Inglourious Basterds

[rs98762001]

Wow, I'm really surprised so many people feel this way about the film. I really do think there's more than meets the eye in IB.

Not sure why you're surprised, considering there hasn't been more than meets the eye in any of Tarantino's other films, and considering that his own interviews on the subject have left absolutely no doubt as to his intentions.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

And I know it seems a bit far out but I'm wondering, considering the current state of our educational system:

Spoiler

How many people who saw this will walk out of the movie thinking that Hitler was really shot to death in a movie theater.

A LOT.

In the theater I went to, a woman beside me asked her date "Who is that?" when Winston Churchill showed up and some girls behind me were asking if Brad Pitt was snorting coke when he pulled out his snuff tin. The fact Tarantino needs to explain everything to the audience over and over again (the nitrate film scene), he knows the audience won't be too bright.

I didn't feel so bright after paying for this yesterday.

[oldsheperd]

I knew much of the references to film of that era would be lost on folks. My Dad knows a lot about film but even he didn't know what UFA was. Nice touch though on having Shoshanna put up "Le Corbeau" on the marquee at the theater.
The scenes out of the "Nation's Pride" film reminded me of shots you'd find in a sixties movie. For some reason I was reminded of "Closely Watched Trains"

[rohmerin]

I've seen it today in London and I've loved it.
Absolutely Tarantino's best picture. For me his smartest and most interesting film, he has became on his won cinema genre of desmitification and he creates another bizarre masterpiece that works perfectly in all senses: script, art and entertainment.

Curious, his war movie is a declaration of love to Cinema as Los abrazos rotos (the other masterpiece of 2009) is.

[franco]

I like this movie. I would like it more if the entire "bear jew" sequence were removed.

[Antoine Doinel]

Get ready for the Oscar campaign.

[oldsheperd]

Despite my attitude towards this film Waltz should be a sure bet for a Supporting Oscar nomination.

[swo17]

Surely there have to be more models to choose from than Crash and The Reader.

[skweeker]

Speaking for myself, depictions of violence just are not entertaining.... I think I've (emotionally?) grown out of it, frankly. Their stimulative ("exciting") effect is neurological, IMHO ( Google "mirror neurons" for more info on this): thus, deeply manipulative of the audience, at a pre-cognitive level. Made for children, really.
Maybe some people who do find violence "entertaining" in films will find that it's actually very very horrible in reality: but the films don't prepare them for that, but just numb them to it, in advance.
Violent fantasies are just tasteless, really.
Funny that we get to see so much fantasy violence "on screen" (isn't it all?), while actual film and fotos of the real blood & gore, from the real ongoing wars the West is fighting in Asia are so heavily censored, and so difficult to find, eh? in contrast to the WW 2 newsreels, never shy of showing Americans dead. I guess they are not "entertaining" enough....or perhaps in the "wrong way"...

[Hopscotch]

LOL

[Jun-Dai]

Landa made the film. That character was so carefully constructed and perfectly executed that I'll remember him for quite some time, I imagine. The rest of the film and its characters was a fairly forgettable, disorganized mess and ranged from mediocre to bad.

Waltz stole this film from everyone else even more than Ledger stole Dark Knight from Bale and the others. Shame about his out-of-character bit at the end.

[mfunk9786]

Given that it seems that a lot of people in this thread have gone to see a movie they already made their minds up about before they stepped in the theater on opening weekend, only to step out (surprise!) hating it, I might be dumb for asking this question here. But here goes: With a field of 10 Best Picture nominees, would it really be such a bad thing if this film were one of them? Even that Variety article made it sound like it would have to involve some sort of diabolical planning... I think it's good enough without the blitz of DVDs floating around Hollywood.

[oldsheperd]

I don't know where you're getting the idea that I hated the film before seeing it. I was looking forward to seeing the film. I like Brad Pitt, I like Eli Roth and I like Tarantino to some extent. If it gets nominated for and Oscar, it gets nominated for and Oscar. That's the nominating committee's decision.

[Jun-Dai]

As someone that hated the film before seeing it (or expected to hate it, which I assume you feel amounts to the same thing), I was pleasantly surprised. It was much better than Kill Bill, Vol 1 (Vol 2 I did not see), and unlike Kill Bill, the film gave me the sense that Tarantino is certainly still capable of pulling off a good film, even if this one was a bit of a mixed bag.

The trailer, however, was terrible, and centered around probably the most contrived bit of dialogue and delivery that the film had to offer.

[Ulysses1922]

Having read the script online a few months back, I went to the film hoping to be more attentive to the Tarantino-as-filmmaker aspect of Basterds than the Tarantino-as-writer aspect. And although I liked the fact that he uses three different fonts to introduce the cast (basically stating that this film will be a composite of three different film types) I found some of the acting styles clashing with one another in the same scene. For example: Michael Fassbender seemed (to me) to have stepped right out of a British war film (Carve Her Name With Pride came to mind) - but Mike Myers seems to be playing someone PRETENDING to be in a British war film. And I couldn't understand why Tarantino would encourage that - are we supposed to recognize the familiarity of the scene, or recognize that this is a scene PRETENDING to be familiar. Why even call our attention to it all?

I also realized that I didn't really care about the character of Shosanna (even though Tarantino claims she was always the main character). I walked away from the film feeling that it was really the story of Hans Landa, which I didn't feel when I was reading the script.

[domino harvey]

Despite my attitude towards this film Waltz should be a sure bet for a Supporting Oscar nomination.

I suspect he'll actually be up for Best Actor

[mfunk9786]

I also realized that I didn't really care about the character of Shosanna (even though Tarantino claims she was always the main character). I walked away from the film feeling that it was really the story of Hans Landa, which I didn't feel when I was reading the script.

I didn't really get the impression that it was anyone's individual story. It truly felt like three storylines with equal weight being interweaved pretty judiciously.

Speaking of Shosanna, I really hope that part of the Oscar campaign is an attempt to get Mélanie Laurent a Best [Supporting?] Actress. To me, beyond Waltz (goes without saying that he stole the show), she really was the best part of the film, acting-wise. She didn't get a lot of time, but she managed to pull off a surprisingly restrained performance that still was able to convey her hurt/fear/anger and draw a lot of empathy out of me without a big sobbing-on-the-hospital-bed moment a la Thurman in Kill Bill.

[Grand Illusion]

Melanie Laurent was amazing in this. Never heard of her, but she stole every scene she was in. She has a seamless ability to play multiple objectives at once. It's truly a skill to have to hide, lie, and deceive your way through a movie, while still letting the audience observe all the conflicting emotions. After this, I'd watch her in anything.

As suspense, the film is brilliant. The construction of the scenes takes the lessons from Hitchcock's bomb under the table and ratchets that up several points.

Spoiler

Particularly, the rendezvous scene at the bar has a near-perfect arc to it. First, the viewer is told the meeting will be alone in a basement. The small space is problem one. Second, they are supposed to be alone. They show up, and there are Nazis. The audience knew there would be, of course. We're educated moviegoers, but this is classic suspense. We know; the characters do not.

The Nazis are a big problem, but it's diffused by the fact that the Nazis are just drunkards. Our heroes finally get away to conspire, and they get drinks. Close-up on the DRINKS. Okay, are the drinks poisoned? No, they're not. Back to conspiring, but the drunk Nazi is back. And he's questioning the Brit's German accent. Fortunately, this is diffused by the Brit pulling rank (from his fake uniform).

But there's a Major in the bar, who is not only a perfect linguist but also ranks higher than the Brit. An excuse is formulated. Does the Major buy it? Who knows, but he wants to sit down for drinks. Back-and-forth like this for a while until the Brit orders drinks. Drinks again? The way he orders drinks betrays him, paying off the initial drinks beat. So the Major has a gun pointed at the Brit. Now what? Well, turns out the Brit had a gun pointed at the Major since he sat down. A stand-off. Tarantino again plays with language, his favorite tool as a writer, and the Brit completely breaks his "role" as a German and speaks English. Eventually, the expertly-crafted scene reaches a fever pitch and explodes with violence.

Tarantino uses the classic Hitchcockian device to make every conversation worth hanging on every word.

"Bomb under the table" might as well be

Spoiler

"Jews under the floorboard."

As for the morality of the film, I believe Tarantino is making way more of a commentary on cinema than the ethics of war/war crimes, which really shouldn't be a surprise. World War II is the perfect avenue to do this.

What do we expect to learn from war films? From some of the morally repulsed posts or reviews, it would appear that nothing short of "all war has bad stuff happen, even no matter the justifiable causes that may or may not precede such a war." Um... that's okay, but it's pretty simplistic, and we really don't need a film to come out every few years to remind us of such.

Tarantino has given us the ultimate pay-off. Finally, delivered on a silver platter. In a movie theater no less. Is it the Aristotlean catharsis that we were looking for? Was it everything you dreamed of? Did you cheer? Or flinch? Or both? And if it's not everything we dreamed of, then what do we really want from a war film? Why do we keep remaking them? What do we hope to learn? What cathartic release are we providing or denying ourselves of when we go see movies where a bunch of people die and some soldiers and some civilians break arbitrary war crimes rules set up by the powers that declare the wars in the first place?

Tarantino has not offered the simplistic solution of "every war situation has those darn rule breakers." For as much as I liked The Hurt Locker, the scene where

Spoiler

the higher-ranked officer denies medical attention to the dying Iraqi

felt so didactic and forced, that I was taken out of the universe of the film. Contrast this with the scene in Inglourious Basterds where

Spoiler

Pitt's character is ready to hand over Waltz's character. What do we want to see happen there? Ask yourself that. What occurs is a war crime, but is it "wrong?" Waltz has already sold his soul to the Americans. Hitler will be killed. The war ended. If Pitt kills Waltz, the war still ends and revenge or justice, depending on your own personal beliefs, is had. If Pitt lets Waltz go, the war still ends but a mass murderer runs free. The decision has to be made then and there.

And Tarantino doesn't betray his characters by shoe-horning in morality for the audience to feel good about later. Are Pitt's actions revenge or justice? Does the fact that Waltz made a (self-serving) deal, but a deal nonetheless, matter? Pitt's actions surely constitute torture. If he didn't take those actions, it's not like Waltz would get a simple trial with a jury of his peers. The decision is in the moment, again a "war morality" not one of hindsight.

Tarantino's universe may operate under a revenge-seeking morality, or more likely a void filled only with moral nihilism, but this is probably more true to war than any post-mortem, 60 years after the fact. And knowing that historical films are always after the fact by necessity, Tarantino has crafted a universe that isn't held to the rules of history.

The construction of the narrative as a whole isn't flawless, as the two major plotlines don't appear to have an effect on if the other one goes off, but Tarantino has still offered something new with this film. His style and cleverness always carried his past films when they merely celebrated his love of cinema. IG is not just a celebration of film, but a criticism of it and all it entails, from Goebbel's propaganda to Tarantino's postmodernity.

[Finch]

Very good analysis of the film and its strengths, GrandIllusion - one of the best posts I've read in this thread. =D>

[oldsheperd]

I appreciate your analysis of this film, Grand Illusion, but I still can't be brought around to like this film one bit despite Tarantino's comments on war, film or otherwise.
I take no issue with people on this board liking this film. From what I've read you all are no doubt intelligent folks who know your cinema and how to read a film. Unfortunately you are in the minority when it comes this view of the film. I am confident in saying that most watching this film will not understand what Tarantino is saying.
By reducing the Nazis to caricature and showing that the enemy can be defeated by vicious brutality some will walk away from this film with the same opinion that the National Review writer quoted on another discussion in this board had. The idea that in order to overcome brutality we must take on others with even more brutality and hate. Tarantino's idea of the war borders on parody.
I was also astonished that Tarantino had the balls to develop such revisionist history knowing that many in this country don't even know who we fought in World War 2.
The idea that:

Spoiler

You could create a squad of, basically goons, to terrorize an army is is laughable and not well thought out. The Nazis bulldozed over half of Europe and you're telling me a rag-tag bunch of soldiers and a theater owner could defeat Nazi Germant is ridiculous to the point that it completely took me out of the picture.

It reminds me of the kind of little adventures I used to make up when I was a kid playing with my G.I. Joes.

[starmanof51]

Spoiler

What occurs is a war crime, but is it "wrong?"

Yes, wholeheartedly.

[kaujot]

It reminds me of the kind of little adventures I used to make up when I was a kid playing with my G.I. Joes.

I was under the impression that that was kind of the point.

[oldsheperd]

I don't know but I've always felt Tarantino has had a bit of contempt for his movie-going audience.
As for giving that impression that that was the point, if it is it's pretty muddled.

[Mr Sausage]

I am confident in saying that most watching this film will not understand what Tarantino is saying.
By reducing the Nazis to caricature and showing that the enemy can be defeated by vicious brutality some will walk away from this film with the same opinion that the National Review writer quoted on another discussion in this board had.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. People are stupid. We need to guide all of them as a mass because, if we don't, who knows what they'll think on their own!

[Phil]

I take no issue with people on this board liking this film. From what I've read you all are no doubt intelligent folks who know your cinema and how to read a film. Unfortunately you are in the minority when it comes this view of the film. I am confident in saying that most watching this film will not understand what Tarantino is saying.

This is totally unfairly stacking the deck against Tarantino: because his is a film that will reach a mass audience, he is only allowed to make points in the most clear cut, palm-to-forehead obvious manner imaginable? You deflect what Mr. Sausage says as simply sarcasm, but he's not missing your point at all. You're pretty openly arguing that a mainstream film cannot present anything other than an obviously articulated morality message, because otherwise all of the unwashed masses will misread it and run amok scalping Nazis and cackling with revenge. Shame on Tarantino and the Weinsteins for not exclusively restricting Basterds to festival showings and a one week run at Film Forum; then they could've ensured that it would remain squarely in the conscience of select Really Bright Intellectuals and not be out poisoning the minds of millions of American idiots.

And here I was thinking that a Hollywood movie that had started a huge amount of thoughtful discussion on morality/cinema/history/etc. was a great, exciting thing. Whoops.