tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post8489050093684116065..comments2023-03-30T16:56:53.692-07:00Comments on Icebox Movies: Inglourious Basterds (2009): Two Years LaterAdam Zanziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-40756547043264507682012-06-04T05:36:47.519-07:002012-06-04T05:36:47.519-07:00Another extremely dedicated review with insightful...Another extremely dedicated review with insightful length. I can see your aren't big on the film. Inglorious is a great film, but I don't consider it as great as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. <br /><br />this is truly a great blog you have here which I am definitely going to start following. Keep up the good work!<br /><br />Follow my blog when you get the chance thanks.<br />www.filmmasterjournal.comAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11776335173868465442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-48829419376591352402011-08-25T22:55:43.218-07:002011-08-25T22:55:43.218-07:00Thanks, Caustic!Thanks, Caustic!Adam Zanziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-35548591787582421322011-08-25T19:13:30.948-07:002011-08-25T19:13:30.948-07:00Excellent retrospective, Adam!Excellent retrospective, Adam!The Caustic Ignostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08573539801150336099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-27467656282030801802011-08-22T15:29:15.959-07:002011-08-22T15:29:15.959-07:00@Craig, although I like some of the stuff QT says ...@Craig, although I like some of the stuff QT says in interviews (his appearance on Maddow; his admiration for <i>Schindler's List/Saving Private Ryan</i>; his comments about what films influence his work), like you, I've learned that a lot of what he says in interviews should be ignored. When I first read that Jeffrey Goldberg interview, I was astonished at QT's indifference when asked if maybe he was "too brutal to the Nazis?" without thinking twice about the can of worms he was opening right at that moment. But I've learned not to hold such minor slip-ups against him. That's why I'm interested in how QT will respond to questions about <i>Basterds</i> once it's aged a bit. No doubt he was unprepared for the controversy (much of it political) that was aroused when the movie opened.<br /><br />It's strange how everybody has different reactions to each moment of violence in the movie. The part where Raine digs his finger into Hammersmark's wound is, yeah, pretty superfluous, and I won't deny there might even be something misogynistic about it (although knowing how much QT lampooned misogyny in <i>Death Proof</i> -- a movie I don't like -- I wouldn't be prepared to take QT to task for any misogynistic feelings he may or may not have). It might even be argued that Raine is <i>torturing</i> Hammersmark in that scene, which would contradict the Goldberg interview. If the scene doesn't bother me as much as Werner's execution does, however, I think it's because Hammersmark is Raine's ally -- and I've always interpreted torture to be elliciting information from an <i>enemy</i>. Still, the scene, as you've said, isn't exactly necessary.<br /><br />@Sam, like I told Steven, I can totally see where you're coming from. I encourage you to give the movie another shot, even though I have my own reservations with it. Some of the violent scenes rub me the wrong way, while others do not. Tarantino's always been like that for me. About the ear-cutting scene in <i>Reservoir Dogs</i>, I actually think it serves a good purpose. Remember in that movie that the cop pleads to Mr. Blonde not to burn him alive because he's got "a little kid at home." The scene with Willhelm in <i>Basterds</i> is a direct reference to that and -- I feel -- reflects QT's own feelings about whether torture is okay.<br /><br />@Johnny, that's certainly an observation I've held regarding QT in the past: that he's above all an entertainer, and not much of an intellectual. But I do see some clear signs of wisdom in <i>Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown</i> (which I think has gotten slightly overpraised lately, but is nevertheless considerable), <i>Basterds</i> and, especially <i>Kill Bill Vol. 2</i>, which might even be my favorite Tarantino's movie. Sepecifically, I love how <i>KB:V2</i> burrows deep into the problem of vengeance even more than <i>Basterds</i> does.Adam Zanziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-61892020514596951102011-08-22T15:01:57.734-07:002011-08-22T15:01:57.734-07:00So many great comments!
@Jason, you raise a good ...So many great comments!<br /><br />@Jason, you raise a good point there about how QT seems to be commenting on how audiences tend to enjoy war violence even when it's at its most horrific. I do think he handles this well in the theater burning sequence. When I think back to seeing the movie on opening night, I remember loathing much of the rest of the movie but finding myself perversely enjoying the theater burning at the end: I don't know if I liked watching all the Nazis dying as much as I liked the sensation of being <i>freaked out</i> by watching all the Nazis dying. I suppose I liked the thrill of being scared by it. I should probably concede that the sequence, as disturbing as it is, does also lift a weight off my shoulders in that it helps end the war (in the universe of the movie, mind you) much quicker, sort of like the burning of Atlanta or the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings. It's awful, and yet at the same time necessary to some extent.<br /><br />If I don't feel the same way about Werner's execution, it's because I've never understood how audience members could possibly enjoy that scene. A lot of that has to do with the death penalty issues that I think are poisoning that scene in the first place, but I realize others wouldn't be as turned off by it as I am. This takes me back to our <i>True Grit</i> discussions ;)<br /><br />@Steven, I read your old review of the film from '09 after I published this yesterday. Your review is very similar to what I what have written at the time. Although I've grown to like the movie a little more than you do, I can totally see where you're coming from with your take on it. I will say that I agree with you when you <a href="http://thefinecut.blogspot.com/2009/08/this-week-in-arrested-development-part.html" rel="nofollow">say<br /></a> in your own review of the movie that "the Basterds are largely inconsequential to the storyline (when you think about it for awhile), despite being the title characters of the film." This is why I wish QT had cut the Basterds out of the movie entirely and had stuck to a more neutral, <i>Guns of Navarone</i>-type WWII action movie.<br /><br />Without starting one big thread devoted to <i>Saving Private Ryan</i> (since Craig and I like each other and aren't about to go *there* again), I should also mention that I agree with you that Spielberg's movie sees war as ugly and brutal, even when necessary. But I should also hasten to mention that I can see the influence of SPR in <i>Inglourious Basterds</i>, too. Tarantino has commented on how he likes SPR because the opening D-Day sequence makes you ask yourself if freedom is worth such atrocious carnage; and he has also talked about his admiration for how that knife-fight between Mellish and the Waffen-SS soldier (during the final battle at Ramelle) goes on and on, giving you a realistic idea of how difficult it is to actually kill a person. I think you can see the influence of that sequence in a couple of the scenes in <i>Basterds</i>: Raine's negotiations with Willhelm in the basement bar and Zoller's confrontation with Shosanna in the projection booth, for example.Adam Zanziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14524618281515322239noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-11115966070906988862011-08-21T18:47:44.004-07:002011-08-21T18:47:44.004-07:00Adam this is a challenging post. I do really like ...Adam this is a challenging post. I do really like the film, but completely see where you're coming from. I'm not totally on the Tarantino bandwagon, as some are. But I found this to be a masterpiece of a certain kind, but it is a film I don't take too seriously. I've never put much stock in Tarantino beyond his exploitive tendencies to relay tongue-in-cheek dialogue with repulsive violence and wrap it all up in absurdly talented filmmaking, replete with film references. This is the level to which I enjoy him, but any sort of socio-political commentary is never something I've engaged with in his films. I don't watch Tarantino expecting anything other than highbrow corn.Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10656287096270976604noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-70033743910515745542011-08-21T18:17:18.031-07:002011-08-21T18:17:18.031-07:00Adam: This is what I originally declared at my ow...Adam: This is what I originally declared at my own site after seeing INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS:<br /><br />"Sophomoric. Sadistic. Racist. Long-winded. Repugnant. Repetitive. Lacking in depth. Quentin Tarantino’s two-and-a-half hour epic about a squad of Jewish-American commandos and a French Jew out to avenge the murder of her family at the hands of the Nazis is a serious-minded treatise that gives fleeting concern to black comedy, and showcases some of the director’s most tedious passages of his career. Inglourious Basterds, which won’t have Tarantino winning any spelling bees, turns potentially furtive material into an endurance test, while simultaneously showcasing some of the most repellent imagery seen in the auteur’s canon, at least since the police officer had his ear carved off in Reservoir Dogs. With the exception of a hair-raising burning theatre climax that attempts (but fails) to bring together scattered plot elements from four previous “chapters” Tarantino opts to bypass the rich possibilities in Third Reich satire, instead focusing on scalpings, gougings, chokings and mass slaughter, which in large measure are given Kill Bill- styled operatic treatment."<br /><br />After being challenged by more than a few readers (who though the film a masterpiece of sorts) I responded with this:<br /><br /> "As I have stated before the film went on…and on…and on in certain spots. I can’t rightfully call for the cutting of entire segments, this is true, but it’s clear to me this film needed some serious editing. I wasn’t comfortable with the method that Tarantino used narratively to build (and overlap) the layers, as I was never engrossed enough to observe that in the first place.<br /> <br />The ‘racist’ contention stands as Tarantino’s script lumped all Germans together as Jew haters, and the goon squad aimed their own vitrol at all inhabitants of Deutschland. This is historically inaccurate and in bad taste.<br /> <br />The film is not narratively repetitive, but thematically redundant. I think we got the message earlier on.<br /> The sadiscm evident in Tarantino’s work was evident since his first film, in he dastardly torture scene of the police where he lulled over and caressed it’s unfolding. You are right when you say that the tortures, scalpings, and excessive violence added up to just a fraction of the running time, but I never meant to assert that it was otherwise, just that these moments were exceedingly gruesome and repellent, and were even accentuated by that suggestive sound design.<br /> Where I disagree with you most perhaps is your contention that this is the ‘most mature film since JACKIE BROWN.” First of all, I saw JACKIE BROWN played it safe in comparison to the other films, so perhaps this is why it is seen as mature. But this newest film for me is nonsensical and disposable, with no serious thematic relevance or resonance. In this sense, Tarantino lapsed.<br /> None of the MAJOR characters are likable, even if a few (the ones you mention) are fair enough.<br /> Your contention that Tarantino is not ‘glorifying’ violence, and rather is ‘romanticizing’ it is not one I agree with at all. His personal obsession with exploitation leads me to believe otherwise. <br /><br />Adam, I found your personal anecdote about the reasons of your initial hostility as fascinating and refreshingly candid. I remain firmly in the position I was in after the first viewing, though I've always conceded the opening farm house scene was magnificently orchestrated. I have seen the film a few more times since the first watch, most recently on blu-ray.<br /><br />This is a wholly enthralling post. Bravo.Sam Julianonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-18807135449748514232011-08-21T18:03:54.895-07:002011-08-21T18:03:54.895-07:00I revisited "Saving Private Ryan" last y...<i>I revisited "Saving Private Ryan" last year and still don't quite understand how that film ennobles war, while "Basterds" is an antidote to that sentiment.</i> I'd respond to Steven's question, but Adam and I like each other and I know we want to keep it that way, so let me focus entirely on "Basterds" instead. I wrote in my original review that I don't think Tarantino has anything profound to say about war itself (indeed, is <i>anything</i> left to be said?); I do think, however, he has some interesting things to say about <i>war movies</i>, namely the hypocrisy of trying to make an "anti-war statement" while simultaneously getting your audience's rocks off.<br /><br />I would suggest, again, that it is sound policy to ignore at least half of what a filmmaker says about his own work (in Tarantino's case, maybe 90 percent) and turn instead to savvy observers like Ed Howard, whom you quoted, and whom I think has one of the best handles on Tarantino's body of work around. Ed noted that what he liked so much about "Basterds" was Tarantino "really embracing his contradictions" (which is decidedly different than pure hypocrisy or double standard or simply not understanding your own movie). He's out to get his rocks off, absolutely; at the same time, he has a perceptive understanding of horror and evil and what Fernando Croce (another great critic and QT advocate) called "thorny moral quandaries." Some of my audience, like Adam's and Jason's, also laughed at the "Bear Jew" sequence; yet following the climax, as I think Jason or Ed also noted in their "Conversation," <i>nobody</i> was laughing. I don't think either reaction was unintentional; in both cases, I think Tarantino knew precisely what he was doing. There's only one scene where I think he loses control of the tone (the one where Pitt sticks his finger in Kruger's wound, the director's sadistic/misogynistic side at its ugliest).<br /><br />Had he wanted exclusively to make a bloodlust action flick (which, undoubtedly, Miramax was pushing for) he easily could have done so by making an entire movie about Brad Pitt and his motley band of basterds scalping Nazis along the French countryside. That he made them barely players in supposedly their own movie is, in a sense, willfully perverse, but I also think it shows he has other things on his mind. I love how Tarantino, all through this film, expands on his love of cinephilia and movie history. He may always be lost in Movieland, yet he really shows in "Basterds" just how vast a continent it can be.Craighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01450775188328918558noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-91950088401683729882011-08-21T15:57:30.023-07:002011-08-21T15:57:30.023-07:00I do feel the tone of the violence in the film tru...I do feel the tone of the violence in the film truly reveals that Tarantino did not have any sort of intention to make a statement on war and violence many felt he did. I'm not even convinced he was trying to have it both ways, as merely as he was conveniently accepting credit for ideas that mostly critics attributed to the film that were not intended on his part. Death in this film is often presented as punchlines to scenes, some of which, the tavern scene particularly, do not make any logical sense. (Still wondering why they built a half-hour scene on the premise that exchanging secret info from a double agent had to be done in such a public place where Fassebender & Co. would easily be discovered.)<br /><br />I revisited "Saving Private Ryan" last year and still don't quite understand how that film ennobles war, while "Basterds" is an antidote to that sentiment. The feeling I got from "Ryan" was that war was ugly and brutal, not to mention the central group of characters still thought their mission was bullshit to the very end. Meanwhile, "Basterds" seems to be more about Tarantino getting off on head-bashing and Nazi killing, filtered through homages to other movies, that distance any of these acts from having any sort of consequences.<br /><br />This was the movie that sort of sized up Tarantino for me as a very talented director, who instead of reinventing genre, pays homage to other directors' reinventions of genre and whose attempts at telling an emotionally honest story are undone by a juvenile sensibility.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05571206086671634525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8545661733980837263.post-18763376875606522972011-08-21T13:54:53.316-07:002011-08-21T13:54:53.316-07:00Adam: This is a great honest take, and while I don...Adam: This is a great honest take, and while I don't see this film quite the way you do, I do think you expose (1) the rowdy blood-lust that it inspires in many viewers (whether or not that was QT's intention) and perhaps most importantly (2) the way QT tries to have it both ways.<br /><br />In my conversations piece with Ed that you quoted (thanks!), Ed noted that the German dies a hero for his country, refusing to divulge any information. But you make a great point that QT excuses his gruesome execution due to his anti-Semitic remarks.<br /><br />In the conversations piece, I wrote about Laughing Guy, or whatever I called him, who found no horror where I found it (Werner's execution, for one), and seemed to think the violence was all jolly good entertainment. I fear that Tarantino mostly intended it that way, and yet I still find myself able to watch this film with the sense that QT is being honest (in his own stylized way) about the gruesomeness of war -- both in the blood lust it creates and the blood itself. Put another way, it's worth asking: Is war as noble as it always seems in <em>Saving Private Ryan</em>? (I'm not trying to shift the conversation there. Simply suggesting that maybe both films intend to make the audience feel good about the violence, albeit from different ends.)<br /><br />For me, the way the theater execution sequence unfolds tells me that QT, at least, understands the all killing in war is cruel, even if he allows us (and encourages us) to feel good about it, when it suits us.Jason Bellamyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18150199580478147196noreply@blogger.com