Listening to a recording during a shoot is not the same as performing music live. Accounts about Tarantino show several uses that should be kept separate.
Between takes, music is part of the working atmosphere
Tim Roth recalled at the press conference for The Hateful Eight in December 2015 that music was already playing during technical setups when he worked on Reservoir Dogs. He linked that habit to the atmosphere on set. The memory documents music playback during work, but it does not mean that all takes were filmed with songs playing behind the dialogue.
Jamie Foxx also spoke about music between takes during Django Unchained in a conference reported by AlloCine in August 2012. Both accounts describe a time and place different from what the viewer sees. While a camera position is being changed or the next action is being prepared, the crew may share a sound environment that will not be part of the final soundtrack.
This distinction helps avoid a rushed conclusion: a song heard on set does not necessarily appear later in the film. It may help set the mood for the people working, accompany a wait, or be part of a discussion about references. To assign it a specific interpretive function, you need to know how it was used and what the participants said about it.
There is also a difference between guiding and determining. A recording can provide a pulse or an emotional tone, but each actor must connect it to their character's situation. There is no automatic translation between hearing an intense song and producing an intense performance. Music can open up a possible rhythm; the performance must turn that into readable behavior.
Cat People and the link between a musical choice and the scene
In that same 2012 conference, Tarantino explained that the idea of using Cat People in Inglourious Basterds came up shortly before filming and that he played the song on set. The detail connects a specific musical choice with the filming process. It does not authorize us to reconstruct detailed instructions for Melanie Laurent that are not documented.
The finished sequence makes it possible to analyze something else: how the recording accompanies Shosanna's preparation and changes the energy of her gestures. The music provides an emotional scale that goes beyond the practical actions. The viewer can feel a ritual preparation and a growing determination. That reading of the final edit must be distinguished from the testimony about what was heard during production.
An actor who knows a song in advance may have a shared time reference with the director. However, the edit can change later durations and relationships. The song may start earlier, continue over other images, or be reduced to a fragment. The experience on set and the audience's experience belong to different moments in the film's construction.
Playing, singing, and listening are different actions
When a character sings or plays an instrument, the film introduces a musical source within its world. That situation is not equivalent to playing a song for the crew. Daisy with the guitar in The Hateful Eight is a musical performance within the story; a recording heard between takes belongs to the organization of the shoot. Confusing the two turns the phrase live music into an imprecise label.
Even when we see a musical performance, the recording process still has to be verified. The image of someone singing does not by itself prove whether the sound comes from that take, another performance, or a pre-recorded track. Synchronization and editing are part of audiovisual work. It is not wise to infer a production technique solely from the continuity provided by the result.
Music can help prepare a performance, be part of what the character does, or be added as accompaniment for the audience. In Tarantino, these possibilities are related, but they are not the same. The accounts of Roth, Foxx, and the director make it possible to identify specific uses. Keeping their boundaries makes the collaboration easier to understand: a song can be present in the work long before the viewer hears it, and its function can change along the way.