Inglourious Basterds (2009)
September 30, 2022 7:11 AM - Subscribe
It is the first year of Germany's occupation of France. Allied officer Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) assembles a team of Jewish soldiers to commit violent acts of retribution against the Nazis, including the taking of their scalps. He and his men join forces with Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), a German actress and undercover agent, to bring down the leaders of the Third Reich. Their fates converge with theater owner Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), who seeks to avenge the Nazis' execution of her family.
Also starring Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard, Jacky Ido, B. J. Novak, Omar Doom, August Diehl, Denis Ménochet, Sylvester Groth, Martin Wuttke, Mike Myers, Julie Dreyfus, Léa Seydoux, Richard Sammel, Alexander Fehling, Samm Levine, and Rod Taylor.
Written & directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Currently streaming in the US on DirecTV and Sling. Also available for digital rental on multiple outlets. JustWatch listing.
Also starring Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Gedeon Burkhard, Jacky Ido, B. J. Novak, Omar Doom, August Diehl, Denis Ménochet, Sylvester Groth, Martin Wuttke, Mike Myers, Julie Dreyfus, Léa Seydoux, Richard Sammel, Alexander Fehling, Samm Levine, and Rod Taylor.
Written & directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Currently streaming in the US on DirecTV and Sling. Also available for digital rental on multiple outlets. JustWatch listing.
I don't know if it's science fiction. It's not like they used a time machine or a portal from another dimension to get the job done.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:38 AM on September 30, 2022
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:38 AM on September 30, 2022
Tarantino World: a land where a slave could rise up against his masters and go on a killing spree. Where Hitler’s reign was ended not by his own hand in a bunker, but by Jewish soldiers machine-gunning him into hamburger in a burning theater. Where Sharon Tate was spared because a washed up movie star killed the Manson Family with a flamethrower.
posted by wabbittwax at 7:49 AM on September 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by wabbittwax at 7:49 AM on September 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
The opening scene really is a great example of what Tarantino does best--the slow-burn tension scene where everything is perfectly affable on the surface, but you just know the godawful violence is coming any second now.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:56 AM on September 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 7:56 AM on September 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
Where Hitler’s reign was ended not by his own hand in a bunker, but by Jewish soldiers machine-gunning him into hamburger in a burning theater.
Where two entirely unconnected murder-suicide assassination plots coincide at the same theatre on the same evening.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:44 AM on September 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Where two entirely unconnected murder-suicide assassination plots coincide at the same theatre on the same evening.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:44 AM on September 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
Never let it be said that Quentin Tarantino won’t commit to the bit.
posted by wabbittwax at 8:46 AM on September 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by wabbittwax at 8:46 AM on September 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
hell of a conjunction with Saving Private Ryan next in the list!
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:29 AM on September 30, 2022
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:29 AM on September 30, 2022
I loved this movie, especially when it veers off the historical path. I wish more movies would take that option, which is something that we never give a second thought when movies are set in the present. No one walked out of Die Hard saying "Well, I think I would have heard about this Nakatomi Tower business, so I can't take this seriously...", so why shouldn't we let quote-historical-endquote films play fast and loose with the facts?
posted by Etrigan at 11:28 AM on September 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Etrigan at 11:28 AM on September 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Where two entirely unconnected murder-suicide assassination plots coincide at the same theatre on the same evening.
I guess he was a popular guy.
posted by biffa at 12:01 PM on September 30, 2022
I guess he was a popular guy.
posted by biffa at 12:01 PM on September 30, 2022
I loved this movie, especially when it veers off the historical path. I wish more movies would take that option
I don't know. In that direction you find films like The Last Samurai, which presents an insipid retelling of the Satsuma Rebellion, but with an added "white savior." Or Inherit the Wind, a very fictionalized version of the Scopes Monkey Trial (although, in that case, they did change the names of the people involved, while simultaneously quoting from the actual trial transcript).
Relating history is hard enough without deliberately falsifying it.
posted by SPrintF at 12:14 PM on September 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don't know. In that direction you find films like The Last Samurai, which presents an insipid retelling of the Satsuma Rebellion, but with an added "white savior." Or Inherit the Wind, a very fictionalized version of the Scopes Monkey Trial (although, in that case, they did change the names of the people involved, while simultaneously quoting from the actual trial transcript).
Relating history is hard enough without deliberately falsifying it.
posted by SPrintF at 12:14 PM on September 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I loved this movie, especially when it veers off the historical path. I wish more movies would take that option
I don't know.
Do you ever wonder whether it's a good idea to literally cut people's sentences off in the middle so you can make a point?
Relating history is hard enough without deliberately falsifying it.
I know that The Last Samurai was white-savior bullshit. I know that Inherit the Wind took liberties with the actual events for dramatic purposes. I know that Private Ryan didn't exist nor get saved. But I generally don't go to movies to see precise scholarly retellings of actual events as they definitely happened, especially when Tom Cruise or Quentin Tarantino is involved. I go to movies to be entertained. Sometimes I am also inspired to learn about the times or events they purport to have shown me.
Of the many sources of misinformation in the world, the conformity of Quentin Tarantino movies to history is so far down the list that I don't spend any time worrying about its effect on society. Hell, it's not even in the top five ill effects of Quentin Tarantino movies on society.
posted by Etrigan at 12:29 PM on September 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
I don't know.
Do you ever wonder whether it's a good idea to literally cut people's sentences off in the middle so you can make a point?
Relating history is hard enough without deliberately falsifying it.
I know that The Last Samurai was white-savior bullshit. I know that Inherit the Wind took liberties with the actual events for dramatic purposes. I know that Private Ryan didn't exist nor get saved. But I generally don't go to movies to see precise scholarly retellings of actual events as they definitely happened, especially when Tom Cruise or Quentin Tarantino is involved. I go to movies to be entertained. Sometimes I am also inspired to learn about the times or events they purport to have shown me.
Of the many sources of misinformation in the world, the conformity of Quentin Tarantino movies to history is so far down the list that I don't spend any time worrying about its effect on society. Hell, it's not even in the top five ill effects of Quentin Tarantino movies on society.
posted by Etrigan at 12:29 PM on September 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
The opening scene really is a triumph of filmmaking in many ways. This video breaks down how there are dozens and dozens of different shots for "simple" conversation that help guide the viewer through the power dynamics, exposition, themes etc. Super interesting.
Also one of my favorite reveals when the daughter is taking down the sheet from the line and it reveals the countryside with the approaching car behind it. The blocking is great, but watch carefully and you can see it's also a great example of anamorphic focus distortion. The landscape changes shape as the focus changes — any cinematographer would be aware of this effect, and it's very dramatic here, almost jarring. Not a smooth transition but an abrupt, sloppy one in a way. You can see it happen at this moment in the video.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:58 PM on September 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Also one of my favorite reveals when the daughter is taking down the sheet from the line and it reveals the countryside with the approaching car behind it. The blocking is great, but watch carefully and you can see it's also a great example of anamorphic focus distortion. The landscape changes shape as the focus changes — any cinematographer would be aware of this effect, and it's very dramatic here, almost jarring. Not a smooth transition but an abrupt, sloppy one in a way. You can see it happen at this moment in the video.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 1:58 PM on September 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Well, in real life Hitler killed himself rather than fall into the hands of the Red Army, and Tarantino prefers him to have been killed by Americans.
But the thing about Tarantino's movies - this, Django and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - is that they are explicitly Tarantino's fantasy. All of these are things that one can picture young Quentin hearing about and thinking they were wrong and how they should have been different. It's quite sweet really.
And it's interesting how on the one hand you do have this intensely personal fantasy, and on the other the stunning film-making. I realise that Tarantino is quite annoying, but he is genuinely very, very good at making films (if a little indulgent in the editing suite, perhaps).
posted by Grangousier at 2:53 PM on September 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
But the thing about Tarantino's movies - this, Django and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood - is that they are explicitly Tarantino's fantasy. All of these are things that one can picture young Quentin hearing about and thinking they were wrong and how they should have been different. It's quite sweet really.
And it's interesting how on the one hand you do have this intensely personal fantasy, and on the other the stunning film-making. I realise that Tarantino is quite annoying, but he is genuinely very, very good at making films (if a little indulgent in the editing suite, perhaps).
posted by Grangousier at 2:53 PM on September 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
Is it out-of-fashion to think it's out-of-fashion to love Tarantino? I sure hope so, because I've tried on multiple occasions to feel even conflicted about the man and I just can't. I love the way he does things.
As a Jewish man who was raised with intense volumes of Holocaust awareness, Holocaust survivors' stories, and what-have-you, I absolutely love this movie's specific treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. It's a propaganda movie about propaganda: here is the story about the American Jewish badasses that we wished existed, about the German Jewish survivor getting her chance to take inordinate revenge, and about the conflicted humanity of the Nazi soldiers (in a way that ultimately denies them that same humanity). Holocaust as pop culture, but done with the awareness that everything is doomed to become pop culture, including wars even as they're being fought.
Hans Landa... man, there's no way he's remotely the greatest character ever written into a film, but off the top of my head you could make a case for his being the single most enjoyable? He's the sheer amorality and delight of power for its own sake: the human personification of someone who cares about nothing more than the fact that he is smarter and wittier than other people, and backed by such power that he can afford to force people into theatrical productions of his own devising. Theatre as torture, theatre as sadism. The other Nazis that we meet (minus Hitler and his pals, who are sheer comic caricature) are more well-rounded individuals, people who you feel might sincere believe in this cause on some level, and who also have families who they love and feel conflicted about what they feel conflicted about; Landa believes in nothing. If he sees Jewish people as animals, it's because he sees everybody as animals, compared to him, and feels justified in subjecting them to endless cruelties simply because they're more inventive and interesting and compelling than any other fare.
The twin catharses of Landa negotiating his freedom and then Landa reacting to the other German soldier getting shot is amazing, because... on some level, I remember watching the freedom scene and going, "I'm not even mad, this guy's a delight, and clearly he was just going along with this ideology because it was the fashion, so: hey, nothing personal!" (Not a feeling I'd ever have about an actual human being, obviously, but in entertainment I do roll with likability quite a bit.) Which didn't stop me from feeling utterly exhilarated, moments later, when Landa sees the other guy get shot. Because, all of a sudden, you realize that this is a guy who's been in control from the very start, a guy who's living propaganda of himself, a guy who can be so delightful and charming because he has not for a single moment had to be an actual human being. This is a guy who is what he is because he is free from consequences and feels no qualms about the consequences others face. And that realization happened, for me, at almost the exact moment that—upon realizing it—I suddenly found that I did want him to face a comeuppance, and the specific thing I wanted was for that smug look to get ripped off his face with a sudden plunge into reality.
The propaganda of genocide is often a propaganda of culturedness. Remove the lessers. Purify society. Revel in finery. To which the Basterds reply with the crudest possible form of propaganda—and incidentally, its crudeness and brutality reflect Nazism far more accurately than any Nazi in this movie does.
The Basterds are violent idiots because they have to be. They're not good people. They aren't portrayed as bastions of a healthy society—which is funny, because virtually every Nazi is portrayed as a Good Kind Of Person, apart from that unfortunate Nazi business. They are psychopathic and unfeeling... and in the process, they put an end to all the false narratives. There's that great moment, early on, where their captured prisoner tries to face his death with dignity, and all his stiff-upper-lip responses are met with coarseness and sarcasm. In that last moment, he lifts his chin with proud resolve, and majestic, noble music swells... and that's abruptly cut off as Eli Roth bashes him about with a baseball bat to hoots and hollers. Because fuck that. He subscribes to an inhumane ideology and this level of psychopathic sadism is the only way to meet him at his level.
Is that disturbing and problematic? Hell yes it is! But the movie could not be clearer about the fact that the Basterds themselves are propagandistic, that they are not heroes in any sense but the fact that they like to kill Nazis, and that the Nazis get the treatment that they get as a kind of counter-propaganda measure: they are Nazis first and humans second, because the function of Nazism as an ideology is to deny others their humanity.
Fredrick Zoller, the Nazi sniper, is the most fascinatingly conflicted character in the movie, I think. At times, he appears sweet and charming, sincere, even a little wounded, as he's rebuffed by Shoshana for reasons he doesn't understand. His conflict about seeing the glorified version of his killings in film form seems genuine. But it's always so obvious, to Shoshana and us if not to him, that everything he does and says is loaded. It's not just that she despises him and what he stands for: it's that he is in this moment wielding tremendous national power, violent and devastating power, for all that he treats it like it's invisible. (On some level, it goes beyond the fact that he's a Nazi and simply exists because he's a man and he's a murderer, the unseen threat of violence reinforced by the fact that he has literally killed before.)
In his final moments alive, he makes it clear that he is far more aware of this fact than he likes to let on: the "sensitive individual" part of him, however authentic, exists on top of a deeper bedrock of violence and force. No matter how sincerely he means to be an earnest, caring individual, it is ultimately yet another kind of propaganda, just a mask that he wears because he is powerful enough that he gets to wear it. It's been years since I've seen this film, but I bet that in retrospect he'd remind me of an awful lot of "sweet men" I knew who revealed themselves to be controlling, abusive, and occasionally violent well past the point where their partners felt like they surely "knew who this person was." Because the refusal to treat other people as human, the willingness to assert yourself over another person with force if need be, nullifies literally every other variable—and that's a tricky lesson to learn.
Film is a lie, things can "move" you without being rooted in truth, and identity is propaganda until you literally cannot choose it anymore. Shoshanna's family is killed for being Jewish, which to the Nazi mind strips away all other factors of who they are—therefore, "Jewish" is the only real identity they have in this world, a fact that Shoshanna can never let go of. Nazis, similarly, can only be Nazis—nothing else matters. Inglourious Basterds works for me because, on some level, it's a stress test of how much you can humanize Nazis, how disturbingly you can glorify violence against Nazis, and get away with it because they created this world, they chose this ideology, and therefore they assumed a role so fundamentally despicable that you can stack the deck in their favor and it's still a blast to see them bashed to bits.
They chose that for themselves. Ironically, in the world they made, they were the only ones who were permitted a choice. And having made that choice, there is no going back—a fact that this movie literally carves into their face.
But all that, really, is just the complicated and unnecessary mathematical proof that this movie is ethically justified in kicking this much ass. It's like the chemical reasoning behind combustion: fascinating on one level, but really it's important because it means this film's a total fucking blast.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:10 PM on September 30, 2022 [33 favorites]
As a Jewish man who was raised with intense volumes of Holocaust awareness, Holocaust survivors' stories, and what-have-you, I absolutely love this movie's specific treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. It's a propaganda movie about propaganda: here is the story about the American Jewish badasses that we wished existed, about the German Jewish survivor getting her chance to take inordinate revenge, and about the conflicted humanity of the Nazi soldiers (in a way that ultimately denies them that same humanity). Holocaust as pop culture, but done with the awareness that everything is doomed to become pop culture, including wars even as they're being fought.
Hans Landa... man, there's no way he's remotely the greatest character ever written into a film, but off the top of my head you could make a case for his being the single most enjoyable? He's the sheer amorality and delight of power for its own sake: the human personification of someone who cares about nothing more than the fact that he is smarter and wittier than other people, and backed by such power that he can afford to force people into theatrical productions of his own devising. Theatre as torture, theatre as sadism. The other Nazis that we meet (minus Hitler and his pals, who are sheer comic caricature) are more well-rounded individuals, people who you feel might sincere believe in this cause on some level, and who also have families who they love and feel conflicted about what they feel conflicted about; Landa believes in nothing. If he sees Jewish people as animals, it's because he sees everybody as animals, compared to him, and feels justified in subjecting them to endless cruelties simply because they're more inventive and interesting and compelling than any other fare.
The twin catharses of Landa negotiating his freedom and then Landa reacting to the other German soldier getting shot is amazing, because... on some level, I remember watching the freedom scene and going, "I'm not even mad, this guy's a delight, and clearly he was just going along with this ideology because it was the fashion, so: hey, nothing personal!" (Not a feeling I'd ever have about an actual human being, obviously, but in entertainment I do roll with likability quite a bit.) Which didn't stop me from feeling utterly exhilarated, moments later, when Landa sees the other guy get shot. Because, all of a sudden, you realize that this is a guy who's been in control from the very start, a guy who's living propaganda of himself, a guy who can be so delightful and charming because he has not for a single moment had to be an actual human being. This is a guy who is what he is because he is free from consequences and feels no qualms about the consequences others face. And that realization happened, for me, at almost the exact moment that—upon realizing it—I suddenly found that I did want him to face a comeuppance, and the specific thing I wanted was for that smug look to get ripped off his face with a sudden plunge into reality.
The propaganda of genocide is often a propaganda of culturedness. Remove the lessers. Purify society. Revel in finery. To which the Basterds reply with the crudest possible form of propaganda—and incidentally, its crudeness and brutality reflect Nazism far more accurately than any Nazi in this movie does.
The Basterds are violent idiots because they have to be. They're not good people. They aren't portrayed as bastions of a healthy society—which is funny, because virtually every Nazi is portrayed as a Good Kind Of Person, apart from that unfortunate Nazi business. They are psychopathic and unfeeling... and in the process, they put an end to all the false narratives. There's that great moment, early on, where their captured prisoner tries to face his death with dignity, and all his stiff-upper-lip responses are met with coarseness and sarcasm. In that last moment, he lifts his chin with proud resolve, and majestic, noble music swells... and that's abruptly cut off as Eli Roth bashes him about with a baseball bat to hoots and hollers. Because fuck that. He subscribes to an inhumane ideology and this level of psychopathic sadism is the only way to meet him at his level.
Is that disturbing and problematic? Hell yes it is! But the movie could not be clearer about the fact that the Basterds themselves are propagandistic, that they are not heroes in any sense but the fact that they like to kill Nazis, and that the Nazis get the treatment that they get as a kind of counter-propaganda measure: they are Nazis first and humans second, because the function of Nazism as an ideology is to deny others their humanity.
Fredrick Zoller, the Nazi sniper, is the most fascinatingly conflicted character in the movie, I think. At times, he appears sweet and charming, sincere, even a little wounded, as he's rebuffed by Shoshana for reasons he doesn't understand. His conflict about seeing the glorified version of his killings in film form seems genuine. But it's always so obvious, to Shoshana and us if not to him, that everything he does and says is loaded. It's not just that she despises him and what he stands for: it's that he is in this moment wielding tremendous national power, violent and devastating power, for all that he treats it like it's invisible. (On some level, it goes beyond the fact that he's a Nazi and simply exists because he's a man and he's a murderer, the unseen threat of violence reinforced by the fact that he has literally killed before.)
In his final moments alive, he makes it clear that he is far more aware of this fact than he likes to let on: the "sensitive individual" part of him, however authentic, exists on top of a deeper bedrock of violence and force. No matter how sincerely he means to be an earnest, caring individual, it is ultimately yet another kind of propaganda, just a mask that he wears because he is powerful enough that he gets to wear it. It's been years since I've seen this film, but I bet that in retrospect he'd remind me of an awful lot of "sweet men" I knew who revealed themselves to be controlling, abusive, and occasionally violent well past the point where their partners felt like they surely "knew who this person was." Because the refusal to treat other people as human, the willingness to assert yourself over another person with force if need be, nullifies literally every other variable—and that's a tricky lesson to learn.
Film is a lie, things can "move" you without being rooted in truth, and identity is propaganda until you literally cannot choose it anymore. Shoshanna's family is killed for being Jewish, which to the Nazi mind strips away all other factors of who they are—therefore, "Jewish" is the only real identity they have in this world, a fact that Shoshanna can never let go of. Nazis, similarly, can only be Nazis—nothing else matters. Inglourious Basterds works for me because, on some level, it's a stress test of how much you can humanize Nazis, how disturbingly you can glorify violence against Nazis, and get away with it because they created this world, they chose this ideology, and therefore they assumed a role so fundamentally despicable that you can stack the deck in their favor and it's still a blast to see them bashed to bits.
They chose that for themselves. Ironically, in the world they made, they were the only ones who were permitted a choice. And having made that choice, there is no going back—a fact that this movie literally carves into their face.
But all that, really, is just the complicated and unnecessary mathematical proof that this movie is ethically justified in kicking this much ass. It's like the chemical reasoning behind combustion: fascinating on one level, but really it's important because it means this film's a total fucking blast.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 3:10 PM on September 30, 2022 [33 favorites]
As a language nerd, I loved this movie right off the bat. The opening scene, where QT plays with the use of English in a movie where it doesn’t belong. The scene in the tavern. For that matter, Michael Fassbinder doing his “pip pip cheerio” English schtick. It’s been a while. I need a rewatch.
It also has occurred to me that with Kill Bill, QT started doing revenge fantasies, and with this, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he’s making movies about revenge against history.
posted by adamrice at 4:29 PM on September 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
It also has occurred to me that with Kill Bill, QT started doing revenge fantasies, and with this, Django Unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he’s making movies about revenge against history.
posted by adamrice at 4:29 PM on September 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
As time goes on this may be my favorite Tarantino film. It's really the Shoshana story that I love, while the other parts of the movie, go on like a silly stupid joke movie, but that contrast is amusing. Most of the time, perhaps. When Landa moves from one story to the other, he can only laugh at how stupid it is, too. I can still remember the feeling of grim joy I got from the revenge of the giant face.
posted by fleacircus at 9:44 PM on September 30, 2022
posted by fleacircus at 9:44 PM on September 30, 2022
The use of the jarring, clanging theme from The Entity with Shoshanna as she sees Landa in the restaurant is AMAZING.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:33 AM on October 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:33 AM on October 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Fredrick Zoller, the Nazi sniper, is the most fascinatingly conflicted character in the movie, I think. At times, he appears sweet and charming, sincere, even a little wounded, as he's rebuffed by Shoshana for reasons he doesn't understand. His conflict about seeing the glorified version of his killings in film form seems genuine. But it's always so obvious, to Shoshana and us if not to him, that everything he does and says is loaded. It's not just that she despises him and what he stands for: it's that he is in this moment wielding tremendous national power, violent and devastating power, for all that he treats it like it's invisible. (On some level, it goes beyond the fact that he's a Nazi and simply exists because he's a man and he's a murderer, the unseen threat of violence reinforced by the fact that he has literally killed before.)
In his final moments alive, he makes it clear that he is far more aware of this fact than he likes to let on: the "sensitive individual" part of him, however authentic, exists on top of a deeper bedrock of violence and force. No matter how sincerely he means to be an earnest, caring individual, it is ultimately yet another kind of propaganda, just a mask that he wears because he is powerful enough that he gets to wear it. It's been years since I've seen this film, but I bet that in retrospect he'd remind me of an awful lot of "sweet men" I knew who revealed themselves to be controlling, abusive, and occasionally violent well past the point where their partners felt like they surely "knew who this person was." Because the refusal to treat other people as human, the willingness to assert yourself over another person with force if need be, nullifies literally every other variable—and that's a tricky lesson to learn.
Zoller is played by Daniel Brühl, who may be best known (at least in America--he's very big in Europe) for playing Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier; that's another character who on the surface seems at least a little sympathetic (he lost his father, wife, and son in Ultron's attack on Sokovia), but also ran a death squad when he was with Sokovian intelligence, and probably did a lot worse than what was done to him. His revenge scheme--which not only resulted in many deaths, but, in breaking up the Avengers, probably shares at least some of the responsibility for the Blip--thus comes off as the sort of overweening revenge for someone who broke his stuff. He's also rich, so he's probably not used to losing something that he can't just replace.
WRT this movie, it's mostly OK--it's not as rewatchable as Pulp Fiction for me--but it's got some really fine performances: Brühl, Michael Fassbender, Waltz. And I really love the use of Bowie and Moroder's theme for Cat People as Shoshana prepares for the big night.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:08 AM on October 1, 2022
In his final moments alive, he makes it clear that he is far more aware of this fact than he likes to let on: the "sensitive individual" part of him, however authentic, exists on top of a deeper bedrock of violence and force. No matter how sincerely he means to be an earnest, caring individual, it is ultimately yet another kind of propaganda, just a mask that he wears because he is powerful enough that he gets to wear it. It's been years since I've seen this film, but I bet that in retrospect he'd remind me of an awful lot of "sweet men" I knew who revealed themselves to be controlling, abusive, and occasionally violent well past the point where their partners felt like they surely "knew who this person was." Because the refusal to treat other people as human, the willingness to assert yourself over another person with force if need be, nullifies literally every other variable—and that's a tricky lesson to learn.
Zoller is played by Daniel Brühl, who may be best known (at least in America--he's very big in Europe) for playing Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier; that's another character who on the surface seems at least a little sympathetic (he lost his father, wife, and son in Ultron's attack on Sokovia), but also ran a death squad when he was with Sokovian intelligence, and probably did a lot worse than what was done to him. His revenge scheme--which not only resulted in many deaths, but, in breaking up the Avengers, probably shares at least some of the responsibility for the Blip--thus comes off as the sort of overweening revenge for someone who broke his stuff. He's also rich, so he's probably not used to losing something that he can't just replace.
WRT this movie, it's mostly OK--it's not as rewatchable as Pulp Fiction for me--but it's got some really fine performances: Brühl, Michael Fassbender, Waltz. And I really love the use of Bowie and Moroder's theme for Cat People as Shoshana prepares for the big night.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:08 AM on October 1, 2022
For that matter, Michael Fassbinder doing his “pip pip cheerio” English schtick.
Speaking of Fassbender, there's a great scene in the otherwise-not-fantastic X-Men: First Class where he's in 1960s Argentina trying to track down one particular Nazi played by Kevin Bacon. (It's complicated.)
It's very Tarantino-esque in its tension, although Tarantino would have let it build a lot more.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:23 PM on October 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Speaking of Fassbender, there's a great scene in the otherwise-not-fantastic X-Men: First Class where he's in 1960s Argentina trying to track down one particular Nazi played by Kevin Bacon. (It's complicated.)
It's very Tarantino-esque in its tension, although Tarantino would have let it build a lot more.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:23 PM on October 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think the 'alternate history' of the film isn't just wish-fulfilment or distortion of facts, but the active thesis statement of the entire presentation. The movie isnt about WWII or the horror of the Nazis or brave rebellion in the face of death... those are the setting and set pieces. The film is about the ability of film to shape perception, the act of culture shaping a narrative and just who gets to be the winner who writes history. There was an essay a while back that describes the meta-film of the snipers glorious battle as an exact parallel of Inglorious itself - the Nazis revelling in the parade of kills in service of Nazi propaganda are a demonstration of the exact same fervor for myth and self-delusion as the actual audience members cheering for an exploded Hitler and a burning third Reich. IB is a film that explicitly delves into its own falsehood, and the human need for heroic narratives in the face of hideous reality.
posted by FatherDagon at 5:15 AM on October 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 5:15 AM on October 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
The opening scene really is a great example of what Tarantino does best--the slow-burn tension scene
Inspired by the Good the Bad and the Ugly Angel Eyes intro, no doubt
Has anyone broken down a list of what movies Tarantino is riffing on, scene by scene?
posted by eustatic at 8:38 AM on October 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Inspired by the Good the Bad and the Ugly Angel Eyes intro, no doubt
Has anyone broken down a list of what movies Tarantino is riffing on, scene by scene?
posted by eustatic at 8:38 AM on October 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
It's such a joy to watch this movie when you know French, German and English.
Very impressive for a native English speaker like Tarantino to make a movie where speaking different languages plays such a pivotal role.
posted by jouke at 10:37 AM on October 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Very impressive for a native English speaker like Tarantino to make a movie where speaking different languages plays such a pivotal role.
posted by jouke at 10:37 AM on October 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
This is tied for me with Kill Bill as Best Movie Ever. Every damn scene is amazing. I think this movie is Peak Tarantino - his films after that were amazing, but fall short of perfection.
And as jouke noted - the multi-lingual angle is fascinating and riveting. I would never want to watch it dubbed.
Tom Hanks Can't Be Trusted - THANK YOU for that insight.
posted by davidmsc at 11:57 AM on October 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
And as jouke noted - the multi-lingual angle is fascinating and riveting. I would never want to watch it dubbed.
Tom Hanks Can't Be Trusted - THANK YOU for that insight.
posted by davidmsc at 11:57 AM on October 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
And eustatic: "Inspired by the Good the Bad and the Ugly Angel Eyes intro, no doubt"
The music in that incredible scene was used by QT when we first see Bill on the front porch of the church in KB2, playing his flute - also to magnificent effect, signaling "death is approaching."
posted by davidmsc at 11:58 AM on October 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The music in that incredible scene was used by QT when we first see Bill on the front porch of the church in KB2, playing his flute - also to magnificent effect, signaling "death is approaching."
posted by davidmsc at 11:58 AM on October 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Cool, man.
I found this site which lists other musical references in this and other QT movies
posted by eustatic at 4:55 PM on October 3, 2022
I found this site which lists other musical references in this and other QT movies
posted by eustatic at 4:55 PM on October 3, 2022
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posted by sammyo at 7:26 AM on September 30, 2022