Inglourious Basterds: Who Gets to Kíll Hítler?

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.

Channel: Storytellers

Views: 646,591

Keywords: Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds, Video Essay, Film Analysis, Storytellers, Nerdwriter, Now You See It, Inglourious Basterds Analysis, Inglourious Basterds Film Analysis, Inglourious Basterds movie analysis, Brad Pitt, Film Essay, Analysis, World War II, Tarantino Analysis, Tarantino Video Essay, Quinten Tarantino, Film, Movie Review, Inglourious Basterds Review

Id: CXbffGuc2Yg

Length: 8min 49sec (529 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/WideEyedInTheWorld]

Good watch! Thanks for sharing.

[u/[deleted]]

I think a big criticism of IG this guy avoids entirely is the way it glamorizes the most vile character. Same thing with Django Unchained. Christophe and Leo both play horrible, awful people and yet Tarantino writes them with an almost admiring hand. I have a lot of time for the "subversion" argument but I think any honest examination of his films ends up having to square his amazing talent with his nearly lustful obsession with racism and antisemitism (dead nigger storage anyone?).

This coming from a massive Tarantino fan.