Inglourious Basterds

[Two Cent James]

It just irks me when people complain when the utility of violence is demonstrated in an action movie. That seems to be the point of action movies. Resolving conflict with violence (action) and frequently homicide. (I'm refraining from using the word "murder" because of its legal connotations). The audience, myself included, enjoys the spectacle of violence and goes home satisfied. The reason why decent, peaceful people enjoy watching violence may cause concern, but thats another issue. I don't agree with the argument that if you enjoy violence glorified as a means to an end on screen it means you are buying into a film's supposedly fascist politics.

Of course everyone doesn't have to enjoy action films. By all means don't watch. But complaining about "right wing" violence in a Tarantino, Bruckheimer, McTiernan, etc. film is like complaining about songs being in a musical.

It reminds me of the Dark Knight thread where people were getting upset that Batman beat people up as a means to an end (torture!!). Ummm... he's Batman. If I ever see a Batman movie where he doesn't beat people up I'm asking for my money back.

Good thing no one's made that argument.

The entire post is one big strawman. Most action movies are not worth considering on a political, moral, or philosophical level. No one complains of fascism in movies like Bad Boys, Con Air, Die Hard, etc, because those movies do not present an overt political message or contain blatant moralizing on violence and torture as legitimate political tools. The fact that you would even group the Dark Knight in with those kinds of films makes me think you haven't seen it.

But please continue. I want to know more about which films I'm allowed to take seriously.

If no one's made that argument, fine. Makes it easy for me. I agree that most action movies are not worth considering on such a deep level. But that doesn't stop many on this forum from doing so, which led me to post in exasperation in the first place. I seem to remember the Iron Man, Indiana Jones, and Dark Knight threads all containing critiques of their supposedly fascist content. I don't see these films as so much more overtly political or moral than Die Hard and Bad Boys, which obviously contain the same attitude towards the morality of violence, if somewhat more implicitly.

With regards to Inglourious Basterds (I hate typing that), I don't believe it will take a larger position on the morality of violence than any number of action/exploitation films. And if Inglourious Basterds is held up to a higher critical standard than the aforementioned actions movies, I am curious what sets it apart. Is it the historical context? Brad Pitt? A general consensus of Tarantino-loathing?

I did see the Dark Knight, in all its faux-intellectual glory. I have no problem grouping it with less highly acclaimed action movies.

You can take any movie you want seriously. But when you critique a movie for the very essence of its identity, you seem to be missing the point.

[Grand Illusion]

Sorry GI, I was referring to overtness, particularly for message films. (A reason I didn't mention Haneke despite him better fitting Schrek's examples) Maybe Taste of Cherry or Gerry would have been better examples.

No need to apologize at all. But you bring up a good point. Is there really that much of a difference in editorializing in a film whose politics are overt versus one whose politics are covert? I don't believe so. Both films are being manipulated by the filmmakers to achieve a desired result.

Is Milk a lesser film because of its overtness? Or is there value in the courage of its convictions? It's certainly a message film.

[colinr0380]

It may be difficult to even pin down a director's politics from their films - for example look at Ford or Godard's body of work as a whole rather than as individual films and there is a great variety of political stances they seem to posit through the approach to the material or the characters. In a way that is part of what makes them such interesting directors, because we can follow them engaging with different ideologies. I was just reading through some old posts from the a_film_by site and came across this interesting one:

Date: Mon Oct 6, 2003 0:14am

<Quoting Chris Fujiwara> "Ford, Welles, Dovzhenko, Fuller, Siegel are all filmmakers who challenge banal left/right categorization. So is Godard (explicitly, in Made in USA)."

Welles is a particularly fascinating one for me. His classic theme of characters longing for lost paradises can be read in conservative terms; the whole form and plot of "Ambersons" is predicated on a deeply felt and meticulously expressed longing for the times gone by and a resistance to what most would call "progress." But for me this nostalgia breaks free of political dimensions because it is so human: it is very similar to Visconti's sadness at the end of the aristocracy in "The Leopard." He might even agree that it's good that it ended (though I'm not sure Welles would agree that the car was a good invention!), but that doesn't change the validity of the film's sentiments. And even Welles conceded that the good old times might never have existed - but that it's a tribute to human beings that we can conceive of such times.

Of course, Welles' canon also provides ample support for his credentials as a liberal thinker - "It's All True" is evidence enough, but also look at his love for the bohemian values embodied by Falstaff (whom he compared to the hippies in the 1960s) in "Chimes at Midnight." I also think there's a strong case that Welles had become, towards the end of his life, a real feminist in a female-dominated late work like "The Dreamers." Of course, one sees the beginnings of this in the final shot of "Touch of Evil"... it's not at all about Quinlan anymore, it's all about Tanya (whose name must be an homage to Karen/Tanya Blixen!)

I think the lesson is that the great filmmakers are usually complex and even contradictory in every way, including politically.

Peter

Personally I do not believe politics makes a film artistically great or poor, it is what it does with its material or viewpoint that decides its success or failure. I've found overtly right wing films engaging and left wing ones boring - appreciating a film for its artistry can be assessed separately from agreeing with its perceived political stance.

I think it is important to note how you reacted to a film's politics, or your perception of a film's politics, but at the same time it is important to try not to let this colour your perception of the film in its own right. "Does it succeed in its own terms in putting across the message it is trying to convey?" should be the next step beyond our personal opinions, once we have noted them.

The thing that worries me is that big films are becoming calculatedly apolitical, in the sense the presence of any agenda is carefully downplayed so that a film can be all things to all people (which is maybe another example of the way economics are more important than politics). There are advantages and disadvantages to this. I suppose positively there is the way that one person's "fascist revenge fantasy" can be another's condemnation of such - it validates everyone's worldview and therefore reaches a wider cross-section than just appealing to one or the other. But on the other hand that leads to films that reach no conclusions and take no particular stance on a subject for fear of alienating one side or another in a debate (much as a Freddy Vs Jason or Aliens Vs Predator film cannot decide a definitive winner in a battle for fear of alienating one fan base or the other! Then things become only, and more obviously, just about the spectacle of the fight!)

A lot more films are playing it safe these days, but with the illusion that they are "saying something" about wider issues - however whatever they are "saying" is often in the eye of the beholder to interpret for themselves (and write their opinion of on an internet forum ). In that sense The Dark Knight is a phenomenon for the way it presents little commentary on what the filmmakers think about the events occurring on screen (or it balances anything that might be considered a comment out with equal and opposite events) - I see the future being more and more of these 'Mona Lisa' style films that are designed to be all things to all people.

What seems kind of frightening to me is that these opaque films smuggle their ideolog(ies) in and require more understanding than easily definable as left/right wing films did, while simultaneously and paradoxically encouraging lack of personal interpretation and validation of everyone's opinion. No wonder critics are losing their jobs!

I am aware of the craziness of this debate taking place in teh threads for Tarantiano's lastest misspelled film tho!

[knives]

Is Milk a lesser film because of its overtness? Or is there value in the courage of its convictions? It's certainly a message film.

Compared to something like Mala Noche as a whole film, yes. If you can make a film that has a point without it being in the exposition, I feel anyway, it works moreso as a complete experience. That's not to say something like Milk or A half dozen Oliver Stone movies don't serve a purpose or can't be good. It's just that I find it a bigger accomplishment when you can get a point across or bring about an emotion with as little manipulation or editorialization as possible.

[HerrSchreck]

Isn't your example for editorializing implicit in the subject matter? I kinda understand where DrBroel is coming from. There is no such thing as a lack of Editorialization. Sure, you can pick a relatively nonpolitical narrative such as searching for a MacGuffin in The Maltese Falcon. Any Editorialization really doesn't matter there insofar as the filmmakers' politics.

But when you take the subject matter of Miracle of St. Anna, any decision by the filmmakers is meaningful. Even if the work appears to allow events to "speak for themselves," it never does, ever. Certain tropes are used, such as unbroken takes or handheld, to achieve different effects, but the argument is that there is no such thing as "nonmanipulative films that present a lack of editorialization & sentiment."

If Bresson or Dreyer move you, they are being cut and performed for that effect. It's not as blatant as throwing a John Williams score on top and calling it a day, but, rest assured, the filmmakers have a reason they are holding certain frames and not others.

At least, I think that's what the argument is, and it's something I can get behind.

I think you may be confusing two things here: 1) the fact that a film affects a person i e that the author went about making the film to create some form of effect on viewers... vs 2) the means that he goes about achieving those effects.

Of course an author (and by this I mean "creator of a work", any artistic enterprise, not just a book writer or film director) has some reason for engaging a medium to produce a work. This isn't what is being measured. What we're measuring is the means, and potentially its sophistication, for achieving that end.

For example, voice-overs in film in many cases are considered to be the signal of a huge lack of imagination and skill-- this goes for fiction as well as documentary. The Maysles were key exponents of simply presenting their subjects going about their business... Salesmen, the Beales, etc. They never directly tell you what to think about these sales reps or the Beales. They leave that up to you. Their job as they see it is to create a compelling montage, and go about this by shooting and editing footage that they deem representative of this compelling nature. This is why there is such a huge variance of opinion about the Beales... the thing that made them global figures never overtly said a word about them: it simply allowed you to hang around them throughout a compression of time. The Maysles never tried to make up your mind for you... and indeed in the absence of interviews (we know they found them endearing characters) one would have no idea what the Maysles thought of them, aside from the fact that they are "a spectacle" worth watching. IN fact the Maysles almost HAD to come out and express their love for the Beales, as many felt that the project was a cruel exploitation of two women who couldn't defend themselves, and didn't themselves have the capacity and social awareness and wherewithal to understand that they were being made to look clownish and ridiculous (many people do and did think that).

Another filmmaker might have overlaid a pathos soaked poetic narrative to try and lay down a Cultural Paradigm/Social Project of and thru The Beales:

"These two women, wallowing amid the detritus of a vanished era, loving and fighting and crying and laughing, fumbling affectionately with the relics of a thousand Better Yesterdays, left to rot and decay like the very Gardens they inhabit by the lions of Society, shorn of pride and bereft of freind and ally, the Beales are the dirty little secret of the Bourgeoise-- out of sight and out of mind. Here in innocent human form is the incarnation of the capitalist sins of gluttony, pride, avarice, envy, and all the rest of the seven deadly sins..."

This is what we're measuring: how the author allows his material to speak-- not simply whether or not a film has an effect on an audience, or whether or not an artist was motivated to create.. but how those means were achieved. Lack of editorialization leads to endless debate about a film, since it doesn't try to simplify or tokenize the subject matter. Heavy editorialization and manipulation leaves little room for debate about a film, since you are told what to think and feel about each aspect.

[DrBroel]

I have a problem with singling out "editorializing" like this and say it usually a detriment to a film mainly because i think all filmmakers do it and people seem to only have problem when it is political in nature (or only recognizable political positions at that). Why is it that different for a film to editorialize about the political issue of abortion in say 4 Month, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, than it is for Dreyer to editorialize about theological issues. Both filmmaker are trying to express their beliefs through their work. Why is it suddenly too manipulative when those beliefs start to overlap issues in a specific society's political zeitgeist?

[knives]

I thought 4 months was about rape? :-k

[DrBroel]

I thought 4 months was about rape?

in a way, it kind of is.

i like Chris Wisniewski take in his review on indiewire:

“4 Months” becomes something far more expansive than a simple plot description could imply—a tense, riveting thriller (of a sort) that subtly evokes the experiences of women in a society that fiercely regulates their lives and bodies, often reducing them to commodities to be bought, sold, and bartered, no different at the extreme from the Kent cigarettes and orange Tic Tacs traded on the Bucharest black market.

[HerrSchreck]

Why is it that different for a film to editorialize about the political issue of abortion in say 4 Month, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, than it is for Dreyer to editorialize about theological issues. Both filmmaker are trying to express their beliefs through their work. Why is it suddenly too manipulative when those beliefs start to overlap issues in a specific society's political zeitgeist?

I'm going to put this convo down at this point, since I'm finding repeated failures in the fundamentals of our communication here. Something very simple is not being grasped. I promise I don't mean this in any insulting way, but still there comes a point where I have to bow out.

[Grand Illusion]

Lack of editorialization leads to endless debate about a film, since it doesn't try to simplify or tokenize the subject matter. Heavy editorialization and manipulation leaves little room for debate about a film, since you are told what to think and feel about each aspect.

We'll let the discussion rest for the good of the thread. I would like to say, though, that if your beef is with "heavy editorializing," I get what you're saying although I don't think "endless debate" necessitates a good film. "Lack of editorializing," however, does not exist. As remote and detached as Dreyer appears, he'd never make a film that could be interpreted as atheistic or materialistic as one made by an equally detached Bela Tarr, even if both auteurs appear to let the characters' actions speak for themselves.

[HerrSchreck]

"Lack of editorializing," however, does not exist. As remote and detached as Dreyer appears, he'd never make a film that could be interpreted as atheistic or materialistic as one made by an equally detached Bela Tarr, even if both auteurs appear to let the characters' actions speak for themselves.

Wrong. Again, you're conflating two seperate things: an author's intention, and the means that he goes about achieving that intention. A lack of editorialization does not mean the author has no opinion or intention... does not mean that the film did not have an intention behind it... it simply means that he achieves this intention with a lack of direct authorial voice.

Guys this is all very basic stuff.

[skweeker]

The director commences editorializing as soon as he decides what should be inside, and what should be excluded by, the frame. With the first exposure, with the first closure of the shutter. By choosing, we perforce exclude: what is chosen, what is excluded: an editorial choice.

As as audience member, my choice is to watch, or to look away.

[HerrSchreck]

The director commences artistic maturity as soon as he decides what should be inside, and what should be excluded by, an aesthetic definition. With the first pragmatic agreement on basic terms of utility, comes the first closure of the shutters on ridiculous application of semantics.
By choosing to do this, we perforce exclude "editorialize" from "create": what we choose, what we exclude: an aesthetic escape from debate class.
As a forum member, my choice is to laugh, or blow my brains out.

[somnambulating]

I had a dream that a screener of this had already come out and that I was assigned to study it for a screenwriting class...

So, basically, in my dream I saw IB; I doubt the actual film has much potential of living up to the dream-like imagery of my, well, dream.

And James Caviezel was in it... I think my brain cross-wired Basterds with The Thin Red Line, and I thought up the perfect 30 second character arc for him and now I really wish he'd have the opportunity to perform it.

That is all.

[Antoine Doinel]

The film will be playing in competition at Cannes.

[Antoine Doinel]

Vanity Fair has a portfolio of pics of the actors in costume.

[Antoine Doinel]

A new clip that aired during American Idol last night, that includes a first look at Mike Myers. Yikes.

[JonathanM]

A new clip that aired during American Idol last night, that includes a first look at Mike Myers. Yikes.

You know, for someone who has built a career out of doing an English accent, I'm still surprised by how stilted and fake Myers' accent sounds. Nobody in this country sounds like that.

[ellipsis7]

Just skimming through the script -

Spoiler

there's lots about Leni Riefenstahl, Goebbels and Nazi film propaganda - i.e. cinema, which you literally see exploding in flame (along with Hitler, Goebbels and lots of Nazis) in the penultimate shot of that clip - the climax of the film, the retribution of the the Jewish girl SHOSHANNA, who is in the projection booth hijacking the premiere screening of the new Nazi propaganda film...

[somnambulating]

I have read the script and previously knew all of those moments... but why spoil each one for unsuspecting persons who merely want to dip into this thread and see how the film is coming along?


The "German Night in Paris" chapter seemed to remind me quite a bit of The Last Metro which is funny given Tarantino's perpetual insistence that he "is not a Truffaut guy, I'm a Godard guy." And now, I guess, not even that.

The rest on the whole reads like Reservoir Dogs pt. 2... in Nazi-occupied France.

[exte]

I'll try to avoid this thread until I see the movie.

[domino harvey]

[Vic Pardo]

I'll try to avoid this thread until I see the movie.

Actually I was going to avoid this movie until I saw this thread.

[Zumpano]

Tarantino in high heels / NYTimes Basterds Cannes mini-Preview

In your festival, who won best director?
Bryan Singer for ‘‘Superman Returns.’’ I am a big fan of ‘‘Returns.’’ I’m working on what is now a 20-page review of that movie, and I’m not done yet.

That, I'd like to read...

[Antoine Doinel]