Inglourious Basterds [sic]

Started by brockly, May 20, 2003, 06:05:39 AM

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Gold Trumpet

Quote from: New Feeling on July 16, 2009, 01:54:17 AM
And as for what Stefan was saying, I think it's safe to say that Tarantino knows as much about the history of art-cinema as 99% of critics and filmmakers, not just B-movies.  The guy is obsessive and extremely passionate.  He's making a valid point in this quote even if he doesn't put it so eloquently. I'm pretty sure that most interesting filmmakers, when they bother to write critically on other films, do it from a much more valid place than most film critics, who by and large have a pretty limited knowledge of cinema and very little invested in the creative process in comparison. 

I've been following Quentin Tarantino for years and no, he is not as good of a critic as he thinks he is. I don't even consider him to be a legitimate critic. When he talks about movies, he talks about the history of movies the way a fan would. He mentions favorite actors, directors and cinematographers. His list of favorites runs the gauntlet of film history, but he keeps his impressions to personal recollections of how such and such affected him personally. He comes up with lots of general impressions. His idea of criticism has more to do with the reader responce idea of criticism. It completely invalidates him.

It's true most critics have little investment in the creative process of making a film, but that's why they exist. Umberto Eco once said critics exist because they speak to the other side of the thought process that the artists aren't aware of when making something. And because a piece of art is based on how it can be funneled through readers and viewers and made anew with their experiences, it's important that critics represent new viewpoints and not just try to be originalists with their criticisms. Continuing on with Eco references, he also said the first duty of an artist after they completed a work, is to die. Critics shouldn't just be estimators of what Tarantino was thinking when making his films.

Oscar Wilde once said critics have it tougher than artists because they have to deal with art and life in their work when artists just have to deal with life. You don't have to agree with it, but one thing that quote does is remind you there is more to real criticism than what a lot of people are willing to give. When Quentin Tarantino reviews films, does he represent any critical theories at all? Does he try to understand what they are and how they could evolve to new cinemas over the course of time? See, I can understanding trashing the everyday internet geek who found a blog and a bad writing style, but let's actually have some respect for critics. It's true most critics started out as just newspapermen, but they studied over the years to become professionals in their field. If you want a list of critics who actually made their field an artform, I'll be happy to supply you with a list.

I'm all for Tarantino being happy about films and loving them, but bad resentment makes him get cocky with critics. It isn't his field.

Quote from: New Feeling on July 16, 2009, 01:54:17 AM
Hell I can't name one working film critic I actually care if I read (other than the great Outlaw Vern, who has completely ruined all other critics or me), and that's in a pool of about a thousand or so out there working professionally or semi-professionally. 

What does that mean? Are your feelings truth about a professional field? Not even my feelings matter in such an instance. It may actually just show how not interested in criticism you are. 

Quote from: New Feeling on July 16, 2009, 01:54:17 AM
I think Quentin's point is, most people writing about him are dudes on the internet or guys and gals like Richard Roeper, or other Entertainment beat journalists.  Not Cinema PHD's or filmmakers.  And most of those people view movies in pretty unsophisticated ways.  And still the vast majority of them have been positive about all of his films so far.  I don't think he has a very sharp ax to grind but he is probably a little hurt by the kneejerk reaction of a few critics being reported as the final say on his movie about 3 months before it is released. 

He's doing what most filmmakers do when dealing with bad reviews: rationalizing. Tarantino was calling out the establishment. Not just bloggers. The established critics are the ones who saw his film at Cannes and gave it bad reviews. They are the ones he has his scopes on. He may include bloggers too, but he certainly means the establishment in this instance.    


©brad

Quote from: New Feeling on July 16, 2009, 01:54:17 AMI'm pretty sure Quentin has never published something this bad, even on a message board.  You are extremely riled up over what, exactly?  "fuck you Quentin"....really???

Yes, really. I have no stomach for arrogance, especially Hollywood arrogance. I don't need you to defend his filmography or the influence he's had on cinema at large. I never denied any of that. What I'm saying is an impressive oeuvre doesn't give you the right to act like a self-entitled, egomaniacal asshole.

And yeah, maybe he can write better film criticism than jackass B-list film critics, but who listens to them anyway? It's such a lame excuse; "oh well the reason some critics don't like it is because their not as cinematically sophisticated as I am." Give me a break. Just because you're a cinematic savant doesn't mean you can't make a deeply flawed film.

Quote from: New Feeling on July 16, 2009, 01:54:17 AMYou have to be pretty jaded to expect the next film from one of the world's greatest filmmakers, that won a major award at Cannes, shot by on of the great cinematographers, starring an international cast, and exploring the most intense era of the last century through a mythological lens, to be anything less than a fucking fascinating night out at the Mall. 

No you don't.

Pozer

his movie writing ain't even that great. fuck you Quentin.

squints

#378
i honestly wish that gq article was his next movie starring him

Quote from: GQ on July 16, 2009, 07:35:54 PM
The mainstreaming of QT's trashatarian taste made your local art house—where classy Brit fluff like Enchanted April used to rule—safe for unabashed exploitation flicks from foreign lands, like Korea's Oldboy and Sweden's Let the Right One In.

What is trashatarian or exploitative about Oldboy or Let the Right one in?
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

matt35mm


pete

again, I feel like his perhaps grating public persona has spilled into how people perceive his work and knowledge as well.  Most critics and filmmakers have not seen the films he's seen and certainly are not as knowledgeable and nobody can put that knowledge into good use like him.  Plus, his dialogues are not derivative at all.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

MacGuffin

Trailer for movie with the movie here.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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theyarelegion

what's with the American Movie Man voiceover?

modage

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

New Feeling

yeah that sure sucked but this movie is gonna rule.  Whoever's running the marketing on this thing needs to get scalped.

MacGuffin

Quentin Tarantino on 'Inglourious Basterds': A 16-hour miniseries?
Source: Los Angeles Times

When Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" premiered at Cannes last spring, there was a surprising outburst of critical sniping, with Time's Richard Corliss calling the film "a misfire" and my own colleague, Kenny Turan, dismissing it as "a self-indulgent piece of violent alternative history."

Which just goes to show that moviegoers at Cannes must be really a tough crowd: If people can boo the Coen brothers -- as they did one year -- then anything can happen.

But having now seen the film. I'm here to say: Nuts to those guys! The film is a pure delight. In fact, it's Tarantino's best film in years, interweaving his obvious infatuation with World War II movies with his undying love for cinema. The film's multilayered narrative isn't especially easy to summarize. So let's just say that it offers a distinctly idiosyncratic re-imagining of Hitler's demise.

The film follows two parallel storylines: A headstrong young Jewess, who having seen the rest of her family executed by an oily Nazi SS colonel, heads for Paris, where she re-emerges as the owner of a movie house, while a battalion of Jewish-American Nazi hunters -- led by an Ozark Mountain-accented Brad Pitt -- join forces with a German actress-turned-undercover agent to bring down the Third Reich.

The film is an almost perfect expression of Tarantino's signature style of storytelling, punctuated with long, undulating conversations that always take us to surprising places, where nearly everyone has a hidden agenda and no one is who they first appear to be. Anyone fascinated by language will get a particular kick out of the film, which is crammed with events that revolve around linguistic twists and turns, from the German SS officer who is fascinated by American slang to the British undercover operative who has learned to speak German because he's a film critic who studied German cinema.

I got on the phone with Tarantino the other day to hear him talk -- and talk (Quentin is quite the talker)  -- about the film's origins, how he ended up casting Brad Pitt and how he finally found a German actor willing to play Hitler. Once Tarantino gets going, it's hard to get him to stop, so we'll have to give him a few days to explain everything. But here's today's chapter: How "Inglourious Basterds" nearly ended up as a 16-hour miniseries. Just keep reading:


On why the film took a decade to come to life:

"When I started writing this in 1998, I had a lot of the same characters who are in the movie now, but I had an entirely different storyline, and it just made the movie too big. I had this whole plot where the Basterds had hooked up with a team of black soldiers who'd been court-martialed and they were going after the Nazis together. My real problem was that I couldn't stop writing. The whole project turned into a behemoth. I finally said to myself -- is this a movie or a novel?

"So I put it away for a while and then thought about doing it as a 16-hour miniseries. I mapped the whole thing out -- with this scene going here, this scene going there -- and I'd still like to do that someday. But what really kicked me in the shins was when I went out and had dinner with Luc Besson. I started talking about how it could be a miniseries and Luc finally said, 'Quentin, that's OK, but you're one of the few filmmakers who makes me want to go to the movies and now you're telling me I'm going to have wait five years for you to do the miniseries?'

"That made me rethink everything. So I took one more shot at making it a movie and I came up with a whole new story, the part that deals with cinema under the Third Reich and the big movie premiere, and I thought, 'That might work -- we've never seen that before in a movie.' "

On casting German actor Martin Wuttke to play Adolf Hitler:

"I knew I didn't want anyone famous, because the last thing you want is to be thinking 'Oh, there's this famous guy who's playing Hitler.' I met Martin in a casting session and it turned out that he'd done Hitler on stage, in a Brecht play, which many people consider the greatest Hitler performance they've seen. But still, it was only on stage. And I can't say he was enthusiastic. When we met, his first words to me were, 'I'd love to be in your movie, but I'd rather play a schnitzel than play Hitler.'

"So he turned me down. I didn't see him again until his friends convinced him to meet with me one more time. And I'm really thankful for that, because no one else could have done the part as well. Martin was always very conscious of not being too over-the-top, which he wasn't. But he had this great energy. He came at Hitler, right out of the box, on the first day of shooting, being just overwhelming. You know, when I direct actors, I don't call them by their real names, but by their character names. So when I was directing Brad Pitt, I'd call him Aldo, not Brad. So we'd be in the room with this totally terrifying character, and I'd always say, 'OK, mein Fuhrer, here's what I'm going for in this scene.' There was no way I was going to call him Martin."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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New Feeling

Just found out that the press screening that I am attending got bumped from thursday to tomorrow!!  I'll be watching this thing in 12 hours 

:shock: :shock: :shock: :yabbse-smiley:

SiliasRuby

The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection

MacGuffin

Bash for 'Basterds'
Tarantino pic premieres in Hollywood

Monday's "Inglourious Basterds" blowout was a cinema celebration that — aside from nearly everyone being dressed in black — belied the rumors circling about the Weinstein Co.'s financial woes.

Sure, the event was sponsor-laden, but then most preems are these days.

Auteur of the night Quentin Tarantino took particular pleasure in the historic venue for his preem. "I love it when my movies play at the Grauman's Chinese," adding, "Now let's kick some messy ass and get this started, tout de suite."

Later, the "Basterds," including Brad Pitt and Eli Roth, took over the restaurant and pool at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard.

Tarantino, however, was AWOL.

It's a shame he wasn't around to hear the enthusiastic response to his pic.

Fellow helmer Baz Luhrmann was effusive. "It was like he was a great musician playing his instrument at its best," he said. "The film was so smart and clever, and so entertaining."

Producer Pilar Savone said she was happy to finally screen the movie Stateside, noting "Basterds" preems have already been held in France, Germany, Canada and Australia. She also confirmed some of the changes made to the film since its Cannes unveiling in May.

"We took little scoops out here and there and added one scene," Savone said.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks