Analyzing Evil: Hans Landa

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the 14th episode of analyzing evil in this video we'll be covering the character hans landa as portrayed by christoph waltz in inglorious bastards hans is another one of my personal favorites and i know many people feel the same way he's often cited as one of the greatest villains in cinematic history and for good reason his presence in the film doesn't give you the blanket clutching terror that an unseen monster instills in you but rather the horror of being taken to another time where the villain is only performing the duties of a job he has been ordered to carry out a world where the danger is in the norm rather than the abnormal a world that many people still living today had the misfortune to experience we have a lot to cover with hans so without further ado let's begin we'll start with han's appearance during the course of the film hans is always in uniform while this is something to take note of it isn't unusual for a man in his position or any position within the army or ss in general each soldier we see in the film background or not is in uniform though it's the norm it does serve to add that extra layer of fear for us viewers and the citizens of paris considering a nazi in uniform isn't exactly a pleasant thing to find yourself sitting across from aside from that he's well groomed handsome and rather plain in his appearance the uniform obviously gives off evil but now i'd like to take you through each scene he appears in to discern exactly what makes him a terrifying villain in these scenes i'm going to be highlighting his personality at points but it's his mannerisms and speech patterns that really sell the evil of this character in our first scene with hans he immediately displays his two most defining personality traits that are present throughout every scene in this film his well-crafted manners and his amy ability hans is extraordinarily well-mannered and friendly he's a perfect gentleman and if he weren't wearing that ever-present uniform you wouldn't immediately assume he was anything but a genuine and pleasant person where these notions crumble is again in the uniform but the way he moves and speaks as well if you aren't paying attention his threatening movements are easy to miss and even if you do see them you may not feel that they're very threatening at all take for example his meeting with lapide's daughters when he's introduced to them the girls are obviously uncomfortable at his presence it'd be easy to write this off as simple discomfort at having a man of the ss in your home but the way he looks at them is unsettling to say the least he singles out charlotte when moving to greet them gripping her hand and staring into her eyes longer than normal as he is offered a seat his eyes linger upon each girl in turn for a moment before coming to rest upon charlotte again for a few seconds more when he's seated and suzanne moves to pour him a drink he takes her wrist while he's speaking to her and he again locks eyes onto charlotte while lapadi is speaking to him causing an uncomfortable look to be exchanged between the girl and her father as suzanne pours his milk he looks her up and down his eyes lingering between her and his glass before he downs the milk in one go in this way he becomes threatening without making threats physical or verbal he doesn't have to look at lapid and tell him what he's going to do to his daughters in order to get his point across his presence and these movements are all that he needs i understand that the norms for society used to be different many years ago but for a man in his position to be making movements like this towards somebody's daughters is undoubtedly unusual for even this time period these actions highlight something that is central to han's capacity for intimidation and coercion which subsequently tie into his capabilities as a detective and that's the fact that every move he makes is intentional from the way he speaks to the way he looks at a man's daughters he does so with a conscious intent another great example of this is immediately after the girls leave the house when he requests to switch from french to english initially we can assume he's telling the truth but we quickly learned that this is just another way for him to get a leg up on lapid after they switch to english we're given an insight into a concept that defines this character to a certain degree but not totally that being the banality of evil this concept was outlined in a book titled eichmann in jerusalem a report on the banality of evil by political theorist hannah arendt in this book she argues that adolf eichmann a man who was heavily involved with the inner machinations of the holocaust committed terrible crimes out of a more personal desire for promotion and success in his professions rather than out of extreme fanaticism fervent anti-semitism or because he was a sociopath she states eichmann was likely an anti-semite but it was not his primary motive for doing what he did this is a simple definition of this term but it can be viewed as saying that evil is sometimes a byproduct of the mundane rather than the product of malicious intent the book has its controversies like many books are want to have but i believe it's worth a read and contains many interesting points on this subject now as i said this defines hans to a certain degree as can be seen in this scene with lapid where he proceeds to take out his documents to conduct his business of hunting jews in a professional and business-like manner these actions align with the banality of evil but not as totally as eichmann had as defined by arendt eichmann was also cited as being of low intellect and while i believe hans is most definitely an opportunist and a bit of an anti-semite he is far from being of low intellect we'll cover these notions the more this scene goes on after he is done with his paperwork hans moves into speaking about his pride in his position as well as his views on jews he finds it baffling that reynard heydrich would hate his moniker the hangman as he had done everything in his power to deserve it this ties into the banality of evil wherein hans is proud of the distinction he's made for himself within his profession his diatribe about the jews being rats and a german soldier being a hawk shows some of his anti-semitism but at the same time a certain amount of respect he has for jews as well when he takes out his pipe a calabash mere sham a pipe famous for having been used by sherlock holmes at first my reaction was to laugh as i'm sure was many other peoples at this scene but in an interview with charlie rose tarantino explains exactly why hans is using a pipe he states that hans doesn't actually smoke but is taken out of this pipe is yet another power play he utilizes during the course of this interrogation he takes this pipe out at the exact moment where he begins to tell lapid that he has found him out and that he's one like sherlock holmes solving a mystery this is perhaps my favorite moment in the entire movie as he's speaking to la pedit about his findings we watch as his face with only the slightest movements transforms from the remnants of a smile and polite courtesy into a hard straight line with eyes cold and devoid of mercy it's here where it's revealed to us that the reason he was speaking english during their conversation was in fact a ploy and hans was toying with him the entire time as i said before every movement every word every motion has a purpose for hans it's this ability to coax people into a corner through words and subtlety alone that gives us viewers the chills i imagine him as a beast who's mulling in your ear to coax you into its nice warm cave after you've been standing out in a downpour only to find that in that cave are bones lying in a pile beside a dead end wall in that same clip of quentin's interview which i will provide a link to down in the description he also tells us that each scene with hans is an interrogation and i couldn't have said it better myself his interrogations are defined by tarantino as being an active theater a performance and when we look back at the scenes in which we find hans this notion rings true though the way he presents himself isn't an exaggeration by any means if you keep in mind that all these interrogations are a performance for hans his tactics seem to be that of a carefully crafted play written and performed by hans himself now to close out this scene we need to look at two things that are important to han's character for two different reasons and forgive my terrible accent but those two things are the words i do and au revoir in french ado and au revoir are both used to tell someone goodbye but for different scenarios if you were unsure of when you were going to see someone again you would bid them i do but if you are going to see them again soon you would say au revoir which roughly translates to until i see you again this distinction is important as when han shouts au revoir shoshanah he's threatening her letting her know that he will find her in the next scene with hans we find him meeting shoshanah just as his farewell insured as he would before taking his seat he's met with a moment of pushback from zoller where he asks zoller if he a private is questioning the orders of a colonel now he could have ended the matter there but he goes on to ask if he is being too sensitive about the matter that last remark is important because it shows once again his civility and his manners he doesn't get angry or offended he simply takes his stance in a polite way keeping up his well-crafted image of a gentleman this was more subtly present in the previous scene but it is present in every scene we find hans in and i feel this was a good example of showing this particular characteristic of his now we're going to get into something that's hotly contested between viewers of this film whether or not hans knew shoshana's true identity for that i'd like to refer to a video by scenes and songs that has a good defense for each possibility which you can find on screen now or by clicking the link in the description this video of theirs is also where i learned the difference between au revoir and i do so thank you scenes and songs personally i think he did know that emmanuel was shoshanna the ordering of the milk her being obviously uncomfortable and that last moment where he stares at her while he tries to remember what he was going to say to her all are strong indicators that he knows it's possible that he may have seen a photo of her and with a man like hans i doubt he forgets any face he's seen as to why he didn't apprehend her at that moment is also a matter of debate perhaps seeing the imminent defeat of the third reich he wanted to distance himself from his past crimes as much as he possibly could and reveled in the thought of her going about in fear of his presence in not only her city but soon enough her theater or he could even have had better things to do and wasn't concerned at the moment with a girl he could likely capture whenever he liked all of these things are possible as well as the possibility of him not knowing who she was in the first place let me know what you guys think about this down in the comments aside from that this scene does contain some of the things we went over in the previous scene but to a lesser degree he still uses tension and action or inaction to interrogate her about her theater but as far as character development goes for hans that's about it for this scene the next scene we find hans in is where he's investigating the shooting at the bar this scene opens with him inspecting hugo stiglitz and what he says here ties into the trope of the penalty of evil here all he has to comment on is the fact that hugo is wearing a uniform that is higher in rank than he had previously achieved obviously he's taking a jab at him but i think this is definitely a nod to how a character who falls under the banality of evil would react to this situation he goes on to examine the other bodies and from memory recognizes who the men are which reinforces the notion i put forth in the previous scene the fact that he may have indeed known who shoshanna was if he had seen a photo of her as far as anything more in this scene that defines his character that we weren't aware of there isn't much we do get to see him in a more sherlock homes situation though where he's attempting to piece together the puzzle of a crime scene and does so with a great attention to detail showing us that he has a prowess for the craft outside of interrogation the next scene with hans is the best example of two things we've already discussed his propensity to toy with those he interrogates and his theatrics both of which we can see now that he thoroughly enjoys since we know that he undoubtedly knows that vaughn hammersmark was there at the bar that makes this scene into a game for hans more than anything in the first scene we looked at han spoke to lapid about how he loves his unofficial title as the jew hunter because he's earned it here we can see that love relishing in the fact that he has the opportunity to play with his prey and enjoying every second of the torment he subjects his victims to here's where i think the banality of evil trope does not apply to hans as in my mind you'd expect someone who is an exact model for this idea to be someone droll and mundane simply carrying out their duties because it's their job and not anything they particularly enjoy but with hans that is definitely not the case as i said before he's more like a beast who enjoys toying with his prey this is further reinforced in his next scene where he again toys with von heimersmark he could have shut that door and immediately started strangling her but instead he chooses to put her through this ordeal to get those last vestiges of joy he can out of tormenting her before he kills her i feel the bit where he kills bridget is out of character for hans why is he murdering a woman who's helping to carry out the plot he himself is about to let come to fruition i'm going to jump into the middle of the next scene for a moment just to touch on this when aldo questions hans about von hammerschmark he says she got what she deserved and when you buy friends like bridget von hammerschmark you get what you pay for this makes his killing of her more understandable as it would indicate he does have some regard for the system he has helped prop up for so many years and a certain amount of loyalty to his cause also that last remark about you get what you pay for could indicate that maybe it was personal on a certain level perhaps him and von hammerschmark had some kind of falling out in the past that's just a theory on my part though still i do think it's a tad out of character for him i see hans as the ultimate opportunist and as someone who may not have called out shoshanna in fear of reprisal once the third reich falls it's odd that he'd have the confidence to not only murder an admitted agent for the british but then admit that fact to aldo and the little man without any concern for what retribution may follow again let me know what you think about this down in the comments let's head back to the beginning of this scene to find another example of why hans is both an opportunist and a master at language and conversation previously in the film when he was speaking to lapid he mentions that he loves his unofficial title here he is rebuking it as if it's a silly and exaggerated moniker that his enemies have concocted to smear his good name he admits his fondness for his nickname to lapid as if he were a deaf man or more appropriately a dead man this is another topic that's debated on whether or not hans had lapid killed or taken away after he kills the dreyfus i believe that hans would have kept his word about not harming him or his family but i could be wrong either way hans knows what he tells this man is of no consequence and thus feels comfortable revealing such a horrible truth to him which of course makes it obvious that han's spiel to the bastards is nothing but a lie a lie for an opportunist to utilize when he sees an advantage he can capitalize on hans uses his proficiency in the art of conversation in an attempt to reach a level of understanding with the bastards and uses well-mannered polite speech adorned with american phrases to bring their guard down and masterfully works himself into a deal with the high command of the american army that will set him up for life erasing any possibility of reprimand from the victors his eloquence coercion and scheming have made it so he can shed his nazi persona for a new one that will enable him to live out his life in peaceful retirement or so he thinks in our final scene with hans we get to see that what you hold deep within you may not always be so easily removed as a uniform sometimes what you are scars your very soul and sometimes people feel the need to make sure those scars are visible for all to see so what do all of these things make hans they make him a cunning eloquent sadistic and masterful detective who takes pride in who he is and what he does he's a predator whose tools are subtlety and coercion that served to ensnare his victims in his traps without them ever realizing they've been caught until it's too late he's a man of many colors a chameleon who is suited to adapting himself to every situation he finds himself in taking advantage of everything and everyone no matter how small he's a horror in uniform a uniform that spells terror for anyone who sets eyes on it made all the more unsettling by a man whose interest lies solely in himself and whose very presence spells doom for any foes who happened to cross his path thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and i hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on hans feel free to let me know down in the comments below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured while you're at it i wanted to say thank you to all of my subscribers at the time i'm recording this video we've just surpassed 46 000 subscribers and i appreciate every one of you if you'd like to support this channel further i've recently opened up a patreon which you can find a link to on screen now and i've made a video explaining my reasonings behind doing so you can find a link to that video on screen now or you can find both by clicking the links down in the description a big thank you to everyone who signed up so far and a special thanks to those whose names you're seeing on screen now [Music] i've also been having a great time getting to know some of you over on the channel's discord server and if you'd like to talk to myself or other viewers about your favorite villains or anything really you can find a link to that down in the description as well for more updates on the channel you can follow me on both twitter and instagram by clicking the links down below as always thanks for watching and i'll be seeing you soon you

Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 1,960,034

Rating: 4.9139113 out of 5

Keywords: Tarantino, Quentin Tarantino, Inglorious Basterds, Christoph Waltz, Hans Landa, Evil, Nazi, Analysis

Id: 8WsM1A0xfh0

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 09 2020