G
gael
Guest
For my review of the sound editing in Inglourious Basterds, please see the blog on my site, www.joyoffilmediting.com.
I find Tarantino films hard to connect to due to their violence and lack of characters I can relate to. Nevertheless I was drawn to go to a screening of Inglourious Basterds. While I agree with the reviews – it’s a ham handed (or should I say wiener schnitzel handed) attempt to fictionalize history that’s an homage to WWII movies like The Dirty Dozen and takes itself too seriously - I was engaged from the beginning. Tarantino and his long time editor, Sally Menke, know how to keep up the dramatic tension. I enjoyed, appreciated and felt it from beginning to end. I was always watching for the build up to the next piece of violence.
I was most impressed by Christoph Waltz’s performance as Nazi Colonel Landa – a hawk who clearly believed his human prey were all rats and enjoying circling, baiting and trapping them. Every time he said to someone, “I want to have a little talk with you…alone” you knew the game was going to be re-played. I hope to see more of Waltz in different roles.
Landa was the only character with depth and humanity, ironic since he was a relentlessly overachieving Nazi. Every other character in the film, though at times affecting, lacked depth owing to being either one-dimensional or under-explained. Except for Brad Pitt, who offered only a huge helping of southern ham as the leader of the band of brothers, oops, basterds. Makes me wonder if Tarantino, who also wrote the script, isn’t a masterminding, controlling person making his movies like Landa was making his war.
In the movie U.S stereotypes, evident in Pitt’s character and the Americans views of Germans, comingled with Nazi stereotypes. And there were dramatic reversals e.g.: The climactic scene in the cinema started with a Nazi soldier shooting American soldiers from a watch tower and ended with Americans shooting Germans from the cinema’s balcony.
Nazis notoriously tattooed numbers on their prisoners so I appreciated the American version – branding a swastika on their forehead. It is a nice fantasy to think of Nazis - who got away with their crimes for the most part and blended back in German and other societies seamlessly - as forever marked men.
Cinema Vaparisio
Tarantino clearly intended the ending of Inglourious Basterds to demonstrate the power of film: A Nazi propaganda movie lures Nazi bigwigs to a cinema and nitrate reels are ignited to vaporize them.
This took me back to when I was a cashier at a drive-in theatre in the mid-70s. Secretly, the projectionist was training me to run the booth. I didn’t believe him what he told about nitrate film. So one night we waited until all the patrons had been driven off the field and the manager and his trusty Doberman had finally driven off in his old Cadillac. We slipped onto the field and popped opened a rusty can of nitrate. The projectionist threw a lit match into the can. The reel sparked instantly, then flamed and burned as I stood in the dark, amazed.
I find Tarantino films hard to connect to due to their violence and lack of characters I can relate to. Nevertheless I was drawn to go to a screening of Inglourious Basterds. While I agree with the reviews – it’s a ham handed (or should I say wiener schnitzel handed) attempt to fictionalize history that’s an homage to WWII movies like The Dirty Dozen and takes itself too seriously - I was engaged from the beginning. Tarantino and his long time editor, Sally Menke, know how to keep up the dramatic tension. I enjoyed, appreciated and felt it from beginning to end. I was always watching for the build up to the next piece of violence.
I was most impressed by Christoph Waltz’s performance as Nazi Colonel Landa – a hawk who clearly believed his human prey were all rats and enjoying circling, baiting and trapping them. Every time he said to someone, “I want to have a little talk with you…alone” you knew the game was going to be re-played. I hope to see more of Waltz in different roles.
Landa was the only character with depth and humanity, ironic since he was a relentlessly overachieving Nazi. Every other character in the film, though at times affecting, lacked depth owing to being either one-dimensional or under-explained. Except for Brad Pitt, who offered only a huge helping of southern ham as the leader of the band of brothers, oops, basterds. Makes me wonder if Tarantino, who also wrote the script, isn’t a masterminding, controlling person making his movies like Landa was making his war.
In the movie U.S stereotypes, evident in Pitt’s character and the Americans views of Germans, comingled with Nazi stereotypes. And there were dramatic reversals e.g.: The climactic scene in the cinema started with a Nazi soldier shooting American soldiers from a watch tower and ended with Americans shooting Germans from the cinema’s balcony.
Nazis notoriously tattooed numbers on their prisoners so I appreciated the American version – branding a swastika on their forehead. It is a nice fantasy to think of Nazis - who got away with their crimes for the most part and blended back in German and other societies seamlessly - as forever marked men.
Cinema Vaparisio
Tarantino clearly intended the ending of Inglourious Basterds to demonstrate the power of film: A Nazi propaganda movie lures Nazi bigwigs to a cinema and nitrate reels are ignited to vaporize them.
This took me back to when I was a cashier at a drive-in theatre in the mid-70s. Secretly, the projectionist was training me to run the booth. I didn’t believe him what he told about nitrate film. So one night we waited until all the patrons had been driven off the field and the manager and his trusty Doberman had finally driven off in his old Cadillac. We slipped onto the field and popped opened a rusty can of nitrate. The projectionist threw a lit match into the can. The reel sparked instantly, then flamed and burned as I stood in the dark, amazed.
