Inglourious Basterds: An Ode to WWII Cinema

Thank you, Quentin Tarantino. Not only should all cinephiles be thankful to Quentin T for his various resurrections of forgotten genres, but also for the fact that he is a cinephile himself and calling all the shots. Tarantino’s latest effort, Inglourious Basterds, is not only an excellent tribute to WWII Nazi themed cinema, but is itself an example of the powerful force of cinema in all its glory. Tarantino’s love of cinema invades nearly every frame with odes and nods to past films, as is the norm for his work. If you’re in the know, it’s like being part of a delightful wink-wink club.

Basterds most obviously focuses on a fictional, though delightfully inventive group of Jewish American soldiers dropped into France with the sole purpose of annihilating Nazi soldiers and scalping them. Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, etc, comprise this plot line of the film. But the film is truly an engaging piece of cinema when it comes to the plot line involving the much lauded performance of Austrian actor Christoph Walz as the delightfully evil, yet comical Hans Landa (imagine if Joel Grey in Cabaret also got to kill people) and the ingénue, Melanie Laurent, as Shosanna, a Jew who has been fortunate enough to assimilate as a Parisian and has inherited a small cinema from her ‘adopted’ aunt and uncle. And, GASP!, the scenes in France are actually filmed in the French language! Most American made WWII films would have us believe that all French, German and Russian people struggled through the great War with heavily accented, broken English, all in an effort, it seems, to accommodate the US of A---however, it’s refreshing to see that Tarantino hasn’t shamed us with pandering to the ignorant illiteracy that comprises the mainstream American audience.

As Basterds opens, we get to see Shosana’s family annihilated by Landa’s soldiers. Three years later, a young Nazi soldier (Daniel Bruhl) happens to take notice of Shosana taking down the Leni Riefenstahl film from her matinee. The young Nazi cinephile discusses Riefenstahl and Shosana’s obvious love of directors (which he assumed since she insisted on included Pabst’s name on the matinee). Tarantino’s continual references to German Nazi Cinema and the cultural conflict occupied countries experienced is extremely telling and the exact kind of BS that film classes are based on. Pabst represents the cultural heritage of German cinema, squashed by Nazi propaganda cinema, most famous of all, of course, being the films of Leni Riefenstahl. Zoller, the young Nazi soldier, it turns out, is himself the star of his own propaganda movie produced by Goebbels. An infamous Nazi, he finagles to have the premiere moved to Shosana’s theater, and here we have our Jewish Revenge Fantasy in full motion---all of the major Nazi parties will come together in honor of a favorite pastime in every country----to sit together in a theater and watch a film. The hand that controls the theater is the hand that rocks the world.

Shosana is commanded to endure a grueling lunch with Zoller and Goebbels, directly before we see her changing the matinee to prominently display the name of director Henri-Georges Clouzot, a director whose films challenged the Nazi occupation of France, most infamously with Le Corbeau (1943)----Laurent also specifically brings up UFA actress Lillian Harvey, an actress who purportedly worked as a double agent of sorts, helping persecuted individuals escape. Not only does Shosana (after an incredibly intense and grotesque scene between herself and Hans Landa in a restaurant) have her own plot of vengeance after being forced as the new premiere venue, along with her black lover that helps run the theater, (Marcel---played by Jacky Ido) we discover that the Basterds will be hooking up with an undercover German spy to get them into the premiere. And who is the spy but a German Actress, Bridget Von Hammsermark, played by Diane Kruger (I imagine that this is the role Tarantino attempted to woo Isabelle Huppert with and also an ode to the previously mentioned Harvey----and shades of Hitchcock’s Notorious, 1946). The initial meeting of Hammersmark and the Basterds in a basement bar is typical Tarantino---a lot of talking, a lot of discomfort, a lot of references, and a bloody aftermath. I love it. Kruger is engaging and enigmatic, but it’s the film’s final sequence in the theater with Melanie Laurent that made this one of the most enjoyable films of the year, and perhaps of Tarantino’s career. Laurent, dressed decadently in red, (whom Marcel compares to French icon Danielle Darrieux, still alive and working today, but at the time was one of the leading French stars to stay in occupied France) moves through her final sequences to David Bowie’s theme from Paul Schrader’s 1982 remake of Cat People, “Putting Out the Fire.” While the song’s theme is certainly telling, it fits perfectly here, making the final moments haunting, melancholy, brutally exciting, and also curious. For those familiar with Cat People, the tale of a cursed young woman, who, when sexually aroused turns into a large black panther (I loved it, but the original 40’s flick with Simone Simon is superior), aligning Shosana (from a ‘cursed’ people) with the cat people theme is open to some interesting interpretations. Vengeance, perhaps, has aroused her, turning her into a deadly weapon of mass destruction. It was her beauty and allure that led the Nazi party to her cinema in the first place. I’m sorry, but Brad Pitt and all the others pale in comparison to the greatness Tarantino achieves with David Bowie, Melanie Laurent, and a theater screen. Inglourious Basterds is more than a Jewish Revenge Fantasy----it’s also a celebration of cinematic figures and films that fought and challenged and helped along the way. Now where’s our Black Revenge Fantasy and Homo Revenge Fantasy? Additionally, I happened to catch an excellent French film called L'amour Cache at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, starring Melanie Laurent and Isabelle Huppert, and to my knowledge, it has still only screened there----oh Tarantino! Get me that film!