-== INTERVIEW ==-

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Were there any particular problems in terms of adapting somebody else's novel rather than writing original screen play from scratch. Was it easier? Was it more difficult?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: I remember something Stephen King said once a long time ago when he was going to direct the movie Maximum Overdrive when they asked him, "Do you hope to bring an adaption to your stuff that may be other film makers have not?" He used Elmore Leonard as an example. He saw the Bert Reynold's move, "Stick". He said, "I saw Stick, and it is a story. Everything that happens in the novel happens in the movie, but I don't have that feeling that I have when I read an Elmore Leonard Novel." That was sticking in my head because I like Elmore Leonard novels. I wanted the movie to have that feeling, and I felt the way to have that feeling was to truly invest in the characters so they are not just movie characters doing movie plots. The first hour of the movie is pretty well hanging out and getting to know these people. That was my track into getting it.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: In terms of the novel - and you have talked about this already, but the way in which you have restaged the whole book from Miami to Los Angeles is very interesting - one of the things I was fascinated about was that you really used the geography of LA. Obviously, we have got the subtitles telling people where they are, but there are locations in Los Angeles which you are not normally familiar with, being seen or described in a film. Why did you change the location in that way?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: I don't really know anything about Miami. I had never been to Miami before. One of the things Elmore Leonard has to offer in his novels, is an expert sense of both Miami and Detroit. He has got his Detroit novels and he has got his Miami novels. I can't compete with that, and Miami is very hot! You don't want to got there to shoot! One of the things I do have to offer is that same kind of knowledge about Los Angeles; partly in the area that the area is shot in, in the South Bay. It is not used that often. Tequila Sunrise used it a little bit, and a few other movies have touched on it a little bit. I am very familiar with that area because I grew up around that area. It is one of the things I could bring to the piece; an expert knowledge of that area, the way he brings an expert knowledge to Miami.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Does anybody want to break in at this point and fire a question straightaway?

What role did Elmore Leonard have as executive producer, and did he like the movie?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: Yes, he liked the movie a lot. He was not really involved in the shooting of it. Part of his role as executive producer was the fact that he was doing it with us as far as the money portion of it, taking responsibility along with us with a creative team and backing us that way. He liked the movie a lot. When I sent him the script and asked him what he thought, he said, "Not only do I think it is the best adaptation of any of my work, I think it is the best script I have ever read" which made me feel obviously very good! (Laughter) He was quoted as saying something in an interview recently before he had seen the movie (he had only read the script). They said, "What did you think about Jackie Brown?" He said, "That was my novel." He was saying, "That was not an adaptation; that was my novel." That made me feel good because that is how I felt it was. I felt when you read the script, it had the weight of a novel; not some adaptation.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: You didn't seem to have the amount of high quality in-your-face carnage in this film as we normally expect. What is going on? (Laughter)

QUENTIN TARANTINO: In America different journalists would ask me, "Whoa, did you consciously tone down the violence in this film?" I didn't more consciously tone down the violence in this piece than I did crank up the violence in Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. They were just the services of the story. If Elmore Leonard had more people getting killed, I would have killed them!

ADRIAN WOOTTON: Did you ever subconsciously feel you were making a "black" film?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: No, I don't subconsciously think it is a black film; it is a black film. To me the film is a black film. It was made for black audiences actually. It was made for everybody, but that was the audience. If I had any of them in mind, I was thinking of that because I was always thinking of watching it in a black theatre. I didn't have audiences ridiculously in mind because I am the audience, but that works well for that too because I go to black theatres. To me it is a black film.

ADRIAN WOOTTON: You have all this great language in your film, the fucking and the mother fucking, and the great violence. The first time there is any real violence and any real fucking, they keep their clothes on. Are you being ironic? Elmore Leonard is quite good at getting 40 year old women to take their clothes off in his books. Are you being ironic or is it American prudishness, or is it just your own personal prudishness? (Laughter)

QUENTIN TARANTINO: I am in England and they are talking about American prudishness!

ADRIAN WOOTTON: No, it was just jailhouse fucking; I don't know what to say. Just slip off the panties and slip it up the old ass, you know! (Laughter) In jail they don't worry about getting naked and touching each other and everything like that; it's a straight ahead business.

QUENTIN TARANTINO: The little bit that I have read about the film before seeing it tonight, everybody seems to mention the length. Now that I have seen it, it is a long movie, but it didn't feel like it at all. Yet the pace was leisurely compared with what you see today. Do you have that worked out as you are shooting, before you shoot, or does it come together in the editing room. How do you arrive at the pace for the film?

QUENTIN TARANTINO: Thank you for coming. It was in the script. I always knew there were going to be scenes I was going to be dropping from the film, but that was pretty much worked out in the structure. The structure of the movie, the first half of the movie, is just getting to know the characters. It is not a plot-first structure. The movie is not about opening scene, Jackie Brown has this great idea about how she is going to get half a million dollars. No, that happens little by little during the course of the movie. The situation becomes nailed in, and then her different options become open to her, and she starts putting it together. After the first hour, a plot has been put into place but it is secondary to just getting to know Max, Jackie, Ordel, Melanie and Lewis.

It is about getting to know them, and the way you get to know them is by hanging out with them. That is the structure of Elmore Leonard's novels. You don't ever feel you are watching stick figure characters when you read his books. You really get to know who these people are. Then, after the first hour, you get a plot in place and then it goes. But you don't know these people like movie characters. You got to know them through hanging out with them; through sitting on the couch and taking bong hits with Melanie; having coffee with Pam; hanging out in Bob's office.

To me if this movie has a structure, it is the structure of a pencil where it is going along, you are getting to know who these people are, and then you get to the lead in the pencil, and that is the final close up on Bob. Then you get to the point at the end of the pencil, and that is the final close up on Pam. The whole movie is about those two close ups. Everything that happens in the movie is so you will feel what these people have done together when you see them at the end.