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Article Six Points About Inglourious Basterds (spoilers)

Quentin Tarantino is a surprising force in film. He is a director, writer, producer and actor with a reasonably notable list of achievements. Most notable is the way Tarantino combined ultra-hip dialogue with ultra- violence in his early films, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. This past week saw the release of his latest directorial effort, which comes two years after his "grindhouse" efforts and five years since the Kill Bill films.

Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Mike Myers, Michael Fassbenderr, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger, Melanie Laurent, B.J. Novak and Samm Levine. During World War II a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. In the run up to the film, there were two schools of thought on Tarantino taking on World War II: "Oh no, he's doing it" and "Oh no, he's doing it." Good and bad are so subjective... it's always better to  demonstrate that a movie "means" something artistically or not. At least, in the case where a movie rises to level of even considering it art. Unfortunately, Tarantino uses disturbing violent images and a certain brand of camp-satire in his "art" and this makes it more difficult, and often less than pleasant, to get past the imagery to the meaning.

If there are spoilers, and you haven't seen it, then don't read, it's that easy.

1. Brad Pitt. The accent killed me (which is a terrible choice of words) every time he was on screen. It was almost too hillbilly for dramatic reality.

2. Machine guns. I don't know much about them, but surely, surely, someone would was almost reeling drunk would not be able to operate one without killing himself. Point and case, he (probably) killed all his friends. But that is almost a side note.

3. No life is sacred, except one's own. Almost from the opening scene this is repeated over and over again, and then the rule is broken, and that was only to say that one's own life isn't sacred either. I find it sad that we accept this casually, that we are completely callused against a young boy's life, a new father, a hapless barmaid. Why should these people get swept up in to the carnage of something that isn't really their fight?

4. Violence is always justified against the violent. Is this really true? By turning into Nazis ourselves can we still condemn them? There is such an outrage today about torture being wrong, even with prisoners of war. If you protest that it's just a movie, for entertainment, but you are watching someone beat a man's head in with a bat until he's dead, and the laughing it off? And we can still say that torture is wrong? If sticking your finger into the bullet wound of your own side isn't absolutely repulsive, then we've need to take a different approach with our policies on torture as a country. We can't condemn what we've watched for "entertainment." You can't say that they did what they had to do because most of the time, they didn't. Whatever happened to just shooting someone in the head and calling it quits? That's doing what you have to do.

5. The Crematorium. At least, that is what I first thought of in that final scene. But instead of Germans burning Jews, the Jews were burning Germans. Perhaps it was poetic justice, but it's just sad to me. The two of them gave their lives to burn the theater to the ground (seriously, security was seriously sucking that night.) And maybe they did end the war. But we come to a similar conclusion that so long as the job gets done, it doesn't matter how many civilians kill. This would be a worthwhile strategy in the war in Iraq. Then, we could just bomb the sap out of a building or town, killing the terrorists and calling the rest collateral damages. Think of how easy that would be. 

6. Conclusion. This world that we live in prides itself in taking pride in humanity, but this movie suggests otherwise. Are we losing our compassion? So many people in WWII hated Nazis, but did good. Corrie Ten Boom and Miep Gies are two stories than I can think of at this time. They hid people, they helped people. They were heroes without scalping their conquests. Glorify goodness, hope and compassionate love; for if this movie is any basis for the coming years, I fear we will be in much need. And what is Quentin Tarantino "saying" in his film? Is he really making a meaningful statement about something with this film or is he cashing in on his name at a particularly ripe time?

Ending Note: Turns out I was wrong about the choking scene. He was choking her fine; but was doing a terrible job strangling her. That bone (hyoid bone) was higher than I thought (sits below the chin, not on top of the larnyx (about a inch difference)).

Inglourious Bastards is rated R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.

Posted by: Jane Ellen Knox - August 24, 2009, 10:41 pm - Article
Keywords: war, violence

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