Inglorious Basterds
Honestly, I’ve previously thought that Inglorious Basterds (2009) written and directed by Quinten Tarentino, was a farce too far from the truth to hold any importance or greatness. But I finally mustered up the strength to watch this movie that’s filled with an amazing cast of characters and actors. I had thought the Bear Jew to be too odd and ridiculous for the piece and the LT. Aldo Raine (played by Brad Pitt) to be nothing more than an annoyance. But it also has the amazing Christoph Waltz as the German Colonel Hans Landa and Daniel Bruhl (also in “Goodbye Lenin”). The who cast have all well enough earned admiration for their work. So, I was wondering, why they all came together to make this film? I thought it was because of the Tarentino hype from his previous films and the want to become a part of their success. But now, that I’ve actually had the time to look into films and understand them I understand why these characters are as odd as they are and I understand why Tarentino does what he does with these characters and the way he filmed “Inglorious Basterds.” Tarentino shows a true reason for his visuals, cuts, and shots. The bar scene does make us feel tense, on edge as if the fate of the mission could be totally botched before it really begins. Which it does. When Michael Fastbender’s character mimics the wrong number three with his fingers, the tone immediately changes as we stick on a shot of the German Colonel who intruded on their table.
The generous amount of characters for such a small idea of what’s happening seems like it could be too much and lose focus of the movie or take away from some of them, making them two dimensional, yet Tarentino seems to pair their timelines well enough for us to get to know who these characters are from only a few scenes between them, leaving one for a slightly extended amount of time, only to return to the previous one. In the end, they all come together and have necessity on each other. Landa has killed Shoshana’s family which makes her only want to burn down her theater more, Bruhl’s character seems like he could be a main character, a protagonist, but we don’t get to see enough of him. And that’s why this works.
All of Tarentino’s side characters in Inglorious Basterds are themselves protagonists and we get to see them as protagonists for some time. We get to see them as in-depthly as we might only the protagonist of another story. But who changes? Who is the real protagonist? Shoshana? Zoller (Bruhl)? Probably either of them are the more traditional of that title. Shoshana goes from a broken girl, in the fate of Landa’s decisions, running from extermination to become the one who holds the power over all the Nazi commanders, burning them to the ground in her theater. Let’s look at Zoller. He was a nice, polite soldier who just wanted to get to know her and discuss his love for film. He even seems like he cares about the French People and might not totally believe in the Reich. But then he turns into the legend everyone says he is, a Nazi politician in the making, a war hero, someone you don’t say no to, someone who abuses that power.
So, why does Tarentino even include the other characters? The Basterds? Was it because he couldn’t make a long enough movie just on Shoshana? Or that he wanted to make a movie on the Basterds and had to include her to make something comprehensible? Perhaps one or the other, or perhaps neither. None of his characters or their actions are coincidence in writing but they all coincidentally effect everything about each other in-film. The entirety of the film has a very stylistic feel to it, as all Tarentino films do, and the characters are not over glorified or put in a totally disgusting light. I found myself caring about Landa and Zoller, but also Shoshana, Aldo, and the other basterds.
He delves into how people come around and it can feel like a small world, but there is also absolutely no way that characters are totally expected to survive. Hicox (Fastbender), Stiglitz, Wicki, and everyone in the bar who we had come to expect more from, and gotten to know rater well are shot down without much more thought to it. It is brutal, compulsive, and gratuitous, but quick and when it’s over it’s over. They are gone. Donowitz, Ulmer, Zoller, Shoshana, Marcel, Bridget Von Hammersmark, Goebbels, even Hitler himself are not prone to survive in anyway. Death is inevitable and a hugely pending fear created for us among our main characters and pretty much every character in the movie. We have seen that Tarentino tends to return to this idea in his other movies. At the end when Aldo and Utivich are accepting the arranged surrender of Landa and his Herrman they kill the Herrman in a second without thought or heavy press on it. They joke and take things rather light heartedly as they scalp Nazis all throughout the movie. We even fear that in that last moment Landa may be killed without a second thought, putting us on edge about the fate of this character.
Tarentino doesn’t kill his characters until they have served their purpose however. Every one of them will affect the others and change the plot and outcome of the movie until they have done what they needed to do. Unless Tarentino is making a point about their inability to complete their task or some task at all.
Inglorious Basterds has scenes that can be broken down and studied for a long time to come. This is because Tarentino doesn’t do anything by accident, he has reasons for everything and it feels like he’s one of the last “fimly-film” maker without making “filmy-films”. His movements, blocking, music/ noise, and shots have more reasoning than, ‘because it looks or sounds good.’ It all attributes to the feeling and story of the film, and he does a damn good job at it.
June 28, 2017