Another Way to See "Inglourious Basterds"

Am I the only one who thinks critics have overlooked a valid and exciting interpretation of Quentin Tarantino's new film Inglourious Basterds?

Let me explain what I mean...

(Warning: Major spoilers ahead.)

You see, I was enthralled by this movie, which rewrites WWII history to include both a group of Nazi-scalping American soldiers (called the Basterds) and a Jewish cinema owner who avenges her family's murder by burning her movie house while every important SS officer (including Hitler) is trapped inside.

Walking out of the theater, I was buzzing: Like every Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds delivers zippy entertainment, masterful filmmaking, and intelligent dialogue. This one, however, injects the fun with larger questions about revenge and national character. For me, the extra layer makes this Tarantino's best movie.

Imagine my surprise, then, when none of the reviews I read discussed Basterds' social critique. Critics like Roger Ebert and Mick Lasalle hint at this perspective, but they mostly praise Tarantino's style and Christoph Waltz's glorious performance as a Nazi commander. Even more surprising, a large number of critics specifically slam Tarantino for making a mindless revenge picture. In his review for Slate.com, for instance, Dana Stevens writes, "If Inglorious Basterds were about something more than the cinematic thrill of watching Nazis suffer, it could have been a revelation."

Maybe I'm alone here, but I say the film is about something more.

To begin, I'd argue that Tarantino has consciously chosen to make a movie about hating Nazis because Nazis are the only people that most of the Western world agrees to hate. And since most of us concur that their actions were evil, Hitler and the Nazis often become abstracted into general symbols for dark deeds. I mean, it seems like every time one politician wants to belittle another, or a student wants to complain about a teacher, or hell, a fry cook wants to bash her shift manager, they all resort to calling their enemy a "Nazi" or "Mrs. Hitler" or some such thing.

That's not to say that the Holocaust itself is an abstraction. But when we call our math teachers Nazis, we aren't suggesting they want to lock up our Jewish classmates. We're just reaching for our culture's most universal synonym for "Evil Demon." Right or wrong, the Third Reich often functions as a metaphor in our daily discourse.

I think Tarantino knows that. The way I see it, if Inglourous Basterds isn't about Nazis, then it can't explore its larger theme.

And that theme is how revenge cripples societies.

More than just "kosher porn" or a cheap excuse to show some bad guys getting whacked, Inglourious Basterds is an unsettling examination of how culturally acceptable hatred creates a terrifying mob mentality.

That idea is most pronounced in the climactic "burning cinema" scene.

There's no question that Tarantino wants us to cheer when Shoshanna Dreyfuss and her lover Marcel burn down her movie theater, trapping Hitler and his fellow Nazis inside. There's no question that we're meant to whoop when the Basterds inside the flaming theater shoot SS officers like sitting ducks.

But this is not an uncomplicated victory. For one thing, everyone inside the cinema (with the possible exception of Marcel) dies. Even Shoshanna, who is clearly planning to escape, gets shot by the SS Officer she thought she killed. Her revenge plot works, but it swallows her whole.

And doesn't it swallow us as well? Consider this: Just before the Nazis get burned, we see them clapping and cheering as they watch a movie about a German sniper who kills vulnerable American soldiers. It's framed as a horrible event. Yet a few moments later, the film puts us in the position of those Nazi moviegoers. If we feel excited to see Hitler and Goebells get assassinated by Basterds, or if we cheer as the Germans on the cinema floor get shot from the balcony, then we are behaving just like the Nazis as they watch their propaganda film.

That's not a pleasant thing to think about, but that's the point. Why should it be easy to cheer for another person's death, no matter how wicked they are? When we celebrate death, who have we become?

To make those questions truly resonant, the film must depict Nazis getting killed. The audience has to be able to hate the villains so much (and so easily) that it can cheer when they die. We have to be so thirsty for revenge that we can feel ourselves applauding for our movie just like Nazis applaud for theirs.

A film that creates that kind of parallel is not just a collection of genre homages and fight scenes. It's a sophisticated insight into how the hive mind affects us all, no matter which side we're on.

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Comments

[onyx cat]

Mark, I always thought that this is obviously what the movie was about, and I am more than a little disappointed that more major critics didn't discuss this.

I think that Tarantino was incredibly brave to see this movie. Clearly this is not about Nazi atrocities per se--their actions are undisputed and universally reviled--but about ourselves, and the monster within, and the damage we do to ourselves, personally and as a society, when we pursue the path of revenge--even out of righteousness.

It is sad that this message seems to have been lost (or perhaps ignored) on the greater part of the media. I guess with the way things are going in the world it's easier not to turn an eye upon ourselves and instead complain that Tarantino's Nazis didn't seem evil enough.

[Fudgefase]

And yet the Scottish Govt were roundly criticised, especially in the US, when they showed mercy and released a dying prisoner.
Yes he'd committed atrocities. But to have him die in jail was felt to be us being as inhuman as him.
Can't have it both ways.

[chadwilson]

You sir, hit the nail on the head. As I saw it, and as my SO saw it, this was a film dedicated to reflection and how hate and atrocity, lead to the removal of humanity (triggering our fight/flight responses), of morality, of conscious thought and deterministic logic, and boils us down to emotive reationary animals.

When we see atrocities on the scale of the Nazi's, it only emboldens such responses. Tarantino did an awesome job of setting that up, and I think the pivital point was when the two Basterds were in the theater while it was burning. Did you notice that (from my POV at least) that only one was shooting into the crowd? The other was just putting clip after clip after clip into Hitler's corpse. Now, they could have escaped. The doors were locked, they could have tossed their dynamite into the crowd and fled (the upper balcony lead to an open front door, or openable from the inside). They were so wrapped up in their hatred and bloodlust that they ignored their own lives. That's a powerful statement, and one which is more than likely applauded by many audience goers while watching.

To me the mastery of flim-making, of characters, of dialog, and of cinametography was dwarfed by those final scenes and by the message that the people who were cheering watching Inglorious Basterds, were the same people cheering in the movie itself.

[randyfitzimmons]

An interesting analysis. I don't entirely agree, but it's definitely something to think about. Did you notice that other than the film within a film, you don't see much Nazi killing others, but you definitely see lots of violence the other way around.

[robschmidt]

So "Basterds" is an American-style revenge fantasy (kill the Nazis/Comm­ies/terror­ists!) with one scene that makes us question the American-style revenge fantasy? I'm not convinced.

Has anyone thought about the propriety of modeling the Jewish "heroes" on bloodthirsty Apaches? See http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2009/08/tarantinos-apache-warfare-fiction.html for more on this line of questioning.

[Noland Bell]

Nice that someone's seeing this film for more than it seems. Again, if this was just a revenge fantasy then wouldn't we see many more scenes of the Basterds killing Nazis? Because we don't, then, we have to - like you have - look deeper.
To me, the film's actually about a celebration of the auteur, that despite what others attempt to control or distort (and why *not* make your allegorical bad guys Nazis?) your "mission" you throw yourself into violent, suicidal, determined resistance. Sets the film in France (mostly) where, "we respect our directors," too. And casting writer/director Eli Roth as the fearful Golem "Bear Jew" is a nice example of Tarantino recognizing the spirit, the talent, of other creatives out there in filmland.
That's my theory for now, anyway - only saw it last night...

[Mark Blankenship - Huffpost Blogger]

Interesting take Noland, especially considering the inclusion of Roth, and I hadn't considered the relative lack of vengeance scenes in the film. But really, you're right. Compared to "Kill Bill," this move is practically blood free. QT really could have ramped up the gore if he were only interested in aping the revenge genre.

[allheart72]

Well written and soo true. I will say that I don't recall anyone clapping while the Germans were dying. I do recall that as people were leaving the theatre some were visibly upset (not that they did not enjoy the movie) but like me watching so many people lose their lives even if they deserved it was unsettling.

This was a great movie....Good Job Quentin you never disappoint.

[debrislide]

Word.

[arizonabay]

Double that my brother.

[CynAnne]

That's an interesting perspective, Mark..one I thought about as well, and which brought to mind the experience I had years ago, with Haneke's "Funny Games" (1997), and it's 'breaking the 4th wall' styling. The first time I watched the movie, when "Paul" sneeringly asks, in effect, "Why are you still watching..if you don't like it?", made me throw my sandal at the television in a reflexive, almost primal response. But, it made me think about my 'solution' to he and "Peter"s violence ended up being..a violent act of my own. Now I think of it like a wildfire..if not controlled by intelligent application of retardants (in this case, reason and discussion over thuggery), it will surely, mindlessly destroy everything in it's path...

[bebopman21]

Wow. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I can see how you come to that conclusion. And you may well be right, I have often thought that several of Tarantino's films have deeper angles and higher morals than many people can see or choose to see. (I'm thinking especially about "Pulp Fiction", believe it or not, which was torn apart at the time by the morality police as one of the most immoral films ever, only because they didn't look below the surface cartoon violence.)