Inglourious Basterds

[Deleted member 56031]

PS: you guys keep saying that the ending is QT's childish version of history, but I thought he was just the director. Did he write the film as well?

Yes he did.

 

[Kadayi]

Welcome to the world of fiction, gentlemen. You do not have the right to not be offended.

So if I write a novel about you molesting 5 year olds you'd be happy with that then? After all its only fiction yes? Or is it.....

 

[lefty]

I wouldn't be :3

 

[Qonfused]

I wouldn't be offended, no, freedom of speech and all that.

 

[KagePrototype]

I think some of you need to think a little more about the ending and what it actually means in the grand scope of the film, beyond the mindless and automatic "I am offended on behalf of complete strangers" response. The film is a lot smarter and more self-aware than it might seem.

 

[Stigmata]

So if I write a novel about you molesting 5 year olds you'd be happy with that then? After all its only fiction yes? Or is it.....

Go for it. If someone wants to write a novel about how I raped a five year old and then shot some puppies out of a cannon made of fetuses, I really could not care less.

Put it in a newspaper and masquerade it as non-fiction? That's when we have a problem.

 

[Kadayi]

I think some of you need to think a little more about the ending and what it actually means in the grand scope of the film, beyond the mindless and automatic "I am offended on behalf of complete strangers" response. The film is a lot smarter and more self-aware than it might seem.

Come again? You want to perhaps explain that particular little aside in detail? "I am offended on behalf of complete strangers"? What exactly do you mean by that? Or would you perhaps maybe like to withdraw it, and slope back off into your hole? Because I'd hate to think that you're that stupid :dozey:

I think you'll find that those of us who have been critical of the film or QTs direction of late have been fairly open as to the reasons why. However the defenders here seem less than willing to offer up cogent defences. If its really that 'spectacular' and 'unmissable' surely there must be someone whose able to offer up a cohesive argument as to why?

 

[KagePrototype]

Come again? You want to perhaps explain that particular little aside in detail? "I am offended on behalf of complete strangers"? What exactly do you mean by that? Or would you perhaps maybe like to withdraw it, and slope back off into your hole? Because I'd hate to think that you're that stupid :dozey:

I think you'll find that those of us who have been critical of the film or QTs direction of late have been fairly open as to the reasons why. However the defenders here seem less than willing to offer up cogent defences. If its really that 'spectacular' and 'unmissable' surely there must be someone whose able to offer up a cohesive argument as to why?

It's a film about war propaganda, the ethics of warfare, exploitative film in general, and the price people pay in participating in all of it.

Spoiler

Tarantino is saying that it is no different to demonise the Nazis than it is to demonize the Jews; it's all cut from the same cloth. It's laid out right in the first scene with the discussion of rats and squirrels. That's a fairly bold statement to make nowadays when Nazis are pretty much the go-to poster-child for Evil People Who Must Die In The Name Of All That Is Good.

It's honestly not hard to miss if you give it a moment's thought. If people really can't look past their own moral outrage and actually listen to what the film is trying to tell them, then that's their own problem and not the film's.

 

[Stigmata]

Come again? You want to perhaps explain that particular little aside in detail? "I am offended on behalf of complete strangers"? What exactly do you mean by that? Or would you perhaps maybe like to withdraw it, and slope back off into your hole? Because I'd hate to think that you're that stupid :dozey:

LOL. You do realise that if any of the 15 real attempts on Hitlers life had been successful that history as we know it would of been changed yes? So a lot of men and women who did die probably never would of. However QT rewriting history so that Brad Pitt & Eli Roth kill Hitler and win WW2, doesn't really rewrite the history books, but it does kind of diminish the sacrifices of those who did win WW2, esp when its done for cheap laughs.

Sorry, it just sounds an awful lot like you were being offended on behalf of others right there.

 

[ray_MAN]

Spoiler

-he ****ing rewrites WWII! This is just plain idiotic and immature. The film ends with the basterds killing hitler and ending the war whilst 2 of them are shooting the audience in slomo. This is just plain childish and incredibly immature
-there is a scene where a girl from earlier in the film tries to burn down the cinema and relays a pointless 10 second video and the smoke of the fire forms her laughing face? WTF?!

Spoiler

The 10 second video of her face on the smoke was not pointless. Remember the chapter of the title - "Revenge of the Giant Face."

 

[lefty]

-there is a scene where a girl from earlier in the film tries to burn down the cinema and relays a pointless 10 second video and the smoke of the fire forms her laughing face? WTF?!

everything about this statement, lambda, is wrong.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Why is it really needed?

Spoiler

She could have burned down the cinema at any other point but chose to **** around with a bloody useless video first.

Also if she absolutely needed to use the video she could have started her plan ages ago.

Spoiler

and then maybe not get herself killed >_>

And I may be the only one who thinks this but the massive laughing face totally took me out of the film and just left me bewildered.

 

[lefty]

It was the movie projecting onto the smoke. You didn't think it was some kind of supernatural apparition or something, did you?

 

[Kadayi]

Tarantino is saying that it is no different to demonise the Nazis than it is to demonize the Jews; it's all cut from the same cloth. It's laid out right in the first scene with the discussion of rats and squirrels. That's a fairly bold statement to make nowadays when Nazis are pretty much the go-to poster-child for Evil People Who Must Die In The Name Of All That Is Good.

You'd vaguely have a point if he made the film 30 years ago in response to 'All Nazis are evil and must die' (and lets revel in it) films like the Dirty Dozen, but as its been a fairly long time since we've seen a war film that taken that whole scale dehumanising approach, the lesson seems both late to the party and fairly culturally irrelevant as a parody. So what are you left with but a film that merely revels in itself as visual spectacle? Nice try but no medal I'm afraid.

Sorry, it just sounds an awful lot like you were being offended on behalf of others right there.

Sounds like you don't pay attention. But seriously as you (and others of your moronic mindset) have demonstrated time and again, that there really isn't any level of personal debasement you wouldn't blithly agree to in order to adopt the contrary position in a discussion.

 

[KagePrototype]

You'd vaguely have a point if he made the film 30 years ago in response to 'All Nazis are evil and must die' (and lets revel in it) films like the Dirty Dozen, but as its been a fairly long time since we've seen a war film that taken that whole scale dehumanising approach, the lesson seems both late to the party and fairly culturally irrelevant as a parody. So what are you left with but a film that merely revels in itself as visual spectacle? Nice try but no medal I'm afraid.

It's a blatant commentary on the Dirty Dozen, it constantly references it (the original Inglourious Bastards even had the tagline "Dirtier than the Dirty Dozen").

And really, it's not culturally relevant? You mean people don't childishly demonize other people? Even 'dem dirty arabs, or those dirty land-grubbing Jews(!)? Or those fat capitalist pigs in America? "Tarantino is too late to say what he's saying, and so I'm not simply going to acknowledge it?" I'm sorry, but that's equivelant to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "la-la-la-la".

As if a film has to be culturally relevant to be allowed to make a point! Do you realise how childish and petty that sounds?

 

[Kadayi]

It's a blatant commentary on the Dirty Dozen, it constantly references it (the original Inglourious Bastards even had the tagline "Dirtier than the Dirty Dozen").

And really, it's not culturally relevant? You mean people don't childishly demonize other people? Even 'dem dirty arabs, or those dirty land-grubbing Jews(!)? Or those fat capitalist pigs in America? "Tarantino is too late to say what he's saying, and so I'm not simply going to acknowledge it?" I'm sorry, but that's equivelant to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "la-la-la-la".

Lose the plot much when you're undone?

As if a film has to be culturally relevant to be allowed to make a point! Do you realise how childish and petty that sounds?

If it's really trying to make a point then surely making one that is culturally relevant would seem to make a lot of sense in conveying the message no? Re-envisaging something as culturally irrelevant as the demonising in the dirty dozen seems fairly pointless tbh, given WW 2 films moved on from that sort of framing a long time ago.

If he genuinely wanted to make a comment on modern day demonising as you claim, he'd be making a film set in Palestine/or Iraq/Afganistan the Basterds would be the IDF/USMC respectively.

 

[KagePrototype]

If it's really trying to make a point then surely making one that is culturally relevant would seem to make a lot of sense in conveying the message no? Re-envisaging something as culturally irrelevant as the demonising in the dirty dozen seems fairly pointless tbh, given WW 2 films moved on from that sort of framing a long time ago.

If he genuinely wanted to make a comment on modern day demonising as you claim, he'd be making a film set in Palestine/or Iraq/Afganistan the Basterds would be the IDF/USMC respectively.

He's talking about more universal human behaviour, the sort of nature that these films exploit (like the Dirty Dozen), not just the current social climate. It's really not hard to notice watching the film (speaking of which, have you even seen it yet? As far as I can tell all you've done is read the leaked script)

Lose the plot much when you're undone?

Why are you still posting if you don't want to participate in a discussion? This is a running theme with you Kadayi; disregarding the issue at hand and resorting to childish mud-slinging. Please, just knock it off, there's nothing endearing about it. If my explanation is without merit, explain how it is without merit, instead of just disregarding it with a sarcastic wave of your hand.

 

[chrissyin]

sorry to ask a silly question

but has Kadayi actually seen this film? Or is he just basing it on what he thinks is the premise or some early script treatment? To me that sniffs a little of Daily Mail BAN THIS SICK FILTH reactionary views, which are normally more to do with the problems of the person "reviewing" and I wouldn't want them as my moral guide in life either. Now, I'm going to see this film with my sis in town this week, and I'll happily post a view then...

 

[Kadayi]

Why are you still posting if you don't want to participate in a discussion? This is a running theme with you Kadayi; disregarding the issue at hand and resorting to childish mud-slinging. Please, just knock it off, there's nothing endearing about it. If my explanation is without merit, explain how it is without merit, instead of just disregarding it with a sarcastic wave of your hand.

I'm merely greeting you the same way you greeted me. If you'd been polite in your initial post, you'd have gotten polite back. But you weren't, instead you were mockingly dismissive, so really what right do you to complain when you receive the same treatment? None my friend, none. :dozey:

As regards IB your analogy let me expand a bit on why it falls down: -

This idea that by demonizing the Basterds, Vs the Germans it throws a different light on things as you claim simply doesn't work because despite all their misdeeds, betrayals and contempt for human life the Basterds still ultimately succeed in the goal of killing Hitler. Hitler was an irredeemably evil man if ever their was one, rightfully he should of been brought to justice, tried for crimes against humanity and been hung or shot rather than allowed to take his own life. His imagined death as a point of justice cannot therefore be assessed as a failure or a bad thing to occur in a film, it can only be viewed as a triumph. Which therefore completely invalidates any ability to truly demonise the actions of those involved no matter how reprehensible they may be. It is in fact an affirmation that "the ends justify the means" which unfortunately isn't the kind of policy I can personally get behind.

If the film had ended with them say callously blowing up a cinema full of Hitler Youth, or raping a bunch of German school girls, now that would be demonizing, but instead it has them single handedly winning WW2 and smirking about it.

@Chrissylin

I read the script, and from what I've heard from my friends who've seen it aside from a couple of scenes being altered there isn't much difference between that and the final product. I found the script objectionable for the broader reasons previously given, adding light, movement and sound isn't likely to transform it into something more agreeable in my view based upon previous experience. No doubt at some point I'll invariably end up seeing it, but I don't feel inclined to rush out and give money to QT now that might encourage him to continue in what I see is a downward trend in his film making. Thank you for the broad brush asides though I particularly liked the way you talked over me, rather than just asked me. I look forward to seeing your no doubt gushing review further in the week about how IB is 'amazing' 'film of the year' 'QTs his best yet'.

PS Welcome to hl2.net

 

[KagePrototype]

This idea that by demonizing the Basterds, Vs the Germans it throws a different light on things as you claim simply doesn't work because despite all their misdeeds, betrayals and contempt for human life the Basterds still ultimately succeed in the goal of killing Hitler. Hitler was an irredeemably evil man if ever their was one, rightfully he should of been brought to justice, tried for crimes against humanity and been hung or shot rather than allowed to take his own life. His imagined death as a point of justice cannot therefore be assessed as a failure or a bad thing to occur in a film, it can only be viewed as a triumph. Which therefore completely invalidates any ability to truly demonise the actions of those involved no matter how reprehensible they may be. It is in fact an affirmation that "the ends justify the means" which unfortunately isn't the kind of policy I can personally get behind.

If the film had ended with them say callously blowing up a cinema full of Hitler Youth, or raping a bunch of German school girls, now that would be demonizing, but instead it has them single handedly winning WW2 and smirking about it.

I think from this I can safely assume that you haven't seen the finished film, otherwise you'd know that

Spoiler

the climax is incredibly disturbing and over-the-top, with the basterds mowing down hundreds of innocent civilians in the theater, as well as Hitler's face being callously ripped apart by bullets as the jewish girl's film is projected in smoke, cackling "this is the face of jewish vengeance!" before the theater explodes, killing everyone inside. "Heroically Triumphant" is the absolute wrong way to describe the tone of that scene. The point of view taken is that of abject terror, not triumph.

 

[CyberPitz]

Have not seen it, but I want to. I've heard nothing but good things from people I know personally who went to see the movie. Although, movies are so expensive these days

 

[ray_MAN]

It's a blatant commentary on the Dirty Dozen, it constantly references it (the original Inglourious Bastards even had the tagline "Dirtier than the Dirty Dozen").

And really, it's not culturally relevant? You mean people don't childishly demonize other people? Even 'dem dirty arabs, or those dirty land-grubbing Jews(!)? Or those fat capitalist pigs in America? "Tarantino is too late to say what he's saying, and so I'm not simply going to acknowledge it?" I'm sorry, but that's equivelant to putting your fingers in your ears and screaming "la-la-la-la".

As if a film has to be culturally relevant to be allowed to make a point! Do you realise how childish and petty that sounds?

:thumbs: EXACTLY!

There is no timeframe to make a movie.

Was the Nazi High Command considered evil back in 1967 when The Dirty Dozen was made? Yes.

Is the Nazi High Command still considered evil? I certainly ****ing hope so.

So I guess The Patriot was about 300 years too late in getting made, by your logic.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

It was the movie projecting onto the smoke. You didn't think it was some kind of supernatural apparition or something, did you?

No

 

[Stigmata]

Sounds like you don't pay attention. But seriously as you (and others of your moronic mindset) have demonstrated time and again, that there really isn't any level of personal debasement you wouldn't blithly agree to in order to adopt the contrary position in a discussion.

Sounds like you're just frustrated that nobody is taking your side in this thread and you refuse to accept the fact that maybe you can in fact be incorrect about something. Then again I'm talking to someone who likes to insinuate that the people who disagree with him are legitimately borderline retarded, so I guess I'll stop talking to you, because you're an enormous ****ing asshole.

I'd make you the only person on my ignore list, but I think instead I'll sit back and watch you debase everyone on the forum while making a total ass of yourself. Trust me, from this side of the debate it's actually pretty funny

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

Saw it. Loved it. Awesome movie.

Spoiler

the build up to the "Bear Jew" was fantastic

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Well I agree with Kadayi but I am not wanting to argue anymore because there isn't much point, I'm not going to convert anybody. People will take this movie either way and I know that myself and Kadayi are certainly not the only ones who are appalled at this movies "message"

 

[Reginald]

Seen it twice now. Love it more than my own mother.

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

If your biggest issue with this film is the authenticity of it all then you should kill yourself just fyi.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

The authenticity is not my problem

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

I wasn't directing it at you it was more of a general statement really.

 

[Kadayi]

I think from this I can safely assume that you haven't seen the finished film, otherwise you'd know that, the climax is incredibly disturbing and over-the-top, with the basterds mowing down hundreds of innocent civilians in the theater, as well as Hitler's face being callously ripped apart by bullets as the jewish girl's film is projected in smoke, cackling "this is the face of jewish vengeance!" before the theater explodes, killing everyone inside. "Heroically Triumphant" is the absolute wrong way to describe the tone of that scene. The point of view taken is that of abject terror, not triumph.

Strange? now I get the impression Kage that you've not seen the film because I'm pretty sure that the the climax of the film is Aldo Raine, having carved the swastika in a visibly perturbed Col Landas Forehead (after he's helped them see through their plan) turns to the camera and with a sneer says: -

"I think I’ve made my masterpiece"

As regards the brutality of the cinema massacre, regardless at what is levelled at the Basterds in terms of conduct the get out clause is always going to be 'We killed Hitler and won the war'. The ends unfortunately justify the means (no matter how distasteful). There is no escaping it in this case. Remember, they're not Germans, they're Nazis.

Sounds like you're just frustrated that nobody is taking your side in this thread and you refuse to accept the fact that maybe you can in fact be incorrect about something. Then again I'm talking to someone who likes to insinuate that the people who disagree with him are legitimately borderline retarded, so I guess I'll stop talking to you, because you're an enormous ****ing asshole.

I'd make you the only person on my ignore list, but I think instead I'll sit back and watch you debase everyone on the forum while making a total ass of yourself. Trust me, from this side of the debate it's actually pretty funny

Well you might have a point there Stig, but for the fact that AHA as well as a couple of others happen to agree with me. That the best that any of you seem to be able to come up with as points of rebuttal to my perspective is personal insults, death threats and hollow exhortations about how much you don't value your family is frankly hilarious. Your continued inarticulate frustration warms my cold black heart

 

[KagePrototype]

Strange? now I get the impression Kage that you've not seen the film because I'm pretty sure that the the climax of the film is Aldo Raine, having carved the swastika in a visibly perturbed Col Landas Forehead (after he's helped them see through their plan) turns to the camera and with a sneer says: -

"I think I’ve made my masterpiece"

You know which scene I was referring to, so let's not play this nit-picky hurf-durf game. There is a very obvious emotional and thematic climax to the film, and it isn't the very last scene.

As regards the brutality of the cinema massacre, regardless at what is levelled at the Basterds in terms of conduct the get out clause is always going to be 'We killed Hitler and won the war'. The ends unfortunately justify the means (no matter how distasteful). There is no escaping it in this case. Remember, they're not Germans, they're Nazis.

I'm not sure this disproves anything, in fact it might go some way to confirming what Tarantino is saying; "war, vengeance and bloodshed are deplorable acts of human behaviour, and the worst part is that its celebration and villification are fickly determined by the current political or social environment". It all ties into to that first conversation about the rat and the squirrel.

 

[chrissyin]

from Total Film magazine

"don't believe the US director of Hostel? How about a proper German then, Til Schweiger, who plays Nazi-turned-Nazi-killer Basterd Sgt Hugo Stiglitz... "I can't forsee what's going to happen," he mumbles. "But I think that the fear some of the filmmakers had that the Germans could be pissed off... This is totally bullshit. Maybe some Nazis are going to be pissed off." Choice Words."

and from the New York times, several quotes from German reviews:

Quentin Tarantino’s new World War II movie “Inglourious Basterds” has received its share of praise and pans from critics in the United States (The Times’s review by Manohla Dargis can be found here). But the film is being received with particular enthusiasm by German reviewers, who are cheering its decidedly unflattering depiction of the Nazi regime, Agence France-Presse reported.

In its review, the Berlin daily newspaper Tagesspiegel wrote that “Inglourious Basterds” “isn’t camp, it isn’t pulp — you miss the point using such categories with Tarantino — but rather a vision never before seen in the nearly exhausted world of cinematic images,” adding that the movie offered “Catharsis! Oxygen! Wonderful retro-futuristic insanity of the imagination!”

In a review titled “Kill Hitler,” Financial Times Deutschland called it “great cinema,” writing: “Because, unlike ‘Pulp Fiction’ or ‘Kill Bill’, only the evil are massacred, the audience cheers the violent scenes with gusto.”

Frankfurter Allgemeine said that “Tarantino shows the Nazis as they really were: a pack of pompous trash — thoroughly trivial bad guys,” but cautioned that when “evil is presented as well and as elegantly as he does, we can easily be seduced by it.”
The movie, which stars Brad Pitt as the leader of an all-Jewish platoon of American soldiers and Christoph Waltz as an SS officer, opens on Friday.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

what was the point in that?

I can post reviews as well:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/19/inglourious-basterds-review-brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212016/page/1

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/inglourious-basterds/article1258714/

http://www.baltimoresun.com/enterta...lourious-basterds-review-0820,0,7766886.story

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/08/24/090824crci_cinema_denby

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082003131.html

my traumatised complaint was that it fails as conventional war movie, as genre spoof, as trash and as pulp. Since then, its defenders have claimed that the point of the film is that it is "kosher porn": an over-the-top revenge fantasy for Jews. Well, erm, maybe. But it might simply have the highly un-porny effect of reminding us what actually happened. And if "kosher porn" was the point, wouldn't it have been better to make the Basterds' leader actually Jewish?

Quentin Tarantino is having what Martin Amis readers might call a "Yellow Dog" moment - something which happens when, following a worrying, mid-to-late period of creative uncertainty, a once dazzlingly exciting artist suddenly and catastrophically belly-flops, to the dismay of his admirers.

At the climax of Quentin Tarantino's latest movie, Inglourious Basterds, which is set during World War II and which is concerned, at least superficially, with Jews, you get to witness a horribly familiar Holocaust atrocity—with a deeply unfamiliar twist. A group of unsuspecting people is tricked into entering a large building; the doors of the building are locked and bolted from the outside; then the building is set on fire. The twist here is not that Tarantino, a director with a notorious penchant for explicit violence, shows you in loving detail what happens inside the burning building—the desperate banging on the doors, the bodies alight, the screams, confusion, the flames. The twist is that this time the people inside the building are Nazis and the people who are killing them are Jews. What you make of the movie—and what it says about contemporary culture—depends on whether that inversion will leave audiences cheering or horrified.

In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino indulges this taste for vengeful violence by—well, by turning Jews into Nazis.

. "Facts can be so misleading," Hans Landa, the evil SS man, murmurs at one point in Inglourious Basterds. Perhaps, but fantasies are even more misleading. To indulge them at the expense of the truth of history would be the most inglorious bastardization of all.

Let's start with this certainty: No one but Quentin Tarantino could possibly have made Inglourious Basterds . Now add another: No one but his most ardent fans will be entirely glad that Quentin Tarantino did make Inglourious Basterds .

Inglourious Basterds is not boring, but it’s ridiculous and appallingly insensitive.

Isn't about history or war, or people and their problems, or anything of substance or meaning. It's a movie about other movies. For all its visual bravura and occasional bursts of antic inspiration, it feels trivial, the work of a kid who can't stop grabbing his favorite shiny plaything.

The only hope for Inglourious Basterds is that audiences will embrace it the way the Broadway crowd did "Springtime for Hitler": because it's so bad they think it's good.

 

[chrissyin]

sorry should have explained

my point was that those were German reviews (whereas yours were not). I posted them to counter the point about the film vilifying all WW2 era Germans as evil Nazis.

If that was the case perhaps the best people to review the film would be Germans? - who surely would make at least a little fuss about the matter - but instead seem to rather like the film...

Any clearer?

 

[Deleted member 56031]

That doesn't detract from the other reviews out there who say the opposite. An opinion is universal and holds no borders. Just as people love it or hate it here there are surely people in germany who won't like it either.

 

[chrissyin]

Agreed. I am looking forward to it, nothing like the occasional cat amongst the pigeons to stir up some debate on both sides anyways.

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

I read through this whole thread and kadayi your entire arguement has been:

"Heh this movie is disgusting, look at all these plebs going to see a QT movie. He hasn't made a good movie since pulp fiction

"

Have you like you know actually seen the movie? Because seriously what the christ.

 

[lefty]

By the way happy birthday yesterday adrik.

 

[Adrik_Senturu]

Oh thanks dude. It was saturday actually, but ITS THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS.