'Today' Leaves Out the Violence of New Tarantino Film

Director Quentin Tarantino in recognized for producing some of the most violent films in Hollywood. But you could hardly tell that from his promotional appearance with Ann Curry on NBC's “Today” May 20. Tarantino was interviewed about their his new violent new “thriller,” “Inglorious Basterds” [1] as part of the Cannes Film Festival.

The movie is about American soldiers during World War II who are out to revenge the Nazis. Curry, however, only hinted at the violent nature of the film, but also Tarantino's history of violence as a director. In two segments about the film, she showed clips of four non-violent scenes and merely referred to it as “bloody.” But the blood-spattered movie trailer shows star Brad Pitt telling of leaving “disemboweled, dismembered and disfigured bodies” his unit will kill.

Tarantino is best known for directing extremely violent films such as “Reservoir Dogs,” “Pulp Fiction,” and both “Kill Bill” movies. Curry, however, rarely mentioned the nature of Tarantino's film. She did admit that, “but the movie is about something we wouldn't expect – it's about, people who rise up, a group, of Jewish soldiers who rise up and take, really attack, in a bloody way – which we would expect from you.”

Yet, the focus of the interview was not on the gore that is clearly found in Tarantino's films or in the latest picture. Curry threw softball questions at Tarantino, Pitt, actor Mike Myers and actress Diane Kruger. “A joy to watch also not only you but also you Diane. You were fantastic in this,” said Curry to Myers and Kruger. She followed in a second segment asking Pitt about being named one of Time magazine's “100 Most Influential People.”

 “Inglorious Basterds” appeared surprisingly nonviolent because of the clips featured. Most selected during both segments featured Pitt with other soldiers. There is a bloody hand featured briefly, but no violent scene was shown. The trailer for “Inglorious Basterds” gives an entirely different spin on the movie, which was ignored by Curry. All of the words that are shown on the screen in the preview are against the background of what is supposed to be dark blood. There is a girl with a bloody face featured running and there are several gunshot scenes. The most disturbing image is when a man is shown tied to a chair and is going to get killed by another person hitting him with a baseball bat.