by The vast majority of films on WWII have been made as plausible and accurate accounts of what has been or could’ve been. Expanding the boundaries of artistic freedom yet wasn’t new when Quentin Tarantino made INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS in 2009. Following DEATH PROOF (2007), a film with promising premise and some iconic scenes that both failed at the box office and with his fans, Tarantino was taking chances. Another flop wouldn’t sit well with the renowned director, but it seemed he was determined to always try something new. Deploying his unlimited knowledge of film and collage-technique, Tarantino shot a fictional account of a Jewish death squad hunting Nazis, a war film and western in one that features splendid dialogue, wit and cinematography. But at the same time, it challenges good taste and has several controversial implications that bring up another debate on how much violence is too much, and what could and should be done on screen.
Movie buffs will already known from the first shot on that Tarantino morphed his fascination with the western genre into a war film. The scene is borrowed from Clint Eastwood’s UNFORGIVEN (1992), a late western and one of the milestones contributing to a revival of the genre. But we don’t see a reformed bounty hunters even though he appears soon after and in various forms. We see a hard-working French farmer in occupied France. He is visited by SS colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), whose sole occupation is to find and deport Jews that have yet evaded the occupier’s grip. Landa is the prototype of a typical Nazi leader, yet a caricature. Educated, witty and sly, a man with many talents but no qualities, he embodies a question mankind has been asking for seven decades: how could a civilized people embrace National Socialism and commit all those crimes in its name? Waltz executes his character perfectly, he is playing with La Padite, the farmer, like a polite boy visiting a neighbor having cookies and a glass of milk but planning to blow up the mail box with firecrackers. The difference is, Landa doesn’t refrain from being seen. When Shosanna escapes, he lets her. Much like the gunslinger/bounty hunter type out of classic western fiction, Landa seems to know it is only a matter of time until they meet again.
It is remarkable how the classic good vs. bad scheme is turned around. This time, the cowboys, or Nazis, are bad whereas the Indians, Aldo’s Jewish special force, are good. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), also referred to as The Apache, is the leader of the Basterds. They’re Jewish to mock any Nazi thinking them for scum when they kill them. And subsequently take their scalps. Scalping it seems has no cultural connotation other than being a tradition to Aldo he takes from his family history and is willingly adapted by all Basterds. Donowitz, The Bear Jew (Eli Roth), is particularly feared by Nazi soldiers since he clubs them to death with his baseball bat. This presents a cultural conflict and Donowitz teaches what’s the best sports, which is American sports. A Nazi officer showing guts and loyalty is respected, yet “knocked outta the park” to death and scalped all the same. All this violence has the same controversial aesthetics we’re used to in any Tarantino film, but in this special context, more questions arise. We understand what the Basterds are fighting for and why they’re devoted to the cause. At the same time, their violence and relentlessness, their unlimited loyalty, it all rivals that of the Nazis. By taking scalps, they even overshadow their opponents in battle. Every German, good or bad, Nazi or not, is slaughtered, even a young father that surrenders during the shooting at the basement bar. Germans left alive are stigmatized by carving a swastika into their foreheads. Tarantino gives us little balance. As this is a black comedy, the only options are black or white, not even a shade of gray.
Well, you don’t gotta be Stonewall Jackson to know you don’t wanna fight in a basement.
Lieutenant Aldo Raine
Shosanna lives a relatively normal life in Paris, given the circumstances. While it isn’t very plausible that she, by any means, runs a cinema, it is a reminder that what we see on screen is not a documentary, not even a mockumentary. It is satire, and what to make of it is entirely left to the individual. Following this film within film pattern also by showing propaganda material of an ace sniper killing by the dozen, Tarantino reminds us of the power of visual media and how it can be misused, but even more its dangers when taken for factual. It is almost comical how the story unfolds, with the ace sniper suggesting Shosanna’s cinema for the film’s premier. To impress her because his love is unrequited and he is used to taking whatever he desires. Even after Operation Overlord and the Western front diminishing, all the high-ranked Nazis flock to Paris for the premiere, including Hitler, a move that could only happen on celluloid. We have to give Landa the benefit of the doubt, assuming that he predicted all this and outwitted everyone – including the Basterds. The final gunfight on Main Street Dodge City is transferred to Shosanna’s cinema, where she manages to stockpile large amounts of nitrous film behind the screen. When she changes into a red dress and puts on red makeup like Indian war paint, Tarantino makes a strong reference to Paul Schrader’s CAT PEOPLE (1982) by playing the film’s soundtrack by David Bowie. Those that know CAT PEOPLE understand it is about a hybrid race of people and panthers, that transform into cats after sexual intercourse but have to kill to become human again. Metaphorically, and also transformed, the concept is deployed to Shosanna, thus Jewish people. They have to kill to become human again. This notion ostensibly vindicates that all Nazi leaders and their entourage are killed in a big fire, with the Basterds adding to the spectacle by gunning down fleeing people at random and personally slaughtering Hitler and mutilating his face. But it should be noted that everyone in attendance lose their lives, including Shosanna, who is shot by the sniper, and the Basterds that are so passionate and manic about their mission they don’t care to get out before everything goes up in flames and an explosion.
After Landa has secured a deal for himself in return for not interfering with the Basterds, including a house on Nantucket (and stressing that it’s an island, a misperception often quoted in film and TV), he is taken to the front line by Raine. But when Landa and his assistant surrender, the remaining Basterds shoot the common soldier and, under Landa’s protest, carve a swastika into his forehead as well. For the first time, this cruel act is shown in detail, not sparing the viewer anything. The scene is so intense it even evokes sympathy for the “monster” despite what we know and what we’ve seen. Rains calls this his masterpiece, emphasizing that the likes of Landa were the worst Germans, as they ruthlessly used the regime and power given to them for their own cause, never fully loyal or devoted, and leaving the sinking ship at the right time. At this point, it has become impossible to draw any lesson from INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Thus, Tarantino seemingly rests his case. The film is an aesthetic and artistic tour de force, not an educational piece.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS turned out to be a remarkably bold and well-executed film that entertains. At the same time, the question arises whether or not world history should be tinkered with this severely. Whether or not the film tells us and explains itself is beside the point. Where a western may or may not be entirely fictional and made up, it doesn’t re-imagine world history and play with a desire to go back in time and change it. Even a good film we assume is not supposed to make any kind of political statement can be perceived as offensive, in this case not only by Germans, but also by French and Italians and even Jewish people and Native Americans. Whether or not it is appropriate to depict Jewish special forces as savages with a heart of gold, as Native Americans have often and wrongfully been depicted in western films, is a decision everyone should make for themselves.
