Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds

[thunderw21]

Saw it, loved it. Wouldn't change it a bit.

Much of the music is straight out of the old Spaghetti Westerns. Anyone catch the music from "Kelly's Heroes"?

 

[Andykev]

Loved It

I went into the theater without ANY preparation. I was amazed at the quality of the cinematography, sets, costumes, period scenes. Excellent.
The theme of the film was "counter-alternate" history, a "what if".

There were some plot twists which were clever and surprising, esp. the end (very clever).

Dialogue was excellent, classic style of QT. Gun/shooting stuff was loud and frightening.

However, the STAR was Colonel Landa, the SS officer played by Christoph Waltz. This performance is OSCAR material.
He brilliantly played, in three languages, sharp, witty and exceptionally clever dialogue. Don't miss this acting performance. How he interrogates, infers, tricks, and observes, under the role of a sinister SS officer....wonderful performance.

I give this film a solid A.

 

[Davep]

No doubt it was a well made movie, well directed, well set up and filmed. But it bares absolutely no relationship or comparison to the original. All he did is made his own movie and slapped it with the old movie's title, and threw in some camo roles to tie the two movies together.

The basterds as a group of characters where a non-issue. The movie was really about the German SS officer and the Jewish French Girl. Brad Pitt and the one or two Basterds simply added color to the movie. Also the basterds were never dressed as American Soldier but rather a undercover french fighters.

Also the movie is a comedy after the short-lived piece of seriousness at the beginning of the movie.

 

[Edward]

Are you talking about the coiled cord? Maybe the Germans invented it .

That's the one - I completely missed the apparent lack of phone line! lol

 

[Steve]

You could see the cord in the film; after reading this thread, I was looking for it.

I thought it was a solid film indeed. I'm no expert on period authenticity, but I was impressed by how natural it felt; the early forties atmosphere didn't feel forced at all.
I can't really pay any more compliments that haven't already been said. I simply think that 'Basterds' marks Tarantino's brilliant return to form.

 

[Brian Sheridan]

I saw it and pretty much liked it though it contains all of the best and worst of Tarantino. It is overlong, pointless, profane, fun, bloody, exciting, hilarious, well-acted, surprising...

It will be interesting to see if there will be a longer, director's cut DVD explaining some more of the Basterds' backstory.

 

[Edward]

You could see the cord in the film; after reading this thread, I was looking for it.

Aha! Was it out the back? I confess, I'm out of my comfort zone with the details of such things, just that modern curly cord seemed glaringly off to me. always possible, given Tarrantino's eye for detail (remember the 'Mind Your Head' sign the cameras pans away to during that ear-slicing moment?), that it was a deliberate inclusion....

I thought it was a solid film indeed. I'm no expert on period authenticity, but I was impressed by how natural it felt; the early forties atmosphere didn't feel forced at all.
I can't really pay any more compliments that haven't already been said. I simply think that 'Basterds' marks Tarantino's brilliant return to form.

I agree. I saw it over the weekend, and enjoyed it very much indeed. for what it is worth, I found it considerably less violent than many of the 60s era "classic" war films. The key difference being, of course, that it was considrably less coy about the effects of such violence. A lot of people recoil from QT, considering his work to be unnecessarily gory. I take the opposite view. Kill Bill aside, which was an effective and accurate homage to a genre wherein killing is cartoony and overly stylised, Tarratino has, I would argue, a much healthier attitude to violence than, say, those responsible for the likes of Bond. Bond shoots someone - or more often, several - they fall down dead, the end. not so in QT's world. Mr Orange gets shot in the stomach, and we spend the rest of the movie watching him die slowly, in excruciating pain. Vic Vega accidentally shoots a hostage (Marvin? It's been a while) in the head. We all laugh. and then we have a further twenty minutes or so of dealing with the aftermath, as they frantically try to clean out the car. QT presents us with the reality (or some of it) of such violence, what it does to people. Much less idealising or glorification of violence than the average war movie, or even Star Wars (how many stormtroopers and rebel soldiers fall down dead and are given nothing of a second thought?) or, hell, Tom and Jerry, the single most violent entertainment to hit any screen, ever.

I find the very concept of the Basterds to be an intriguing one. Certainly, to my mind wars are won and lost on two fronts: sufficient equipment, and sufficient morale. Oversimplification as that might be, it is certain that breakin the enemy's morale will destroy his effectiveness. It worked when the civilian population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targetted; Goering didn't quite manage to pull it off with the London Blitz, but the same tactic turned back on Germany (ironically, by some of the very people responsible for demonising him for it) in Dresden was effective. It doesn't seem to me implausible for something like the Basterds to exist (though of course I'm not saying that it did!). To my mind it is this line of thinking that gives it its real period feel as much as anything else in its tone: nowadays, every one of the Basterds who survived would quite likely end up on trial as a war criminal (please, let's not get into the politics of the desirability orf otherwise of that). Very much a concept of its time.

Regarding the limited screen-time that the Basterds enjoy, and the limitation of footage of them in action, I actually rather liked that aspect. I did feel that to have much more would start to sink into the level of being gratuitous. I welcome the fact that it was a dialogue-led piece rather than an action film.

[SPOILER ALERT]

I also enjoyed that they weren't made to seem invincible - two of them (arguably my favourites) go down very quickly in that cellar.... I like the, for want of a better term, humanity of that.

[/spoiler alert]

As to the look of the thing, as far as my inexpert eyes tells me, the uniforms were all very well done. The Basterds looked spot on in their short scene where they are recruited, and I loved their civilian clothing when they are in the field.

I would be interested to know whether there might be additional footage in a director's cut regarding the french lady's relationship with the black projectionist.... the Jew Hunter's attitude to him is very well played - pitched at the perfect level, shows up that wholly distasteful (as if there was any other!) side of the Nazi regime without resorting to characateur, and all the more effective for it. Would be interesting to have some more of an insight into contemporary allied attitudes as well - I'm guessing they wouldn't necessarily be a whole lot more evolved, more 'NIMBY' than anything.

Oh, and I loved the ending.... yes, a rather extensive rewriting of history, but it was fun (and if only it had gone out like that, how many more lives might have been saved?). I do wonder whether this was some level of comment on how Hollywood war movies have so often tended to distort the truth, e.g. the insertion of Steve MacQueen's character in The Great Escape, or the rather absurd U-571 in which the enigma machine was not captured by the British, but rather by jon Bon Jovi and Harvey Keitel for America.

 

[JohnnyGringo]

Saw it, loved it for what it is- a Quentin Tarrantino movie.

 

[Steve]

Aha! Was it out the back? I confess, I'm out of my comfort zone with the details of such things, just that modern curly cord seemed glaringly off to me. always possible, given Tarrantino's eye for detail...

It was a straight cord that went straight behind the phone and disappeared behind the table right next to Landa, or perhaps even between his legs.

And just as an aside, did anyone else catch Harvey Keitel's voice cameo? I loved that he included that.

 

[Edward]

It was a straight cord that went straight behind the phone and disappeared behind the table right next to Landa, or perhaps even between his legs.

Aha!

And just as an aside, did anyone else catch Harvey Keitel's voice cameo? I loved that he included that.

Oh, where was that? Keitel is QTs favourite actor, so nice to see he squeezed him in there.

 

[GoldenEraFan]

Just saw it today. I give it 5 stars, it kept me interested, it wasn't predictable and the acting was great!

 

[reetpleat]

As far as violence, I would argue that while many of his films are violent in what might be called a gratuitous way, the one place we could stand to see the reality of violence is a war film. Many old films glorify war instead of showing it for the messy, violent, horrific thing it is.

 

[murena]

hallo,

last weekend i went into cinema to watch this movie with my girlfriend. ok, i went into it with the thoughts that it would be like almost every (sorry) american movie -to borrow the typical cliches, typical heroic and falsification of the truth! good and brave american soldiers against the ETREM stupid and always inhuman german soldiers which where hunting jews.
best example, band of brothers! 12 americans against one company of waffen ss (about 180 soldiers) and there was NOOO sign to meet with resistance...but i will not run off the topic.
i know inglorious bastards is no correct historical movie, but please not like this stupid stuff. if every body is interested in history and knows a little about this time, ok. they know thats bull. however the most people have no clue and believe automatically what they see in a movie. now you will laugh about me, but ask someone (with no historical backround) about WW2. they will all say that we germans and austrians were all nazi beasts, which killed everything, possibly all with the same name: herman or franz. but thats not true, and with such movies they will never get a real idea of world war two.

(we all know the bad side of the history and especially we germans and austrians had a lot of moments in WW2, which is a big shame what "we" did! and we should always try to prevent that there will never come such things.)

but not only negative criticism, the costumes, scenery and most of the actors, especially Christoph Waltz (who is also from austria:eusa_clap ) - i will say oscar entrant, were very good.

regards,

murena

 

[Viola]

i know inglorious bastards is no correct historical movie, but please not like this stupid stuff. if every body is interested in history and knows a little about this time, ok. they know thats bull shit. however the most people have no clue and believe automatically what they see in a movie. now you will laugh about me, but ask someone (with no historical backround) about WW2. they will all say that we germans and austrians were all nazi beasts, which killed everything, possibly all with the same name: herman or franz. but thats not true, and with such movies they will never get a real idea of world war two.

Can't think of any movie-Hermans in WWII only Hans.

Resistence in movies usually takes the form of a remarkably well-maintained French brunette who may or may not be named Marie. I would like to see more takes on what other countries had/did than just France, myself.

 

[Hemerlin]

Hoi!

i know inglorious bastards is no correct historical movie, but please not like this stupid stuff. if every body is interested in history and knows a little about this time, ok. they know thats bull. however the most people have no clue and believe automatically what they see in a movie

I can't really agree with that opinion. People know a spoof when they see one. And the spoofs are so clearly visible in this movie, that there is nothing to be upset about (there are always those who are blessed with global ignorance - but this movie is neither the cause for it, nor will it increase their number)

In fact I found it to be insanely clever, it's a movie freed of the constraints of authenticy and it plays well with that freedom.
It's not just a plump Nazi hunt and besides the individual character stories, it's also a movie about the overall conflict of different (in some way or another always political) movie-traditions.
A German film-critc said it in far better words than I could: "With the filmographic memory of an elephant and the subtlety of a steamroller, Mr. Tarantino lets the democratic Hollywood Cinema triumph over the screen pathos of the Nazi Cinema."
The theatre scene and the Nazi's film are Tarantino's spoof of the German proganda movies while 'Inglorious Basterds' as a whole is a spoof of Hollywood's WWII movies.
And then there's the Jewish cinema owner; she's the only person in this flick, who gets to pass moral and poetic justice; I really liked that part of the story line.

The only negativ thing is the same as in every other Tarantino movie: Tarantino presumes and assumes, that thanks to his movie, people have the privilege to watch a masterpiece... well, this time I am half inclined to agree with him

 

[Steve]

Oh, where was that? Keitel is QTs favourite actor, so nice to see he squeezed him in there.

He was the American officer that Landa and then Raine spoke to on the telephone. He was only there for about half a minute, but it was a nice touch. :eusa_clap

 

[Edward]

He was the American officer that Landa and then Raine spoke to on the telephone. He was only there for about half a minute, but it was a nice touch. :eusa_clap

Ah, yes! The Mike Myers cameo was great too - took me a minute or two to recognise him!

 

[Story]

The theatre scene and the Nazi's film are Tarantino's spoof of the German proganda movies while 'Inglorious Basterds' as a whole is a spoof of Hollywood's WWII movies.

Actually, it's a remake.. err, "homage" to this 1977/78 Italian film (think 'ultra-violent Hogan's Heros', Spaghetti Western style)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yxOOwqHl1Q
Looks like they filmed it in Yugoslavia, a la Kelly's Heroes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inglorious_Bastards

 

[Steve]

The paper comes out today, so here's my full review. I'd ask that everyone at least visit the web site and navigate to the film reviews so that we don't lose on web hits. The site might lag behind the actual distribution a little bit.

'INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS' IS GLORIOUS
TARANTINO IS BACK, AND IN A BIG WAY
By Steven Gray

DIRECTED BY: Quentin Tarantino
STARRING: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Melanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth
GENRE: Action, Adventure, Drama, War
RATING: R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality
RUNNING TIME: 2 hours, 32 minutes
STEVEN’S RATING: 4.5/5 Stars

In the works of Quentin Tarantino, conversation is the scarlet thread that connects every film. In that tradition, “Inglourious Basterds,” wrongly marketed by its distributor as a shoot 'em up war film, finds its strength in Tarantino's uncanny talent for directing conversation. When his characters sit down to discuss their latest challenge, the viewer is carried along a roller coaster of humor and interest, with a mounting tension that always culminates either with satisfying black humor, Tarantino's trademark stylized ultraviolence, or both at once.

Even a nodding acquaintance with the marketing is enough to familiarize oneself with the barest bones of the plot: a group of nine Jewish-American soldiers, nicknamed “the Basterds,” are dropped into occupied France to wage a terrifying guerilla war on the Nazis, an assignment that later turns into a suicidal mission to assassinate the entire German High Command at the premier of a propaganda film.

However, what the advertising leaves out is that the titular Basterds serve mainly as a hard-edged background plot to a much more complex story; one that involves a very angry Shosanna Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent), the sole survivor of a massacred Jewish family. She has her own ideas of what to do when the High Command assembles for the premier at her theater.

From a technical standpoint, “Basterds” is marvelous, every scene a work of bravura filmmaking. The color pallete is diverse and vibrant, changing in hue to fit the unique tones of the film's five chapters. Cinematographer Robert Richardson treats us to beautifully composed images and outstanding camerawork in every scene. The opening sequence, a tribute to spaghetti western director Sergio Leone, stands out with a special kind of brilliance. Also, as we've come to expect from Tarantino, when characters need an introduction, they get their own set of on-screen titles (often in Tarantino's own handwriting), or even their own cutaway flashback.

The soundtrack, always a character of its own in a Tarantino picture, is big and bold, tossing subtlety out the window and into a dirty puddle. Ranging from powerful western scores by Ennio Morricone (continuing the aforementioned Leone tribute), to carefully selected modern pop songs, Tarantino has not lost his touch for assembling a soundtrack that is eclectic, yet still oddly coherent. As the colors change with each chapter, so does the flavor of the music, indelibly tying memories of the one to the other.

Thankfully, the performances of the cast are not lost in the bold, cheeky presentation. For his performance as German SS colonel Hans Landa, Austrian actor Christoph Waltz was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival, and rightly so; he lights up the screen with a devilish joy and spontaneity. Also notable in the cast is French actress and director Melanie Laurent, a relative newcomer to starring roles. Despite the brassy nature of her surroundings, she plays Shosanna Dreyfuss with the delicacy and emotional power of a veteran thespian.

Despite its incredible strengths, “Basterds” does have its minor flaws. Purists might find themselves annoyed at the distribution of the flashbacks, which feels uneven when compared to “Reservoir Dogs” or “Kill Bill,” where Tarantino utilized cutaway stories with perfect rhythm. Casting-wise, while Brad Pitt is just fine as head Basterd Aldo Raine, he lacks the kind of rugged screen presence that could have realized Raine's full potential as a movie icon for the 21st century. I found myself wishing for someone more along the lines of Henry Fonda.

Critical grievances aside, it must also be noted that “Inglourious Basterds” is not a film for the faint of heart. The Basterds shoot, scalp, and beat Nazis to death with a baseball bat, and the camera shows us everything. But lest that drive you away, know that “Inglourious Basterds” is far from a one-dimensional celebration of violence. It also treats viewers to a very gripping and human drama set in and around occupied Paris. The jaw-dropping finale, set inside Dreyfuss's cinema, refreshingly does not take the route of conventional WWII films, but instead offers a surprise ending that defies actual history and leaves one with a feeling of deep satisfaction.

As a flawed but brilliant auteur, Tarantino has made a name for himself by creating films that brim over with a gleeful love for words, music, dark humor and blood-spattered heroes standing tall over their defeated foes. “Inglourious Basterds” is no exception, and after a perceived slump in his career, it marks Tarantino's dazzlingly cinematic return to form.

 

[Edward]

Superb review, Steve!

Actually, it's a remake.. err, "homage" to this 1977/78 Italian film (think 'ultra-violent Hogan's Heros', Spaghetti Western style)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yxOOwqHl1Q
Looks like they filmed it in Yugoslavia, a la Kelly's Heroes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inglorious_Bastards

I can't personally comment, never having seen the original, but in all the promo interviews I've seen, Tarrantino was at pains to pint out that the only relationship between his film and the original is that they share a title, otherwise this is his own thing.