Inglourious Basterds Just Plain Inglorious

I admit that I saw the new Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds.  Now that I've seen it, you don't have to.

Inglourious Basterds is a cultural low point.  It is the revenge fantasy of a poorly educated and completely unreflective thirteen year old.  It is a jerky exercise in crudely manipulating the feelings of the audience in order to give them an excuse to hate the bad guys enough to want them brutally and cruelly dispatched.  

I did hate the bad guys.  But I hated some other things, too.

I hated the way the "good" guys acted.

I hated the way the film was put together.

I hated the extraordinarily hokey job of acting done by one Brad Pitt.

Let me dwell on that Brad Pitt issue for a second.  He spends the entire movie oddly grimacing and occasionally growling out a line. Usually a cliche'.  He is doing a bad impersonation of a cross between L'il Abner and R. Lee Ermey.

I think the theory of the film is that the Nazis are the one group of bad guys we can all agree were REALLY bad and therefore the audience will have the emotional permission needed to hate these men enough to unreservedly enjoy some completely gratuitous Hollywood graphic violence.  I was unable to reach that level.  I still had some reservations.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

The plot was a rip-off of the far superior The Dirty Dozen.  You remember.  All the big Nazis are going to be in one place.  Let's kill 'em all while we have the chance.  You've seen that movie before.  Rest content. You don't need to see it again.  

Though Inglourious Basterds opened big, I don't think it will carry over.  I can't imagine this film is going to capture many imaginations.

The innovation of this film is that you will see Nazi soldiers dispatched very cruelly and without any human feeling at all.  You will see men scalped.  You will see the survivors get swastikas carved into their foreheads.  You will see a very large man nick-named The Bear Jew beat a Nazi soldier to death berserker-style with a baseball bat because the soldier will not divulge the location of his comrades.  This is supposed to be very satisfying though the soldier passively takes the deathblows.  Some in the audience cheered.  I like seeing bad guys face terrible justice as much as the next guy.  But it shouldn't be filmed as the equivalent of a teenage wilding incident.

The film's hook is that Brad Pitt and his Nazi hunters go about the countryside catching and killing Nazis.  However, we don't really get to know the men in the squad and most of their action is off camera or has already happened.  The film is as much or more about a Jewish woman who survived the shooting of her family to escape into the countryside as it is about the "Basterds".  One has the notion that much of the footage that would help things make sense or help us to care has ended up on the cutting room floor.  But one imagines that had to be the case because this is NOT a short film.

On the whole, I wish I'd seen G.I. Joe, instead.  You know, the REAL American hero? 

Comments

[Kevin Gallagher]

All of that would be true, if the movie, its plot or its characters were intended to be taken seriously. But Tarantino and his film are both too self-consciously sophisticated for that; "Inglourious Basterds" was not intended for an audience that might cheer or pump their fists in the air while watching bludgeonings or mutilations onscreen (unless, of course, they were celebrating the movie's violence in as ironic a vein as that in which it was filmed), but for an audience that would smile knowingly at the references to other films, and appreciate the cinematographic attention lavished on whipped cream, or lipstick, or yes, even the blood flowing on the projection-room floor.

I agree, though, that the movie represents a cultural low point, but it is a low point of decadence--of art that no longer takes itself seriously, that prefers not to be thought of as meaningful--rather than a low point of depravity. Of course, given present conditions, there are more than enough moviegoers depraved enough to enjoy the elegant carnage because it is carnage, sitting alongside the cinematophiles forgiving the carnage because it is elegant, but what should we suspect? The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.

[Irenaeus]

Film is of course difficult to interpret, but I have to disagree with most of what has been said. This is perhaps Tarantino's most serious, deepest film. Briefly, here's what I noticed and thought:

(1) The violence is more real, less "slapstick" -- compare Kill Bill on this point. I think it's designed to make the contemporary audience rather uncomfortable.

(2) The phenomenon of the movie-within-the-movie is a key; just as the Nazi audience is laughing (often hysterically) at Zoller's killing of Allied soldier after soldier after soldier, so do we often laugh and cheer the violence in Tarantino's work. Is he indicting his audience? If we enjoy violence on film, are we Nazis? From a Christianity Today review:

"On the surface, Inglourious Basterds seems like yet another gratuitously violent exercise in nihilism. Yet certain elements lead one to wonder whether Tarantino has begun to question his own aesthetic. The climax of the film takes place at a screening of a film celebrating a savage act of violence. Watching the Nazi audience scream with joy at Nation's Pride, which skillfully reenacts every single one of Private Zoller's 300 sniper kills, it's hard not to reflect on how fun it was to watch the Basterds kill a bunch of Nazis with savage glee. It's almost as if Tarantino is punishing the audience for enjoying his film.

In an interesting and revealing bit of casting, Tarantino chose Hostel director Eli Roth to play Sergeant Donny Donowitz, The Bear Jew, a Basterd whose specialty is bashing Nazi brains in with a baseball bat. (Tarantino also tapped Roth to direct Nation's Pride, the movie-within-the-movie.)"

(3) The real question concerns what Tarantino et al. want us to think of the phenomenon of revenge: should we adopt the point of the implied narrator and enjoy this revenge fantasy, or should we be horrified by it? Again, the CT review:

"It doesn't seem as though Tarantino himself knows the answer. It's interesting to note that all of his films have explored vengeance of one kind or another, dancing around the notion of righteous wrath. In Inglorious Basterds, he unleashes hell on some most-deserving villains, only to turn things around and indict the audience for their own complicity in the culture of violence. It's a more-than-fair critique." Which leads to...

(4) I wonder how much of this is an indictment of Americans in our bloodlust for revenge beyond justice and utilitarian things like torture in the recent war on terror. Again, even if Tarantino said as much, you can always ask what the author has to do with the work as such. But I couldn't help but think of the comparison, as the Basterds -- as well as Shoshanna and Marcel -- commit what are objectively crimes.

[Bill R]

All it took were the ads and Tarantino's name for me to figure out that this would be a terrible waste of my time, Hunter. I'm sorry you had to find out the hard way.

[robert]

Better quality 24, huh?

[Rob G]

I'm with Bill. Tarantino's a minimally-talented overrated hack, whose name on any project is a red flag indicating that one should steer clear. The only good thing he ever did for the world of cinema was to bring Zhang Yimou's fine "Hero" to the attention of Western audiences.

Of course, to the Christian soul-patch-and-Guinness crowd CT will appear "thoughtful" and hip to the for giving this obscenity some allegedly serious attention. Which seems to be what CT is largely all about these days. I swear that some of these folks could find "the examination of serious issues," etc., etc., in a Russ Meyer film.

Most Christians have managed to reject/condemn gratutious, exploitative sex and nudity in films; for some reason they haven't come to the same conclusion regarding gratuitous, exploitative violence. They need to.

[Gerbeel Haamster]

Tarantino is a not-so-unusual combination of 12yr.old boy, 23yr.old Master's studunt, and 40-something Director.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems obvious that he is just trying to get his audience to realize that the leap from movie patron to Nazi really IS just a Pepsi and a Popcorn away...

[Ben]

Sadly, Hunter, they turned GI Joe into an elite multinational force. There goes my childhood.

[Hunter Baker]

Ben, dang.

[Joy Reed]

Tarentino is very twisted, but that is what makes him famous.

[Christopher Hathaway]

Stanley Kubrick made A Clockwork Orange as a critique of violence in the culture. He later (too late) saw that that culture was unable to see that critique and instead saw his film as a glorification of violence. What was meant to critique and counter the ugliness of societal decay instead became more grease to the skids.

And Kubrick was a genius, while Tarantino is simply a derivative hack.

[Truth Unites... and Divides]

Pulp Fiction was, um, entertaining at times.

[Dan Janeiro]

Rushing in where angels fear to tread here, because I haven't seen the movie, but..

to take issue with a few points Rob G made, and to bolster TUAD's two cents:

Hero was a beuatifully made piece of communist propaganda...if thats what we can thank Quentin for, I'd rather not

however,

I will go out on a limb here and say that Pulp Fiction is actually a very profound movie, perhaps better than its director intended it to be,

in brief: its an infernal comedy, a depiction of hell in which the best characters do break their own cycles of sin and leave.
1) Good deeds are recognized as providing grace to their performers-witness bruce willis and samuel l. Jackson's characters,
2) evil is often its own punishment,
3)the structural brilliance of the story, different stories enfolded into each other, with each "level" having its own character who breaks out, ending with the pair of robber/lovers who are reprimanded by samuel l. jackson at the end, and given a second chance. More could be said about certain details--bruce Willis drives off on a bike with grace painted on it, for instance.

On the other hand,

in some art, the media defeats the message, and this is most true in film. The viewer who might recognize the grace notes in the work is not the one who will go out of his way to see it, and the viewer who does see it will most likely miss this message, and it is for this viewer that message must be intended. On this level, Tarantino fails...but this is one of the risks of any art.

Pulp fiction remains for me a work I can defend but cannot or wouldn't recommend to most. I wouldn't be surprised if Inglourious Basterds fits into this category as well.

[Hunter Baker]

Dan, Inglourious Basterds is no Pulp Fiction.

[bonobo]

Just my two cents on having been unfortunate enough not to realize what was in store for me when I saw Basterds. It's vile, disgusting, idiotic and juvenile. And yes, as I closed my eyes for the umpteenth time, people were laughing and the grotesque punishments of "the baddies".

I stayed only because I wanted to see how QT would work a denouement in a plot that became more and more divorced from real history. I should have realized that there was no chance this pornographer-of-violence would provide anything remotely plausible.

[Joseph]

I have to agree with Kevin's opening post, as 'Basterds' isn't meant to be taken too seriously (if it was, Tarantino would have fixed the typos in the title). I'm fairly certain Brad Pitt didn't take this job looking for an Oscar; he likely saw the part as amusing, fun, and attached to a large salary. And Bonobo, this movie never pretended to be "remotely plausible." Tarantino is not out to teach any history lessons.

However, I do disagree with Hunter when he says the Nazis are dispatched with no human feeling. There is one feeling present: vengeance, a very human feeling and one common in other Tarantino films. It's definitely taken to an extreme here. This recent article in the Atlantic presents a Jewish perspective on the movie:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/tarantino-nazis

The article's main message is that this movie is the fantasy of many young Jews, yet ironically is a movie no Jewish director/writer could make. A different viewpoint, if nothing else.

[Rob G]

"Hero was a beautifully made piece of communist propaganda"

I've seen that in a few reviews, but I don't buy it. If it's propaganda, it's of such an exceedingly subtle sort that the vast majority of Western reviewers didn't pick up on it. And in that case it fails as propaganda.

That is not to say that I don't take issue with some of its political/moral implications. I certainly do. But I don't find Hero's philosophy nearly troubling enough as to refrain from recommending it.

Bonobo is correct when he calls Tarantino a pornographer of violence. Critiquing violence by depicting violence is a delicate business which seldom succeeds. Purposely reveling in it, as Tarantino does, merely serves to undermine the critique (if one is even present in his films, which I don't grant).

[bonobo]

Tarantino is not out to teach any history lessons.

Well, Joseph, given what I know about history teaching in the US, I fear many in the audience will take wildly wrong lessons. Probably the same morons who were laughing at the gore.

[Aficion]

I still find it hard to believe that so many see Tarantino as a genius. He deals with two basic human emotions: aggression and humor. If he was pushing limits to make statements, being reflexive and sarcastic, I could see some real value to his flicks. But.. he just plods forward like a child in a sandbox. And whether or not he intends to teach a 'history lesson' is beside the point. HIS intent isn't as important as how it's received and becomes a part of the popular consciousness. Yes.... people will continue to think that the Nazi's were a bunch of comical yet satanic devils who ate children. Great. YAYY!! We're all part of a big fun group because we hate the same people! Lynch those bastards!! Oh wait... where have I heard that before?

[robert]

Rob G,
Hero is not necessarily Communist propaganda but it certainly breaths the Communist worldview. More accurately, it breaths the Asian/Confusian push toward subjugating oneself to a large centralized collective ruled by a strong leader (if it had been made by the Japanese a few decades earlier, critics could just as easily have called it propaganda for the Imperial Cult).

It was a beautiful movie and I loved it up to the last few minutes. But I left the theatre utterly appalled and was baffled that noone else was questioning what happened. It's very much the anti-Western. It's as if at the end of the film the gunslinger in the white hat had the "epiphany" that the small landholders he'd been defending against the cattle baron trying to kill them and steal their land were in the wrong and betrayed them in the final shootout.

[robert]

As for Basterds, it sounds like it's the same immoral drivel as 24, just with a gloss of sophistication.

[Christopher Hathaway]

"same immoral drivel as 24"?

What's the basis of your critique of 24?

[robert]

Chris:

24 is a cultural low point. It is the revenge fantasy of a poorly educated and completely unreflective thirteen year old. It is a jerky exercise in crudely manipulating the feelings of the audience in order to give them an excuse to hate the bad guys enough to want them brutally and cruelly dispatched.

I think the theory of the show is that the terrorists are the one group of bad guys we can all agree are REALLY bad and therefore the audience will have the emotional permission needed to hate these men enough to unreservedly enjoy some completely gratuitous Hollywood graphic violence.

(with apologies to the author)

[Christopher Hathaway]

Robert, your responce makes me doubt you ever actually watch the show. Calling it a "revenge" fantasy is ludicrous when the entire premise of the show is about trying to "prevent" great harm done by the "bad guys" (and who "they" really are is one of the many typical twists of the show that you seem oblivious to in your typical liberal rant).

Try being a bit more informed next time. If you had watched the show they actually explore the moral hazard of crossing ethical boundaries in emergency situations.

[robert]

Rolled my eyes through two seasons of a roommate's obsession with the show, not a liberal, and hardly ranting. Just forgot what website I was on. And apparently my point went over your head. Reread Mr. Baker's original posting.

[Rob G]

"It's as if at the end of the film the gunslinger in the white hat had the "epiphany" that the small landholders he'd been defending against the cattle baron trying to kill them and steal their land were in the wrong and betrayed them in the final shootout."

Hmmm...I see it as more ambiguous and thoughful than that. I'm not sure that it really comes down on the side of the 'cattle baron,' so much as it portrays the logic of both sides of the argument. I left the theater not "appalled" but stimulated, wanting to discuss the implications. The fact that the ending wasn't clear-cut ideologically speaking was a positive to me.

Next time I watch it, however, I'll keep your comments in mind. I AM due for a re-viewing...maybe I'll do it this weekend. In any case, I was far more taken by the human aspect of the thing than by the political (as for me is usual with Zhang Yimou's work).

[Christopher Hathaway]

Apparently you didn't have a point with enough substance in it to make it over anyone's head. If you think a show about using necessary violence to defend against enemy attacks is the same as enacting gleefull vengeance upon them after their threat is gone then it is you who should reread Mr. Baker's thread, and much else, as your ethical understanding is greatly lacking.

[robert]

Rob G,
Probably a neocon vs. conservative divide. Destruction of the real and particular and subsuming it into service to an abstract empire or nation state in the name of power and national greatness (as opposed to sacrificing the demands of the self for the collective good of a real community, a Christian idea) is stimulating to the former and appalling to the latter.

CH,
If the situations portrayed in 24 represented reality rather than the very exceptional (if not non-existent) case your comment would have merit. Since they do not, however, your comment is bunk. 24 has served as self-delusional rationalization for our torture regime--recasting it in the ridiculous terms you use above--and demonization of defenders of the rule of law.

[Rob G]

I'll have to check it out again, Robert. But I have no neo-con leanings whatsoever (my intellectual heroes include Russell Kirk, Paul Gottfried, Wendell Berry, and Roger Scruton, and I'll take Chronicles over the Weekly Standard any day) so it's probably not that. ;-)

[Christopher Hathaway]

Robert,
I thought as much. Your complaint with 24 has nothing to do with any vengenacefantasies but with its depiction of extreme interrogations as a an effective and permissible means of defending against an enemy. Fine. That's a debatable point, and one which is not entirely dismissed by the show. But your somewhat liberal sensibilities are correct in that the show has little sympathy for any knee jerk total rejection of such actions. But maybe you agree with Obama that we shouldn't have questioned so strenuously the terrorists we captured in real life.

[McModerator]

The tone of this exchange has crossed permissible boundaries. Cool it, or the thread will be closed.

[Rob G]

For those who take Tarantino seriously as some sort of ironic commentator on societal violence, see this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/6975563/Quentin-Tarantino-violence-is-the-best-way-to-control-an-audience.html

Turns out he just digs violence. What a surprise. Unless, of course, he was just being purposely ironic in this interview... ;-)