Saturday, September 5, 2009
I'm probably the last reader of Sol's site to see Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, so the last thing the world needs is one more review and political commentary on the film. But since when has a cow that has long-since left the barn ever stopped a blogger?
Like many, I've been a fan of Tarantino for some time, not just because of his hipster rep, but also because I share his film vocabulary having spent much of the '80s and '90s ferreting around video stores in ethic neighborhoods for Hong Kong action flix, Filipino Batman musicals and other treasures, back in the day when cult film sections of mainstream video stores consisted of two copies of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
Tarantino's gift for dialog is usually the first thing reviewers remark on, but I've always appreciated his patience as a film maker. In an age when Hollywood pictures ban any scene lasting for more than twenty seconds, Tarantino's scenes can stretch out 15-20 minutes and consist of nothing more than characters interacting with one another in complex ways (admittedly, with many such scenes ending in some spectacular bout of violence). This aspect of Tarantino's skill became apparent in Kill Bill, a four hour extravaganza which contains fewer individual scenes than ten minutes of Michael Bay picture. It's even more on display with the Basterds.
The director dispenses with time-travel tricks in his latest picture, eschewing back-and-forth chronologies for a linear storyline that switches between the Basterds (a group of Jewish operatives working behind enemy lines in World War II to terrorize the Nazis) and Shosanna Dreyfus, a Jewish girl who has escaped after the massacre of her family by Col. Hans Landa, the Nazi "Jew Hunter" (played brilliantly by Christoph Waltz). Now living in Paris under an assumed identity, Shosanna runs a cinema where the upcoming premiere of Josef Goebbel's latest film will be attended by the top Nazi brass (including Hitler himself), setting the stage for separate Dirty Dozen-style mass assassination plots by both Shosanna and the Basterds.
Another Tarantino strength is his willingness to kill off characters mid-picture, including characters you've been convinced are central to the plot. This unpredictability leaves you wondering whether the joint schemes to kill off the Nazi leadership will succeed, clash or cancel each other out. Suffice to say that this audience member was left guessing until the second to last scene.
As with his other pictures, Tarantino uses this film to show off his film knowledge, in this case with endless references to pre-war German and French cinema. The potential pretentiousness of the film-maker's indulgence is blunted, however, by the fact that Basterds has much more to do with 1940's American WWII shlock actioners than with the work of Leni Riefenstahl. (My personal favorite film in this category - whose name I've forgotten - features a group of Chicago gangsters sent behind enemy lines where they manage to use tommyguns and getaway cars to kidnap Hitler, tricking the SS into shooting their fuehrer by shaving off Hitler's moustache: "But I AM the fuehrer!" "Shut up you swine! " Pow!).
Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, onto politics!
There's been some controversy over a picture that features Jews taking glee in their brutal behavior towards their victims. But since those victims are all uniformed Nazis (not German civilians), this complaint only makes sense to me if you're willing to make a moral distinction between plain old Army Nazis and Gestapo Nazis (a la Hogan's Heroes). And the aforementioned Dirty Dozen pointed out years ago that decadent Nazis and their entourages at play (at a dinner party or film opening) are fair game.
At least one conservative critic is suspicious of the amount of German financial backing for the film, highlighting that both Shosanna and the Basterds play into a "vengeful Jew" mythos permeating German society. I won't pretend to understand German culture enough to say whether this trope is as widespread as the critic thinks, but I will point out that the first Jewish image in the film (consisting of a family of Jews hiding under the floorboards of a French house in justifiable fear for their lives) has been played out endlessly for film audiences over the last six decades, something that doesn't seem to have blunted European appetite for anti-Jewish fear and paranoia. If once every two generations a film features a Jew emptying a machine gun clip into Adolph Hitler's face, I can't say I see the harm in that.
Especially since we're talking here about an exploitation film, the type of movie which invites you to enter a cinema, throw your arms out to the screen and yell out "Pander to me!" After all, African American audiences got to spend a decade enjoying Black Belt Jones and other action heroes delivering roundhouse kicks to the head of bigoted Southern sheriffs. Is it too much to ask for Jews to be gifted a similar jolt in the movies once in the 64 years since the Holocaust?
I'll admit that many audiences, Jew and Gentile, don't quite know what to make of depictions of Jewish strength, power and heroism, especially when such strength involves use of a gun or a knife. Which is one more thing I appreciate Quentin Tarantino for challenging us with, even if he did so merely with the intention of delivering some explosive fun.
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The movie is simply an exploitation movie with a WWII theme. I suspect the people who will enjoy these revenge fantasies the most will be this readership.
Noah Pollak very astutely predicted reactions like David's, when he first informed us of Tarantino's intentions about a year ago. Here is what he said:
"Inglorious Bastards, in a nutshell, focuses on the escapades of eight Jewish-American soldiers who are parachuted behind enemy lines and ordered by their commanding officer to “git me 100 Nazi scalps”. It is not a Holocaust movie, as such. But it uses the death camps as a touchstone and therein lies the danger."
Of course, this would have to be made by a Gentile. A Jewish filmmaker would have the soldiers scalp some Nazis and then agonize over the moral implications of their actions for six hours, rather than getting on with the important business of scalping more Nazis."
Of course, Jews being Jewish should be superior human beings, clean of any suspicion that they might harbour any anger or vengeance towards anyone, least of all those who succeeded in decimating them.
Of course the film is a fantasy about an impossibility: What could things look like if Nazis and Jews were given a more or less even chance. David can't stand to contemplate even this impossible possiblity. David doesn't want anything interfering with the idea of the eternally defenseless Jew, the perpetual quintessential victim, the only place a Jew should occupy, either in reality or fantasy, in this world.
I saw it last weekend, and it's a cartoon-spaghetti western romp, like all Tarantino films. Great fun, little to do with history, except the clothes, hair styles, and technology.
Tarantino did historical research of a sort, not what we normally think of as historical research, but pop culture, as Jon said. I was impressed by the fact that Tarantino made his Jewish characters not in any way trying to hide who they are, except to Nazis. When's the last time you saw a movie with a lead character named Shoshana?
(Yeah, it's Binah :)
Daoud considers Inglorious Basterds as ANOTHER NAKBA for PaleSWINE.
Eddie: Your comments are often vulgar and unnecessarily offensive. Much more effective would have been if you provided some argument to counter David's rant.
Rather than enter the fray, I just wanted to provide one point of clarification.
The phrase "exploitation film" describes a very specific type of movie that combines a willingness to embrace subjects mainstream film makers refuse to touch with a style of shameless showmanship associated with carnivals and other type of earlier live entertainment. I have a fondness for the great exploiteers (Kroeger Babb, David Freidman) and want to be sure that I was clear that any film containing sex and violence is not, by itself, an "exploitation film." (In fact, one of the first things I ever wrote on the Internet was a piece that placed Michael Moore squarely in the exploitation film tradition - see http://www.tcsdaily.com/printArticle.aspx?ID=062904B).
The thing I like about Tarantino is his ability to use the language of the exploitation film genre, as well as elements from other popular film styles (1970s karate flick, spaghetti western, yakuza film, war movie) to create films that are both art and entertainment. Kill Bill was a virtual catalog of such genres, although all of Tarantino's works use these categories of popular films as a jumping off point for something much greater.
Eddie: Your comments are often vulgar and unnecessarily offensive. Much more effective would have been if you provided some argument to counter David's rant.
Yes but still funny nonetheless if not exploitative, if you will... (x the last word)
I am not an expert on Genres but the movie to me reminded me slightly of two things -
1) Ending seemed Carriesque?
2) Bit of Hogan's heroes touch to it.
Does anyone else agree with particularly #1?
Also, I felt that Tarrantino put A LOT of subtle and not so subtle digs at the Nazis and Germans in general outside of the obvious violence and revenge etc... I think most Americans would miss a good part of this but the Europeans.
Done via dialogue, actions and facial expressions. He not so subtly had his middle finger up at Germany with this film.
Pulp Fiction will likely be his best and defining movie.. however, I saw Kill Bill again and while in the movie theatre I found it way too long and way too gory and violent particularly that parents were there with their kids, I walked out...
At home watching it the violence became less important and I actually liked/enjoyed both in the series.
I am not an expert on Genres but the movie to me reminded me slightly of two things -
Does anyone else agree with particularly # 1)?
Also, I felt that Tarrantino put A LOT of subtle and not so subtle digs at the Nazis and Germans in general outside of the obvious violence and revenge etc... I think most Americans would miss a good part of this but the Europeans.
Done via dialogue, actions and facial expressions. He not so subtly had his middle finger up at Germany with this film.
Pulp Fiction will likely be his best and defining movie.. however, I saw Kill Bill again and while in the movie theatre I found it way too long and way too gory and violent particularly that parents were there with their kids, I walked out...
At home watching it the violence became less important and I actually liked/enjoyed both in the series.
"Noga", BFD.
"Noga", BFD."
Beer For Dolphins?
I suspect the people who will enjoy these revenge fantasies the most will be this readership.
Something like dancing on the roofs after 9/11 or handing out candy at the slaughter of children in Pizza parlours?