Note: The following essay, which is obviously being published months after the release of Inglourious Basterds, was written for a literary criticism class that explores theory behind literary criticism and focuses on analyzing textual works from a variety of perspectives. This assignment involved using these tools of literature to explore a work outside of the written word — I chose Inglourious Basterds.  I thought I’d share it in order to show just how relevant Basterds is to the craft as a whole, so enjoy it!

To argue that filmed media such as motion pictures and television shows should not be judged or viewed in the same critical light as a piece of literature is overlooking an essential facet of this media. Film is rooted in the written word, and every event in motion is sparked by a screenplay that could easily merit a critical analysis of form, depth, and “literariness.” Literature and film are not not mere tangents of each other, nor do they share vague, accidental similarities, but instead exist as branches of one tree that infinitely stretch out to layer the world around us. Thus, film is as readily analyzable as any written text, as long as a critic is willing to examine this medium by using the theory behind literary form.

Jonathan Culler’s tri-fold definition of literariness can easily apply to the arena of film without need for much adjustment. However, to attempt to find the “best” example of a film that possesses literary qualities is a fool’s errand. Such a quest attempts to differentiate too greatly between the two mediums of literature and film, or between all existent art forms, for that matter. I can name fifteen films on the shelf behind me that have moved me as greatly as any novel while not forsaking depth, subtext, characterization or intricacy for dazzling effects work. I choose to use as an example the film that is not only freshest in my memory, but also has expanded in meaning and shifted my perceptions upon subsequent viewings — a surefire sign of scholarly attention to detail. This film is Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which is layered with deft material by a keen artisan’s eye, resulting in a text that cries out to be explored from poetic and hermeneutical vantage points.

Culler states that to analyze literature is to “keep before us … the suspension of the demand for immediate intelligibility” (Culler 41). In a broader, more accessible sense, I feel this is the critical ability to revel in a sort of pleasant (or unpleasant, if the writer sees fit) ambiguity as an arc of characters and storyline unfolds. This is highly contrasted with our day-to-day lives, in which dialogue is simple and functional, and our worldly imagery is often taken at face value. The best films are able to tap into this ideal uniquely — a film leaves no breathing room as far as imagery goes. Readers of novels may envision a thousand different faces for a given character, a thousand intonations of a given sentence. Brought to life on the screen by actors and directors, however, a screenplay becomes more specific. This may be seen as a constraint that limits the extent of a film’s “literariness,” which forces a filmmaker to expand depth by detailing between the lines. This can be achieved through depth of cinematography and detail or the minute variables of inflection behind lines of dialogue. Thus, literariness in film is embodied in the work of every person responsible for a movie, from screenwriters to actors to the key grip who lights up sets.

One specific way Inglourious Basterds transcends this constraint is in the myriad oblique ways it hints and doesn’t tell. Tarantino demonstrates an ability to breathe life into every living corner of the film for our analysis. Why, for instance, are the titular Basterds only peripheral characters in a movie that bears their name, and only tangentially related to the film’s outcome? It is up to the critic to decipher the deliberate misspelling of the title, and the possibly unintentional filmmaking mistakes — a need for immediate intelligibility is expanded, and the implication of the misspelling is instead dwelled upon. The title of the film is scrawled in the opening credits with Tarantino’s own handwriting as depicted on the cover for his original screenplay. But why? Why is such a personal flair so asymmetrical from the rest of Tarantino’s catalogue utilized in this particular film, or is it of importance at all? To seek an answer to this question is a viable option for the same reason any literary text is worthy of analysis, under the umbrella that Culler labels the “hyper-protected cooperative principle,” which proclaims that the mere existence of such a potential irrelevancy dictates its importance and worthiness of exploration (Culler 62). Outside of the realm of literariness — in this case, embodied in the screenplay and finished film — this misspelling would be seen as ignorant nonsense, an unfortunately personalized typo.

Culler also cites the importance of “reflection on the implication of means of expression” (Culler 41). Through cinematography, a film has the power to express theme and voice on an almost subconscious level, when executed correctly. There are moments within Inglourious Basterds that are downright blatant in their homage to expressionism (or is it expressionism itself?), layering new and often unsettling meanings upon images that we’re familiar with from films such as The Wizard of Oz in a striking example of postmodern metafiction. But it’d be a disservice to the film to call the references it makes entirely blatant; a greater percentage of the imagery functions on another level. For instance, it can’t be unintentional that the introduction of “The Bear Jew” occurs in a leafy drainage system subconsciously evocative of the Holocaust imagery we’re so accustomed to. Or can it? The director certainly had a hand in the formation of sets and the scouting of locations for filming. Is it an accident that our minds are trained toward that grim thought, or are we being towed by successful filmmaking? These are the same sort of questions we may read into a novel: is it happenstance that a new story may evoke the characters of Shakespeare or the imagery of The Odyssey? The craftsman filmmaker, like the master of literature, has a keen understanding of where the branches of his or her tree may extend into the consciousness — what themes are similarly evoked, and where the roots for their own work rest in the ground. This tree only extends further by inviting the critic (as a work of literature does) to invest the film with his or her own interpretations, and exploring the possibilities of reference and depth.

Thus, Inglourious Basterds is operating on two levels intertwined: the first seeks to deliver a visceral and emotional experience solely through unique imagery — one unaware of The Wizard of Oz would simply be struck by Inglourious Basterds’ power. The latter operation is the film’s process of drawing attention to its own references, demanding for the critic to contemplate deliberate strokes and their implications in the broader spectrum of film and storytelling. This is quite comparable to two central methods of research used by psychologists in order to investigate human behavior, beliefs, and motives. The idiographic approach is an attempt to study the uniqueness of an individual, and the differences that distinguish that individual from the rest of society. The nomothetic approach, on the other hand, investigates the common threads between people by studying a wider range of individuals at once. Thus, the first level of analysis of this film (in other words, emphasizing the emotional experience conveyed by its imagery) could be equated to an idiographic approach or a case study, in which the uniqueness of Inglourious Basterds as a work of art becomes apparent. Contrarily, the second level can be seen as a nomothetic attempt to embed the film in a world that serves to deepen the meaning of Tarantino’s work.

This world doesn’t strictly apply to the spectrum of film, but to a vast universe of references. Take, for example, the interrogation scene of a Nazi officer in the aforementioned drainage system. As the scene (in which the rebellious Jewish “Basterds” gain the upper hand) becomes more and more brutal, a single, yellow, dead leaf falls from an overhanging tree in the autumn scene. The leaf floats down and finally rests on the chest of a Basterd played by Gedeon Burkhard. It is inarguable that this leaf upon landing resembles the Star of David, enough so that the eye is always drawn to it in the moment. The way this transpires onscreen indicates that it was most likely not a planned event — there are no camera tricks to be found, no special effects — so the moment exists as a lucky result of actor placement and good timing. The craft and literariness of the work dwells in Tarantino’s knowing use of the moment, as a director and editor, to expand the depth of the scene in unanticipated ways. The leaf could simply be seen as an accident, or a deliberate stroke to invest a scene of visceral brutality with a stamp of cultural significance and history. The moment could be inherently beautiful, as any successful piece of literature is, or aesthetically gripping due to the schema of connections it creates, subconsciously weaving pulp fiction into a realistic context.

This isn’t to say that context — either filmic or historical — is the essential element in viewing a film through the lens of literature. However, in the case of Inglourious Basterds (and much of Tarantino’s remaining catalogue), this is likely to be the most dominant ingredient. Tarantino is simply so precocious in his knowledge of film that his work has often been criticized as moving beyond intertextuality toward blatant homage and plagiarism. It would be hard to argue against the fact that his style is blatant; however, it would be harder to argue that it thrives perfectly by serving as a commentary upon both the world of film and the real world that has produced these films. Intertextuality is present between Inglourious Basterds and the surface of media violence that has enabled its existence, just as intertexuality is present between the film and those who have paved the way for it.

To exemplify the intertextuality on display in the film, it is important to examine Culler’s statements regarding the importance of the critic’s attention to “how meaning is made and pleasure produced” (Culler 41). In the case of Inglourious Basterds, the work particularly thrives in the way it has divided the spectrum of its critical audience. It bisects the attentive viewer by heaping a great deal of excitatory violence on his or her plate as a means of release; one feels their blood boiling as tension builds in the film and violence is ratcheted up. However, the film simultaneously forces this viewer to question the emotion felt due to the subject material at hand: as an audience member, are you being asked to make a judgment call on the appropriateness of violence in cinema? If so, what does this say about your bloodlust, your fascination with what is transpiring? These are questions that are actively asked throughout the film. Tarantino is manipulative in Inglourious Basterds, and his work is self-aware. As perverse and cartoonish as many of the moments in the film may be, they still warrant a place within the arena of critical commentary simply through the understanding of their place within the realm of violent cinema. No haphazard bloodshed in the film is executed haphazardly, and every gruesome moment of self-indulgence is engineered to coerce the viewer into questioning his or her taste for the violence they’re observing.

Inglourious Basterds makes a statement about innate violence that is illustrated specifically enough and broadly enough, through text and subtext, to be explored through a variety of perspectives; yet, as with any literary work, conclusions drawn from these perspectives will be reached in drastically different ways. It is this ambiguity of stylistic choice and moral statement is the labyrinthine aspect of the film — and of the best films in general — that intertwines Basterds with literary material, solidifying its foundation as a piece of literature itself, and warrants its exploration through literary study on a level equal to any novel.

Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University

Press, 2000.

The Bear Jew himself, Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) has finally pushed through the media madness that followed Inglourious Basterds and is now showcasing the two simultaneous projects he’s been talking up for a while.

He’s wrapping up the script for his sci-fi flick Endangered Species while he gets ready for his Louisiana exorcism movie Cotton, directed by Daniel Stamm. One of these titles is boring, the other is seemingly nonsensical. Roth is shooting for the former to be completed by November alongside his expanded script of Thanksgiving (which we saw a glimpse of in 2007′s Grindhouse).

The writer/producer/director is tight-lipped about Endangered Species, only revealing to Variety that he intends to maintain his “sick sense of humor.” Also, his mentor Quentin Tarantino has supervised the script for Species and given notes along the way. Details on Cotton are sparse, but Roth told Bloody-Disgusting.com a while back that the script by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland was “the scariest script I’ve read in years.” Uh-oh.

Eli’s also busy developing a script with RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan for a kung-fu film titled The Man With the Iron Fist.

I’m as excited about all these projects as I am wary of their quality. Time will soon tell if Tarantino’s leadership has developed Roth’s skill as a filmmaker since the abysmal Hostel: Part II.

Normally when a film leaves me cold, I tend to shy away from thinking about said picture. If I must, I’ll ponder the film and realize that I’d just seen a film I wanted to like, but had ultimately witnessed something mediocre or worse. Walking out of Inglourious Basterds, I recalled the same feeling as walking out of The Matrix Revolutions. I wanted to like it, and convinced myself for a while I did. In the end, the mediocrity of that film won and while the trilogy still gets my defense, I no longer consider the whole a work of genius like the perfectly standalone first entry. Basterds initially left me thinking ‘good, not great.’ Then through the rest of the day I couldn’t stop thinking of the film. By the time it was all said and done, I had reached the only conclusion that could be made:

Inglourious Basterds may be Tarantino’s best film.

First things first: I do not subscribe to the notion that Quentin Tarantino is the be-all end-all of cinema. In fact, if anything, the man is really overrated as a director and slightly overrated as a writer. He’s not a terrible filmmaker by any stretch (although Death Proof tries to convince you he is,) but he left an impact on cinema that ruined crime films post-1992. One person put it to me one time that “Tarantino masturbates onscreen,” and that statement seems right on track. He loves to hear his characters talk, instead of showcasing their actions, having them do something interesting. This indulgence destroyed the second half of Grindhouse, and the legacy has been continued here in Inglourious Basterds.

And that is one of Basterds best strengths, as everything that didn’t work in Death Proof is perfected here. The words are weapons, and all the trademark Tarantino pop-references are present but they build tension. These characters do talk, and it does go on and on and on, but all of it leads up to something and has some sort of payoff. Yet as opposed to some of Tarantino’s other works, it never feels like it drags on. He indulges as we’ve come to expect, yet here he turns his dialogue into gunfire. Q.T. keeps one on the edge of his seat as the characters fire back at one another, and above all feels his most relaxed as he crafts his most entertaining film to date.

Yet the true winner in this marvel isn’t Q.T., but Christoph Waltz who portrays one of the best, most charismatic villains since Alan Rickman defined the suave baddie with Hans Gruber in Die Hard. I’m going to echo what some of my colleagues are declaring, that Waltz doesn’t deserve just a nomination for his role as Colonel Hans Landa – oh, no. The Oscar itself is already chiseling his name in under ‘Best Supporting Actor.’ Consider it a crime if he doesn’t get every supporting actor award. The man embodies Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird by putting on an Acting School. To continue the gushing, while it’s arguable this man is the leading male of this particular story, Waltz needs to be jettisoned as a leading man in the future. He has everything, from screen presence to charm. Landa is the perfect Nazi, a terrible person who enjoys slaughtering his foes. Yet Waltz does everything he can to make him likable, only to have it snatched away by an act of valor.

His adversary, the lead Basterd, comes in the form of Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo ‘Apache’ Raine, who has much more personality than he did in his last film. Pitt’s also having a ball, playing on every hard-assed lieutenant stereotype. It’s never been done with this kind of swagger though, as Pitt makes for a wonderful protagonist (or is it antagonist?) You root for the guy as he captures and plays with his Nazi prey before dispatching them, as it’s just as fun as hell to see the actor mosey through this. The most unique of his ‘Basterds’ is likely Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz, portrayed by Eli Roth. Regardless of his filmmaking abilities, one can enjoy the ruthless aggression with which Donowitz dispatches Nazis. Lowbrow actor Til Schweiger makes an appearance here as Hugo Stiglitz, a man who’s notorious for murdering large numbers of the Gestapo. All he really needs to to is pose and look gruff and tough, but damn if the man doesn’t do it so well.

Covering all required bases of World War II, Melanie Laurent gives a beautiful performance as Shoshana Dreyfus, a Jew who avoided death at the hands of Hans Landa. She’s the most sympathetic of the group, as displayed by the brutal slaughter that opens the movie. Her motivations are openly justified, and Tarantino is wise enough to watch them build up chapter by chapter through the film. She gives everyone some breathing room with her journey as a refugee who tricks the Nazis into hosting the premiere of Stolz der Nation at her theater. The star of said film is Frederick Zoeller who’s graciously, arrogantly, and expertly played by Daniel Bruhl. In a great sense of irony, Zoeller stops being egocentric for just a moment – and it costs him big time. It’s almost operatic, the way Tarantino directs it and plays it.

Tarantino masterminds all of these stories to come together in a climax that should be taught in history classes. All of these stories mesh together, and I’ll dare to say they meld better than three stories present in Pulp Fiction. Give credit where it’s due as Q.T. makes a near perfect war film, that’s actually about movies. His love of cinema has never been more evident, going so far as to show us the mark for reel changes. While also at his best, Tarantino is also at his most fun, enjoying what’s happening just as much as the audience is.

“Y’know, I think I’ve made my masterpiece.”

So you have Quentin. So you have.

Rating: ★★★★½ 

“You know what? This just might be my masterpiece.”

This phrase is uttered by Lt. Aldo Raine in Quentin Tarantino’s 7th film Inglourious Basterds, a remake/re-imagining of a 1978 film about a group of Jewish soldiers going into Nazi-occupied France to kill some Nazis. That little bit of what could be called a piece of self-indulgence on Tarantino’s part, is 100% correct. This is truly Quentin’s masterpiece.

"You know what? This just might be my masterpiece."

Once Upon A Time, in Nazi-occupied France, a group of soldiers notoriously called “The Basterds” are dropped into France to do one thing, and one thing only. Kill Nazis. After meeting with a double agent, they’re told that Hitler is attending the premiere of a movie, so the titular group stages a plan to take him, and a whole bunch of other high ranking German officers, out.

Meanwhile, intertwined with the Basterds’ story is that of a Jewish French girl named Shosanna, whose family was brutally murdered by “The Jew Hunter”, otherwise known as Col. Hans Landa. After a fateful meeting with a soldier-turned-movie star that leads to a film he’s in coming to the movie theater she owns, she forms a plan to burn it down, along with every high-ranking German officer in it. Sound familiar? It better be.

Naturally, all of this comes together in a blood-soaked climax.

If there’s one thing that Tarantino is known for, it’s dialogue. Those expecting a mile-a-minute action fest need to look elsewhere, because more words fly than bullets in this film. However, you’d be missing out on some truly wonderful scriptwriting. It is, in a word, brilliant. The scenes in this film are some of the best I’ve seen this year. Even if you have the most brilliant script, though, you’ll need top-notch actors to pull it off. Fortunately, the film delivering a cast where NO ONE is falling behind. Every role is perfectly played. Brad Pitt pulls off that tough, funny guy with a sort of John Wayne-ish attitude. Eli Roth, who most will know as the guy who makes the Hostel movies, is brilliant, and ends up being my favorite Basterd of the group. Every line of dialogue is pulled off with split-second timing. Roth proved he had acting chops in his brief role in Death Proof, and he shows it off again here. I look forward to more acting work from him.

Our third great performance is that of the gorgeous Melanie Laurent as Shosanna. Her role is practically top-billing work, as she gets almost more time than the Basterds themselves. Her story was tragic and compelling, and dare I say the only Oscar-worthy performance of the picture? No, that would be a lie, as the next guest is Christoph Waltz, as Hans Landa. This guy is hands-down one of the BEST VILLANS EVER. He is just flat-out evil, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. When ever he walks in the room, a collective gasp will fall in the theater, cause you just know: one wrong move, and some serious s*** will go down… HARD. I will risk exile from the film school community to say Hans Landa is a better film villain than The Joker. Stop sharpening your knives, because it won’t work here. Both these actor deserve a nomination; if not, I shall boycott the Oscars even more than I already have.

The pace and editing is what makes the movie the way it is. Every scene is handled with tender loving care, thanks to longtime Tarantino editor Sally Menke. You are on edge the entire time. Anything could happen at any moment. It grabs you by the throat from frame one and never lets go until the credits roll. It is here than the film works so well; Sally has done it again in the editing department. Two scenes in particular stand out the most. One at the very beginning, and a bar scene at about halfway through the picture. Both of these scenes are ticking time bombs, ready to explode at the first false move, and they do explode, gloriously. The fun is all in the suspense: when exactly are they going to explode!

In cinematography is beautiful, all of Tarantino’s signature moments are here. The 360-degree shots, the long takes, Dutch angles, it’s all here. It works in setting up the mood of the picture. The film also sports the classic tradition of having stock music. Quentin doesn’t normally put custom-orchestrated soundtracks in just for the movie, he takes things from previous films, and fits it in. One will notice music he used for Kill Bill in this film, and it works just as well. Many scenes evoke the style of other films; the opening scene feels straight out of a Sergio Leone picture, in terms of suspense and overall tension.

The film is also spectacularly violent. While never entering the cartoonish realm of Kill Bill Volume One, when the violence hits, it hits hard and fast. Gunshots, stabbings, and other forms of death make sure that its audience feels everything that happens to these characters. The climax at the movie theater, without spoiling anything, is utter chaos, and you’re left with the feeling of satisfaction once it ends.

So, over this…possibly over-praising review, the question looms; is there anything bad bout the movie? Well, to be honest, yes, there is. The film is too short! Yes, yes, you’re going to hear almost every critic complain that the film runs too long, but they can’t be more wrong. This film runs by extremely fast, especially if you’re involved with the entire proceedings. The cut shown at the Cannes Film Festivel ran about 15 minutes more; will we ever see that cut when it comes to DVD/Blu-Ray? God, I hope so.

So, what is there to say about this film that hasn’t already been said? Of the films I’ve seen so far this year, this one is the best. No bull, this film is everything I could’ve wanted and more. I walked in expecting a good Tarantino picture; what I got was what could be Tarantino’s best work since Kill Bill, which I previously considered to be his best film. This is a film I have every intention of seeing again, and again. Everything about the film hits the mark perfectly, and I recommend it highly. If you love Tarantino and his previous work, prepare for something very, very special.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Yes this movie was fantastic

“Nein nein nein nein nein nein!”

“YES YES YES YES YES YES!”

Tarantino’s films have always had me curious because of his style and the way he writes out the story, the characters, he’s always been different from other filmmakers and keeps to his style and makes each new film interesting. So it’s not always the same old story, which I like. I’ve always had a thing for war films, especially World War Two films. Finally after months and months of waiting, I finally get to see Tarantino play with WWII, which we haven’t seen from him yet. I waited eagerly in my seat for the masterpiece to begin.

The story takes places during World War Two in Nazi-occupied France, where we have a special group of Jewish soldiers called “The Basterds” who are sent in by the United States to strike fear into the hearts of Nazis. They are lead by the Lieutenant Aldo Raine, also known as “The Apache” by the Nazis, played by Brad Pitt in both a hilarious and entertaining performance. Pitt’s character primarily derives his tactics from the Apache Indians (hence the name “The Apache”), his primary tactic is to scalp all the Nazis that his squad runs into; some of the dialogue in these scenes was just side-splitting. Their big mission is called Operation Kino, in which most of the high command of the Nazis will be attending the screening of a film created by Josef Goebbels; the Basterds are ordered to take them all down with one mighty blow in order to get the job done – but they are not the only ones looking to take a hit on the Nazi party.

In what was possibly one of the most intense openings Tarantino has ever done, we meet Nazi SS officer Colonel Hans Landa played by Christoph Waltz, who carries a phenomenal performance as the main antagonist, he was the knife that kept the audience on edge in every scene he was in. You never knew what this man was going to do, one moment he would smile and you would think all was well but it’s really a completely different situation. He may be one of the best villains ever – he made your skin crawl, made you want to run out of the room. Give that man an award, already. The whole start of the film felt like a big homage to the Spaghetti Western, which complemented the World War Two theme, specifically to say, Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. At that moment, Landa is searching for Jews, finds a family and attempts to murder them all, until one girl manages to escape him. That girl is Shosanna Dreyfus played by Melanie Laurent, who carries a very powerful performance as the tortured soul who is out to get revenge. Four years later she becomes the owner of the very same movie theater that the Nazi high command selects to view Goebbels film – and there she plans her revenge.

The whole cast of the film was one big powerful entourage, everyone shined in his own way. I was personally very surprised at Eli Roth’s performance as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, he carries attitude throughout the film, he shone defiantly as an actor in this and I must commend Tarantino’s casting choice. One of the fellow Basterds, Til Schweiger plays the intolerant, equally bad-ass Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, who despises the sight or sound of a Nazi. One particular scene I loved was the bar scene, you could see Stigilitz’s facial expressions becoming worse and worse with each passing moment. A pin could drop and everything in the room might just explode.

The pace and editing of the film was the best of all the Tarantino movies that I have seen; I have never, in any of the other films that he’s made, been so hooked from beginning to end. Sally Menke really took this up a notch and served a delicious platter of goodies with this film. I felt so engaged from beginning to end and I didn’t want it to stop, two hours and thirty nine minutes flew by and I wanted more. The cinematography played out well too, the Tarantinto-isms (as I call them) were all there, such as the three-sixty-spin-around shots. Those long takes also helped build the intensity, like the steady-cam follow-through of a line of gunpowder (forever!) leading us to… some big barrel of adrenaline ready to be unleashed. I really liked the use of music, even though it was stock music and not original it still smoothed and enriched the film like jam spread just so evenly on a peanut butter sandwich.

The violence of the film felt very controlled and effective; it wasn’t like Kill Bill’s orgy of blood with the yakuza sword fight. But with every injury you would still get that wonderful cringing feeling like if you were in the place of that person. But Tarantino still does splurge a bit towards the end of the film – I won’t spoil it, but you will see what I mean.

So the film is a wonderful gift wrapped with genius, but you might wonder, Ilya, you did nothing but worship the movie and kiss its feet, was there anything bad about it?

Hmm, one might think so, but if I were to choose anything it would be definitely length; I heard originally there was a longer cut screened at Cannes. Now I’d scalp any person to get that cut of the film, or stalk Tarantino for a copy. But I can’t otherwise put the film down, the writing was magnificent, all the characters were strong and hooked you into what would happen to them, the editing was tight and the pacing was strong. So far I have no complaints; I will see this many times again, hopefully the full cut of the film will be released on Blu-Ray and DVD so that I can dip into the complete experience of Inglourious Basterds. I would recommend seeing this opening day.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Atomic Popcorn: So, can we talk about working with Tarantino and stepping into a project like this?

Fassbender is a Basterd

Fassbender: Well, I suppose it’s sort of [pause] first thing’s that it was very surreal for me, and because the first thing I did when I was starting to get into the business was when I was 18 and me and my friends got together and did a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in a local nightclub. Well, in Ireland, it’s called disco, really. So that was my first steps in getting into a career, so to actually work with him was a dream come true. And once I sort of got beyond that, it’s just fascinating to watch the man work, cause he really does work in his unique sort of way. And also the fact that he’s just so knowledge able in film, you know? He does his craft by absorbing all this information from the last …well… when cinema began, like a hundred years of seeing international film knowledge like I’ve never come across, incredible encyclopedia, and he’s just a dream to work with. He gives you a lot of information outside of what’s written, we all know his written work is pretty exceptional, and his reference points are very precise and original also, like I got “Well, this this guy is like young George Sanders, so all you have to do is listen to the man, and he gives you all the ammunition you need,” so I watched all the George Sanders films I could get my hands on, and…

Atomic Popcorn: Did you read his suicide note?

Fassbender: That’s weird isn’t it? I always thought of that, like he said “I was bored of life.” It was kind of weird; it was always in the back of my head watching.

Atomic Popcorn: Can you touch upon the casting process, and how you first met him?

Fassbender: Yeah, I can. It was pretty interesting because I was really sort of trying to get Christoph Waltz’s part [Landa] so I was really after that part, and I was doing this thing called Fishtank at the time, and my agent pretty much terrorized Quentin to see me, and they were, like, “Landa, Landa” and Quentin [said] “let’s look at Hicox as well. So I put all my eggs in one basket, ’cause I was working on this other job, so I came home and did five hours on Landa, and got French lessons [laughs], and did about 27 hours work on this Landa character. And then, I flew out to Berlin and got into this room and we chatted for a while and he said, “Okay, well let’s look at Hicox”, and I said “can we look at Landa also?” and he said “I cast my Landa Tuesday” and I said “Oh, really?” and he said “Look, anyone who gets cast as Heathcliff is not f-ing German enough to play Landa!” [laughs], so I said “Fair enough”. And we sort of read the Hicox part pretty much cold, and I thought I made a real balls of everything afterwards, and I remember I was terribly depressed, and a week later they called me up and offered me the job.

Atomic Popcorn: This role requires that you learn not only different languages, but even little nuances that native speakers can pick up on, you talked about taking language lessons, but how is that whole process, was it difficult to pick up all the little nuances?

Fassbender: Well, no, everything that’s said – that I say is verbatim, that’s all written, what I wanted to try and do is I wanted to try and get that feeling of a 1930’s, 1940’s movie star, and that is like why Hicox speaks in such a sort of, it’s not a sort of British type, and it’s very much part of that era, and also the physicality of the character, people move differently, and the props that they had were different props in terms of just, like, …cigarette cases, just that world and trying to come up with as much of that as I could, and Hicox is a film critic, so I thought it would be kind of interesting if he sort of, you know, he’s obviously in love with Bridget Hammersmark, and he would like to be an actor, so I just sort of tried to embody all that in order to help me bring some sort of physicality to all that.

Atomic Popcorn: You have such a fabulous scene in the basement and I’m just wondering. Like. I know you guys -

Fassbender: I got my testicles blown off….

(Laughter)

Fassbender: Through my [backside]. There were actually exit holes on both cheeks.

Atomic Popcorn: Very dramatic, but how involved was Quentin in the rehearsal process, and what was it like working in the scene, and how did it challenge you?

Fassbender: Well, we took about two weeks to film that scene. We rehearsed; the thing is, I think Quentin is like, very much into to sort of getting everything prepped before we arrive on the day, and anything can happen on the day. …say we rehearsed something and we do it a certain way, that doesn’t mean that we’re stuck, and we play it so many different ways and everyone knows where they are on the page, and beyond, so when you arrive on the day then you’re free to play, you’re really sort of allowed to react and go along with what the other actors are doing, and try to keep it fresh and play with it. He’s just so precise, and he just wants you to get things the way he definitely sees them, just the point where he will give you a line reading to get that rhythm right. But then once all of that is covered… and Eli was talking about this last night which sort of reminded me, once you done that, he gets what he wants, you can do what you want. And he’ll allow you to try something offbeat or do your own thing, or bring a different taste and color, and it’s really a sort of fun and free experience when you’re filming – but that’s because there has been a lot of prep.

Atomic Popcorn: How did working on this particular film change your attitude or philosophy of acting, or how do you do it?

Fassbender: I don’t really know, It’s um… I guess it just sort of changed my philosophy, well, not changed, but it’s sort of always nice to watch somebody in their world doing exceptional work, it’s just sort of recognizing a good director. And maybe one day I’ll try and do it, and in terms of acting I work sort of similar, I do a lot of the prep work. I was in Berlin for five weeks before we started filming, and the project before that I was there for five weeks before, and the project before that… the one thing he definitely did do was introduce me to the sophistication of these films made in the 1930’s, 1940’s like… Pandora’s Box and G.W. Paps films and that. I always thought that I was a bit arrogant, that this day and age was the age of sophisticated filmmaking, but these films were dark and socially challenging, and really sort of on the edge. So, definitely got that from him.

Atomic Popcorn: So after a day’s wrap, did Quentin ever get the cast together to watch one of his movie selections?

Fassbender: Yeah, every Thursday was movie night. You’d watch the movie and Quentin would introduce the movie and tell you what he liked about the movie and bits of trivia about the movie, and everyone would watch it. It was like the whole crew and that includes the catering staff, and just everybody that was involved in the production… all these people that are there to work with this man.

Atomic Popcorn: I was wondering if you got an anecdote of a movie that impressed you that he showed the crew.

Fassbender: Well, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, I think that’s his favorite film, I’m not really sure.

Atomic Popcorn: It’s one of his three favorites.

Fassbender: Oh, right, okay. (Laughter) Yeah, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, which I guess he pointed out as well. I’m not a massive fan of Eli Wallach but in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, he doesn’t have a foot wrong, it’s just an amazing performance, but totally steeped in reality. His face is just always expressing something to the point where you’re like “Jeez take it easy, little bit less, Buddy”, but it’s amazing the whole way through the film, even the way he puts water over the lips of Clint Eastwood ’cause he’s been stuck in the desert for so long. It’s just such a physically dedicated performance by him, it’s pretty amazing. I did manage to catch Quentin out on a piece of trivia actually. Which was the name of Crockett’s pet crocodile in “Miami Vice”.

Atomic Popcorn: Elvis?

Fassbender: Yeah! Nice! [Laughs]. I think the other question was Magnum P.I’s Dobermans.

Atomic Popcorn: Deuce and Apollo

Fassbender: Yeah, nice. Excellent. [Laughs].

Atomic Popcorn: Mike Meyers seems like the most unlikely person to be in a Tarantino movie….

Fassbender: What? How can you say that after the people he’s cast? [Laughs].

Atomic Popcorn: Yes, but still, I was surprised. So I was wondering what your opinion was and what was it like working with Mike Meyers?

Fassbender: I guess because he’s play this sort of, you know, General. I mean, I knew I was trying to do sort of this comic turn with Hicox. So, you’re going up againt Mike Meyers, he’s, like, a legend…

Atomic Popcorn: He’s Austin Powers!

Fassbender: Yeah! Exactly, so I thought he was just gonna wipe the floor with me, and hopefully I’m not gonna sort of crumble. But when I arrived, we just hit it off really, really well. We just went back an forth all day sharing little anecdotes and stories. We were making little jokes, I was just doing fast show sketches, which is a program on British TV. He knew about it, and he just stayed in his accent all day. And he’s just very generous and a lot of fun, and of course, we had Rod Taylor in there as well, and he’s just this obvious sort of giant. I just picked his brains and asked to tell me some stories, and he’s just a generous, beautiful human being, so I was very lucky.

Atomic Popcorn: Did he tell you any good stories?

Fassbender: Yeah, but I can’t tell you. [laughs]

Atomic Popcorn: You have a lot of projects coming up and I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about what’s coming up next for you and what you’re excited to see.

Fassbender: I just finished working on this film Jonah Hex.

Atomic Popcorn: Which Josh Brolin said at Comic Con that you’re absolutely amazing in.

Fassbender: I know, I was very pleased. He’s just one of those special sort of people in the industry that’s sort of… just very supportive, you know? John Malkovich as well, he’s pretty amazing, and Jimmy Hayward at the front of it, and of course Megan Fox. So, again I guess that was sort of… I kind of developed this character and really kind of pushed it, I’ll see how far I pushed it. I was John Malkovich’s right-hand man, and I had this idea about the character, and he’s this kind of psychotic who gets his kicks in perverted ways. But I didn’t want to make it obvious, like you’ve seen it before. But I didn’t know where to go with it, and then I went to wardrobe and Michael Wilkinson, whom I’ve worked with before on 300, had this three-piece suit pulled out for me that was very green, and I’m playing this Irish guy, and I said “Look man, you gotta take the green down, I can’t go back home to Ireland, they’ll kill me.” [Laughs] So it was faded down, then I was going through hats and I picked up a bowler hat, and I put it on and looked in the mirror, and I thought “Oh, this looks just like A Clockwork Orange”. So, I thought I could go along that vein having Clockwork Orange meets Frank Gorshin’s 1970’s Riddler with a Carrey accent. And then the guys at prosthetics …developed this tattoo thing which started here [points to jaw], and goes all the way down the torso and my arm. So really, it’s like the people around you doing these things doing all the work for you if you’re just open to it and it became a really fun character, actually.

Atomic Popcorn: Are you involved on the action side of that movie, are you doing a lot of stunt work in it?

Fassbender: I tried to do as much of that as they let me. Again, I do enjoy having this sort of physical role, and it’s just good fun really. Just running around, and jumping about the place. So I did quite a bit of it, yeah. We got together with the stunt guys and they were just fantastic. They watched both Josh and [my] fighting styles, they took us down to the dojo and saw what way we moved and whatnot. So then from there, they developed the fight between us, which was great, so it’s like Jonah’s this slugger and if he hits you once, you’re in big trouble, and my guy is dancing around, working inside a pocket, and his weapon of choice is a knife, so it was really cool. They sort of developed this fight, and brought us down there, worked through it and did pretty much most of it.

Atomic Popcorn: Being of German descent, what was it like being in a movie that changes history as much as it did?

Fassbender: I remember reading it at the time, and was like [expression of shock, laughs]. I was like, you know, I thought it was pretty cool, that’s what I love about it, that it’s not going to be restrained by the confines of history. We’ve seen this topic matter done so many times. I was like “World War II, here we go again”, and then it’s like, maybe the film to end World War II films, and I loved the fact that he’s going with French people speaking French, German people speaking German, and I always thought that was weird seeing in movies German people speaking English in German accents. It just bursts the bubble of illusion immediately. So, it’s just great.

Atomic Popcorn: Were there any surprises watching the final product?

Fassbender: Yeah, I have to be honest with you, I can’t wait to see it again, because I was overwhelmed by the whole, you know, being in Cannes, it was like Eli again, where it felt like a second film where the Basterds were infiltrating the premiere of Cannes, it was such a mad trip. I definitely want to see it again, but I got so many elements from seeing it I suppose, that I didn’t realize how it was almost separate films, like the opening scene, which I thought, was a film unto itself. I was just blown away by the whole event, really.

Atomic Popcorn: Thank you so much.

Fassbender: Thank you.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Atomic Popcorn: What is it like working with Tarantino?

Diane Kruger is a Basterd

Diane Kruger: Well, it’s everything you would imagine for a Tarantino movie, he’s a little larger then life, he’s very exuberant, and mad and running around. It’s nearly a childlike quality, he sits next to a camera and gets so excited about the scene you’re doing and at the same time he can also be incredibly soft spoken and sensitive. But what sets him apart from other directors is he has the ability to sense what a different actor needs for different scenes and he knows exactly what you need to help you open the door.

Atomic Popcorn: What were your inspirations for the role?

Diane Kruger: No one in particular. I guess the only character that could make the role exist is Bridget Von Hammersmark, it’s a bit of a puzzle of different people. Though he had a lot of other actresses Tarantino wanted me to watch one actress, I think she was Hungarian. Of course also being German I knew a lot of German actresses of that period.

Atomic Popcorn: What do you think your character’s motivation was? Your character decides to stay and spy on the British, but we don’t know much about her, what’s her backstory?

Diane Kruger: Well the truth is I can tell you 20 years of backstory on her, which is what Quentin does, but without getting into too much details because I don’t know if there will be a prequel or not. But she grows to despise the Nazi regime and wants to use her influence to attempt to take down the Third Reich and end the war.

Atomic Popcorn: What was the casting process like? How was the meeting with Quentin?

Diane Kruger: Casting for me was not pleasant, you know he had someone in mind when he originally wrote the script so there was never even going to be the opportunity to meet with him. So of course everyone calls and plans, and he says no, no, I want a German, so that was hard because it took a while to convince him that I was German. And I guess he was casting German women so he told me to come to Germany to meet with him …so I flew there and had 2 days to prepare 30 pages of dialogue in both German and English. So when we finally met it was the easiest thing in the world and it was obvious that we liked each other and we both saw the same humor for the character which was important so we both agreed on it.

Atomic Popcorn: Did you grow up in Germany?

Diane Kruger: Yes. I was born and raised there until I was fifteen

Atomic Popcorn: So what made you decide to go to the states?

Diane Kruger: No, I live in Paris, and I’ve sort of been living here on and off because I worked here as a model and I love America.

Atomic Popcorn: Did you feel lucky? Honored to be the focus of the foot fetish?

Diane Kruger: Well it’s a funny thing ’cause I guess I was naïve but I didn’t know about that and I was interviewed by a journalist who had just got the job and said “So have you heard about it? You don’t have a foot scene?” And I said I no and so he filled me in on it. And the day comes and I tell Quentin, “Hey Quentin, it’s the foot day, are you excited?” and he said “No it’s not true, journalists made it up.” Six close-ups later on my foot, then my face, maybe there’s some truth to it.

Atomic Popcorn: And it was your foot?

Diane Kruger: Oh [yes], never looked better, that pedicure lasted forever.

Atomic Popcorn: How did working on this movie change your attitude or ideas towards acting?

Diane Kruger: I feel confident, I think that’s what he does, he installs confidence into actors and he has faith in actors and I feel like that you can do anything when someone had faith in you. Especially as a woman who works in Hollywood to feel valued to be given a dialogue that actually is intelligent and nuanced and you’re not just being treated as the accessory to whatever male story is happening in the movie, it’s empowering. He empowers women; women should thank him for the parts he writes for them in his films.

Atomic Popcorn: Any funny anecdotes about wearing the leg cast?

Diane Kruger: I think it’s a genius idea, when I first saw it I was, like, “It has a heel? Are you kidding me?” It was genius. It wasn’t comfortable but it looked great.

Atomic Popcorn: How did you study your character?

Diane Kruger: Well it was important to Quentin that when you watch films from the 40s people back then were more formal and especially for actresses; I guess what you call it is a commanding presence, they’re more formal and less conversational. They were big stars and when you saw them you could tell they were stars with the lighting and filtering, and it was important for when you see Hammersmark on screen you see that she’s the movie star and when she speaks no one else does. It was also important that you would see the fierce and intelligent Bridget Von Hammersmark and if you only thought she was this ditzy actress then you wouldn’t believe her to be this smart elite spy for two years without being discovered and to come up with this smart plan to take out the high command. And that gave me a great arc later on because you do, later, see the real Bridget in distress when she steps into the office, she thinks the Basterds are morons for messing it up and it was just so much to play with her.

Atomic Popcorn: Was the fight scene with Christoph very tough?

Diane Kruger: Oh, yeah, that’s the funny anecdote of that scene, though, is that was Quentin straddling me and strangling me… and I was, like, “Quentin, are you trying to tell me something? Did I do something wrong?” [laughs] It was my last day and Quentin came into my trailer and told me “Christoph is just a actor, you know? And he’s gonna squeeze too hard or too little and we’re gonna have to do it over and over. I know exactly how much I need, so I think I should do it, you trust me, right?” And then you’ve seen Christoph, and Quentin is two heads taller so none of his costumes would fit him. So they had to make strap-on fake SS sleeves you know, and so then there’s this huge man on top of me squeezing me and you know it was sweet cause he was a lot less stronger than Christoph, and I couldn’t tell him “Oh [yes], good one, we can do one more, ‘cough, cough’!” He’s so sweet ya know.

Atomic Popcorn: How do you think this film will be received in Germany or, say, France – do you think it will be different from America, I mean, is this still a sensitive subject in Germany?

Diane Kruger: I know it’s going to play well in Germany because we premiered it there two weeks ago and you know, it’s funny thing ’cause journalists have asked the same question since we [asked] the question in Cannes. The thing is it’s the same audience as it is here in America because its been sixty years, there’re six generations that have not lived through the war and that half had to grow up with this heavy shadow on their shoulders and honestly they don’t want to hang on to Adolph any longer then you guys do. If they could, they would have killed him themselves; if anything, it’s even more positive towards seeing a movie end the way it does, where it has this revenge aspect and lets us change the ending of World War II.

Atomic Popcorn: So what was the reaction In the theater?

Diane Kruger: Cheering, it brought down the house, it was Cannes times 3. My grandfather came to see it and I was a bit  nervous about it and you know he was, like, “OHHHH it’s all fairy tale! They messed up Goebbels! He didn’t talk like that!”

Atomic Popcorn: How do you feel about rewriting history?

Diane Kruger: That’s what I wanted to do, you can imagine as a German, I get offered World War II movies and I never wanted to do it, why should I associate with it just because I’m German? So this came along and I was, like, that is cool, I will be able through Bridget Von Hammersmark to bring down the Third Reich. I like it.

Atomic Popcorn: You have the momentous scenes, which ones did you like?

Diane Kruger: They’re all so different, like the tavern scene. They were fun to film but it was a two-week scene, imagine keeping up the energy for two weeks, you know? Ten to twelve minute takes, even when you’re not on you’re still on, I think the funniest one was the one in the theater it’s with Brad and two of the Basterds trying to pass for Italians. I mean it was really hard to keep a straight straight face and I think Brad is so genius “BONJIUUURNO” it’s, like, really? I mean, I loved it because my character could go really big and be, like, “are you a f-ing moron?!” its just so funny! Its like an old screwball comedy to do.

Atomic Popcorn: What was it like working with Brad Pitt?

Diane Kruger: Well I knew him from Troy and I was glad I had the opportunity to meet him later on in my career because I was so green and inexperienced at that time and completely overwhelmed when I was doing Troy, that was my second or third film ever. So being a little calmer about the whole thing, having experience and having such a really cool character to play… Knowing each other it helped you know, we were laughing and having such a good time. We were doing accents together all the time and joking around; it was a real good time.

Atomic Popcorn: You said that Quentin doubled for Christoph in that office scene, did he stand in for the foot close up part as well?

Diane Kruger: No. [Laughs]

Atomic Popcorn: What are your upcoming projects?

Diane Kruger: Well, a movie I just shot was selected for the Venice film festival, which is cool. I have never had a film in competition there and then I am going to do a French film in French, it’s been my love project and I have been trying to get this movie made for years and it’s finally coming together. I tried to make a French film for a year at least.

Atomic Popcorn: As someone who speaks different languages, from the acting side are you more comfortable with one or another?

Diane Kruger: Not really, but you tend to be different in other languages, I think German tends to be tougher for some reason while French is so soft, and English is just sort of normal [laughs].

Atomic Popcorn: This project that you’ve been working on, what did you do on it?

Diane Kruger: I raised money for it, I was lobbing it around to get made.

Atomic Popcorn: What was it about?

Diane Kruger: It’s about two sisters, it’s a very female-driven movie, a female director as well and it’s a art house movie, its hard to make in these times.

Atomic Popcorn: Would you have gotten Genghis Kahn if you played the game?

Diane Kruger: No I don’t think so, [laughs] you know it’s funny when I read it and there were all these different names, I was, like, who the hell are all these people? And I didn’t want to go to all of Quentin’s meetings and not know all these people.

Atomic Popcorn: I heard Quentin plays movies for his cast on Thursdays, what did he play?

Diane Kruger: Well he loves Spaghetti Westerns and he played The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. But the funny thing was that Quentin would have a popcorn machine and hot dogs and he sits through all the movies, he’s seen all of the movies two times and he’s like “ha ha ha ha,” you just gotta watch him be this little boy watching them.

Atomic Popcorn: He was invested a lot into the Spaghetti Western theme, was there anything that he pointed out in the film that he wanted you to do especially for moments in it?

Diane Kruger: It’s more about how he shoots it, there were a couple of iconic shots, I don’t think it was in the movie but there was a closeup of me with a fedora and you don’t see the face, kind of like the classic Eastwood thing with the face coming up. But he was inspired by other things, he was inspired by von Sternberg, I actually called him my von Sternberg we had that kind of relationship as well, he gave me a book about him. There’s a shot in the tavern scene that was kind of a iconic von Sternberg shot. Where it’s a long traveling shot, it was from a famous movie of his.

Atomic Popcorn: Do you ever want to direct? After doing a movie like this with Quentin?

Diane Kruger: I don’t really have a ambition to direct, but when you work with a person such as Quentin I don’t think I could ever do that job, I don’t think I have that kind of visual eye for it. I like producing, though.

Atomic Popcorn: Eli Roth talked about how Quentin would be strict on set with no cell phones and whatnot, and keeping everyone focused with strict rules. Was that difficult?

Diane Kruger: I think the cell phone thing is a given – I don’t know what idiot would bring a cell phone onto a movie set because I think its simply disrespectful. I think that will happen, though, because a cell phone went on while we were filming and he went ballistic. What he’s so strict though is that he’s so attached to his words, if you don’t say one word  right he could break a scene, he wants you to say every single word and that exercise can be difficult because you can forget an “and” or a “but”. So that took a little getting used to.

Atomic Popcorn: We were told Quentin would give line reads because he wanted the words a certain way, was it something he worked on with you?

Diane Kruger: Not really no, not with me.

Atomic Popcorn: What sort of stories do you lean towards when you look at a script?

Diane Kruger: No it’s just, it has to be that every movie you make has a different challenge, it has to be worthwhile, I don’t want to play the same part that I played in a different movie like playing Helen of Troy again. So I have to be scared of it to want to do it.

Atomic Popcorn: Is this the first movie you fired a gun?

Diane Kruger: YESSS! [yells, laughs] the preparation they would make you train to use it, but I used to hunt because I come from the country hard and I am a pretty good shot. But come to think of it, shooting with your eyes open without blinking was really hard.

Atomic Popcorn: Well thank you for coming!

Diane Kruger: Thank you!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Atomic Popcorn: What was your favorite part about working on a Tarantino set?

B.J. Novak is a Basterd

B.J. Novak: Quentin Tarantino, watching him direct – which is a performance in and of itself, wondering how it did, I have always been fascinated by how Tarantino makes his movies. You kind of see the authorship in the film at work but you can’t picture how he comes up with stuff. He’s very loud and performative, to watch him transform his ideas on the set was just awesome. It’s like going to the Tarantino film school.

Atomic Popcorn: Do you feel you have to match his energy every day?

B.J. Novak: Oh I could never match his energy; I am the opposite of his energy you know? We would be a great Vaudeville duo: the bombastic director and the quiet writer. Yeah, there is no chance, Eli came much closer to that then myself.

Atomic Popcorn: So you were the “little one” but you made it to the end and you basically got the two climactic scenes for the Basterds and the final defeat, so what was it like building up to those moments and materializing those moments?

B.J. Novak: Well, first of all, not to give anything away, but one cool thing about the character that Quentin always told me he conceptualized for me that he was frustrated with war movies where you know who lives and dies. So he wanted to play with audience expectations and focus on some people and kill them off and hide some people and have them emerge, he said it would be funny to have the guy who is supposed to get killed first make it to the end. So i think that was where the surprise and fun of Utovich [disappearing] for so long comes from. The backstory to the character and the interplay with Aldo and stuff really came from one scene in the vet’s office where everyone gets their jobs and I think its on the longer script and will be on the DVD or something. That’s where sort of the rehearsal process of that and just a general rehearsal process where went through everyone’s backstory and talked about how people knew each other and how they played it. He’s very much a believer in that, in essence a high school or college theater where you have the time to spend to be sort of theater-nerdy about your character and his motivations which is fun because you’re on a Tarantino set and all you want to do is play and think and talk and have fun, and talk about the movie, so you don’t want to do your job and you don’t want it to end, so it was cool that he felt the same way.

Atomic Popcorn: Why do you think your character was named little man?

B.J. Novak: ‘Cause I don’t think there was a character named medium-sized man, I think I would have been much better suited to it but I couldn’t do it ’cause I don’t think the medium-sized man wouldn’t have been as funny. I almost didn’t make it and I definitely wouldn’t fit the Bear Jew role [laughs].

Atomic Popcorn: Can you talk about some of the graphic scenes? Did you have fun with that?

B.J. Novak: You know, I thought I would hate it, I am really not a fan of violence in movies and what I like about Tarantino is the humor and the dialogue and the characters, I wasn’t exactly covering my eyes for the violence, so it was kind of odd to find myself in that part of a Tarantino movie but that was my job and that was my homework. I had scalping lessons and I looked it up on the internet and after awhile it became like a calculus test I wanted to get a A on. I hate calculus, too, but I was a good Jewish boy who did his homework and that was what Utovich was but if that was his homework assignment from Aldo he’s damned if he wasn’t going to get a A. That’s how I approached it on the set.

Atomic Popcorn: Did you have challenges with keeping to the script because of Tarantino’s rules on his script?

B.J. Novak: It’s a lot easier when you only have about ten lines, it was not a challenge for me – in fact it was a joy because I worked 99 percent of my life as a writer and to have someone else write for me and to get the opportunity to say Tarantino’s words was once in a lifetime as far as I was concerned and I wasn’t going to eff it up by, you know, throwing in some more B.J. Novak words that I am sick to death of… it was to turn off the writer’s side of my brain.

Atomic Popcorn: How did you get involved in the project? Did he watch “The Office”?

B.J. Novak: He seems to watch everything,, one question I have been dying to ask him, one night when we went for drinks in Germany, I wanted to ask him what don’t you like? Cause he seems to find so much grayness in everything, in every movie and there’s plenty of things he doesn’t like and he’s very articulate about them. You should ask him if you ever get the chance, it’s very interesting. He did watch “The Office”, he was specific about some jokes and comic timing, and I knew he liked that specifically. I don’t know exactly how Hollywood works, every agent takes credit for everything, I don’t know what list I was on or what casting director or what favor what agent pulled or whatever. He said he wanted whatever Jewish-American actors in their twenties and I guess all the Apatow actors were busy. [laughs]. I must of showed up on some list, you know? And then I had a meeting and it went really well and I was just under the line of the 5-9 little man. I don’t know how it works, sometimes your agent calls, sometimes they don’t.

Atomic Popcorn: How much did you immerse yourself in the time period?

B.J. Novak: I read a lot of books about the time period and a lot of soldier accounts of the time period and watched a lot of movies from the time period like The Dirty Dozen. I wanted to watch a German film called Lucky Kids, Julie had it but asking to go to her hotel room to watch it with her sounded too sketchy so I didn’t end up asking. I really wanted to see it, plus I didn’t speak any German and since it wasn’t subtitled I wouldn’t understand it anyways.

Atomic Popcorn: What about wool underwear?

B.J. Novak: Who told you that?

Atomic Popcorn: Eli Roth

B.J. Novak: Sound like it, [laughs]. Sounds like a Eli thing.

Atomic Popcorn: You didn’t go into character that far?

B.J. Novak: Wool underwear?! [laughs], I don’t know what his relationship was with Anna Shepard, she didn’t provide me with that.

Atomic Popcorn: In Tarantino movies, there are no small roles, so this is your chance to leave a stamp on the film, did you feel that?

B.J. Novak: Yah, I did feel that, one of my friends Bret from “The Office” said to me, “You’re going to be a part of film history, doesn’t matter how big or small the part is, Tarantino is film history and you’re going to be a part of film history,” and I kept that with me the whole time, I think his films hold a special place. When I got back to the set of “The Office” Steve Carrel, you know, all these other people with huge careers who have been working with me for years and years, I was different to them, I was this guy who had done this magical thing. They still ask me all the time, “So when Tarantino this [or that], what did Tarantino say?” You can be a big movie star or do any type of project, there is something about even a small or medium-sized part in a Tarantino movie playing even the little man, in this movie, I think, would be big.

Atomic Popcorn: Were they jealous?

B.J. Novak: I think maybe of the life experience, we writers are so trapped in this little airless room and the worst part of the valley. I think they thought I was on a yacht in the South of France with Brad Pitt the entire time. It was in their head and they didn’t think of the lonely cold nights in a Berlin hotel room… maybe some jealousy from other writers but when I was let go to do [Inglourious Basterds], they compared it to a tradition in Russian prisons long ago. They would let a person go every year and it would always be the best storyteller; the person would have to come back as long as they could tell stories to keep the prisoners entertained for the year. They said I was that lucky prisoner let go for the year and I would have to entertain them with stories.

Atomic Popcorn: How much was cut from the original film?

B.J. Novak: A TON! Hours and hours. There’s a scene in the vet’s office that I know was cut in half and I don’t know how it turned out and I hope it’s shown sometime, I think he knew if the ultimate cut was released it would be 9 hours long.

Atomic Popcorn: Any favorite scenes?

B.J. Novak: I love when Melanie is getting ready to blow up the theater and David Bowie music is playing and she’s putting on warrior-like make up and she’s going to this glamorous premiere, its so Tarantino to me because its so feminine and visual but it’s in the service of something so violent and action-packed, it can only be Tarantino.

Atomic Popcorn: What did you take away from working on the project?

B.J. Novak: Don’t be afraid to trust your instinct, I don’t think Tarantino fit into any box when he started out and he stayed true to his vision and he didn’t listen to anybody that told him to make it like the other movies coming out. He listened to himself, if you’re good listen to yourself and have people imitate you if you can. And no one has more imitators then Tarantino. I hope I am good some day and people try to knock me off and by doing that don’t knock off other people. From Brad Pitt, I learned, don’t let anything bother you, because he has more distractions in his life then anyone I ever seen, and he never wore it in public. When he was with you it was all about the scene, it was all about you, it was all about what was going on, not about the thousand headaches, distractions, fake rumors, and the people who wanted a piece of him. I thought, man, if Brad Pitt can keep his cool and keep from complaining and from being too big…

Atomic Popcorn: As a Jew what was it like being a movie that you kill Hitler?

B.J. Novak: You know I thought it would be more personal from that angle, to me it felt like a good-guy-bad-guy movie, people know who the bad guys are and I don’t think you have to be Jewish to look at Hitler and think “bad guy”. Maybe it was moiré personal to other people in the case but it was just like any other good-guy-bad-guy movie.

Atomic Popcorn: Tarantino waited a long time to release his final draft of Inglourious Basterds because he didn’t think it was perfect enough yet, is there anything that your working on now that you are still waiting to release until it’s perfect as well?

B.J. Novak: That’s a great question, I mean it’s something I want to say. I have learned these lessons watching Tarantino, I can’t necessarily say it, I can apply them, I don’t know – I think every writer must fight [his] own fear and I think there are plenty of obstacles like that but I guess it means specifically to not write things to please other people if it doesn’t please you, is the lesson I learned from Tarantino. Don’t just try to be a working writer, be a artist, if you like this film or not you can tell Tarantino is a artist with a capital A. There aren’t that many people like that or who even aspire to be like that right now, it’s kind of old-fashioned and I loved it. I loved being around it and I want to have the courage to try and do that myself and there are other obstacles that you face when you try to be a artist. Pretentiousness is a deadly one, but it’s trying to do something great and I think there’s a few people out there that I really think of as artists that boldly struck out in a direction and succeeded.

Atomic Popcorn: Do you think most artists aren’t really that pretentious?

B.J. Novak: Some are very, and some are not at all and some don’t think of themselves as artists, some do their job as well as they can and it’s elevated to the level of art. Some artists have crazy egos and you can’t even talk to them and you just wanna watch them work, some are humble and are nerdy and articulate. I have only met a few in my life and I consider myself lucky to have met them. Ricky Gervais is someone who I consider a artist with a capital A, did something so different and could not be more sort of humble and normal and wonderful, the small sense that I don’t think he consider himself a artist, despite his aspirations to do great, brave, bold things. There are many types and I think it might be separate things trying to be a good person and tying to be a great artist. And I admire them separately too, and I admire Quentin for trying simply to be a great artist – not just a rich filmmaker.

Atomic Popcorn: Thank you so much

B.J. Novak: Thank you for coming