theater, all right, in, in Torrance, California.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right, so I was an usher at this porno movie theater at 16. Lied about my age. And the irony of all ironies is when I was growing up, I always thought, 'Man, being an- ' I mean, forget about being a director. Forget about being an actor.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: To me the greatest job a person could ever have was being an usher at a movie theater.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know. You get to go to a movie theater all day long, and then you get to see all the movies for free. All right, well, irony of ironies, I end up getting a job at a movie theater that I could care less about the movies and was totally bored by them.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. And then what?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And then, and then I kind of just went through like a bunch of little like, you know, phone sales job and this little stupid job here and that little stupid job there until eventually, like around age 22, I got a job at a place called Video Archives in Hermosa Beach.
CHARLIE ROSE: This is the famous video store.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It's the- the famous video- Video Archives.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And what was funny about that job was the fact that like people said, 'Oh, so that's kind of like your film school.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well-
CHARLIE ROSE: That's what they're saying now.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: That's exactly what they're saying, and it's become this big-
CHARLIE ROSE: So there a whole bunch of kids who want to be you-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: -are rushing to video stores-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: We-
CHARLIE ROSE: -to get a job!
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, now, I don't know if it's that much of a film school. A friend of mine, Roger Avery, who - I just produced a film that he, he directed called Killing Zoe - he's been putting out this theory and the press has been eating it-
CHARLIE ROSE: I know, I know.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -up like it was pudding, all right, you know. And I don't think he believes in it in two seconds, and I don't even believe in it that much, all right. What, what that store was, more or less, is not a film school. It was kind of a, it was- a closer equivalent would be- it was like my Village Voice.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And I got to be J. Hoberman. I got to be Andrew Sarris at the store, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -be like the little Mr. Critic-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know, at the store, putting films in people's hands and, and arguing my points of why this movie was good or why that movie was bad and everything. But the way I got the job was I- it wasn't like I got this job and all of a sudden saw all these movies, and then just decided to- and then became knowledgeable about them. 'Hey, listen. Let me make some of them.' It was like I got the job because I already was a film expert, so to speak. I mean, that's why they hired me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because you had just studied on your own-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: -not because you went to school. But what does your success now say? I'm a reporter, journalist. I mean, there is always this argument, people come to me, 'Should I go to journalism school?' What do you say to those people who are getting ready to go to the University of Southern California-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: -or UCLA or NYU Film School, and they look at you and there's no school there.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: You are, as they say, quote, self-taught. There was a passion to learn-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: -a passion to watch, you know. It came out of you early on, falling in love-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right. That's-
CHARLIE ROSE: -with film.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, that's the most important thing that I think-
CHARLIE ROSE: To love the business.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You have to. You have to. You know, I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: There's nothing- you don't know what you'd do if you weren't in film?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, I never set up a situation, I never set up a fall-back situation because I didn't want to fall back, you know. I wanted to have to keep eating at it-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know? Actually that leads me to a point. Let me say this point and then get back to your question-
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -okay? If, if, if there's one thing that I've done that I'm like the proudest of of everything, all right, is the fact that- people talk about, 'Wow. You've had such success, and it's just been so overnight,' and whatever. Well, whatever success I've got has come after like eight years of just nothing working out as- trying to get a job in film.
CHARLIE ROSE: What didn't work out?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it's like basically what I tried to do was-
CHARLIE ROSE: Give some sense of rejection.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, what happened basically was I had tried to make a film- I was around 22, 23. I said, 'Well, you know what?'
CHARLIE ROSE: 'I'm ready.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: 'I'm going to make a film.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, 'I'm ready.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. 'And I'm going to make- ' You know, most- I had actually met a few different directors by saying I was going to write a book and wanted to interview them, all right, and so I ended up like talking to them. And they all said that they had made their first films by the time they were 30, or around 30 years old is when they made their first film. So I thought, 'Well, okay, well, I'm going to beat that. I'm going to make my first film by the time I'm 26.' And that was my thing, all right: 26, 26. So I started making this movie- I just, I came up with an idea for a short film that I was going to shoot. I was going to shoot it on Super-8. Then I ended up getting somebody's 16mm camera. I was going to shoot it that way. And then I, I shot on it for like about a couple of weekends, and I thought, 'Well, hell, film's kind of cheap and everything like that. Why don't I just shoot it like a feature?' And this was before She's Gotta Have It, all right?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Not- it was like after Stranger than Paradise, but before She's Gotta Have It.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And so I just started shooting it that way, and I'm like, 'Well, I'm going to make a feature. I'm going to make a 16mm feature, black and white, and it'll be cool.' So I ended up working for like three years on this movie, and this was going to be my feature, and I was like-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and I was financing it from working at a video store, so which means was like, I would like get like $200 or so, and then we'd go off and shoot for the weekend, and then, you know, we'd run out of money, and then I would like go back to work again, and then like in- eventually, I would just keep piecing it together. And what you would do is when you're rent equipment from a rental house, if you rent it on Friday, you have it all weekend. It's counted as one-day rental.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And you have to return it Monday morning. So you would just like, just-
CHARLIE ROSE: Shoot like crazy.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -burn your- I mean, you would just like get old before your time trying to like-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, I know.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know, shoot all weekend long and give the stuff back. The- I, I- we had so- I didn't have- I had so lis- so little money that I couldn't even process this footage, all right, that I was saying, 'That's way too expensive,' all right. So eventually, I ended up, after like about, about three years, I ended up like starting processing some of the footage and started seeing exactly what I had. And guess what?
CHARLIE ROSE: What?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I did not have at all what I thought-
CHARLIE ROSE: You had no movie!
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -had, all right? It was really-
CHARLIE ROSE: How was it different?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It was- it was amateurish.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It was real- and not in a charming way, either.
CHARLIE ROSE: It had no charm, did it?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No charm at all. All right, and the thing is-
CHARLIE ROSE: No one said, 'Isn't that cute?'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No. No, no, no, no, no, no. It wasn't like that. Now, there were good things about it, all right. You know, I mean, you could tell I made it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: People who knew me could look at- 'Well, that's a Quentin- '
CHARLIE ROSE: 'That's- Quentin made that.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: '-movie.' Yeah, that's a- that has my spirit in it.
CHARLIE ROSE: You've had that-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It has my personality.
CHARLIE ROSE: -from day one, then.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. But the thing is, though, it just- it was like this was going to be the thing that like set me up, all right-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and I'd worked three years on it. And the, the- I was able to look at it in a, in a realistic way after being horribly depressed for a little bit, but only a short little bit - was the fact that, well, this was my film school, all right, and this was the best film school a person could possibly have. I mean, I actually, instead of like going to school and paying a ton of money to be allowed to use some of their crappy equipment, all right. I actually went out, and I actually tried to make a, make a, a feature film. All right, now I failed. It was guitar picks when I was finished. But when I looked at the footage- Now, all the stuff I did the first year - which was all the story stuff, all right-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -sucked, all right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. But the stuff that I did like the last couple of months-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -that wasn't so bad.
CHARLIE ROSE: Had something- Yeah. And what di- what made the difference? What had you learned after you got past the story stuff, and is that what is best about even Pulp Fiction, where you got beyond the story stuff?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, no, to me, actually- I actually think one of my strongest, my- one of my strengths is my storytelling-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know, because I actually com- am committing to telling a story. It was just-
CHARLIE ROSE: Because you're a writer?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: More as a viewer.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: More be- more the fact that I just like, you know, I like it when somebody tells me a story, and I actually really feel that that's becoming like a lost art in American cinema.
CHARLIE ROSE: But everybody says about you- I mean, there- other than- I mean, there are things that come out about you. One is a video arcade story, you know, and, and growing up with your mother and loving the movies and seeing- they always talk about Carnal Knowledge and- the other thing that comes out is, is when they talk about you - and I want to talk about this a little bit later - but it is that you in a sense have taken novelistic techniques-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Very much so. Very much so.
CHARLIE ROSE: -and translated them to filmmaking-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: -to cinema.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, I know, well that's, well that's the thing is because to me, most movies that you see now - I mean, that used to be thing about America was the fact that Hollywood, forget America - Hollywood. Hollywood used to- that's what we did better than anybody else in the world. We told a really good story.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know, Europe was where you had character-based films, or mood-based films, but in America, we told a story. We're the worst at it now as far as I'm concerned. All right.
CHARLIE ROSE: At telling a story.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: At telling a story. We don't tell a story. We tell a situation. Most of the movies that you see nowadays - and I'm not a Hollywood basher because enough good movies come out of the Hollywood system every year to justify its existence, you know, but- without any apologies. However, a good majority of the movies that come out, all right, you pretty much know everything you're going to see in the movie by the first 10 or 20 minutes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Now, that's not a story. A story is something that constantly unfolds. And I'm not talking about like this quick left turn or a quick right turn or a big surprise. I'm talking about it unfolds, all right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, but you don't believe in a linear-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: -storytelling.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it's not, you know, it's not so much I don't believe in it-
CHARLIE ROSE: Ah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -it's the situation.
CHARLIE ROSE: It's too-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I'm- well, it's- No, it's just- it's not the fact that I'm like on this big crusade against linear storytelling, all right, but it's, the thing is it's not the only game in town.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. I mean, the, the bottom line is, all right, my story line jumps all over the place-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. Back and forward.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -in Pulp Fiction. Yeah, back and forward. And the thing is, the truth of the matter is if I had written Pulp Fiction as a, as a novel, and I was on your show, you would never even remotely bring up the, the structure.
CHARLIE ROSE: Flashbacks-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -of it.
CHARLIE ROSE: -or whatever it was.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You would, you would never bring it up, all right, because it's like, it- a novel can do that, no problem. Novelists have always had just a complete freedom to pretty much tell their story any way they saw fit, all right. And that's kind of what I'm- you know, that's kind of what I'm trying to do. Now, the thing is for both novels and film 75 percent of the stories you're going to tell will work better on a dramatic basis, on a dramatically engaging basis to be told from a linear way. But there is that 25 percent out there that, you know, can be more resonant by telling it this way. And I think in the case of both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction it's- gains a lot more resonance being told in this kind of like wild way.
CHARLIE ROSE: But is it also because that wild way keeps the audience on the edge of the seat? I mean, you have talked about the use of violence.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: -and it is, in a sense, you want there to be, you want that viewer-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Mm-hm.
CHARLIE ROSE: -that person watching your film, experiencing the film, to be on the edge of the seat.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. Oh, oh, definitely. I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: But everybody does, but, but you believe that the techniques you employ-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Mm-hm.
CHARLIE ROSE: -do that.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, I do. I mean, but the thing is it's not even just so much- I mean, the thing is I know as a viewer, the minute I start getting confused I check out of the movie. Emotionally, I'm severed.
CHARLIE ROSE: Confused.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. If- when I'm watching a movie and all of a sudden something starts happening where all of a sudden the story line and everything is- I- it, it gets confusing, I don't know where I'm at-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -when I'm watching it, my- you know, you- I think an audience has like this, you know, like almost like embil- umbilical cord to the, to the screen, and it gets severed when, when confusion comes in.
CHARLIE ROSE: And therefore you lose them.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Exactly. And the thing is, most of the time when you get confused, when I get confused and that's severed, it's basically because I'm not supposed to be confused. All right, that's like, it's, it's a mistake, all right. However, if you get confu- You ca- there's no problem with being momentarily confused if you feel you're in good hands.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right, and I don't think my movie- and, and, and disagree if you, please-
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -is about- I don't think Pulp Fiction, for all of its goings in and around and up and down-
CHARLIE ROSE: And how many different stories there are and-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -yeah, and how it goes in this big circle, don't think it's hard to watch at all.
CHARLIE ROSE: No, it's not.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You have to watch it. I, I ask for you to watch it. You can't like put this on video and like do The New York Times crossword puzzle and watch the movie.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, that's right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. All I ask is you put everything down-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and watch it.
CHARLIE ROSE: 'Give me two hours and whatever it is, 10 minutes?'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Exactly. And then once you do that, then you know, you can follow it. It's, it's easy to follow.
CHARLIE ROSE: Talk to me a little bit about the virtue of, of writing your own material-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Mm-hm.
CHARLIE ROSE: -and the material that you wrote for other people-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: -you know. And, and whether what you are doing now as a director is directly a descendant of- is, is in a direct line of that.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it's funny. I mean, because like people ask me all the times about like my writing and everything.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And the thing is- I mean, and I'm not being falsely modest - I, I'm very happy with the way I write, you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I, I think I do it good. All right, but the thing is, though, I've never really considered myself a writer. I've always-
CHARLIE ROSE: Why not?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -considered- Well, I've always considered myself a filmmaker who writes stuff for himself to do.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: If I really considered myself a writer, I wouldn't be writing screenplays. I'd be writing novels, all right. In fact, at one point when it looked like I could never get a film going, all right, I, I even considered, 'You know what? Maybe I should just forget this because to be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.'
CHARLIE ROSE: But if you were a novelist and weren't making films, what kind of novelist would you be? What kind of novels would-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: That, that's, that's really hard, you know, that's a, that's an answer that I don't- that's a question I don't have an answer to. I mean, the one- I, I tried to write a novel at one point. I had read Larry McMurtry's All My Friends Will Be Strangers-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -which is one of my favorite books, and it totally like made me want to write like a book about like my Video Archives years.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right, and this is way before I could ever get anything going and everything. And so I started writing- I wrote about two chapters in this book and ended up like spending like about like six months just rewriting those two chapters all the time because it was a whole new form that I was very excited about. But ultimately, you know, I'm a filmmaker, and I just like- you know what? If I'm going to put the work that really needs to be put into this, I'm going to be a novelist, and I, and I think I could get this published, and I don't want to. I want to keep on the road of being a filmmaker. But the thing is with doing my own stuff as opposed to like somebody else doing it, or me doing somebody's else's script or something is what's nice about doing my own stuff- one, I, I, I'm usually happy with my stuff.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right, and it's also very personal, all right. If I was like writing a movie about- I mean, I could have an idea in my head for five, six, seven years, all right. And I've kind of little by little been working out different things about it. The day that I sit down to do it, whatever is going on with me at the time will find its way into the piece. It has to, or the piece isn't worth making, all right. An analogy I always use - because all of my writing techniques - I never took any writing classes or seminars or anything like that or read any pamphlets. My whole thing was everything I learned as an actor, of studying acting for six years, I have basically applied to writing. Now, like, if an actor-
CHARLIE ROSE: But what did you learn then?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it's just like- well, I'll give you, I'll give you an actor analogy that works completely for me as a writer. All right, if, if I'm playing in - I don't know, whatever - Sugar Babies or something, you know, something really crazy, all right- Sugar Babies, okay, on, on- in, in- on- in a theater production, all right, and I'm driving on my way to the theater, and I hit a dog on the way to the theater that night.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Okay, now that's- doesn't make you commit suicide after, you know, killing a dog, but it's, it's going to affect you.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right, okay. And, now, I'm affected by that. Now, the thing is when I go out on stage, I have to bring that experience on with me, or what am I doing up there? All right, that is obviously going on with me at that time, and that needs to be. That needs to be on the stage. That doesn't have a-
CHARLIE ROSE: Wait. It needs to be on the stage because it is what's happening inside of you?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Exactly. True.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: That's it. It's because it's what's happening inside of me. Now, if I'm doing Sugar Babies or, or Death of a Salesman or You Can't Take It with You, this doesn't mean the play all of a sudden becomes about a dead dog-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -all right. But it definitely doesn't- but it definitely- I'm not there unless I bring that on with me and make that work inside of the material. If I'm not, then you could just send a robot out there. That's just good acting. That's what you have to do. You can't deny anything, all right. Well, the same thing with me as a writer. If I was writing The Guns of the Navarone, all right, and then right in the- right at the beginning of writing it or in the middle of writing it, I, I, I break up with my girlfriend, who I'm like madly in love with and then my heart is, is, is shattered, all right, that's got to work into it. Now, the story is still about a bunch of commandos going to blow up a couple of cannons, all right-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -but that pain that I'm feeling has got to find its way into the story or else, what am I doing.
CHARLIE ROSE: And translating to writing meaning that whatever you're experiencing as a writer, you've got to put into those characters and you know how to do that.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. It's a- well, I mean, that's the thing I think that makes- I mean, that's why when people say, 'Well, you're just making movies about other movies,' I go, 'Well, that's bull.' I mean, to me all my movies-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -are- I mean, I'm using I'm working in a genre, no doubt about it, all right, and I, and I respect the genre, no doubt about it-
CHARLIE ROSE: And what's the genre, in your own definition?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, in, in the ones I'm doing, I'm doing crime films, all right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, crime films.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And then, like in the case of Reservoir Dogs, that's a subgenre crime film. It's a heist picture.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: A bunch of guys get together and pull a robbery.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You've seen a bunch-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -kind of movies like that before. And the thing is, though- but I respect the genre and I'm jumping off from it, but to me, all the movies are very personal, all right, when I look at them. And I don't mean like I'm some crook, all right, but the thing about it, though, is like, you know, this group of friends will look at it and be like, 'Oh, Quen, I can't believe you talked about that,' you, you know, you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And this old girlfriend, 'Oh, jeez-'
CHARLIE ROSE: Because they identify with the experience.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: '- Quentin, jeez.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know, it's like, it's, you know, it's- you should be semi-embarrassed about certain people seeing your movie, I think, when you're finished if you're working on a personal level.
CHARLIE ROSE: Or else the work is not authentic?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, I mean, I don't want to make that blanket a statement, but, but I guess for me, I guess yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: You're not doing- you're not, you're not extending yourself unless you bring all of that-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You've got to.
CHARLIE ROSE: -in.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I mean, you've- basically I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: Why do you work-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: A writer, a writer- you know, you should have this little voice inside of you saying, 'Tell the truth.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: 'Tell the truth. Tell the truth.' All right?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: 'Reveal a few secrets in here.'
CHARLIE ROSE: And the truth is your life experience.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Exactly. That's the, that's the truth as I know it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right. Why, why do you work in the crime genre?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it's a genre I've always really got a kick out of-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know. I always-
CHARLIE ROSE: From the '30s and the '40s and Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, and then even like-
CHARLIE ROSE: -and all that?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and stuff from the '70s, and just all kinds of stuff like that. I mean, I've always, I've always- It's a genre-
CHARLIE ROSE: Elmore Leonard, or-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, I love Elmore Leonard. In fact, to me True Romance is basically like an Elmore Leonard movie-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -that he didn't write, you know. And like, actually, I actually owe a big debt to like kind of figuring out my style from Elmore Leonard because, you know, he was the first writer I'd ever read - and, but also like Charles Willeford did it as well - but he was one of the first writers I had ever read that just let mundane conversations-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -actually inform the characters, you know, and then all of a sudden, 'Boof!,' you know, you're into whatever story you're telling. But the thing is, though, it's just a genre I've always really liked and always had a lot of appreciation for and liked going to, and I thought I would do a good job with it.
CHARLIE ROSE: But you said an interesting thing once. Maybe you were talking about Pulp Fiction, but maybe about Reservoir Dogs and, and others, is that you said that somehow- or somebody said, maybe somebody said about you, I can't remember where I read this- but basically that there was, in a sense, a combination of European art film-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, mm-hm.
CHARLIE ROSE: -and black- exploitation film-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well not-
CHARLIE ROSE: -coming together.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, not just blaxploitation films, but just ex- American exploitation films in general.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. I mean, in the case of like Pulp Fiction, I think like the two biggest descendants that the film has-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Where did Pulp Fiction come from?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, well, it's like, it's like, to me, when I look at it and I, I watch it, to me I kind of see like, you know- it was like you, when like the French new wave would do their version of crime films, I mean Jean Luc Godard and Truffaut-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and then like Jean-Pierre Melville before them, would do their kind of like crazy French version of American movies. And then I also see like a, kind of like a, a, a modern day spaghetti western playing there, as well as a blaxploitation movie from the '70s all kind of like mixed up together.
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, we talk about this lightly, but I mean, you remind me, you know, of someone whose passion was to be a filmmaker. And you have studied the lives of all the filmmakers.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: You know their lives as well as anyone- as their biographer does.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: That's, that's not too far from wrong, I would guess.
CHARLIE ROSE: Looking for what?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, one-
CHARLIE ROSE: Just because you love the fact that-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, starting off as-
CHARLIE ROSE: -they do what you do and therefore-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. I mean starting out just as interest, I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I mean, I mean literally-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -if, if a guy is a, is a baseball fanatic and everything, you know, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: Exactly, right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know, if his hero is Willie Mays, he's going to follow him.
CHARLIE ROSE: He's going to- He wants to know everything he is about baseball and about Willie Mays. Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Exactly.
CHARLIE ROSE: He turns first to the sports page.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, exactly. And then it's like, and like, you know, a part of that is all just like the function of having heroes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know, and, and so, like you know, like, like for instance when I was a, you know- still now he's one of my favorite filmmakers, but like in, particularly, when I was in my 20s, you know, I, I loved Brian DePalma, all right-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and I would, just like, obsess about, about like his stuff, the way like any like big fan would obsess about either a movie star or a baseball, you know, star or whatever, is that when his movies would come out, I'd be countin' down the days to like the first show of his movie, and I would collect all the reviews and all the interviews-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and I'd put them in like these DePalma scrapbooks and stuff that I had set up. You know, and then I would go see his film, you know, a movie of his, Scarface or something would open, and I would go see the first show, first day. All right. No one could go with me. I didn't want anyone else to ruin it. It was too like- it was like a religious experience. And I didn't want anyone to share it, you know- I, I didn't care what anyone thought, all right. I'd just sit there and watch the movie. All right. That's sort of like just kind of taking it in, seeing all what the story was and everything.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Then, I would go see the midnight show that night. And then I'd kind of like somebody to see it with me. All right, and then I could really watch. Okay, I've got the story-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I've got the film-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -now let's see how he did it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. And, you know that's-
CHARLIE ROSE: And then, then you could talk about it with that person.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, then I could talk about it with that person. And I also kind of see it through their eyes and-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -stuff, you know. But, now, the thing is, though, also what I would have is- and that was, those dealing with heroes - whether it be Brian DePalma or Howard Hawks or Douglas Sirk or Scorsese or whoever - but, also just as, like a film, more or less like, like, historian or something, even though I wasn't hired by anybody to be a-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -historian: a historian in my own mind. All right. I would be very interested in, in following directors' careers and like studying their careers and everything and constantly, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: In terms of how they made it? Or-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, no, no, no, no, no.
CHARLIE ROSE: -or the evolution-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No. No, no, no, no, no-
CHARLIE ROSE: -of a career in terms of how they went from-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -no, no. Not a- evolution of a career, evolution of a career.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It's like, it's like, you know, you, you- there's many examples when you look at like a, a, a filmmaker who has done, I don't know, 15 films or something like that, you know - forget about the old guys - and then like-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know, in the last 20 years. All right. Done 10 or 15 films and like, you know, wow, this work here is really exciting, and then, at some point, it stopped being exciting.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Either, it was like the same old thing, or else they became hacks, or they may-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -have just became, you know- Now, where did that happen?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Where did that start? When-
CHARLIE ROSE: Where did it begin to-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -did they stop-
CHARLIE ROSE: -lose-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -caring?
CHARLIE ROSE: -it? Exactly.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Exactly. You know. And, to me, that's very interesting.
CHARLIE ROSE: And the point, you said, is when did they stop caring?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, exactly. I, and I do believe that, all right. You know, I'm not a critic, so I'm not going to use an example on the air because that could hurt that person's feelings. If I was a critic, I would write an article about it-
CHARLIE ROSE: True.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and it wouldn't be, be just conversation. But, it's like, but, there's, there's quite a few directors where like you can't believe the work that they did in the '70s is the work that they're doing now. You know, you can't believe it's the same man.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what do you think happened?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, oddly enough, I actually kind of see what happens, all right. It usually has to do with like one film. One film is either like, I mean, like, you see them growing or, or, or, or building, or whatever, and, and this is- actually there's two ways that this can go. And one way is, they do one film, and usually it's a film that they're very personal about-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -that they care a lot about, and, one, not only does it not do well, it's not recognized. Okay, now maybe they did a bad job with it, or maybe they did a terrific job with it, all right, but it's, you know, but they, they get nothing for it. They get slapped in the face for it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And you could tell that the film had a real personal feeling to them.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. They really had put it out on the table.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: They really put it out on the table. All right, and- at least as far as they were concerned. All right, and they got neither the press, nor they got- you know, or- and, and it failed horribly.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And then, from that point on - and a lot, and, and at least 5 directors that I can think of off the top of my- off the top of my head - you can just see all of a sudden they started doing star vehicles.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All of a sudden they just started doing program films, and then, six, seven years down the line it's like, whatever originality, whatever special personality that they had, completely doesn't exist any more.
CHARLIE ROSE: All right. Let me just test this with you. Coppola and Apocalypse Now.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Mm-hm. No. I don't think- he doesn't fit into me at all.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay. All right-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. Because-
CHARLIE ROSE: -I know he's a, he's a legitimate hero for you.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, but, no I mean, it's not just that. I mean, like- I mean Apocalypse Now was a major success. That was a smash.
CHARLIE ROSE: I, I, I know it was, but at the same time, it was a film that had a huge- I mean all you got to do is watch his wife's documentary-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: -about it-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Definitely.
CHARLIE ROSE: -to know the emotional toll it took.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I know, but the film went on and made $100 million. I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: But that's not-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -it ended up where, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: But that's not how he measured it.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And he was ha- I know.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you think that's how he measured it? Do you think he ended up telling the story, in the end?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh yes. No, I do. I mean I, I-
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay. Because a lot of people said it, it worked for two-thirds of the way in-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Uh-huh.
CHARLIE ROSE: -and then it didn't.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, but you know what? It's funny, though, because I think at the time, you know, with the whole big build up and everything, yeah. The whole Marlon Brando sequence is my least favorite sequence of that movie.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. But, is it a failure? No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right.
CHARLIE ROSE: DePalma and Bonfire of the Vanities.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Okay now. Well, I mean, yeah, well, the thing is it's really funny-
CHARLIE ROSE: I'm not suggesting these people-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: -lost their talent. Is that the-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, no, no, no. I know you're not. I know-
CHARLIE ROSE: I'm looking for an example of the kind of thing that might fit.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Okay. The thing is, in the case of Bonfire of the Vanities, is the fact that- actually I go back to Pauline Kael because-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -she actually said, like, something perfect for Bonfire of the Vanities in particular. She says, 'The thing that's so crazy about Bonfire of the Vanities is DePalma had made Bonfire of the Vanities better than anybody ever could back in 1969 when he did the movie Hi Mom with-'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: '-Robert De Niro'-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right, this little, like, you know, hippie kind of movie he did that hit on - even better than, than, than Thomas Wolfe's book - exactly what he was talking about in that movie. So he didn't need to remake. He didn't need to make it any more.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Now, but the thing is also - again going back to this thing Pauline Kael said about other filmmakers - is Bonfire of the Vanities is a mess, but it's the kind of mess that only a great filmmaker makes. Hacks never go that far wrong. It's like a very talented guy who's just got the wrong idea.
CHARLIE ROSE: It has to be a genius who lost it.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. Only it's, yeah, it's this-
CHARLIE ROSE: Or, who went too far because he so believed in himself and he had the confidence-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, it's more like, it's just like, he had a bunch of bad ideas, and had the, the-
CHARLIE ROSE: They all coalesced on the one-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -the talent of, and, and the truth of conviction of his bad ideas-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -in that movie. All right. And I don't think he's, I don't think he's, I don't think he's lost it.I think he felt it hard.
CHARLIE ROSE: I know he did because he told me.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I think, yeah. I think he, I think he took it really hard and he's been playing- scrambling ever since.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. But-
CHARLIE ROSE: Scrambling to find his footing again which-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes. Scrambling to find his footing again because I think-
CHARLIE ROSE: -which conv- which, is it confidence?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, I don't know if it's confidence. I think it's more like the fact that, 'Okay, I reached out with Bon-' Well, he reached out with Casualties of War, and even-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -though the film wasn't a, a success, got the best reviews of his entire career. All right, so, it's like, you know, so he'd reached out before. But then, and then so, he reached out even more with Bonfire, and it didn't work. And I think you've seen, when you look at the films he's been doing since, and like, in the case of, Raising Cain.-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -all right, he goes,'Okay, I'm going to go back and do, what I do, all right, what- my thrillers, all right, and that'll be, it'll be a cool ground, all right.' And the thing that's really fascinating about Raising Cain is you see a guy- and I, and I, and I told this to him and he agreed with me. I don't know, I thought Raising Cain was a, was a blast. I had a total blast out of watching it. But part of the fun about the movie - which I don't, you know, if the studio liked it that much - was the fact that it almost, the whole thing works to annoy the viewer because, it, like- you've got a man who like- look, I created, more or less, in these last 20 years, this type of film. All right, and, and I do it better than anybody, but you know what? I'm bored with doing it now. All right, so the only way I can make it interesting for me, is to completely dissect it and not pay you off.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know, so it became like this, like, really almost kind of like filmic experiment on how not to satisfy the audience, all right, which was very interesting to me, okay. I got a big kick out of it.
CHARLIE ROSE: If you had to name - I mean, I, I know you don't want to leave somebody out - who's influenced you the most, filmmakers? You said Howard Hawks-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. Howard-
CHARLIE ROSE: -is one.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -Hawks is a gigantic influence, but-
CHARLIE ROSE: Because?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, well, he is the single, as far as for, for my money, he is the single greatest storyteller, all right, in the history of cinema.
CHARLIE ROSE: The single greatest storyteller.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. He- and, and, and probably the single most entertaining filmmaker in the history of cinema. It's, it's so funny, because when you get into this- I mean, when you're talking about people who've like, you know, worked for 30 years and have like, you know, 25, 30, 40 films to show for it, you know, the old guys, the pioneers, all-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -right, when you go through their films and everything like that, you know, you're, you're looking at this film and, and like you go, 'Oh, I, I never saw this one, and I never saw this one that I really want to.' And then, like, you start seeing some of their later works or some of like, early minor work that-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you, you had always heard about, but never saw it, you always are, more or less, kind of disappointed. It's like, you know, 'That's okay.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: 'It's good to see it so I could say I saw it and everything.' Howard Hawks, except for one movie, never disappointed me. All right, it's like, you know, it's like, even like his, you know, even the ones that didn't get any credit whatsoever, like the ones he did later in his life. like something like, like, like Man's Favorite Sport, which is just basically, this kind of crazy paraphrased remake of Bringing Up Baby, is funny. Is it as good as Bringing Up Baby? No, but it's like really good. It's, it's really funny. Now if I'm going to watch Bringing Up Baby or Man's Favorite Sport, I'll watch Bringing Up Baby. But if Man's Favorite Sport's on TV, I'll watch it in two seconds.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: If it's playing at the theaters, I'll go see it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Other than, okay, Howard Hawks, who else? A significant influence.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: A big significant influence, okay, would be, like Howard Hawks, the director Sam Fuller, all right, who's this like, kind of, one of, he's one of the greatest wild men of cinema. He made a series of films in the '50s. He, he's, he was probably the, he was probably the king of making war films, because he was, he fought in the big red one and everything-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -and, and he, he makes really crazy movies. And he also made a lot of westerns and stuff. And, Sam Fuller's just crazy style was a big influence to me. DePalma was a big influence to me. And one of the things about DePalma that people never talk about- and I, I think DePalma is probably the greatest black- satirist of the last 20 years in cinema. I mean his films are, are, are hysterical, biting black comedies. I mean they're- I mean, you know, no one has his wit, at all, you know, great. His wit is just fantastic, even though he never makes official comedies. But like, you know, Scorsese his, just, daring.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know, has always been a big influence to me. I usually never-
CHARLIE ROSE: His daring.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. I usually never accredit him because everyone, everyone does it for me anyway.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Or they say, 'Well, he's obviously ripping off Scorsese.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, well, they don't say ripping off, but they do say, influenced by DePalma and Scorsese.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. And, Sergio Leone was a big influence on me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because of the spaghetti westerns?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, definitely because of the spaghetti westerns and also because of like, one, he actually, you know, he was like the first, like, like, you know, director where I, where I when I started like really thinking about becoming a filmmaker, where I was like, wow, I mean well that's a director. That's, that's a film that's directed.
CHARLIE ROSE: That's a director because?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, his films are so stylized, they're-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right, right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -so, they're, I mean, they, they are so directed. I mean that, it's, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: You could watch that film and you knew who made it.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, exactly. And you could even like watch the whole filmmaking process, you know, I mean, if you're thinking along those lines. If you're just trying to watch an entertaining story-
CHARLIE ROSE: Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -it's there. All right. But, and then also, a major influence, was, Jean Luc Godard has like influenced me quite a bit.
CHARLIE ROSE: There comes the European art film there.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, exactly. Basically because his, his inventiveness and his, like, breaking the rules and commenting on cinema while you're watching cinema.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: You know, phony process shots in the background and stuff like that. The other thing, also, is, there's a French director named Jean-Pierre Melville, who came out in the '50s and basically started doing a whole series- He was like a total, like, entertainment director. He did a whole series of, of crime films. Always like set in Paris or Marseilles or something. They were basically, the Warner Brothers Bogart-Cagney films, all right, but, completely set to this like French Parisian rhythm. And they starred like Delon- Alain Delon or Jean-Paul Belmondo-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -you know. And they're great. And they work very much in the same way that, like, Sergio Leone's films do, where, they take a genre that like we know left, right, forwards, up and down and backwards.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. But, they've, but they do it with a whole different style and a whole different perspective. And here they've, basically, reinvented the genre. They've created something new that didn't exist before. Now that's what I'm always, kind of, trying to do with my genre films. I don't know if I'm succeeding or not, but that's the attempt.
CHARLIE ROSE: To?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: To take something you've seen before. I love it, I respect it, and I'm going to deliver the goods. I'm not-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -just going to be some arty guy going off and, you know-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -but I'm, I'm delivering the goods, but I'm also trying to, you know, reinvent it, in a way. All right, do something, you know, do it in a much different way you've ever seen before. Like in the case of Reservoir Dogs, again, it's not trying to just be a clever boy. It's not just like, clever-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -ideas, it's got to work dramatically. All right. But, like, you know, do a heist film. Deliver the goods as a heist film, but it's a heist film where you never see the heist. That's just my goofy way of doing it, all right, you know. You know I always say like, if I was going to do like, you know, a hunchback movie, the guy'd get like- you have an operation at the beginning of the film. The guy used to be the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
CHARLIE ROSE: How much credit to, to Harvey Keitel, Reservoir Dogs? Did he have something to do with that being made?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's, it's funny, because like that's one of those things that's like, it hasn't been blown out of proportion, but, like, you know, there were like, you know, three people that were very, very instrumental- four people that were very instrumental in getting it made, and Harvey's one of the four, but Harvey's the one who always got the credit for it, you know.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: My partner, Lawrence Bender, deserves a tremendous amount-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, the producer.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -of credit for it. He's the producer of the film. Monty Hellman, who, a wonderful-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -filmmaker from the '60s who, who helped us with the film, he deserves a lot of credit. And so does, one of the executive producers on the film, Richard Gladstein, who was the guy at the company, at Live Entertainment, that, like, said, 'I'm going to take a chance on this kid.' You know-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I really owe my career to him.
CHARLIE ROSE: And he took a chance on you because of what he-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: The script.
CHARLIE ROSE: The script.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: The script.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because of that script.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Because of that script.
CHARLIE ROSE: Now had he seen the same thing in True Romance and-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: He never read True Romance.
CHARLIE ROSE: So he didn't know anything about those.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: He, he, he was like, it was a situation, he loved the script so much-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -all right, that it was like, he said to me, 'Unless this kid is just a complete jerk-'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: '-I'm going to make this movie.'
CHARLIE ROSE: You wrote the script for-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: But let me, let me just make-
CHARLIE ROSE: Okay, go ahead.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -let me just go back to what like, but, but, Harvey, Harvey Keitel's contribution was he, he read the, he read the script of Dogs and just completely loved it, completely believed in it, and, and, and, committed himself to it. Now, Harvey's career has changed so drastically since-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -the days before Dogs. I mean, you know, Dogs was a good- and Bad Lieutenant were good launching pads, and The Piano took him to the moon-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I mean, like, overseas, Harvey means as much now as Jack Nicholson because of The Piano.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is that right, now?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, he's huge in- overseas.
CHARLIE ROSE: In Japan, France. In-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah. I mean, it's like, I mean, I mean, The Piano - The Piano did well for him here in America but-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I mean in, in Europe, he is a superstar.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. Now, and that couldn't happen to a better actor, I-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -mean, he deserves it. But the thing is though, Harvey committing to the movie at the time, all right, didn't all- doors didn't just fling open. All right, but, he gave us legitimacy.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All of a sudden, two guys who had never done anything before, well, we, we had Harvey Keitel, we had a good actor involved. And, I'm sure the only reason that Richard Gladstein- and I know, the only reason Richard Gladstein at Live, who had the power of the pen, all right, that said, 'Yes, I'm going to go with it,' the only reason he read the script in the first place was because Harvey Keitel was attached.
CHARLIE ROSE: Did you have any moment of doubt that you could deliver, that you were ready to deliver?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I think you always do have- like, as far as like, like, when okay, you've got the job.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. That's right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, now I've got-
CHARLIE ROSE: -you know. I mean-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -to do it, okay.
CHARLIE ROSE: And, and almost a little bit like the thing that Churchill said at the beginning of World War II: 'All my life has prepared me for this moment.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, well, that's definitely the case. That, that was-
CHARLIE ROSE: You know. 'I'm ready to go. I- whatever I can learn, I've learned, I've learned.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: 'I've read, I've read, studied, I've talked, I've written. I've done everything I can.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Boom.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, it's funny because it's like, yeah, I remember at one point when we were getting ready to get the like, you know, the go-ahead on the movie, I remember thinking to myself, 'Well, you know, you know, writing's kind of easy because if I do what I do as a writer, and it doesn't work out, I can throw it away,' all right, but it's like, you know, now the whole thing about being a writer is if I do it on the page and I give it to somebody else and they screw it up, well, you know, I can like, have righteous indignation about it and everything. But now, if I do it on the page and I screw it up filming it, well then-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -who do I get to blame?
CHARLIE ROSE: Would you do it differently, that film, today? I mean, did you say what you wan-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Not a-
CHARLIE ROSE: It's the film you wanted-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I mean, I'm-
CHARLIE ROSE: -frame by frame by frame by frame.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -so proud of that movie. I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I would do, I mean, maybe little things- you know, I would extend this shot a little, but except for that-
CHARLIE ROSE: But essentially, it's the film you-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Oh, I'm-
CHARLIE ROSE: -wanted to make, yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I'm, I, I adore Reservoir Dogs.
CHARLIE ROSE: And how do you-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And not because of what I did. I'm just saying-
CHARLIE ROSE: What did it say to an audience, the film, about you, about Quentin Tarantino?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, you know what-
CHARLIE ROSE: What's the-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Well, you know what it ended up doing, which was very interesting, was the fact that- people ask me from time to time, 'Do you make a movie with an audience in mind?'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And my answer is, 'Yes, I do.' All right, but the audience I have in mind isn't some faceless blobs that I'm trying to second-guess.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right, right, right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: It's me!
CHARLIE ROSE: It's not like a focus group.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah, it's me. I'm the audience. I'm the guy that goes out and pays $7 or $8 in New York, you know, to go and see a movie. All right, I go see, if I'm excited about seeing a movie, I see it on opening day. All right, I am the audience, all right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: And I know what I want to see, you know. And I was betting - and I was a little surprised at how many there were - I was betting that there were other people like me out there, all right. Now, true, I'm making specific films. And if you make a specific film that's not everything for everybody. You're going to turn some people off, all right, but you're going to turn some people on, too. And the, you know, now, the thing is, the film got a lot of remarks because of the violence in it.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. And in a way, there were kind of like- I always kind of took it as a big compliment because I know the film isn't that violent, all right. It's like-
CHARLIE ROSE: Why is it a compliment?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Because I did it well. I mean-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -I got the scenes; I got the-
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, in other words, they thought it was more violent than it was.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: They thought it was far more violent than it was, all right. Now in, in actually, you know, quoting DePalma, DePalma has said that when you, when you do violence, you actually get penalized for doing it well.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Hacks don't get penalized for, you know, showing anything because it doesn't mean anything.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: All right. So in a way, they're saying, 'Good filmmaking.' All right, especially since like the movie is a talking heads movie, it's these people talking to each other for like the entire 90 minutes with like three acts of violence in the movie. The most notorious one you don't even see on screen. All right, so it's like, 'Well, thanks.'
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: But, but I- but, you know, the, the thing is how did it introduce me. It's like, you know, I'm always kind of weird about actually answering a question like that because it's almost like I'd rather you tell me.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Well, but it- all of a sudden, it said, 'This is a guy-' for, for the lack of- for- 'There is a new filmmaker,' it said-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: '-who has exploded and who is unique. Who has a signature that is distinctly his own.'
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: You could take a lot of films made in America, and you can say, 'That's a well made film,' but I could name three or four directors of talent who could have made that film.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: I don't know of anybody else who I think automatically could make Reservoir Dogs, or would have made it.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Same thing about Pulp Fiction.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Don't you think?
QUENTIN TARANTINO: I completely agree. I completely agree.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, I mean, there is such a signature - and that's what I was asking you to do is to define the signature. I've got to move to Pulp Fiction, and we're going to see a couple of scenes here. Oh, it's the 'Big Mac' scene. Set it up-
QUENTIN TARANTINO: The 'Big Mac' scene. The Big Mac.
CHARLIE ROSE: -for me before we take a- roll the tape.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: What's going on is in this scene, this is like the- It's John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: They play two hit men, Jules and Vincent-
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -who are on their way to blow away a couple of guys. But the thing is, they're just going to work. So they're like having like a car pool conversation that you might have-
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
QUENTIN TARANTINO: -all right, on your way to work. And the thing is, Vincent has just come back from- after three years in Amsterdam, so he's just musing on, on the things that he experienced in Europe for the first time.
CHARLIE ROSE: Roll the tape. Here it is. Pulp Fiction

JOHN TRAVOLTA, Actor: [portraying Vincent] You know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON, Actor: [portraying Jules] What?
JOHN TRAVOLTA: It's the little differences. And you know what they call a, a Quarterpounder with cheese in Paris?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: They don't call it a Quarterpounder with cheese?
JOHN TRAVOLTA: No, man. They got the metric system. They wouldn't know what a [censored] Quarterpounder is.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Then what do they call it?
JOHN TRAVOLTA: They call it the Royal with cheese.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Royal with cheese.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: That's right.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: What do they call a Big Mac?
JOHN TRAVOLTA: A Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Le Big Mac. What do they call a Whopper?
JOHN TRAVOLTA: I don't know. I didn't go into Burger King.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: We should have shotguns for this kind of deal.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: How many up there?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Three or four.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: That's counting our guy?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Not sure.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: So that means it could be up to five guys up there?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: It's possible.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: We should have [censored] shotguns.

UMA THURMAN, Actress: You want to dance?
JOHN TRAVOLTA, Actor: [portraying Vincent] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
UMA THURMAN: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I do believe Marsellus, my husband, your boss, told you to take me out and do whatever I wanted. Now I want to dance. I want to win. I want that trophy.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: All right.
UMA THURMAN: So dance good.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: All right.
2nd ACTOR: [singing] It was a teenage wedding, and the old folks wished 'em well. You could see that Pierre did truly love the mademoiselle. And now the young monsieur and madame have rung the chapel bell. 'C'est la vie,' said the old folks. 'It goes to show you never can tell.' They furnished off an apartment with a-

SAMUEL L. JACKSON, Actor: [portraying Jules] Now, whether or not what we experienced wasn't- according to Hoyle a miracle- was insignificant. What is significant is I felt the touch of God. God got involved.
JOHN TRAVOLTA, Actor: [portraying Vincent] You're serious. You're really thinking about quitting?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: The life?
JOHN TRAVOLTA: Yeah.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Most definitely.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: What you going to do then?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Well, that's what I've been sitting here contemplating. First, I'm going to deliver this case to Marsalis. Then basically I'm just going to walk the earth.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: What you mean, walk the earth?
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: You know, like Caine in Kung Fu, walk from place to place, meet people, get in adventures.
JOHN TRAVOLTA: They got a name for that, Jules. It's called a bum.
SAMUEL L. JACKSON: Look, my friend, this is just where you and I differ. If my answers frighten you, Vincent, then you should cease asking scary questions.