Ingloriuous Basterds

 I watched this recently and found it really fascinating- precisely because it was not the 'torture porn Dirty Dozen' it was strangely marketed as but an amusing satire on modern Western cinema and values. I have never seen Saving Private Ryan but found that some analysis I have seen of this film might proide a key to understanding IB. 

I think that it is a kaleidoscope narrative chopping up different films- there was indeed the goofy 21^st century war film that was promised. And there was an interesting but aborted film about Nazi occupied France (the Kubrick connection suggested by the farmer). And, I would go much further than people who have said they felt uncomfortable that it shows horrible violence by the basterds and has some glamorous nazis- it actually contains a Nazi propaganda film (not Nation's Pride, itself a far cleverer joke than I've seen anybody notice).

Just think

-We are introduced to a suave, intelligent, handsome quadrilingual Nazi officer who compares Germans to noble hawks and Jews to rats. Many have said how sinister Waltz was in this scene but if you listen to the dialogue he mentions that he deduced where the Jews were hiding before setting foot in the house and the point of his spiel was to give the farmer a chance to save his family (his comments about rats and squirrels also show Tarantino speaking about how easily people can be fooled by superficiality)

-We are then introduced to an uncouth, uneducated American who incites a group of ugly Jewish men to commit horrific sadistic violence against Germans. 'They will be sickened by us'. An oily looking Jewish man (Donny) smirks and shudders with sexual delight as the brutal American speaks of torturing Germans,

Almost all the promotional material for the film focused on this scene and in showing the basterds dressed in civilian clothing or Nazi uniforms- these are sadistic bushwhackers

Next we are shown the basterds surrounding an unarmed German soldier (Werner) and telling him he can save his life by betraying his comrades or get barbarically killed with a baseball bat. He refuses ('You cannot expect me to divulge information that would put German lives in danger') and the basterds whoop sadistically and cheer when Rain says that Werner will be beaten to death by Donny whilst he looks unflinchingly. Hitler just described Donny as 'the degenerate bear Jew'. 'bear' is slang for a butch homosexual, as for 'degenerate' he is acted by the director of a torture porn franchise and looks sexually stimulated by sadistic violence on men and makes unfunny baseball jokes and looks like he's orgasming after he kills the German soldier.

Werner has sharp features and intense eyes- the noble hawk surrounded by rats? Donny even emerges from a dank tunnel, the baseball bat sounding like an animal moving.

Our concepts of ultimate justice in WW2 makes us automatically assume that 'Ingloruious Basterds' means tough guys who are morally righteous. But could these actually be inglorious bastards? The poster shows the title and the basterds in German uniforms. If we had a film about German soldiers dressing up as allied soldiers or civilians and ambushing Americans then sadistically killing them would we interpret the title the same way?

Incidentally, contrast this with the American soldiers in Nation's Pride.

-We have another plot line about a handsome, heroic, shy German sniper who ultimately gets shot in the back by a Jewish woman impersonating a gentile

-Another plot involves a Gestapo officer ingeniously uncovering some spies by a mere hand gesture and subtly wrong accent, and remaining unflinching after being told that he has a gun pointed at his gonads

-Interestingly this scene also involves a handsome, youthful German with blond curls who is given a chance to betray Aldo, who calls him 'Willy'- he doesn't but gets shot after agreeing to lower his gun (cf gaunt, ageing skinhead Steamboat Willy in SPR- squirrels/rats) A German collaborator then gets tortured by the uncouth American

-The Jewish woman impersonating a gentile says she will kill everyone in a cinema and cackles artificially and sadistically as they are burnt alive and unarmed Nazis are straffed by the bear Jew. We are shown a brief glimpse of a reel with 'Dresden' written on it. A reference to a pretty horrific chapter of the war where the allies incinerated thousands of civilians.

Obviously this is not the sum total of IB, but it does seem to me that Tarantino actually has incorporated a Nazi propaganda film into a kaleidoscopic narrative in which the three films co-exist with the same characters and plots often at the same time (for instance the basement where the Nazi is very clever but fails to notice Stieglitz beside him). I obviously don't think that Tarantino is a Nazi, but I think he was playing a sophisticated prank on audiences in the post-9/11 world of neo-con values, and mocking our easy acceptance of sadism and torture as long as they are framed in a certain narrative of righteousness and moral superiority.

Re the farmer who looks like Kubrick (note also the bottle of milk) one thing I found interesting in this scene was that Landa's French was a lot easier to understand than the farmer's slurred, rapid speech- though the farmer then speaks clear English. Could Tarantino be saying something about the difficulty in studying a culture/ time- that clarity can itself be artificial? It's the quirks and flaws that make authenticity which is something Kubrick's obsessive nature would fail in.

Similarly, Shosana's wardrobe, her oversized hat and sweaters, she looked like an American francophile desperately trying to look French.

TBH I don't miss Kubrick's WW2 film because recreating a foreign culture of a past age can be a thankless task.

Secondly, it could be a reference to interpreting Kubrick's films through Dionysian and Apollonian concepts articulated by Nietzsche. Tarantino may be saying that if we see Dionysian propaganda, in favour of physical courage and loyalty then the Apollonian West will not understand. (Nietzsche's dichotomy is drivel from a classicist perspective but an interesting mode of analysis)

Thirdly, and relatedly, in A Clockwork Orange Kubrick shows Alex with his eyes pinned open forced to watch Nazi propaganda. Is this a clever joke by Tarantino, that he is getting us to watch Nazi propaganda? The ostensible theme of ACO was that if you destroy the Dionysian spirit in man, you will get sterile order- Tarantino is going further and saying you can have a sadistic and violent Apollonian culture which promotes cruelty without glamorising physical courage.

In the neo-con era one word that really nauseated me was using 'hawk' to refer to a middle aged armchair warrior. Could Tarantino have been having a laugh at this? Soi-disant 'human rights hawk' (fat guy who supported other people fighting wars) Christopher Hitchens loathed IB.

Aside from Kubrick people have also mentioned Spielberg's name in the comments and I thought Tarantino was being clever here as well.

In the cinema scene we have a Jewish wraith who is burning the Nazis we are even shown Hitler's face disintegrating at the same time.

Also, there is 'Nazi propaganda' film within a film- 'Nation's Pride'- no title reference to sniping, Nazism, or Germany. It features American soldiers bravely attacking a German vantage point and getting slaughtered. Could this be Saving Private Ryan with the cinematographic techniques inverted? Could the title nation be America?

I even thought that the cornier aspect of the WW2 film felt to me Spielbergian with its cartoonish politics (the comedy Hitler like the last Indiana Jones film). I thought that this was continued with the Hickox character who started off in the supremely goofy film (it was hilarious casting the Canadian from Austin Powers as a limey officer, especially with a Churchill whose similarity was limited to being fat and bald) then he finds himself in the other film where he gets rumbled by a hand gesture despite learning perfect German. Shosana's escape is not a silly escape from the farmhouse, but an escape from the Kubrick film to the Spielberg one.

Tarantino starts off with Hickox in a Spielberg film, then he nightmarishly finds himself in the Kubrick film.

In SPR it looks like Steamboat Willy ultimately cops one in the b***s- see what happens to Heilstrom?

Hitler's response to Nation's Pride is very different from Goebells. The war veteran who was gassed and shelled laughing at the Hollywood portrayal of conflict?