Quentin Tarantino Explains the Pipe Scene in Inglorious Basterds

[videocrack246]

But people in France rarely ever drink milk....they think milk is for babies, so they make it into cheese.

[Wotanraven]

@videocrack246 Where do you get that information? Milk is extreemly popular in France. France is a cow country, for the meat, the dairy products and the simple milk, pasteurized or not. I always drank milk since my childhood in France and I don't know anyone who hasn't.

[Bodohkukang]

@videocrack246 and hitler doesn't died while watching movie on a theatre.. care to comment on that?

[Demonkitsun]

@Bodohkukang Unrelated excape from the conversation at hand.

The movie captured a what-if, and an interesting one at that. But the fact is, France is a country that drinks a lot of milk. There you go.

[ODSTHelljumper]

This scene is without a doubt one of the most brilliant, this centuries audience has the pleasure to experience!

[31point10]

@mrphunghii single best way of describing him haha. Hands down one of the best film makers of all time, but he's an absolute psychopath! if he wasn't his films wouldn't be so great

[JiveDadson]

Holmes never smoked a Calabash in the original stories. He smoked a Boswell (church warden?), and occasionally a clay pipe or a cherry wood pipe, depending on his mood.

[russo3j]

@JiveDadson

lol i know

[chivas7569]

@JiveDadson ORLY

[MrAlfred1995]

@JiveDadson someone knows thieir pipes!

[nikfirehazard]

I always thought it was a device to make the audience laugh therefore momentarily breaking the tension so that u r off your guard because shortly after this is the most tense moment. Kind of a pity it was mostly to do with innuendo

[carriedarrington]

i don't like this reasoning.

[TheAltair4]

@carriedarrington I have to admit that the whole "my pipe is bigger than yours" interpretation sounds more than a tad immature to me.

[meeces13]

@TheAltair4 thats the idea

[Ba2124xero]

@TheAltair4 the whole phallic symbolism interpretation is actually very common in film. I wouldn't call it immature.

[GoBroncosTimTebow]

Fuck the nazi dogs.

[kishankakarla]

One man I can listen to all day.

[capricorn4003]

love the video of him coming out of a restaurant drinking coffee and almost whipping the camera guy's ass!!! ;)

[capricorn4003]

Richie: 'I love you, too, Seth. RRRRRRRROOOOWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR!­!!!!!' LMAO!!! ;)

[boondocksfan06]

I love you, QT!

[springheeledjack08]

Pffft! Even though I'm a huge fan of Tarantino, I've only just realized while watching this interview that he is completely full of shit. So much bullshit just came out of his mouth. It's sad.

[PkrBarMovie]

@springheeledjack08 what the fuck are you talking about?

[asdfghjklkjhgfdsa555]

@springheeledjack08 Come on, he puts himself in the characters heads, in every aspect of how they would think and do things. Without this trait he'd be just another crappy director. But he's not, he is a master of his craft.

[meeces13]

@springheeledjack08 its sad that youll never do anything with all the bullshit thats in your head. never gonna see your movies or what you have to offer. just these jerk-off comments. go back to sleep

[Gildur01]

@springheeledjack08 you're the piece of shit. His words are pure genious and true.

[luxjason]

@Gildur01

you use the word genius too lightly

[Mcdovin1]

Dude I hate to say it, but that's Hollywood. Originality is gone for the most part from New/Current Hollywood. Back in the day, say old Hollywood, people were somewhat genuine and honest. This is showbiz; friend. Same applies to just business in general. If someone has an idea and trusts another person too much and that person profits from the idea and makes it better. Well then the person lost out. It's not fair but it's how most things work. Marketing is also a key factor.

[Ur2ez4me81]

I'm a big fan of Tarantino's but for all of you saying his is brilliant is pathetic & shows how dumb you are. He's good at building suspense, the plot of the story & dialogue. If you were as big as a movie buff as this guy is you could probably make a film just as good or better than Tarantino. Hell, he basically stole many ideas from other films...Just saying.

[viruscfc3]

@Ur2ez4me81 the reason he is brilliant is the way he makes references to other films and bring them in his films and he's also a brilliant kick ass writer...not to forget he has many hidden messages in his scenes...so I'm sorry my friend, but it is you who is pathetic by saying he simply stole from other movies...yes he did...but it doesn't stop there...he goes further than that...and ur also pathetic for calling yourself a Tarantino fan by not seeing these things

[laditz]

@Ur2ez4me81 i think everyone has been accused of stealing ideas because every single story has already been made into film. there aren't many unique films lately. its not just tarantino. nobody is pathetic, thats just rude. even martin scorcese made shutter island, and that story has been used in many films. are you gonna say he's not a great director because he made his own movie with already-used plot aspects, just like tarantino?

[Mcdovin1]

@laditz Dude I hate to say it, but that's Hollywood. Originality is gone for the most part from New/Current Hollywood. Back in the day, say old Hollywood, people were somewhat genuine and honest. This is showbiz; friend. Same applies to just business in general. If someone has an idea and trusts another person too much and that person profits from the idea and makes it better. Well then the person lost out. It's not fair but it's how most things work. Marketing is also a key factor.

[thecritiquevirtuoso]

I want to buy one of those pipes.

[2012NwOrder]

Can I have another glass of your delicious milk???

[madasrabbits06]

he. is. such. a. genius.

[BlowDeBloodyDoorsOff]

it can't be an accident that the farmer is the image of a young Stanley Kubrick, Given that Kubrick famously wrote, but never filmed, a WW2 movie called Arian papers. My question though, is that a nod to Kubrick or is it Tarantino's attempting to say he's up there with Kubrick. QT is a great director, but he ain't no Kubrick!

[terratrema]

Mmmmmn. Nah, I thought that the giant pipe made him look ridiculous, not intimidating.

[TikTakThis]

@hahahahohohohihihihi NO, Tarantino is ACTUALLY a genius. He has an IQ of 160 and genius is considered 140 and above. So quit being a dick.

[mgmanmike]

@TikTakThis Is 151 a genius IQ? Seriously, I'd really like to know!

[Treblaine]

@mgmanmike Yes. 100 IQ points is by definition average and 50 point above that is significantly higher enough to earn the "genius" label. Google will tell you more.

[mgmanmike]

@TikTakThis Is 151 a genius IQ? Seriously, I'd really like to know!

[thespecter2]

@TikTakThis Did you test his IQ?

[TikTakThis]

@hahahahohohohihihihi No, he is ACTUALLY a genius.  He has an IQ of 160 and genius is considered 140 and above. So fuck off.

[MrGamerFuel]

He's fucking genius.

I love him.

[IrgendwelcheGurken]

coolest person ever!!!

[platinumtank892]

He's the clearest, most non-skeptical film-maker in the world! He takes pleasure in helping viewers understand his style! I wish he would lecture at universities!

[bunnyofwar]

Weirdest. Person. Ever.

Gotta love him though.

[paribartan11]

Hi! Have you tried intellectus list building (search on google)? Ive heard some unbelivable things about it and my buddy got tons of cash pumping leads added to their list.

[R2Parmly]

Hans Landa, Sherlock Holmes' evil twin. Moriarty has NOTHING on this guy.

[MrGenericHero]

@baunnymcbaunbaun

Inglorious Basterds isn't that good of a film.

There are individual scenes in the movie which are amazing. The SS Officer and the Dairy Farmer, The Spies in the Cellar Bar and Shoshanna shooting Frederick in the back are three outstanding scenes. It's incredible that scenes simply involving people talking can make you hang on every word.

The rest of the movie however is just terrible, the story is ridiculous and it makes you feel stupid when you're watching it.

[fliegeroh]

@MrGenericHero - Thank you. At last someone with a brain and some taste in film.

[joeromel1]

@MrGenericHero I wouldn't go as far as to say that the rest of the film is terrible. There is one scene which really draws groans--the demise of the Nazi's in the theater--but I believe that has to do with the fact that QT didn't do a well enough job letting us in on the fact that this was a "propaganda" film. Yes, the Basterds are a fictitious group, and no, Nazi soldiers weren't walking around with Swastikas carved in their heads, but the finale was so jarring that it stole from the rest.

[BlowDeBloodyDoorsOff]

@joeromel1 You are right. The film with in the film is a Nazi propoganda film, but we are watching the story of the Basterds, which is itself a propoganda film. Along the way, QT includes allusions to other war films, there's the fans in the Cinema mimicing the fans in Apocolypse Now.

[NickBigsmoke]

@MrGenericHero well its supposed to have a sort of humor to it. I dont think Quentin wrote this script to try and demonstrate what WW2 was really like in France. I think he was taking a very dark time in history and making it an outrageous and slightly humorous film. I kind of thought it was making fun of Valkyrie in a way.

[yonisdiriye123]

wtf....a simple scene is made so complicated.....

[lucariosleftshoulder]

@yonisdiriye123 nope, a complicated scene is explained

[aliciathefatpenguin]

@yonisdiriye123 what do you mean complicated? he just gives two interpretations for the pipe scene. his first one was my interpretation "my pipe is bigger than yours"

[MrUtubesux]

anyone can tell that inglorious basterds is a well made film. but unlike his other movies where the most ridiculous characters feel real, inglorious basterds feels like an adaptation of a graphic novel.

[zigifrojd]

Tarantino have 2 good films and one masterpiece "Pulp Fiction", and lot overrated not good films. He is good director, but I think he is possibly most overrated director in the world. Tarantino fans dont know better and most of them know very little about film. When I ask them what they think about Truffaut, Tarkovsky, Visconti, Parajanov, Eisenstein, Kalatazov, Kusturica, Makavejev, Dovzhenko, Pudovkin, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Cocteau (wbt T)... and similar older I dont get much answers.

[Jellie91]

Tarantino has made a lot of pretty bad movies.

[BabyPilly]

@Jellie91 I didn't like Death Proof, and I never got what the deal with Kill Bill was to be honest.

[quedasobravo]

@Jellie91 Name 3. Because unless you just hate his style overall, you are talking out of your ass...

[ltjosh10]

this man is brilliant

[Drakex1989]

Okay, that's an interesting bit of backstory, but at what point is it ever mentioned in the movie that Landa doesn't smoke a pipe? From what I remember, his pipe is mentioned once, in that one scene.

I guess what I'm getting at is if this was such a revealing character point for Landa, why do I need to watch this youtube video to be made aware of it? Again, interesting, but it has no influence on the film because they didn't set it up.

[mastae]

@Drakex1989 Tarantino says in this interview that they had other points in the script where he was using the pipe.

The pipe was made more significant in the opening scene because Cristoph's character never uses it again throughout the whole movie. As opposed to if we had seen him use the pipe throughout the entirety of the film, it would lose its significance.

[fab006]

@Drakex1989 You'd have noticed the difference in watching the movie. Just because you don't notice something in a movie doesn't mean it doesn't do its part to shape your experience.

[cerldude]

the guy is a genious

[senordingdongify]

@cerldude and you're not. you can't fucking spell...

[swampalex]

i like the theory that he bought out a bigger pipe to intimate the farmer, but how the fuck would the farmer not know that he doesn't smoke a pipe?

[Denisehealthnut]

@swampalex

Because it's a Sherlock Holmes kinda pipe.

[swampalex]

how the fuck would the farmer not know that he doesn't smoke a pipe?

[tyrannasaurasalan]

The problem is....he does smoke the pipe.

[MrAndrewshepard]

i dont get this at all...

[TheNaturyogurt]

5 people didn't get the Sherlock Holmes pipe

[Clogged14]

Mine is BIGGER than yours! Brilliant!

[SlimAyDee]

whoa, never realized that! that's genius. also i only now realize that every scene waltz is in is an interrogation XD

[chickenfinger90]

there's no 1:59 xD

[Jesusjuicerful]

Thats a bit vague in fairness

[ChipFinnigan]

i love ww2 movies....but you guys are right..i dont consider this a ww2 film....(no shit it takes place in ww2, but still)  i consider more of an art piece........almost like apocolypse now being more artistic than vietnam war movie...........

[Squibfire]

@ChipFinnigan yeah i couldnt agree more, i love the Apocalypse Now connection, this film i viewed more in a Walter Hill kind of sensibility, taking an area of lawlessness and allowing a story and a cast of characters to run rampant through it, most WWII movies exist to showcase the excites of history or the bravery of soldiers or the horrors of war, but films like Inglourious Basterds or Apocalypse Now simply use the war as a backdrop to tell their own story

[EazyTarantino]

@Squibfire who cares

[izzybelleyo]

this kid

[yomamalikeme1]

never relized that, thats brilighnt

[NintyFan56]

This is what makes Mr. Tarentino a freaking genius. He can turn a simple concept like the pipe thing into a huge factor for the outcome of the initial scene.

If he wanted to; he could of used something else like a half bitten pastrami sandwich sitting on the table. idk

[Josh0473]

@NintyFan56 I couldn't have said it better, its all the little things in Tarantino films that make it even more better.

[Ur2ez4me81]

Cool movie but I wouldn't say it a WW epic like someone suggested...

[tuahish]

that's just genius!!

[tuahish]

that's fucking genius!!

[wutaboutgermany]

O.o He had dinner with Christoph? Whats going on here? >:3

[Samara124]

@wutaboutgermany Aww *fangirling over both of them* x333

[BatmanEnvy]

Brilliant. Easily one of my favorite films of all time.

[MAXPAYNE4664]

Makes sense. You never see Hans Landa smoking it. He puts the pipe in his mouth but he doesn't actually smoke it.

[JNeverMindMe]

1:41 Too brilliant to be true.

[GWSFilms]

Ah, theatre. 

[TheDeathofGrace]

well god they need to tell us before a movie starts that its really deep. if i would have said to a friend, "oh he had that pipe prepared to scare the farmer and act like sherlock holmes" my friend would have laughed at me and thought i was crazy or looking way too into it.

[cubanwarlord]

Things like this explain why it can take him quite a while to write his screenplays. The man is into his details.

[gofindyourmusic]

This is the most disapointing movie by Quintin T. He should write about what he knows.......the 1970s on . Or the Media art style of his child-hood days . He's not able to capture the period, or the feel of history in this movie . It's a costumed piece about nothing real, just a comic book .Check out the Sherlock Holmes movie recently done ..Just the same mistakes .

[vomitjoe]

@gofindyourmusic I disagree. A piece of work doesn't have to be about something real to be art. So what if it's a comic book? And what is historically authentic anyway? History as we know it is designed and constructed.

[DashielDraven]

@vomitjoe

I have to give you a point ^^!

Art is, what comes out of your soul - it doesn´t matter, if it´s real or not.

And yes - at least parts of the history are designed and constructed.

And Tarantino ALWAS said, that this is only a movie and not something about history...

[AnkokuEvangeline]

@gofindyourmusic Those two movies have completely different objectives, policies and approaches to history whatsoever.

You complain that Ingorious Basterds didn't "capture the period" when its main point was to screw with the period. That is such a movie-goer rookie mistake. Did you really watch the movie? Seems to me that you just saw the trailer. Or that you didn't understand the movie from minute one to the end.

[EazyTarantino]

@gofindyourmusic pulp fiction was about shit that took place before the 70s. plenty of themes from the 50s and 60s. that seemed to work out.

[SuiCideTheCrazyOne]

@EazyTarantino so ur saying pulp fiction is shit??

[suchermarkus]

i knew it at the moment i saw it. cool!

[Tezcatlepocatl]

Tarantino screwed up big time on this, though.

Nazis were the first to discover the link between smoking and lung cancer, and fought heavily against tobacco.

SS officers were strictly forbidden from smoking while on duty, as were policemen. Women were forbidden from smoking at all.

Although, maybe this is part of his way to make us like Landa, by making him rebel against Nazi rules, and showing him as an independent, disloyal character.

[jackgray1938]

@Tezcatlepocatl In the video they say he does not smoke a pipe, it's an interrogation technique.

[GoolevskiSb]

@Tezcatlepocatl but he doesnt smoke the pipe, he just has it because its piece of art, havent you seen the video

[ANASTASIACHAVEZVLOG]

Mr. Brown -

I Hope My Movies Will Come To Have At Least One Little Smidgen Of Your Influence In Them. If They Don't, I Don't Know Shit About Movies!

[setem10]

3 people have small pipe

[CallMeAlex89]

Is it just me, or is Quentin a little nerd? :D

[DonRMB]

@CallMeAlex89 He is a Movie geek yeah. But then again must of the GREAT directors are.

[alexkirsch007]

@CallMeAlex89 yes he is

[WelshDegenerate]

It's great how he thinks of the motive behind every movement, action or word uttered by his characters. A true artist. Inglourious Basterds is incredible too, I'd probably say my 2nd favourite Tarantino film behind Pulp now.

[candysays69]

My first thought was the "My pipe's bigger than yours" LOL.

The farmer didn't need a big pipe ;)

[FakeItSeether]

First time I saw that scene I thought Landa did it to assert his dominance in a way. Like, 'the size of a man's pipe determines his status and role in society' type thing. And also to confuse/startle the farmer, maybe? Then I realised that he could just be acting really immature, like 'my pipe's bigger than your pipe, whatcha gonna doooooo~?' I'm kinda disappointed to see that apparently, none of them were true.

[dvarblo]

that movie contained some absolutely amazing dialogue.

[grendeljack]

Not my interpretation at all- I figure Landa IS a detective, and like most people in a particular profession he has his own hero that he has patterned himself after- that being Sherlock Holmes. Almost every retired detective I have met (over the age of 70, now I'd guess) seems to quote Holmes or at least be dedicated to the principles of deductive reasoning. It kind of makes sense, that a detective in the 30's and 40's would try to pattern himself after the world's greatest detective.

[Stalky24]

@grendeljack Yeah, just like I try to pattern myself after the current worlds greatest detective, batman :D

[Frutoses]

My pipe's bigger than yours <- I thought about it before he said it.

[Frutoses]

My pipe's bigger than yours.

[WayTooDazedConfus3d]

wow i never thought like that, i thought that scene just meant that Landa was more on top (bigger than a farmer) ahhh Quentin blows my mind...

[Planktontube]

i remeber a similar scene when he ordered a glass of milk for Shoshanna, i just thought... FUCK! He got her

[oldixe]

I love this guy's enthusiasm for his art. I must have missed this interview. Thanks.

[neemtee]

Quentin is genious

[EliraSTAR1]

omg, i pissed myself when i saw the pipe!

[Lithys]

But technically Sherlock Holmes smoked a straight pipe.

[Mixarenan]

@Lithys how do you mean?

[Hayashigame]

I know you're lying and I got you, I got the Sherlock Holmes pipe.

what.

[qwertyness4]

cannot WAIT until quentin starts writing novels

[davekrunal46]

@qwertyness4 Quentin with novels? :-) Won't be cool. I am dying to see his next film.

[stephie4066]

LOL! my pipe's bigger than yours

[kishanap]

amazing.