Inglourious Basterds (2009)

DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino
WRITER: Quentin Tarantino
CAST: Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Robert Richardson
COUNTRY: USA
GENRE: Drama, comedy, war, thriller
MISCELLANY: 149m; in theaters

Making sport of Nazis is nothing new, but killing Nazis for sport?

As far back as 1942, German-born Jewish director Ernst Lubitsch skewered the Third Reich in "To Be Or Not To Be." Quentin Tarantino takes off from Lubitsch's satire in his outrageous revenge fantasy "Inglourious Basterds," but goes far beyond depicting the Nazis as sinister incompetents. Lubitsch had the "touch," but Tarantino opts for a sledgehammer, bleeding this symbol of evil of all its comedic worth.

Hitler's boys are scalped, bashed in the head with baseball bats, disfigured, or sometimes merely shot, stabbed or blown up, by the Inglourious Basterds, a ragtag band of Jewish American "Natsy"-hunters led by Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine. The violence is so over-the-top and the Germans so dehumanized that satirical delight can, and should, be taken in the Basterds' brand of rogue justice.

For a while, anyway. Eventually, Tarantino aims the mirror at us.

As Nazis watch a propaganda movie glorifying sniper Frederick Zoller, Tarantino cuts away to the Basterds killing German soldiers. As we start to laugh on cue — each Nazi death at the Basterds' hands another punchline — Tarantino cuts back to the German film audience laughing as Zoller shoots down another American. One moment we're laughing at the Nazis, the next we're laughing with them.

The story of Raine and the Basterds dovetails with that of Shosanna Dreyfus, who witnessed her family's slaughter at the hands of Col. Landa, a self-worshipping intelligence officer who relishes his nickname "Jew Hunter." Landa is played to the hilt by Christoph Waltz, who reminds us of the Nazis' true menace. As the film's aesthetic swings from arthouse to grindhouse, Waltz remains steady as the villain who is particularly odious because he seems, at times, to be omniscient and omnipresent. But is he a practical man or an ideologue? He exhibits both traits.

The script compensates for gaps in plot and background with scenes that flaunt Tarantino's ear for dialogue. In a tavern, officers play a drinking game with a German starlet, the object to guess which famous person's name is printed on the card stuck to their foreheads. In this segment, and others, socially clueless Nazis force their companionship on others, either oblivious to the discomfort they cause, or indifferent. When a British spy tells a Nazi officer who sets his outlandishly large beer glass on their table that he's intruding, the witty chitchat dries up and polite facades fall away.

There are other magnificent moments of suspense, but the overriding mood is comic. One of the most priceless scenes is when Raine and his crew attempt to pass themselves off as Italians.

Even at 149 minutes, "Basterds" seems to strangle Tarantino's vision. The pacing is a beat off in some spots, suggesting massive editing and lost scenes. I look forward to a DVD version that restores some of the scenes that didn't make the cut.
— Becky

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FURTHER READING:
• MASHUP | Lolita (1962) & Death Proof (2007). Imagining Kubrick's "Lolita" and Tarantino's "Death Proof" colliding.
• The Big Red One (1980). QT clearly was influenced by Samuel Fuller, and "The Big Red One" in particular.
• Hi Diddle Diddle (1943). Camera-conscious screwball comedy that spoofs opera, features an animated Leon Schlesinger sequence and has been cited by Quentin Tarantino as influential.
• REPLAY | The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Our "Replay" features obsess over the great moments. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is full of them, but one scene in particular, although not the most iconic, never fails to give me chills.[Becky]

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