What’s really sick about ‘Inglourious Basterds’
SET IN WORLD WAR II: Brad Pitt stars in “Inglourious Basterds” as Aldo Raine, who leads a group of Jewish American soldiers who go through Europe brutally killing Nazis. (Francois Duhamel / The Weinstein Company)
Here are a few of my not-favorite things: scalps graphically removed, throats savagely slashed, heads brutally beaten by baseball bats, necks forcibly strangled, fingers sadistically twisted in open wounds. The ideal person to be reviewing Quentin Tarantino’s violent World War II fantasia, “Inglourious Basterds,” I am not, but as the Basterds knew all too well, sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do.
Grisly violence isn’t really my scene either. For instance, I’ve not seen any of Eli Roth’s Hostel films, and don’t intend to start now. But convincing the gullible that quiet, charming Bratislava is actually some scary honeytrap full of highly methodical, technologically advanced sadists is one thing. Rewriting the story of WWII in the name of a B-picture, appears to me to be another. I’ve touched on my role as an occasional lecturer/mentor at a film school, teaching film appreciation to kids who think Pulp Fiction is ‘old school’ cinema. With a collective memory that goes back, oh, maybe fifteen years, WWII must be as remote for them as the sack of Carthage (146BC) is to this history buff. I can’t help but think that plenty of ‘Generation Pop Idol’ will leave the cinemas thinking that Tarantino’s revenge fantasy is a chronicle of actual events. This is an insult both to the fallen and the murdered and on a scale so vast it surprises me no-one in mainstream US media has pointed it out. It’s even unfair to Germany, who in the main has done a pretty good job of rehabilitating itself and owning up to its dreadful past. (Less so Austria, much less so imperial Japan). Oh, and yes I have taken into account that there will probably be a disclaimer in the opening or closing credits. And like, anybody actually reads those these days.
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It may seem an odd occupation for a globe-trotting, nightlife loving bachelor, but over the last few months, I’ve been writing a children’s book called The wild cats of Piran. It’s about a colony of feral cats who live in a small medieval town on the Adriatic sea. The book is intended to appeal to very bright 9 year olds and up. The sort of thing a bookish, cat loving adult could enjoy whipping through in a long afternoon sitting in a snug armchair by an open fire. A great believer in letting the work speak for itself, if you’re at all interested, I suggest you contact the author directly, 
So does Henry V give a true account of the Battle of Agincourt? Is the eloquent St.Chrispen’s Day speech disparaging of the less-than-noble deaths that surely followed in the real fight?
But who would blame ol’ Will for re-writing history??
Shakespeare and Tarantino? I think you have to compare apples with apples. And if the speech does glorify war, and the English victory, well alot of what the bard wrote was indeed propaganda. It was either that or be drawn and quartered I suspect. And here’s another big and critical difference. The English won at Agincourt. Shakespeare’s dramatic license, didn’t go so far as completely rewriting history. Game, set and match I think.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Young,
If Hollywood ever got any historical fact correct in any movie, it is purely by chance. Going back to “Birth of Nation”, film writers routinely adjust, rearrange, and even completely manufacture “history”. How about that Indian-loving Custer that Errol Flynn or John Wayne’s scotch-tape Gengis Khan? Even the famous “Lawrence of Arabia” completely mangled the actual events of T.E. Lawrence’s famous life.
The real irony is that the Allies actually had the opportunity to kill Hitler but wisely chose not to. Why? Because he was the Germany’s greatest military enemy. Hitler’s ability to make terrible military decisions and force the German army obey them helped the allies more than any secret army or weapon.
Please David, Mr Young makes me feel old, or older than I do already. Just call me sir. Anyway, in my headline grab, you’ll see the Times list of 10 most historically inaccurate movies. Lawrence of Arabia doesn’t feature. I do know that Peter O’Toole was a great deal taller than the real TE Lawrence. But I’m being flip. There’s a big difference between capturing the essence of a person’s life, or historical events, and completely rewriting it. And perhaps you’re deliberately misunderstanding what I said. Which is that pah-lenty of people are going to see this film and think it is based on history, not the immature rantings of a 46 year old schlock movie geek who is about as qualified to interpret history as I am to judge the Crufts dog show. That said, I will say I have rather enjoyed some of his films. I just think he should give anything to do with large scale, tragic real-life events a giant swerve, and stick to grindhouse.
In response to another comment. See in context »Good Sir,
My only point is that there is a long and glorious history of Hollywood re-writing history to make a good (or bad) movie. I am no Tarantino fan but his sins in regards to history are neither original nor especially extensive by the standards of moviedom. My dislike for Mr. Tarantino’s films are of an entirely different origin.
It is true that there are those who will think that this is indeed history, but that is true for “Saving Private Ryan” which is every bit as fictional. My personal favorite is “They Died with their Boots On” with Errol Flynn as the friendly, wise, and Indian loving G.A. Custer instead of the mad genocidal glory seeker that he was, an the screen writers knew him to be.
In response to another comment. See in context »Firstly, I was joking about the sir thing. And yes David, some of those early westerns were pretty appalling exercises in revisionist history, you’ll get no disagreement from me there. But again, I think you have to compare apples with apples. ‘They Died With Their Boots On’ was made in 1941, and was in part propoganda for the US, which had just entered WWII. Standards have changed, or should have, and I still think there’ll be plenty among LOL OMG generation who think Inglourious Basterds is a history lesson. Which you know, is really kind of sick.
In response to another comment. See in context »You are right, it’s a longer-than-long shot to compare Shakespeare and Tarantino on individual styles or motivations, but you have to acknowlege that they or any writer has the freedom to use a piece of history in which to stage their story and what they wish to say. Fiction still has to occupy some place in time. As long as the story properly and logically happens in the world the author created for it – and perhaps this includes it’s own historical outcomes – why demand that it also be parallel to the sole history we will ever know in real life?
If history makes for better stories, and much of the time I concur that it does, I’d recommend studying…history. Literary or cinematic fiction, however, shift us into the realm of art where we are allowed, I believe, to imagine a bit more than what the real world has offered.
To be clear, I’m not advocating that Mr. Tarantino’s film be censored or banned. He’s free, in my view, to produce as much bilge as he likes, and the morons who like this stuff are equally free to waste their money on it. I just happen to think it’s in appallingly bad taste.
In response to another comment. See in context »Saw the Basterds last night. My sense is that QT doesn’t really understand what violence is or what war is. He understands movie violence and war movies.
There are moments of great filmmaking, and great performances in it. That being said…
I have similiar reservations as you do Scott. I think where QT fails is that the movie pretends to want to make us uncomfortable, to make the audience squirm, but it really doesn’t. It’s as much propaganda as the film within the film the Nazis watch in Paris, Face of the Nation(I think that’s what it’s called.)
QT’s political position seems to be entertainment for entertainment’s sake–which works if its Reservoir Dogs or Dusk till Dawn or Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill…But if you’re gonna tackle WWII, I want something a little bit smarter/deeper than what he offers up in Basterds…
Thanks Michael. ‘You haven’t seen war until you’ve seen it through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino’. What next? You haven’t seen the holocaust until you’ve seen it through the eyes of the sick individuals who brought you the Hostel flicks? Curious: was there any kind of disclaimer before or after they killed off Hitler?
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m ready to go the full distance in my dislike of this movie. How a movie can show so much film making talent and so much blatant disrespect for treating issues in morality is quite hard to believe. It’s a bit like a politician who masters the art rhetoric by studying every great speech maker, but has no idea why people make speeches.
To me, it seems the legitimacy of making a movie with so many acts of blatantly cruel and incomparably brutal murders… FOR THE PURPOSE OF BEING LAUGHED AT, is absolutely ironic for what it’s stood up against, the evil of the Nazis.
Part of the trouble is perhaps my personal belief that revenge of this nature is utterly immature and the result of cowardice to stop the cycle of violence. Perhaps it’s also because this really is, so often throughout, a damn good movie, a VERY damn good movie, and placing something with such glaringly disgusting moral failure in such high regard is very troubling to me.
The only saving grace would be a moon shot on symbolism, in which case QT might’ve been a genius. But I’m calling it a moon shot for a reason. In this example, the laughs, especially at the final scene, are a kind of 4th wall thing, where the audience is being likened to the hysterical Hitler, laughing at the tragedy that is war. Nothing says it better than Brad Pitt carving a swastika on Hans, and QT is sure to put a first person shot in when Brad Pitt (QT) claims, “I think I’ve created a masterpiece.” Right…
Convincing as that might be, I seriously doubt it’s the case. I’m still reeling on what a horrible Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this movie is.
Well, artistic virtuosity and virtue are not by any means mutually inclusive. For instance, it was said of the painter Caravaggio: “after a fortnight’s work he will swagger about for a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him, from one ball-court to the next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him.” He was a stone cold killer. Though at least you could say he knew the reality of violence, unlike I think Messers Tarantino and Roth. But perhaps even more apt, of all the things they said about Leni Riefenstahl, a deficit of talent was not one of them.
In response to another comment. See in context »