Inglourious Basterds, due to my interest in World War II in general, its poetic use of
different languages, and bold historic revisionism is my favorite Tarantino film so far.
It was to my surprise therefore that the film only got a 69 metascore on IMDB.
It turns out that Tarantino diverting from history angered some critics.
Jonathan Rosenbaum for example called the film deeply offensive and morally akin to
Holocaust denial.
To those critics the history of the holocaust is simply too serious for such revisionism,
too serious for Tarantino’s style of cinematic violence, which is violence of course as exciting over
the top spectacle or even comedy
Jack Nugent from Now You See It argued that with Inglourious Basterds Tarantino makes
fun of his audience by drawing a parallel between the way the Nazis enjoy the mindless
violence and killing in A Nations Pride as we enjoy the violence Tarantino creates in
his own film
I would argue however that it is not quite as simple as that.
As some of the comments on Now You See It’s video point out, Tarantino criticizing his
audience for liking violence would be the highest form of hypocrisy.
Tarantino has pointed out multiple times his love for cinematic violence as fun and entertaining
spectacle.
I would argue that with Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino not so much criticizes his audience
for liking violence but, through an historical lens explores and reflects upon the power
of cinematic violence and cinema as a whole.
Many critics, have pointed towards the final scene of Inglourious Basterds as Tarantino
declaring the film his masterpiece.
Yet, if we look back in the film he places himself in questionable company
When Now You See It compares the violence in A Nation’s Pride to the violence of the
basterds he fails to see important differences in their cinematic styles.
The Nazi film ‘stolz der nation’ or a nations pride which is featured in the climax
of Inglourious Basterds is a parallel to Triumph des Willens from Leni Riefenstahl who is mentioned
multiple times in the movie.
The violence in A nation’s pride is shot in the fascist aestethic.
Susan Sontag, also referring to Riefenstahl, states that the Fascist aesthetic are tales
of longing for high places, of the man above, the ubermensch, one Aryan ideal that is placed
above all else.
The Basterds to the contrary represent a multicultural collective of the American meltingpot.
They come from different places and backgrounds, in their difference a challenge to the Aryan
Easthetic that Goebbels promotes in A Nations Pride.
Now the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds is already a break with typical Tarantinoesque
cinematic violence.
Yes it is explosive but it doesn’t function so much as spectacle or comedy as Tarantino’s
violence usually does.
Tarantino constructs the scène in such a way, slowly building through Hans Landa that
the explosion of violence feels quite horrific and cruel making this opening chapter feel
more like scene from a holocaust film than Tarantino’s normal don’t worry, it’s
only a movie kind of violence.
Of course this isn’t the case in the next chapter, where we meet the Bastards.
Here the violence is both spectacle and comedy.
Aldo Raine even directly mentions the link between cinema and violence as sources of
entertainment.
These first two chapters function in two ways.
Both scenes are completely different in their tone and view on violence yet the scenes are
also very much alike.
Both feature a commander that claims to have come down from the mountains to take part
in the war who is in control of the narrative and directs the scene towards it’s violent
conclusion.
Yet the violence in the first chapter is cruel and horrific while in the second chapter it
is spectacle and comedy.
Of course within our culture we naturally and rightfully so root for the allies and
not for the Nazi’s yet Tarantino does hint that the Whermacht officer who is beaten to
death is an honorable man.
Tarantino therefore shows that through cinematic techniques such as the soundtrack violence
can have two totally different functions in two very similar scenes.
The second function is to make a clear distinction between the basterds and Soshanna as characters.
Although most of the Basterds are Jewish they come different places and backgrounds.
They are a multicultural ragtag group that merge into a greater American whole with the
goal to bring terror to the Nazi’s.
Shoshanna however is defined by her identity as a Jewish victim of the holocaust.
For a while she adopts the identity of a French girl but she never forgets what happened to
her and her family.
Now the film builds toward a climax where both Shoshanna and the Basterds execute their
revenge plot on Hitler and the Nazi command.
Both revenge plots together results in what seems to be a typical Tarantino scene of over
over the top violence.
Yet they are in fact different narrative conclusions that compete with each other.
The Basterds burst in shoot Hitler and Goebbels to bits and then blow up the whole theater
including themselves.
The main Basterd, Aldo Rain survives however, and in the end the Basterds narrative is one
of a rugged American cowboy that rides into town, kills the villains against impossible
odds and rides out triumphantly.
Through this lens it is indeed very arguable that Inglourious Basterds trivializes the
horror of the Holocaust and evils of the Nazi regime against the Jewish people.
However although the film ends with the Basterds, Shoshanna’s revenge still lingers
which plays out darker and more unsettling than that of the Basterds.
Her revenge requires her own extinction.
Her revenge plays out from beyond the grave while her image becomes embedded in smoke
connecting it to the otherwise unreferenced horrors of the concentration camps.
She rises from her moment of greatest vulnerability, as she lies dying to reach an ambivilant triumph.
She has authored her revenge on the people who murdered her, her family and countless
others of her people, gazing at them from the smoke and ashes of the very furnace constructed
to destroy her.
As with the Basterds Tarantino’s fulfills his revenge fantasy on the Nazi’s through
Shoshanna’s narrative.
Yet her narrative is much more aware of the holocaust and Jewish suffering under the Nazis.
The film thus offers two distinct narratives and the question becomes who has in fact killed
Hitler?
Who does the audience see as the main drive for revenge?
Technically the Basterds and Aldo gets the last word yet for those watching it cannot
escape the haunting sense that it was someone else, someone in the smoke that by now is
dispersed to the winds, who really killed Hitler.
Alright thank you everyone for watching, leave your thoughts below and if you want to get access
to more stuff and help us keep making videos consider supporting us on Patreon.
We will announce new patreon awards next week and we have developed some awesome stuff for
you guys.
Since YouTube is acting weirder and weirder lately please turn on notifications for our channel
and follow us on facebook or twitter.
We will see you next week.