HE HAS MADE SO MANY SHARP FILMS, he has shown us the wit in violence and murder, and the mediocrity of high-crime gangstership; he has made a feast out of meaningless dialogue; he can keep it simple, and be oh so incongruous… until now Quentin Tarantino has managed to move an eager audience through a genre of cinema so vivid and ruthless, one could claim that in order to make a dashing and brutal film he just has to rummage in the underwear drawer, and casually have someone’s head shot off.
Enter: Inglourious Basterds, 2009. The announcment came that Quentin Tarantino – Hollywood’s ‘enfent terrible’, of whom they carefully say he has come of age – has made a film about Hitler’s 3rd Reich, starring none other than Brad why-don’t-you-give-someone-ELSE-a-chance Pitt. And I heard myself saying, “I am not going to see that film”, and “what could Tarantino know about the 2nd World War, for crying out loud!?” A subject matter with that sort of depth – can it be handled by such a young, rash, trigger-happy director? Okay, the man is fairly genius, but, was he not born in Tennesse, and in 1963??
I did not think he could do it, so I watched the film. I watched at first with patient suspicion, and then growing fathomless boredom. After the third scene I came to the full-fledged realisation that I WAS RIGHT. Razzie. Razzie. Razzie. The film is tattooed with that one, single word.
Sadly, Tarantino can indeed not handle a film about the 3rd Reich; he is like a juvenile monkey at a Brain Sport Convention. Hitler’s rise to power and the occupation of France? It is embarrassingly clear that Quentin is unable to conceal his shallow grasp of the subject matter. Add to this the high proportion of spoken French and German in the film, and some impressive acting on part of the German soldiers in the basement bar-scene (the Berliner August Diehl does a strong SS-man in State of Suspicion) but, was Tarantino able to follow their – HIS – dialogue? Loyal to a collective responsibility to portray those menaces as they truly were, these actors of German origin abduct his film, and Tarantino just gets lost by the wayside, the stranded American, out of his depth amongst the progeny of the truly afflicted.
Furthermore, if I may be so bold as to gently trash the man, (for he is far from the league of the likes of Coppola or Scorcese) Mr. Tarantino has even managed to bungle the scenario of his little playfight with Nazi-Germany; how do you come by inviting the 300-something top functionaries of the German war-effort to a small generic cinema in some arrondissement of Paris, and then leave the entire lobby, and the hallways outside of the balconies, AND the projection room, completely devoid of SS-guards??? With Hitler casually shaking his fringe out of his sweating face in the audience? Was that a slip, Quentin, or do you just “not know” these things??
Climax scene: Brad and his remaining 2 ‘Basterds’ manage to accompany a German actress to the propaganda gala at the quaint, art-deco Paris cinema. They disguise themselves as Italian delegates – who do not speak Italian at all. Ha!ha!ha!ha? Really not so very funny, or wierd. They are found out (spoiler alert), and the big Jew-Hunter baddie (SS-Offizier Landa) calls the lady away to a private room to strangle her in peace, while the oblivious Pitt stands around the lobby, drinking bubbly from a tall glass, all alone in his immaculate white suit; the smiling grimace of a retarded, incest-plagued gas-pump attendant from Down South, on his stubbly face. And this, ladies and gentlemen, was the mastermind behind the Inglourious Basterds Nazi-hunting brigade. Uh-hu. After finishing his drink he strolls around the empty building to meet up with his ‘Italian’ mates, who have found their seats amongst Nazi Germany’s finest politicians and warlords without further ado. Dynamite is strapped to their legs in the spirit of a glorious American-style suicide bombing. Sound continental to you, yet?
Hm. Quentin Tarantino, I am sorry to be of the opinion that you have insulted your own genre with this film. Perhaps it is time to further your cultural education. I believe that good film making has to do with a spot more than ‘digging the oldies’, talking about getting high, and being all ‘retro’. Or, if you do not want to extend your field, then stick to what you do best: contemporary American gangsterism.
Tarantino has to his advantage that his films generally possess a lurid wackiness that transcend conventional mainstream. But perhaps unwittingly, he is creating a new mainstream. His winning formula of lurid stupidity combined with casual execution are forced into normality, leaving room for yet a fresh trend in popular violence. Or can we hope that he will grow up soon, capable of producing something a little more sober, like ‘The Return of the Killer Schoolgirls’? Chin up, Quentin, I’ll end up watching it anyway. [ACN]
I will agree with you on all these points but I think also that Tarantino was not even remotely trying to portray an accurate account of WW2 but was giving us his version of how he would have liked it to turn out. I think you HAVE to abandon reality when you see a Tarantino movie because it is often too ludicrous for words. You just have to go with it. Over analysis of anything will spoil the experience.
God forbid that Tarantino should grow up! If I wanted to watch an episode of Geert Mak’s IN EUROPE, I would have stayed home. I want Tarantino’s trademark trashy, violence-laden hilarity. No one does it better.
I’m happy to say I’ve seen the film as well. And I actualy did like it, even though I concur with many of the given critics. The main reason for liking the film is the tension he puts in the dialogs. Now, Brat Pitt was an awfull choice, and his role became more and more incredible. But Tarantino is known not to stick to one genre (see ‘From dusk till dawn’) And all his action-hero’s turned into slap’stick. Slowly turning to the ‘grand finali’ I realy wondered how he would make history stick. But it turned out, he never had the intension to do so. All he did was create the feeling of how nice it would be if ..
Not sticking to history and making slap’stick, aparently was reason enough not to do proper research or, for that matter, get into details that much.
So even though he gave way to the ‘happy end’ feeling, he at the same time showed us how improbable that was.
What a wonderful piece of writing! It is so good that I am almost forgetting the agony I felt while watching this film. Doing that together WITH YOU made a lot good too.
But on a more serious note: everything you state about the film is true. It was too far removed from the real events to be a fitting parody. It was as if a toddler had been playing with clay and crayons. A pity, if you ask me. And a waste of the German talent that worked on this film.
Indeed, I cannot imagine that QT could understand the slightest thing of the German dialogues – or even the in-depth beauty of the German language for that matter, which surpasses the English language in that respect by several boat lengths. U-Boats, of course…. But that might be a matter of taste….
I saw it on a plane and if you are bored enough it is quite entertaining..
A sharp eye Amber. But … I still like the movie as part of getting the avarage human being interested, or should I say aware, of history. Even if the suggested world is nothing of that (…). Some people did ask me if it really happened the way it was portraited. So, QT did touch somebody.
I’m a big fan of QT. The bastards were a bit far fetched, but the dialogues were serious work and the Cinematography great.
It is good to see so many people are a fan of ol’ Quentin, and all his boy-ishness. Thanks for all the comments, I do so appreciate that!!! Keep ‘em comin’! (And QT, make another half-arsed film, so we can keep the dialogue going – don’t have anything MORE IMPORTANT TO TALK ABOUT
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