Inglourious Basterds [sic]

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

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B.C. Long

Every copy of this movie should be burned. No one should be allowed to see it.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: Neil on January 06, 2010, 09:48:46 AM
To me, if you applaud, you're complying with this propaganda made by an american.  The same thing the crazy Nazi's cheered about.  I don't think the film set out to do some study on violence etc, like some have mentioned.  However,  knowing people applauded raises new issues to discuss about the film.

The propaganda that Hitler was evil and a lot of people wanted him dead so some set about doing it? It's hardly 1930s German propaganda because the film purposely tries to distort history to make the audience understand the fantastic elements of the story. There is little doubt that this film will be separated from serious consideration of any kind. It's anti-historical tone actually makes it more moral because it destroys any confusions about intent.

I've seen a few German and Soviet propaganda films from the time. When they dealt with historical subjects about real people, they wanted to blur the line about what a fair and not fair portrait of someone could be. The films were about beliefs that someone stood for instead of who they were. You could argue that Inglorious Basterds is equally black and white with its portrait and only positions itself as a smear on history, but it's deliberate lack of taking sides for anything serious on any side on the debate about Hitler and history just makes it aloof to any real political discussion of propaganda.

Your best bet is to hammer the film for exploitation by trying to make a horrible subject entertaining. You make mention of that, but I must stop you in saying that this film is like old propaganda films. It couldn't be further from those movies. The question of whether it exploits is fair, especially considering the Holocaust, but since the physical death of Hitler in the film and real life has little to do with his crimes with the Holocaust, I don't think there's much. Tarantino adequately avoids making the Holocaust a real subject in the film. If Tarantino took a cue from Robert Zemeckis and rewrote a major fabric of history in the Holocaust like Zemeckis did in Forrest Gump when that film explained that Elvis really got his dance moves from Forrest and not black musicians and dancers. If Tarantino decided he could conveniently rewrite a piece of Holocaust history because it was entertaining and didn't care about the image it would portray, then yes, he would be exploitative and I would have problems with it like I do with Forrest Gump (more severe, of course) but Tarantino avoids that pitfalls and others that step on any real toes of history. None of the things in the film mesh up to real history outside of general circumstances. There is little to argue on that front.

This is just an ecapistist film. Criticize it for its own merits.

Neil

^ You're absolutely right.

I guess we've come all this way, 50 years later, and the pinnacle of revenge is killing a dead guy.
Personally I wasn't vindicated by QT's efforts. However, I actually like your breakdown of the film in that way.

Still sort of confused about the cheering though.
it's not the wrench, it's the plumber.

Alexandro

SPOILERS

To me, the real enjoyment of the movie comes from the way it looks as "film" itself. This is as much as world war 2 film as it is a film about movies, both in the constant referencing to other works and the constant self awareness, but also because movies are an important, pivotal part of the plot.

There are two separate plans to hurt the Germans and they both include the act itself of going to a theatre and watching a film. At the same time, although the film never shows any battle scenes or any military intelligence display by the germans in their occupation, we are shown repeatedly that "films" are a weapon they use to enforce their ideological dominance. So, they use films as a weapon and the americans and british use that as a counterweapon. The "german cinema under the third reich" is the only historical fact that is talked about with any realism and that's the one thing the movie uses as a starting point for it's different plots of revenge.

Shoshana's act of vengeance consists of two things: fuck up their propaganda movie by inserting herself in it, and burning down the theatre with nitrate film stock. The basterd's plan is to lock everyone up in the theatre and kill them with machine guns. that is, within the context of the movie, "film" is the thing that liberates. it frees shosanna from her emotional debt with revenge, and it frees the world of the third reich because all the big guys are murdered there. outside of it, the movie itself, with this actions, frees the audience from hitler and from history. So to me, yes, the movie inglorious basterds is doing what the characters in the movie are doing, which is use "film" as a counterweapon against the propaganda of the third reich cinema. That's what I meant on my first comment saying that cinema is portrayed as a "liberating agent". Some people may think that this is "meathead intellectualism", or that it's a matter of "yeah we killed hitler, the holocaust never happened" or something along those lines, but I don't feel that at all.

Anyway that's about the "meaning" or whatever. if we talk purely about the film, i watched again and felt a big problem which bothered me the first time and I guess will never stop bothering me, and that's the long, unfunny dragging scene with Landa selling himself on the phone to the americans. Just doesn't work for me. Out of that, the film is pretty great.

MacGuffin

Quentin Tarantino on his 'Basterds'
By Chris Lee; Los Angeles Times

With its aura of faux humility, dense saturation of "for your consideration" ads and humble-yet-effusive nominee posturing, awards season can be a long (if gala-packed and celebrity-studded) slog for Hollywood watchers.

So it comes as a blast of fresh air when a front-runner allows himself to get into the competitive spirit. Cut to writer-director Quentin Tarantino mulling the Oscar possibilities for his spaghetti western-cum- World War II thriller " Inglourious Basterds." So far, the film has taken in more than $300 million worldwide, landed 10 Critics Choice Movie Awards nominations (as well as a Directors Guild of America nod for Tarantino) and was being handicapped by certain gurus of gold as a shoo-in among the best picture Oscar contenders even before the category doubled to 10 nominees.

"Do I want to win? I totally want to win," Tarantino exclaimed over a vodka and cranberry at a Beverly Hills hotel the day before "Basterds" snagged four Golden Globe nominations. "I've already won an Oscar. But if I did win, that would be one for every decade I've been in the business. And that would be awesome! Especially because everyone wrote me off in the first five years of my career as this rock star-y flash in the pan."

A genre-bending mash-up of the "men on a mission" war movie genre splintered into five "chapters," "Basterds" follows a Jewish terror squad that sets out to destabilize the Third Reich by killing and scalping German soldiers in occupied France. Some sections of the film spool out fueled by talk-y, monologue-driven drama, others with gritty shoot 'em up fantasy.

And while Brad Pitt may be the film's focal point as Aldo "the Apache" Raines, the scene-stealing Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who portrays the polyglot Nazi colonel known as "the Jew hunter," is its heart and soul. Waltz is an odds-on favorite for the supporting actor Oscar (and so far has secured a Golden Globe nod).

But to hear it from Tarantino, casting the smooth-talking sadist Col. Hans Landa proved so difficult that until Waltz arrived, the writer-director considered scuttling the project.

"When I finished the script, I'm aware enough to know, this is one of the best roles I've ever written -- one of the best roles I'll ever write," Tarantino said. "It was so there on the page, if I couldn't get what was on the page onto the screen, I didn't want to make the movie."

Auditions began inauspiciously in Berlin. After seeing a number of German actors fluent in English, no one was nailing the essence of the character: a man who is, by turns, silky and bloodthirsty, debonair and extremely goofy -- in four different languages.

"Other German actors would come in, they'd do the German part fantastic, stumble through the French to one degree or another," Tarantino recalled. "But when it came to English, they couldn't make my dialogue sing."

He continued: "I pulled the producers together and said, 'Look, guys, I don't know if we are going to find Landa. I might have just written a role that's unplayable. And I don't want to make the movie without Landa. I'd rather just publish the script."

Waltz, 53, a journeyman stage and TV actor, became the 12th person to read for the part and iced it.

"Christoph came in, he sure looks like Landa. He carries himself in a certain way and that wasn't him trying -- Christoph is just very erudite," said Tarantino. "And halfway through the opening scene, I was like, 'This is the guy!' "

With his seemingly bottomless well of enthusiasm, eminent quip-worthiness and a born hustler's easy smile, Tarantino admitted that he has taken to the kind of Hollywood politicking that will result in Oscar votes like a duck to water. Having previously won an Oscar for best screenplay for 1994's "Pulp Fiction" (an award he shares with co-writer Roger Avary) and landed a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for "Pulp," he's no stranger to the drill.

So, what kind of statuette-grabbing plays is master Oscar campaigner Harvey Weinstein calling from the sideline? "It's just, 'Go to the parties. Everyone loves your movie so just keep reminding them. When they see you, they'll be reminded of how much.' "

And again, the Southern California-reared former video store clerk pondered what academy validation for "Basterds" would symbolize at this point in his career. "The movie flew in the face of conventional wisdom in almost every aspect. It's a movie made out of five chapters, some are like one-act plays -- and with all these different languages in there," Tarantino said. "And there's nothing better for an artist like myself than to prove conventional wisdom wrong.

"So, it actually means a lot to be in contention at the end of my second decade in business," he said in a voice barely below a shout. "My wine is aging very well!"
"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

Pubrick

best supporting actor and nothing more for this piece of shit.

i'd rather The Huh? Locker sweep than any further ego boost for this idiot.
under the paving stones.

Derek

Between this and Avatar, I've noticed people spend a lot of time railing against these movies and others.

They complain and say that's 2 1/2 hours they'll never get back and then rush to their computers to post about it.



It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: Derek on January 14, 2010, 07:53:54 PM
Between this and Avatar, I've noticed people spend a lot of time railing against these movies and others.

They complain and say that's 2 1/2 hours they'll never get back and then rush to their computers to post about it.

Your point being?

Derek

Do I have to say it any more clearly?
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

Gold Trumpet

What you say is clear, but I didn't see a point to saying it so I was thinking there was more to it, like it was going to lead to an idea on your part instead of a basic throwaway observation.

Edit: NM. Your point isn't even clear. You say people are bashing Basterds and Avatar and others. Alright...

Derek

The point is clear. Should I list other movies for you GOLD TRUMPET? Would that make it better? I've been on this board and the last one since the nearly the beginning. I've made many posts and seen others post only to have some sort of sarcastic or negative comment posted immediately. I think there there are others who would agree with me.

And what would make it a throwaway observation? Your opinion?
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

Gold Trumpet

Yes, there are people who do make sarcastic posts, but when I made the original reply, I was sincerely interested in if you had something more to say because I find it fascinating that Inglorious Basterds went from being revered on the board to attacked by a lot of people. I want some of the original applauders (besides Alexandro) to come to the film's defense and make comment, but it looks like a lot of people are just shutting up. I find that interesting.

The second reply was more sarcastic, but it's because I remembered it was you and I just don't like you. Remember who attacked who personally first, douche. Play the victim card to someone else. And yes, your comment turned out to just be dumb.

Derek

I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: Derek on January 14, 2010, 09:09:05 PM
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings.

Haha, did I say that or even imply it? All that I implied is that I have no misgivings in my post.

Derek

Ah well, I'm flattered you remembered me, even if I can't recall what for.

Douche is a little strong though.
It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.