Some ways to watch Inglourious Basterds [sic]

*That's exactly what I would do.' It's what I want to see*

I'm going to try hard not to get too judgmental here (try REAL hard but it's tough) but I suppose this statement reflects as well as any the reasons QT's cinema, however accomplished it might be formally, is such a turn off for me. Like some critics, I thought the moment in Saving Private Ryan where they execute their POW at the end was nauseating though I understand that it's the sort of thing that might really happen and, no, I don't know what I would do in such a real-life situation.

However, it is most definitely not "what I want to see." So QT's movies are wish fulfillment, but his wishes (at least in this area) make me sick to my stomach. I suppose it's not a coincidence that he'd sign up Eli Roth to be part of this sadistic wank-off.

Having said that, I actually enjoyed Basterds more than I expected to, and it's precisely the cartoon quality that makes it work, in part because the cartoon violence has little visceral impact. I detest revenge movies in general (chalk up Point Blank as an exception) but QT makes this so far out that it's like taking your medicine with a spoon of sugar. I don't know if that's what he intended, but that's how I felt. Basterds felt safe and relatively unchallenging, so my gag reflex at revenge fantasies didn't kick in.

And I agree that the visual at the end with the giant face on the screen was extraordinary, probably the best scene he has committed to film.

JE: As crude as it is in many respects, "IB" is also much smarter than, say (here it comes) "Life is Beautiful." There are no overt allusions to the death camps or the Holocaust (although you could read the climactic cinema pyre that way), and it's less gratuitously violent than "Kill Bill." I was prepared to feel sick -- and was pleasantly surprised when I didn't. I'm wondering what so strongly attracts Tarantino to revenge movies. Does it simply provide a clean line to hang a movie on? Or does it go deeper?

It's corny to say this, but this is probably one of the two or three best articles I've ever read from you. It isn't just that I completely agree with you about everything you wrote, but that I somehow feel justified now.

I saw "Inglorious Basterds" on opening night, and since then I've done nothing but fight off all sorts of crazy bullshit arguments. Moralist who claim it's "torture porn", proponents for historical accuracy that claim Tarantino has some responsibility to give us a factual film, others claim that he's the bane of our lifeless culture - you know, his movies have no depth, and a host of others who've claimed that he's not mature as an artist or whatever.

Quentin Tarantino can entertain the hell out of any living director today - Spielberg included. I feel sorry for the person who can't see that QT is interested in creating his own mythological movie universes. That's what movies generally do - create myths and legends that reflect on us, on our minds, and beliefs.

Thanks for this article - I mean it, really. I feel like I can breath a big sigh of relief.

I forgot to ask - how did the audience at your screening react?

At mine it seemed like plenty of people were bored with the long stretches of subtitled dialogue. It also seemed that I was laughing at a number of spots alone. Jokes about David O. Selznik and G.W. Pabst seemed to be flying well over most peoples head. For a director so intent on giving his audience a thrill ride, I thought some of these moves were gutsy. He made a subtitled movie in which much of the suspense is connected with who speaks what language, and how well they speak it - and when they speak it.

JE: QT, one of whose favorite films is "Rio Bravo," has consistently described his films from "Reservoir Dogs" on as "gab-fests." (The exception being "Kill Bill Volume 1," which is quite different from anything else he's done.) The audience I saw it with was quite attentive. Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch, but I remember immediately getting uncomfortable when Fassbender's character started talking. His accent was indeed peculiar!

Am I wrong, or did the face on the smoke seem like a reference to the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark?" Especially when intercut, as it was, with the image of Hitler's face kinda melting under machine gun fire? "Raiders" being the same kind of Nazis-get-blowed-up-real-good wish-fulfillment as "Inglorious Basterds," only with the thin veneer of a story over it.

JE: Yes, I thought of that, too. Where were the howls of outrage when Spielberg melted all those Nazis at the end of "Raiders"? (Another key reference: one of Tarantino's favorite movies, and mine, De Palma's "Carrie.")

"I'm wondering what so strongly attracts Tarantino to revenge movies."

I think it is indeed a clean line to hang a film on. I think that to question what has attracted Tarentino to revenge in his last few films is as pointless as asking what attracted him to briefcases full of diamonds/cash/glowing light in his first three films.

JE: Could be. Sure, there's the MacGuffin (and "Kiss Me Deadly"). But I can't help but wonder if there's more to QT's choice of heist movies and revenge movies. Perhaps, in part, because they come with the emotions more or less built-in? Maybe that question gets us nowhere, but I'm strangely compelled to ask it "aloud."

I saw "Inglourious Basterds" on Friday, and it's been in my mind ever since. It's easily my favourite film this year, and probably my favourite since "There Will Be Blood" (although I know you were lukewarm on that film).

I've loved all of Tarantino's work, with the odd exception of his first film "Reservoir Dogs" (in which I think that Tarantino hadn't quite developed the confidence to plunge directly into the alternate reality that populates the rest of his films). "Kill Bill Volume 2" was a masterpiece of pacing, in my opinion, and more than made up for the shallowness of "Volume 1" (in fact, it transformed the entire Kill Bill saga into a kind-of operatic divorce/custody-battle story, if you will). And "Death Proof" not only shamed Rodriguez' hacky, insincere homage to 70s exploitation films, it also functioned as a study of male insecurity toward women and how that manifests itself in violence.

"Inglourious..." was an absolutely glorious experience for me because, as you say, it shamed so much of recent FILMMAKING. One thing that really impressed me was how sparingly Tarantino uses close-ups in the film, and how memorable they are when they appear. During the opening interrogation (which, along with Chapter Four's basement scene, will be studied by filmmakers everywhere when they are trying to understand how to create tension) Landa is rarely shown in close-up, so that when he finally is and his insinuating smile turns into a nasty curl, the effect is devastating.

Interestingly, the weakest portion of the film for me was Chapter Two, which focuses on the Basterds. And the very last scene of the film struck me as a little condescending...the orgiastic finale involving the destruction of the cinema was brilliant, so I personally could have done without (Spoilers) the final scene in which Landa is predictably betrayed and has the swastika carved into his head (Landa is so sharp and ahead-of-the-game throughout the rest of the film that it seemed unlikely he would so willingly put himself in such a precarious situation).

But those flaws are easy to forgive, just as they were in "Pulp Fiction" or "Kill Bill Volume 2" or "Death Proof", because in between Tarantino reminds us of the joys of great filmmaking. And while I agree that the movie has nothing to seriously say about either Nazism, Judaism, or World War II, I do think that there is a more serious undercurrent running throughout it than some are giving credit for. The undercurrent isn't exactly deep, but its resonant: bad things are done by people during war (whether they be Nazis or Americans). It shows up in the basement scene when the father of a newborn (a frightened young man) has a lengthy stand-off with Aldo Raine, only to be shot after finally relinquishing his gun. And you can also see it in Pitt's expression when he tries to give the German soldier one last chance to divulge information before Donowitz is summoned. Even though Raine later claims that he's happy that the german refused because "seeing Germans beaten to death is the closest we get to going to the movies", there is a certain sadness in his eyes as he looks into the soldier's face. There's also the surprisingly poignant moment in which Shoshanna shoots Private Zoller, then as he is gasping his final breaths, looks at his projection up on the movie screen. This causes her to sympathetically approach him, which eventually seals her fate...in war, there is no place for compassion.

Of course, being a Tarantino movie, these moments don't hammer you over the head with their morality, and I do believe that Tarantino's primary objective was to create an entertaining thrillride. He has definitely succeeded...I plan to see "Inglourious Basterds" again in theaters and will definitely buy it when it comes out on DVD, because Tarantino has demonstrated once again his mastery of the medium and provided, at last, a 2009 film that is rich enough to be poured over repeatedly.

JE: I'm eager to see it again, too. I had no problem with the "Miller's Crossing" scene at the end, because it had been prepared for since the first chapter. Apropos of not much: When the Nazi said he could not divulge positions if they put German lives in danger, I expected the mouthy Raine to make a joke about how if he didn't talk, one particular German's life was sure as hell going to be endangered...

Concerning Roth, Adam Goldberg's SPR character wouldve been about as impressive as the Bear Jew.

JE: GREAT casting choice! And, of course, Goldberg has already played that Jewish blaxploitation hero... "The Hebrew Hammer" (2003).

"Where were the howls of outrage when Spielberg melted all those Nazis at the end of "Raiders"?"

i imagine the difference is that indy was much more humane than the basterds. and they were killed by their own greed more than anything else.

"(Landa is so sharp and ahead-of-the-game throughout the rest of the film that it seemed unlikely he would so willingly put himself in such a precarious situation)."

i agree. it seems that when the plot required he get his comeuppance he uncharacteristically let his guard down so it could happen. otherwise i think it's one of the greatest characters and performances in tarantino's oeuvre. the few scenes where he's interrogating opponents are amazing. a wonderful display of how to build tension through dialogue.

i enjoyed the film greatly but some of the stylistic flourishes irked me. is an insert shot of goebbels fucking his interpreter really necessary? the inconsistency of the title cards bugged the OCD in me, and i agree the narrations felt shoehorned in.

I liked things about the movie, and had problems with other things (it would have lost nothing, and probably gained a lot, if it were about 100 minutes long), but when you have our 'Heroes' carving swastikas into the foreheads of Nazis, like the Nazis did with the star of David to the corpses of rabbis, it IS evoking the Holocaust, intentionally or not. It's not a Jewish revenge picture - the two reviews which I read from Jewish perspectives were both negative, and one found it offensive - because it simply turns the Jews into the Nazis, and uses the Nazis as a free-pass to get as violent as it wants against a group of people. There is no other culture or group of people in history you can do this to. I try to avoid the temptation to get overly moralistic about it, but I think the impulse to show them being ripped to pieces comes from the same impulse that fuels racism. I don't think the movie is particularly offensive. I think it's too dumb and trashy (with moments of brilliance, and moments of tedium) to be offensive. But I was uncomfortable during some of the moments with the Basterds.

JE: I understand what you're saying. But because of the way Raine repeatedly explains carving a swastika scar into Nazis' foreheads -- so they can't take it off, can't deny who they are or what they've done after the war is over -- I didn't take it the way you did. To me, it's a metaphor for responsibility for your actions. I can see parallels to the way Nazis branded the people they sent to the death camps, but the point here is that the Nazis who are branded are NOT going to be killed or imprisoned. They are going to be released, but are never going to be able to escape showing who they really are. I think the metaphor is working on a very different level than the historical reality.

I just watched the movie last night and loved it. I agree that this has some of the best dialogue Tarantino's written. It felt more authentic (at least, as authentic as can be expected from him) and character-driven, whereas Death Proof felt more like a group of mini-Tarantino's going-on and pointing their fingers and slanting their heads at the appropriate times. On the subject of sparingly used close-ups, I thought the cream on the strudels was particularly tension-breaking and almost humorous. That image will linger in my mind as long as Shosanna in her red dress. I'm also a little irritated at many critics' problems with the morality of the movie. Tarantino writes and directs where his characters take him and if they have no morals, then neither will he. It's an unfair critique. I think this movie will demand more patience from casual viewers than his previous movies, as most people I saw it with were quiet and (somewhat) restless until we all clapped at the end. I will echo the distaste for Eli Roth as the "Bear Jew". For once, the only problem I can find in a Tarantino movie is a casting one.

Apart from the Alfred Hitchcock quote about "slices of cake", I didn't see him cited as an inflence for Tarantino in Inglourious Basterds. For me, this movie was QT at his most Hitchcockian. Hitch's famous analogy: two people are seated at a table with a bomb underneath. The bomb goes off, that's shock. The bomb doesn't go off, that's suspense.

A vast majority of this movie is two people sitting at a table, only this time, the bomb is one of the people at the table. The audience is left wondering when, or if, he is going to go off. Consider the opening scene. Col Landa arrives to question a French farmer about the location of hidden Jews. QT defies conventonal expectations of movie Nazis and instead of the usual routine of storming in, overturning furiniture and firing away into the floorboards, Landa makes polite small talk. He asks for a glass of milk and produces a comically-sized pipe. We know well enough that whatever it is he's looking for, it's there in that farm, and he knows it as well. The question is: when will the hammer fall? When will the "bomb" go off?

Also consider the scenes with Shoshana Dreyfuss and Frederick Zoller. At what point is he finally going to tire of her snubbing him and will assert his authority as Nazi War Hero to get what he wants?

And not to spoil anything, but the pay off couldn't have been more delicious when that final "bomb" goes off. No, not the literal bombs, but the surprise revelation a key character makes. The one that leaves us scratching our heads, and here is another foot phrase for QT, when is the other shoe going to drop?

JE: And, of course, he actually includes a clip from Hitchcock's "Sabotage" (one of my favorite British Hitchcocks) -- of the boy getting on the bus with film canisters... which, unbeknownst to him (but known to the audience) don't actually contain nitrate film but a bomb instead.

The "Tarantino's movies aren't about morality" line is now feeling to me like one of those things that's said so often and so surely that it's considered true. For me, to believe that idea then you have to willingly ignore evidence from the films that a thoughtful critic can't ignore.

The penultimate shot of the movie is the one that had my audience squirming the most: the close-up carving on Landa's forehead. This is not a "fuck yeah, Nazi got his!" moment, but a moment that repels us viscerally. That shot is followed by a self-conscious "masterpiece" line from Pitt that begs us to see the film as defined by that moment, but the moment is vastly different than what anybody is saying about the film.

I'm not saying the movie is asking us to feel sympathetic to Nazis; Tarantino's own words, and common sense, prevent us from doing that. But the question isn't whether the Nazis deserve to die, it's what the enactment of revenge does to those who must seek the revenge. Of course there is a human nature pull towards vengeance, but there is also a cost. To inexactly quote MLK, Jr., some crimes are so horrific that they take away our ability to be just without losing our own humanity. Look into the eyes of Roth as he kills Hitler and watch this at work.
Oh, and by my count, Tarantino has made two movies out of five that are about revenge. How is he obsessed now? Is Spielberg obsessed with aliens?

JE: See my italicized comments about the swastika branding above. Revenge figures prominently in "Pulp Fiction" (Marsellus Wallace), the "Kill Bill" movies, "Death Proof" and "Inglourious Basterds." (I don't recall the stories of "Reservoir Dogs" or "Jackie Brown" to remember if vengeance was a factor in them.) Interpret that how you will. I'm stating the fact. And, yes, after "Close Encounters" and "E.T." Spielberg was widely thought of as a science-fiction/fantasy filmmaker and did openly talk about his "obsession" with aliens and the search for extra-terrestrial life.

I made this same comment in the other blog, but I'll make the say it again here:

There are a lot of recurring elements in his movies that were in IB and in pretty much all of his other movies (written or directed). So, as I was watching the movie, this is what I was noticed in the Tarantino universe: (spoilers)

There's the villain having an extended talk with victim before killing them, as Colonel Landa does at the beginning; Jules does in "Pulp Fiction"; Christopher Walken in "True Romance"; Mr. White in "Reservoir Dogs" (the "ear scene"..almost a kill); Samuel L. Jackson luring Chris Tucker into the trunk in "Jackie Brown"; there's supposed to be a courtroom scene in "Natural Born Killers" where Woody Harrelson stabs a lady with a pencil after he cross-examines her; Bud in "Kill Bill" thinks he's about to kill The Bride (Uma Thurman) and talks with her before burying her.

There's the reappearance of the concealed gun that is very much needed later on as when Shoshanna kills the soldier; or as when Christian Slater kills the pimp in "True Romance"; at the end of "Pulp Fiction" where Jules and Vincent turn the tables on the robber (Tim Roth); Jackie Brown points the gun at Ordell's crotch that she had hidden; Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) suddenly rises and kills Mr. White in the "ear scene" with the gun he put in his ankle in his apartment earlier

Mexican Standoffs

Meeting with a bad man as Shoshanna talks with Colonel Landa at restaurant; Willis and Marcellus at bar; Bud gets berated by boss in Kill Bill; Table scene in restaurant in Reservoir Dogs; Jackie Brown plans heist with Sam Jackson;

Use of imaginative violence with bear jew tappin his bat in the shadows; Christopher Walken in True Romance; Bud with mace in Kill Bill; Going medieval on their ass in Pulp;

Characters explaining why they committed violence as Pitt does in chapter 2; Sam Jackson says "you best believe it ain't gonna be me" in Jackie Brown; Christopher Walken says "I haven't killed anybody in 20 years" in "True Romance"; Mr. White says "torturing cops amuses me" in Reservoir Dogs; Bill in Kill Bill says "there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard"

I think I had more in the other post, but this is the kind of universe I am in when I watch Tarantino movies.

"O-Ren (Lucy Liu): "Silly rabbit."
The Bride (Uma Thurman): "Trix are for--"
O-Ren: "--kids."
-- "Kill Bill Volume 1" (2003)

I've never quite understood what Tarantino was trying to accomplish by littering his dialog with precious clichés, cutesy pop-culture references and tired catch-phrases."

While this in no way justifies that (pretty crappy) line in 'Kill Bill Vol. 1' it's not just a random pop culture reference. It's later revealed that the Bride's name is Beatrix Kiddo.

BeaTRIX KIDdo.

Kind of a joke between two former friends (turned enemies).

Now that I think of it, that might make the line worse. Anyway....

Jim,

I know that you have "never found any of [Tarantino's films] particularly moving," but I wonder how you feel about the emotions specifically in this film? As much as critics want Jackie Brown to be Tarantino's mature film, this was the director's first film in which I actually found an undercurrent of care for the characters. Granted, it was not hamfisted emotion like the beginning of "Saving Private Ryan" (which really distracts from that film's strong points).

You recently watched "Kill Bill Vol. 2" which was by far emotionally distant. But recall at the very end when the characters are listed, and the last image is of the bride, whose last alias is "mommy." For me, this was such a gentle touch for a brutal film, that it really became a poignant emotion that I felt most modern films could only grasp at. Anyway, for me, IB's Shoshana character seemed like an extension of this gentleness that Tarantino showed with the bride. There a scene in IB when Tarantino films Shosana in the red dress looking out of the circular window, and he pulls off a Scorsese edit of closing up to her through a series of cuts, and for me, this again gave me a feeling of care for that character.

So my point of all of this? While Tarantino's films can be very emotionally void (no doubt intentionally) it's these small moments in Tarantino's recent films that for me suggests he's far more capable of presenting genuine care for his characters that many director's could only dream of achieving. For this I'm thankful he doesn't go Hollywood and make an emotional film, because for me, it's these small spurts of tenderness in his films that provide all the emotional weight they need.

JE: Yes, he devotes some of his most beautiful images to Shoshanna -- and, as I said, I'm moved by the images more than the character or her story. In this case, the actress, Mélanie Laurent, brings an awful lot of charm to an underwritten character. For me, everything we know (and care) about her comes in one charming, heartbreaking close-up: a little smile and a kind of shrug. That's when she became someone for me. That one little moment carries all the weight of her character, and gives meaning to everything else that happens to her. Without it, the scenes in the projection booth would be, as written, merely plot.

Jim, which was your favorite chapter, if any? I'd have to say the last, not only because of the mind-blowing theatre climax but also because of the meeting of Waltz and Pitt.

Also, what do you think Tarantino was getting at by having the main villain of a "revenge flick" (unless you consider Hitler the main villain) survive in the end? I found that interesting and was happy Tarantino didn't go the conventional route, both because i enjoyed Landa's character and Tarantino's subversion of audience expectations.

JE: I thought Raine was hilarious, and carried the authority of a movie hero. (I also appreciated the chewy Tennessee accent, given that Pitt is from Missouri and QT was born in Tennessee.) Landa is also a terrific character, but I knew Waltz had won a prize at Cannes so I was expecting more from him (especially since his character has so much more screen time than Pitt's). Shoshanna doesn't have much to do but I loved the actress, Mélanie Laurent. And I enjoyed every moment with Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) and with Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender).

That double-twist ending is the key to the whole picture (SPOILER): the historical character you think CAN'T die does, and the fictional character gets all the credit, but is then put in his place -- and forever revealed for who he really is -- by the movie's real hero. Ingenious, I think.

Jim, I agree with almost everything you said in this post, but it only reinforced how much I didn't like this film (or really any of his films since Reservoir Dogs, with the possible exception of Jackie Brown). I actually went to IB reluctantly (dragged by my wife) expecting a morally repulsive revenge fantasy; so I was prepared for offensive and silly (in fact, it was so silly, it was hardly offensive) but I was surprised by how boring it all was. Yes, he does the Hitchcock suspense thing with the bomb ticking under the desk several times (most notably in the opening sequence and in the basement bar) but to what effect? It's not suspenseful (at least to me) if one, you're pretty confident how it will turn out, and two, you don't care about any of the characters involved. To me, these LONG scenes weren't suspenseful, they were tedious. I kept waiting for some really amazing set piece, but for me, it never came (although I, too, enjoyed the face projected on smoke). I think you're correct whey you say "Tarantino is a conceptual talent, an abstract pastiche pop-artist, and that's primarily how his films function," but, call me old-fashioned, narrative film just doesn't work for me that way. If it did, I might also be able to enjoy something as soulless (I'm saying this without having seen them) as the Transformers films. IB felt like a collage of stuff QT likes from other movies (literally stealing not only shots but whole passages of Morricone music), patched together with no real context or meaning.

As for the morality of the piece, I think you are again right that as far as QT's intentions, it is mostly irrelevant. But I must say that the audience I saw it with both laughed and cheered at the Nazi being beaten with a bat, sharing Roth's willingness to watch that all day. Considering America has recently tortured prisoners, this is a little disturbing. The irony of later showing the Nazis laughing it up at the images of Allied soldiers being shot was probably lost on them, and possibly QT. I don't think he's particularly interested in why audiences like what they like or how images can affect us beyond a mere "isn't that cool?" kind of way. He doesn't seem to be commenting on the films he borrows from as much as just ripping them off.

Again, when nothing "means" anything, then I don't know why I should care. It's just an exercise, and a boring one at that.

JE: Thanks, DVC -- you've nailed exactly what I was hoping to accomplish with this piece! I wanted to describe what I think it's doing and leave it up to readers/viewers to decide if they think those things are worth doing. I am ambivalent about a lot of QT's work for many of the reasons you mention, but I find the filmmaking itself extraordinary. (And, these days especially, I'm starved for films that are actually doing something with FILM.) Tarantino's movies are, quite openly, driven by a "Wouldn't it be cool if..." sensibility. That's the way QT goes about conceiving his movies, by asking himself what he would want to see. (See my comments about this in what I wrote about "Pineapple Express.") I find his films intellectually and conceptually enjoyable, visually thrilling, and viscerally exciting, but not particularly emotionally engaging. That's why I make the comparison to other kinds of abstract/pastiche art. Is a film that does those things, even if it does them well, "enough" for you? Maybe, maybe not. But, as you write, you decide for yourself.

Christopher Long's earlier comment about "Saving Private Ryan" is confusing. Captain Miller ultimately decides not to kill Steamboat Willie (the POW), and instead sends him off into the distance blindfolded. His men are enraged, but, if you think about it practically, he makes the right decision.

Later in the film, Miller is coincidentally shot dead by Steamboat Willie in combat. Corporal Upham takes all the German soldiers prisoner- he recognizes Steamboat Willie and, out of cowardice, murders him. Then, realizing the horror of what he has done, he sets the other soldiers free.

So Spielberg and Robert Rodat essentially made a film that respects "the rules of war". Looking at Tarantino's praise of "Red Dawn" and how it made him want to kill hostages in real life, at first I was ready to pull my hairs out of my head... but Jim has a point when he suggests that Tarantino is probably just pulling our legs.

No doubt John Milius must be loving "Inglourious Basterds", though.

JE: I should clarify that I think QT is absolutely sincere in what he says about "Red Dawn." He told J. Hoberman in a 1996 interview: “If I had a gun and a 12-year-old kid broke into this house. I would kill him. You have no right to come into my house… I would empty the gun until you were dead.” Now, whether he would ACTUALLY do that, he and we have no way of knowing until such circumstances were to present themselves, but I believe he believes he means what he says. Does anybody really know what they would do with deadly force until they're in the situation where they must make the choice to use it or not? My point is that in referencing "Red Dawn," QT is, again, using movie-reality to describe "real life." So, what does that say about the way he's thinking about "real life" in that example?

Adam, Christopher Long probably saw Saving Private Ryan with a similar audience as I did where everyone cheered when Steamboat Willie was murdered. It is unfair to judge a filmmaker based on the audience, but I found both that scene and the beating of the Nazi in IB disturbingly crowd-pleasing.

I see only my second comment has been posted. I hope you did get the first.

It basically said that I loved this post, because it gave me a sense of validation for my own thoughts about the movie. Since opening night, I've been arguing with friends and colleagues about the quality and purpose of Tarantino's film, and it felt really good to read someone that I respect, who had basically the same thoughts as I did, but with a far better ability to express them.

I can breathe a sigh of relief now.

JE: Thanks -- maybe it got stuck in the spam filter. I'll go look for it and rescue it if I can find it.

Jim, since you are generally so good at articulating your reaction to films, I would love for you to try to explain why you find QT's filmmaking extraordinary if you also agree that it is devoid of emotional resonance or meaning or context or what have you. It may be like describing colors to a blind person, but I just don't get it. You've written "movie-movie" and "pure cinema" and "FILM," but I'm at a loss as to why these are positive attributes if you don't care about the characters or what is happening. If QT were trying to make some type of post-modern Godardian critique on cinema, I still wouldn't like it, but I would understand your appreciation. But he seems to be just trying to make the most entertaining film he can while completely ignoring the one thing (again, for me) that is crucial in any narrative, and that is character development. He is so loved by so many critics that I admire that I wonder what it is I am missing exactly. Does it just come down to a matter of taste?

JE: I can only speculate about what others see in Tarantino's films. Some people think "Pulp Fiction" is a masterpiece; I think it's an above-average thriller with a clever structure. But my point is that Tarantino knows how to compose images and how to put them together -- and that kind of proficiency, and artistry, is a rarity to be treasured, especially in the '00s. As I say, I am sometimes moved and exhilarated by the pure MOVIENESS of what he does -- the way, say, I am moved by the texture and movement and composition of a Jackson Pollack. I want to do a video essay about a particular sequence in "Kill Bill Volume 1" that thrills me with its visual beauty and artifice, even though the scene itself is otherwise nothing special. It's made special by the way Tarantino envisions and executes it. Compare his two-car, open-highway chase in the second half of "Death Proof" with the far more "spectacular" mishmash of the lower-level truck chase in "TDK" and you'll see a marked difference in the filmmakers' orchestration of space and velocity to create tension. I'm far more impressed with Tarantino's feel for film.

Jim,

You claim that the Holocaust is not in this movie except as metaphor at the end. What about the first chapter? (Slight spoilers) It's the systematic persecution and murder of Jews by Nazis. That is the Holocaust. The setting has been changed from the traditional filmic geography of the concentration camps to the superheroic plane of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly--but I was still affected by the horrific murders and harrowing escape. While I agree with your explanation of IB as wish-fulfilment and fantasy, and I relish that creation, I also believe that IB is literally a story of the Vengenance of the Jews, as Shoshanna declares in her film.

Also, DVC, here's one American who laughed at the irony of Hitler's disturbed enjoyment of the war filim. I expect QT knew exactly what he was doing there, as especially indicated by the juxtaposition of Hitler's guffaws with Goebbels' insecure silence.

Side thought: anybody buy Zoller's guilty feelings at the end, or was he just trying to get with Shoshanna?

JE: Yes, you are right. The key word is "systematic." I was thinking of the death camps, but of course Nazis scouring the countryside for Jewish farmers is part of what we now call "the Holocaust." I should adjust my wording. Re: Zoller. Having seen the film only once, I'm not sure how I interpret his leaving the auditorium during "National Pride" to go to Shoshanna in the booth. I'd be interested in others' interpretations.

i was under the impression zoller was troubled by watching his exploits on film. it made me empathize with him a bit, but the goodwill i had towards him was kind of lost when he forced himself on shosanna, i'm not sure that fits with his character up to that point.

another bit of character development that irked me slightly was landa letting his guard down at the end. he's an unbelievably cunning character and he never sees that coming form aldo? it seems when quentin needed him to receive his comeuppance he turned him into a bit of a buffoon.

my biggest problem is the violence. i'm just not sure how to take it. the gleeful torture and interrogation techniques are very hard to separate from the war in iraq. and the audience reveling in the violence of the basterds is echoed by hitler laughing at nation's pride. perhaps this is why i related to zoller for that brief moment.

that said, i've seen the film twice, i agree the filmmaking on display is stunning. landa and shosanna are both fantastic. and it's a film i can't get out of my head. it's inspired some very intriguing criticism and i feel like i'm more obsessed with it than in love with it like i was with kill bill. perhaps, to relate it to the "pop art" discussion, because i related to kill bill on a more emotional level.

Great essay - really enjoyed it. The first QT picture I saw was Pulp Fiction. I left the theater as thrilled and excited about a movie as I ever have been (but no...not really moved). I distinctly remember saying as I left (not knowing a damn thing about QT or the movie before I entered the theater): "Damn - that film was obviously made by a guy who really LOVES making movies." IB (and, really, all of his films) also has that feeling just jumping off of the screen. For that, I'll forgive a lot of other weaknesses and/or excesses.

Spoilers, etc. are likely to follow, although nothing that hasn't already been discussed upthread.

Re: Hitler and co. laughing uproariously at the allied deaths during "Nation's Pride".

In order of increasing plausibility, the possibilities seem to be:

a. QT is morally clueless, and simply wants us to hate the Nazis for being so hateful, so WE can then really enjoy THEM getting the same treatment.
b. QT is turning the tables on us, and wants us to feel guilty for finding all the revenge and punishment exciting.
c. QT likes violence, and lets all of his characters enjoy it, too. 'Cuz hey - it's cool!

I think c is closest, but there's no doubt in my mind that a little bit of b is creeping in. Other than Shoshanna and Marcel, the most sympathetic characters who meet their end are Nazis - the brave and honor-bound victim of the Bear Jew, and the new father in the basement cafe. There's no American death I cared about at all.

At the very least, it's pretty clear that QT is not simply oblivious to the moral issues inherent in our enjoyment of cinematic violence. Rather, he seems to consciously turn it into a bizarre, paradoxical circle of moral relativism, like an Escher staircase, where every moral point of view is simultaneously higher AND lower than every other point of view.

because it simply turns the Jews into the Nazis, and uses the Nazis as a free-pass to get as violent as it wants against a group of people. There is no other culture or group of people in history you can do this to. I try to avoid the temptation to get overly moralistic about it, but I think the impulse to show them being ripped to pieces comes from the same impulse that fuels racism

I'm not sure you understand what racism is - or why people hate the Nazis so much. See, the point is, there was nothing actually wrong with the Jews as a race. They hadn't done anything wrong, or at least whatever they'd done wrong, so had every other race or sect. Then the Nazis killed them just for being Jewish. What the world condemns, rightly or wrongly, is not that the Nazis were ruthless murderers and war-bringers. It's that they didn't just confine it to the context of war, opposing soldiers, and so on. So the Nazis, unlike the Jews (and the Jews in this film), DID do something wrong. The whole genocide thing. So that's a - bit of a distinction? I made a joking facebook post after seeing this film, "Isn't anyone ever going to stick up for the Nazis?" I think with your dead serious, morally offended "This is the only group of people in history you can do this to," you are sticking up for the Nazis. Which is odd, as almost no one ever does that. Nor should anyone; google 'Holocaust'. (Note: I of course don't condone violence or hatred against anyone. I'm actually something of a pacifist, in the Tolstoy style. But if you are going to defend the Nazis, it ought not to be in particular, that they've "been beaten up enough", but on general principles - no one should be beaten up. Otherwise it's actually sort of offensive.)

Later in the film, Miller is coincidentally shot dead by Steamboat Willie in combat. Corporal Upham takes all the German soldiers prisoner- he recognizes Steamboat Willie and, out of cowardice, murders him. Then, realizing the horror of what he has done, he sets the other soldiers free.

I won't defend SPR, since I thought it was schmaltz (interestingly, tho, outside of its real-seeming fight scenes, it's as much a take on movie tropes as the average Tarantino - with the key difference being that Spielberg wasn't commenting on anything, and didn't seem to know or care they were cliches), but - you seem to have misread the film. I've seen it several times and never got the impression that Upham was horrified at his having killed Steamboat Willie. At all. He let the others go because they were others, and the battle was over, and he'd killed the man he wanted to kill. He was indifferent after he killed the German. I also never saw the killing as particularly cowardly. It plays as a righteous kill, relatively, someone who was an innocent and had illusions about war awakening to the realities of it right at the end of his only taste of it - just in time to kill the man he ought to have killed a couple of times before, and his captain might have survived. My take was that Spielberg was not condemning the shooting in any way, but wholly agreed with there being a separate war morality; and under that morality, I think Spielberg (and Upham, speaking for him) decided right at the end that that German did in fact deserve to die. As Spielberg wrote and filmed it, I can't imagine the Upham character in later years haunted by his having shot that soldier - I CAN imagine him haunted by not having shot him before he could shoot Hanks. None of this is commenting on the actual morality of the film or the stupidity of Spielberg's views - it's just my take on what he himself was saying, and believed, in his own movie.

Jim, GREAT work first of all, one of the must-reads of articles ever written about Tarantino (or the young "Inglorious Basterds"...)

You've made a believer of me... for the most part.

I think there's a small shred of humanity buried somewhere in Tarantino... And I do say that because of "Jackie Brown" and his love for stuff like "Lost in Translation"...

But I think what might settle the Tarantino morality (or perhaps nihilism) debate is his commentary for the ending of "True Romance", which Tony Scott changed to end upbeat... SPOILER! Tarantino had his main character die and the girl hitchhike home unhappily... Scott wanted the kids to get away with it, cause by the end the audience is rooting for them.
It's interesting how that thought never crossed Tarantino's mind. He seemed to have no problem offing them.
And, yet, he also agrees Scott made the right choice and, watching the movie now, he too wanted them to get away with it... Tarantino feels?

And the two Nazi scenes of "IB" I mentioned in the other thread are still enigmatic for me... Overall though, I think you might be right in what you say here Jim. Certainly Tarantino's own quotes (with the exception of the one about "Kill Bill" being a personal film) back you up. Perhaps "Jackie Brown" is the exception that proves the rule.

It's funny you mentioning that audiences cheered during Steamboat Willie's death, scene, DVC... a friend of mine considers the movie to be "fascist" because of that scene. I guess he presumed, from the audience reaction, that Spielberg wanted them to cheer.

To me it's pretty obvious what the scene is really saying, though. After Upham sees the light and lets the other German soldiers go, there's a haunting shot of him looking down at Steamboat Willie's body. His face becomes shadowed. The tragedy of it is that Upham has spent the whole film cowering in the face of danger. Then when he finally commits his first kill, it is not a noble killing- it is only a further act of cowardice. He shot an unarmed man.

Jim, I have indeed seen that quote by Tarantino in the Hoberman interview (Newsweek used the quote in their review of "Inglourious Basterds"). I'm somewhat disturbed that Tarantino would take as much pleasure in killing an intruding child as much as he says he would.

My way of handling intruders would probably be more akin to the way Dustin Hoffman does it in Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" (1971). If a group of people are trying to break into the house, I wouldn't necessarily try to kill all of them in self-defense immediatedly; I'd probably just start off by tossing boiling hot water out at them, lol.

*Spoiler Alert* The last line of the movie is Raine saying, in reference to the swastika he carved on Landa's forehead, this may be "my masterpiece." I think he was really channeling Tarantino's view of the film. (And after I see it a second time I may be ready to concur.) It's a movie, like No Country For Old Men, that just gets better as I reflect on it and read about it on places like this.

Jim,
I thought you might find this clip of Quentin discussing Kill Bill with one of its critics to be amusing and relevant to the discussion of the morality of his movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L2ukSJFgCM

In my opinion the critic seems to be missing the point of his movies entirely.

JE: That is truly hilarious -- two people talking right past each other. I've heard about the fat white woman in the hat but never seen her in action before. QT does indeed bring up revenge as "a staple of drama" and the difference between movie violence (incredibly bloody and outlandishly -- almost cartoonishly -- stylized in "Kill Bill") and "real life" violence. I don't think QT conceives of anything remotely "real life" in his movies. I still don't buy the "revenge can get out of control" line. The movie never gives the audience or the characters a chance to regret the killing of innocents (in the House of Blue Leaves?) -- and I don't recall The Bride killing any innocent people or expressing anguish over it, so I'm not sure what Hat Lady is talking about.

It's funny: I once told QT about hosting a screening of "Total Recall" at UCLA with Paul Verhoeven. Afterwards, someone asked him why his movies were so violent and Verhoeven went on a hilarious spree: "Because I LOVE VIOLENCE!!! I wish I could have MORE VIOLENCE IN MY MOVIES!!!" I broke up laughing. QT reminded me of that here.

Re: Zoller. Having seen the film only once, I'm not sure how I interpret his leaving the auditorium during "National Pride" to go to Shoshanna in the booth. I'd be interested in others' interpretations.

I don't think Zoller felt "guilty" so much as was still stinging from the trauma of the war. To everybody else in the audience, the movie was a crowd-pleaser. For Zoller, it made him relive a hellish experience. That drew him to Shoshanna for the same reason why he was always drawn to her: he was smitten. He genuinely liked her. He was done with the war and was ready to get married and start a family. And he had fallen for this beautiful woman. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it humanized the Nazi, but it did serve to remind us that the Nazis were indeed human.

Jim: how does revenge figure into Death Proof? This is a genuine question, not a sarcastic one. I'm just wondering where you are seeing it. Unless Stuntman Mike is looking for revenge for his obsolescence? That's stretching the phrase "about revenge" too far though, isn't it? There is that chase of him at the end by the girls, but I'm not really sure that makes the movie about revenge, just like one secondary character in one chapter of Pulp Fiction hardly makes that a prominent theme. It's certainly not as prominent as the reconciliation through violence that the two men experience in that chapter.
Andy: thanks a ton for that clip to the youtube clip, which I've never seen before. I live in the Bay Area, and Jan Wahl has driven me nuts for years. I prefer Armond White's senseless arguments to her nattering and superficial "reviews." At least White traffics in something resembling ideas.

JE: "Death Proof" is a pure revenge movie for the audience. (SPOILERS) Stuntman Mike kills the girls in the car in the first half. Then he stalks and nearly kills another set of girls in the "Vanishing Point" car in the second half -- but they turn the tables on him and, in the film's final moments, beat the living bejeezus out of him. They're getting revenge for what he did to them; but the audience is also getting its revenge for what he did to the carful of girls in the first half -- something the girls in the second half don't even know about! The plot of "Pulp Fiction" is driven by Marsellus Wallace's quest for vengeance on those who have wronged him -- from Jules' and Vincent's discussion about how he threw a guy off a balcony for giving his wife Mia a foot massage, to Vincent's temptations when he takes Mia out for an evening, to Butch betraying Marsellus by not throwing a fight and then having to flee his vengeance, to the stolen briefcase Jules and Vincent are sent to retrieve when they're talking about the foot massage...

To me it's pretty obvious what the scene is really saying, though. After Upham sees the light and lets the other German soldiers go, there's a haunting shot of him looking down at Steamboat Willie's body. His face becomes shadowed. The tragedy of it is that Upham has spent the whole film cowering in the face of danger. Then when he finally commits his first kill, it is not a noble killing- it is only a further act of cowardice. He shot an unarmed man.

This is more or less the same misreading of the scene as the other guy. There's nothing "obvious" about your interpretation of it, especially considering Spielberg is the director, and the character arc of Upham - we're shown Upham talking a lot early on about the bonding experience of war, about what war is really like - all from books, all things he's guessed from books. Then in the thick of it, the character finds out what it's really like, and really about, and he freezes. And the character recognizes at the end that his defense of Steamboat Willie in the far earlier scene as a fellow human being, and not an enemy combatant - ie, his civilian understanding of the morality of the situation - was completely incorrect. Because war is something different. Only after he fails to come to Goldberg's aid, only after Miller is shot by the very man Upham had earlier advocated sparing and releasing, does Upham understand the nature of war. He's the character through which Spielberg makes his point, such as it was. We first meet Upham in what is really the first scene of the movie, the first dramatic scene between characters we'll follow all film. And he's there at the end. And he's the only character who changes - and the change is, at first he's a civilian, and at the end he's a soldier. This is, I'm almost sure, what Spielberg wanted us to understand. And so there's no way his shooting Steamboat Willie was intended to seem cowardly, or that he was meant to seem haunted by his having done it. Quite the opposite. Spielberg in that film especially, where he accepts the validity of war even while showing its horrors, would not condemn Upham for graduating into being a soldier - if there's any sadness in the scene (and there is), it's because Upham regrets having had to see Miller and all his other friends die to learn what war is really about - and also Upham is sad to learn that that - where shooting that character in cold blood is, if not righteous, then at least necessary and defensible and right - is what war is really like. Upham as we saw him earlier made the same argument you all make, that shooting Willie after Willie has just killed Wade, and is unarmed among a lot of armed men, 'wouldn't be right', ie would be cowardly. And his civilian argument wins out and Willie is set free. So what is Spielberg TELLING US when that same prisoner who had been shown civilized civilian mercy, returns and murders our protagonist?

Again, none of this is in defense of Spielberg's views on war, which, in his seeming to accept the validity of it even as he laments the horrors of it, I don't share. It's just an explanation of what I think is very clearly there in the film. Upham does not feel bad for having shot the man. He feels bad for not having done it sooner, and for having had to do it at all. Like Spielberg he's lamenting that there's a circumstance that makes such action necessary, rather than the action itself.

Wow, Jim, while I really value your insights, I just feel you are stretching the idea of his movies being "about revenge" to a point where I could say they are also "about" a nearly infinite number of other things. "Revenge for the audience"? Cool idea, but it hardly qualifies as the movie's main topic, or even secondary or tertiary topic.
You seem to be discussing the motivations of his characters, while I'm trying to figure out what the main ideas are that Tarantino is kicking around. Let's put it this way: if you asked 100 people who came out of Kill Bill what it was about, most if not all would obviously say something about revenge. If you asked 100 what Pulp Fiction, or Death Proof, was about, would any say it was "about revenge"? Would even one?

My original point was that Tarantino's movies are moral pieces, and from several of your points, I think you are somewhat in agreement with me (maybe). But I definitely object to the idea that Tarantino is more focused on revenge than anything else, and to the idea (not necessarily yours) that any discussion or depiction of revenge on his part is automatically an advocation of revenge. Silence of the Lambs isn't advocating cannibalism just because it's depicting it. As I said either here or somewhere else, saying Tarantino's movies are amoral means you have to ignore a fair amount of textual evidence that says otherwise.

JE: I didn't say that Tarantino's movies are focused on revenge above all else. I was just trying to respond to your question. Up above, I threw this in as an afterthought to a comment and didn't mean to make any big deal out of it: "I'm wondering what so strongly attracts Tarantino to revenge movies. Does it simply provide a clean line to hang a movie on? Or does it go deeper?" You don't seem to think it goes deeper, and that's one answer to my question. I honestly don't know, and would love to explore it with him sometime:

http://bit.ly/1PDXAo

When questioned about his love of plots involving revenge, Tarantino, surprisingly, gives a one-line answer, “Well, you know it’s a great subject. So [it was for] Shakespeare, I hear.”

As for "Pulp Fiction," again, I'm not saying that it is above all a "revenge movie" like "Kill Bill," "Death Proof" and "Inglourious Basterds" are, but you asked me how revenge/vengeance/retribution figures into the movie. So, let's get back to a more interesting and substantial discussion: I don't see the evidence that Tarantino's movies are significantly concerned with morality, either (with the possible exception of "Reservoir Dogs"). I see nothing in "IB" that displays any qualms or ambivalence at all about killing Nazis, for example. I'd love to hear what you think, say, "Pulp Fiction," "Jackie Brown," "Death Proof" are about -- in moral terms, or otherwise. Let's look at the movies from another, perhaps more productive, angle...

Jim, thanks for trying to answer my question, but I realize I should have been more specific. Although they didn't work as movies for me, for all the reasons I've stated, the Kill Bills did indeed have some elaborate, spectacular set pieces that I can understand enjoying like a Jackson Pollack. But, other than the projected image of a face on smoke, what struck you that way in IB? I was either reminded of other (better) movies by self-conscious shot selections and/or music choices, or I was bored, finding the filmmaking flat and static. In many ways, it felt as if QT couldn't decide if this were supposed to be a serious movie or not, so all the scenes that would normally have been filled with amusing (annoying) dialogue, were filled with pedestrian dialogue that was there only to delay the inevitable--specifically in the opening sequence and the basement bar. At one point in the bar scene, I was truly afraid they were going to play a complete round of that game with the cards on their foreheads. What about either of these sequences (with the given that we don't really care about any of the characters) did you find thrilling? Clearly, many have, and again, I just don't see it. I kept waiting for some elaborate DePalma-esque set piece, and it never came. I found the burning down of the theater awfully anticlimactic, especially given all the build-up. So, yes, in other films, I can see how one could find his filmmaking to be exciting, regardless of the context, but I just didn't see that in this one.

I was amused at you bringing up Verhoeven because during IB, I kept thinking how much more entertaining I found Black Book. Verhoeven is another filmmaker who usually puts style over substance, wants to do nothing but entertain, and could be seen as amoral, but his films (even the bad ones) are never boring. I personally can't say that for QT.

JE: I very much understand what you're saying. One of the things Tarantino loves to do is to delay the inevitable climax by stretching out the dialog leading up to it. He's basically teasing (torturing?) the audience -- and either building suspense or frustration or boredom, depending on how you feel about the tactic. I noticed this over and over while watching "Kill Bill," "Death Proof" and "IB" back-to-back. I think it's rather clever and, as I said, I was quite entertained every time I became aware of what he was doing. I think Chapter 1 (the most emotional scene in QT's ouevre?) and Chapter 4 are beautifully constructed exercises in suspense. (In the pub scene, you'll notice that Bridget von Hammersmark never does get to deliver the information the whole meeting is supposedly about.) That said, I know a number of people who found the whole movie frustrating and futile, and I don't rightly blame 'em. I don't take issue with what you've said. All I can say is I'm looking forward to going back and watching how these scenes are built. You're absolutely right, though: Tarantino (except, perhaps, in "Kill Bill Volume 1") doesn't deliver the kind of emotionally draining and satisfying, rapturous operatic set-pieces that De Palma delivers (think of the delirium of "Carrie," "Sisters," "Dressed to Kill," "Phantom of the Paradise," even the Odessa Steps parody in "The Untouchables.") He's much more cerebral and controlled in a way many find off-putting. I wish I could be more specific about "IB" (the floorboads revelation in Chapter 1 conjures up the revelation of the underground tunnels in "Casualties of War") but after my four-film Tarantino binge over the last week I'm going to have to see "IB" again before I can go into more detail... Anybody else?

Matthew, how is Death Proof NOT about revenge? I mean really now.

Great piece, Jim, and a lot of the comments in here have been illuminating as well. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about "Inglourious Basterds" for a while after I saw it, and I think the reason is I was instinctively trying to dig deeper beyond the veneer (or facade?) to find something I could feel about. I knew I enjoyed it, I knew it was one of the best made films I've seen in a long time, but I didn't know why I left the theater unconvinced of its greatness.

I think DVC hit the nail on the head for me: "It's not suspenseful (at least to me) if one, you're pretty confident how it will turn out, and two, you don't care about any of the characters involved." That's exactly it. Many times I'd catch myself thinking, "I know this scene should be more suspenseful. The way it's acted, staged, shot, paced -- it should have me on the edge of my seat. So why aren't I?" The experience was more about admiring the technique as it was happening, and less about being swept up in the events of the story.

As a post- (post-post?) modern exercise in artifice, though, my admiration for this film comes down to the fact that I've never seen anything else quite like it. It's at turns epic, cartoonish, darkly funny, talky, slow, suspenseful (at least artificially), and on a few occasions, mind-blowing. And totally f***ed up insane. But I kind of enjoy and admire insane.

But still, it left me a little unsatisfied. This may be an odd comparison, but this post and the discussions brought to my mind my favorite Beastie Boys song: "B-Boy Bouillabaisse." What's it about? Absolutely nothing, other than the pure, delirious exhilaration of stringing together various styles, tones, samples, offhand references, and non sequitur lyrics into a 15-minute-plus masterpiece. While I can love that approach in my music, it's not quite what I'm looking for in my movies.

(And I completely agree about Eli Roth. He was terrible. I also agree Adam Goldberg would have been a better fit, although I think SNL beat QT to the punch -- and with better casting too!)

JE: That may be the best single-paragraph description of "IB" I've seen. And, yes, even the suspense is a conceptual type -- not heart-in-your-throat stuff.

My mention of the POW killing in Private Ryan was intended in the context of QT's statement that moments like that are things that he "wants to see."

I find that pretty disturbing. I am NOT going to overreach and claim this says anything personally about QT because he's talking about what he wants to see in movies not real life. But it's sure as heck not something I have any great urge to see. It's not wish fulfillment to me so much as nightmare acknowledgment. Not my idea of a fun time.

However, this line of discussion makes me think that "Basterds" is actually like a video game than a cartoon. Not in the way that boring CGI blockbusters are. But I can remember many a time that I used to set "Duke Nukem" to God Mode and just walk around killing everyone and everything with a chainsaw and enjoying the experience in a completely detached but slightly amused way. And I think that's the way I related to "Basterds." Except that it looked much, much better than Duke Nukem though I'm not sure it had any more interesting characters except for Waltz's character.

Gotta disagree with you there, Paul.

Spielberg, in most of his films set during wartime or international conflict, almost always tries to condemn the execution of the unarmed. From the scene in "Empire of the Sun" in which Jim thrashes at Basie's sidekick for shooting down his teenage Japanese friend just for providing him a mango, to the dialogue between Oskar and Amon in "Schindler's List" when Oskar attempts to convince Amon that forgiveness is more efficient than homicidal rage; from John Quincy Adams in "Amistad" persuading Justice Harry Blackmun's court to release Cinque and his slaves due to their wrongful abuse at the hands of their captors, to that resonating moment in "Munich" when Hans feels regret at committing such a vile hit on the Dutch female assasin.

In fact, "Munich" in its entirety is about the rejection of reactionary vigilantism. Spielberg did say in his interview with Ebert that he believes atrocious terrorist attacks like Black September require a strong response- just perhaps not the right-wing extremist mission that Avner's team was assigned to.

My point is that Spielberg's empathy for the enemy is shown in much of his more radical works. If Upham's kill in "Saving Private Ryan" is, as you say, his evolution into soldierhood, then why does he let the other German soldiers go? You might think that the decent soldier would keep them at gunpoint until the reinforcements arrive... which they were about to. But Upham lets them go instead, because, judging from that shot of him looking down at Steamboat Willie's body with a pained expression, he has discovered his mistake. I would agree that Upham figures out for the first time just how serious of a matter it is when you take a life. Reminds me somewhat of Will Muny's monologue in Eastwood's "Unforgiven".

Not to stray too far off-topic, Tarantino has professed himself a fan of "Jaws", and he considers it one of the films that influenced his career. I do wonder, however, why he has neglected to speak out his opinion on Spielberg's other films. How is it that "Speed" or even "Fight Club" can make his Top 20 films of the last two decades, but neither "Schindler's List" nor "Munich" do?

A few points if I may:
1. On Zoeller at Nation's Pride:
I think it's important to remeber Zoeller is watching his performance of his act of bravery/survival, not the real thing, so his leaving may have more to do with that being a spectator than anything else. Having to face what it was he actually did up there in the bell tower.
It reminds me of that scene in I'll Be Seeing You with Joe Cotten, where Ginger Rogers takes him to go see a war movie and he can barely look at it. He doesn't recognize what is on screen as war as he knew it. Even when he was shooting the movie playing himself he was back in a bell tower just aiming a gun and shooting. But being the spectator to mass carnage is a different role altogether.
Also, his attempting to force himself on Shoshanna is first seen when he has her rounded up for the lunch with Goebbels ("that was an invitation?"), and more obliquely by forcing her to show a Nazi propaganda film about him, starring him at her theater. Their denouement is just a physical manifestation of his previous efforts.

2. Referencing the Negros
I don't know what to do with the joke (?) comparing the treatment of African slaves to King Kong. And the line about America's Olympic/athletic prowess owing entirely to descendants of slaves. And Landa's pointing out Goebbels being opposed to a black projectionist. I don't know, I guess those were jokes, but I'm not really seeing where its funny...Anybody? Can we make anything of the fact that the Nazis are brought down by a Jewish woman and a black man?

3. Subtitles
I thought it was a great amusing touch to have the subtitles occasionally have words in the language that is being "translated" to the subtitles go untranslated, because (I suppose) that's how the character would here it and they wouldn't translate that in their mind to their native language. And if I'm not mistaken there was one point (at least) where a subtitle was (I assume) intentionally misspelled because it was spoken by a character who was not so good in a language that was not his native tongue.

4. Spielberg
There have been a couple references to Spielberg and Schindler and Saving Private Ryan, but the picture of his this reminded me most of was 1941, which was just as much of a cartoon "about WW2" as this.
I love the Herr meets Hare cartoon. Friz Freleng made cartoons with animation, Tarantino makes cartoons with live action (and Robert Zemeckis is stuck in-between dealing with dead eyes).

If Upham's kill in "Saving Private Ryan" is, as you say, his evolution into soldierhood, then why does he let the other German soldiers go?

It wasn't his evolution into by-the-book soldiering, considering by-the-book soldiering would also outlaw murdering an un-armed, surrendering adversary. It was his evolution into a Soldier, someone who fights in and understands War. All capital letters. He let the others go because they were others. He killed his guy.

You might think that the decent soldier would keep them at gunpoint until the reinforcements arrive... which they were about to. But Upham lets them go instead, because, judging from that shot of him looking down at Steamboat Willie's body with a pained expression, he has discovered his mistake. I would agree that Upham figures out for the first time just how serious of a matter it is when you take a life.

I just don't think this reading makes any sense. He's seen what happens when you DON'T take a life, and apply civilian morals to a war situation - your captain gets killed. Your friend who'd trusted you gets stabbed in the heart because you failed to help him. Etc etc. There's just no logical way he's pained right then because he killed someone. It's that he HAD to kill someone, and recognizes finally the necessity of it, that pains him. And also perhaps he's pained at having come to the realization only after his not coming to it cost the lives of two of his friends. That's if anything DOES pain him in that shot. Admittedly I don't remember his having a particularly pained expression on his face. I always thought he looked relatively impassive. He could be seen standing around aimlessly in the general vicinity of Damon and Ed Burns in the last wide shot, still not looking particularly pained - looking dazed and overwhelmed, if anything.

Anyway I'll agree to disagree on this one. Thanks for the discussion.

Now back to your regularly scheduled on-topic topics.

I enjoyed the film a lot, but some of the Tarantino quotes made me question the reasons why some scenes work and others do not. I think the first scene in the film is the best. It's neatly constructed and restrained for the majority of the scene, despite the close-up on the match lighting which, for me at least, was about as subliminal as a title card reading, "Cue Increased Tension." I did love the overhead dolly shot with the diagonal beams crossing the frame (or am I remembering more than was there?) which came at the perfect time and actually means something to the audience because we haven't seen anything like it before (I feel like many contemporary films would use a shot like this as an establishing master).

However, I feel the reason this scene works so well is because it is the first scene, and the fear of actual violence seems too terrible to bear. I appreciate that Tarantino, even within this cartoon world, wants people to act the way he thinks real people would act (in the Red Dawn shotgun sense) but I think that the fact that almost every scene that could terminates in this manner, with characters being suddenly blown to bits as would probably happen when everyone in a room is toting a firearm, sucks a lot of the tension and dramatic effect that comes not only as the current scene ends, but for the remaining scenes of this nature.

Not a great movie in my opinion, but think of (SPOILERS AHEAD) To Live and Die in LA, and the way the protagonist is suddenly killed toward the end of the film, after we've been lead to believe we're watching a relatively straightforward police drama. That film also has cardboard characters who are not half as memorable as Tarantino's, but the set-up and execution of that one scene gives it the kind of punch I think Tarantino would like to achieve. For that matter the murder De Niro's character suddenly makes toward the end of Jackie Brown is much more effective for its restraint during the previous 100 minutes or so.

Even as I write this, I feel it's futile. IB just is what it is. It has the ability to get away with anything it seems.

i found the violence in basterds very interesting/troubling. i see alot of people saying it didn't bother them because they saw it as cartoon violence. i wasn't able to do this in most cases because i think tarantino went out of his way to make sure we didn't. the most blatant example is with wilhelm in the bar scene, being the father of a newborn child and the talk of him growing up without a father to play catch with. he does it to a lesser extent in the first scene where the man is beaten to death by eli roth. he's claimed he made him act like a model soldier so it wasn't as easy to relish his beating.

i'm not sure what it is, but i had alot more trouble stomaching the violence this time around than i did in tarantino's previous efforts. and actually, it is solely the violence perpetrated by the basterds that bothered me. the violence perpetrated by shosanna didn't bother me anymore than that of the bride.

is it the torture during wartime aspect that can't help but bring abu gharib and gitmo to mind? is it that shosanna sets out simply to kill nazi's while the basterds seem to get entertainment and joy out of torturing them? i'm not entirely sure yet.

one thought i had, watching the close up of the scalping and the close up of aldo carving the swastika into landa's forehead is; if quentin shot reservoir dogs today, do you think he would show the ear getting cut off? one can't help but wonder if it's the negative influence of eli roth on his work.

Okay, Jim, I'm game, though you are also asking for a big thing, so I'll try to do this without being too wordy, and you'll need to forgive me a gap or two as I try to save space.
I won't discuss Jackie Brown, though I love it, since I haven't seen it in five years. I won't discuss Kill Bill because, though interesting, I think it's flawed.
Pulp Fiction is the easiest of the three. It's a redemption story through and through. The time shuffle isn't arbitrary because it forces the movie story to be book-ended by Jules, our central character arc, when it chronologically couldn't be. In between are more minor rebirth/resurrection stories that help comment on his. Mia literally comes back to life and makes a meaningful connection to Vincent; Butch rises out of a figurative hell, after saving his enemy, and rides away on a chopper called "grace"; Jules feels moved by the presence of God and radically changes his life and behavior. We also see the impact of not changing on several characters: Vincent, who dies (though does get resurrected cinematically, by the altered time frame); and Marcellus, who is not allowed to leave the hell in the basement.

Death Proof is one of the most clever explorations of gender and male impotence I've seen in recent years. Stuntman Mike, worn down by, in the words of Salieri, "watching myself become extinct," inflicts systematic pain on those he views as making him obsolete, after charging himself sexually. It's the movie that's closest to being about Tarantino himself, who sadistically punishes audiences that isolate him and criticize him in part because of his arcane knowledge and self-evident geekery, because he feels he is part of a former and dying time. This literal fear of "not being potent" leads to him focusing on women as targets, forgetting that women might be the cause of the impotency in the first place, and that is why the second group is able to return Mike to his ineffectual place. I haven't seen this movie as much, so my thoughts on it are more disjointed, but I think the speech by the hick cop in the hospital near the middle of the film is essential, so I need to go back and figure out exactly what the hell he is saying.

I'll hit Inglorious Basterds later. This post is getting too long, but I'd also like to stop and hear what you have to say anyway.

JE: Excellent stuff -- thanks. QT said back in 1994 that he sees "Pulp Fiction" as a multi-threaded fable of redemption, too. I don't disagree with that view, but I wonder if "redemption" is quite the right word. "Liberation" or "escape," maybe? Does anyone atone for their sins (Jules is changed by experiencing a miracle, Butch by not throwing a fight)? I like your take on "Death Proof" -- the stuntwomen surpassing Stuntman Mike -- which is definitely something that's going on within the revenge structure. Looking forward to more of what you have to say.

How do you feel about Armond Whites views on Quentin Tarantinos films.

JE: I recently quoted Glenn Kenny on AW, in which he made the most germane point that there's little to argue with in White's criticism for the simple reason that he doesn't construct coherent thoughts or arguments. Good example from his "IB" review: "Even Alain Resnais’ classic, unnerving concentration camp documentary 'Night and Fog' pales next to the vibrant imaginings of this five-chapter instant-cult film—which offensively begins 'Once Upon a Time…in Nazi Occupied France.'" What do those words mean? I can only guess what, for example, he intends by the comparison with "Night and Fog," or what "pales," "vibrant" and "offensively" are meant to signify in this sentence. And what is the connection between the two parts of the sentence? As Kenny said about some other White passages: "I don't want to know what you think it means, what you infer it means when you put it through your own personal White decoder ring, no; I want to know what the words in the sentence as they are actually written actually mean. As, you know, an actual copy editor would understand them. Because an actual copy editor would tell you that the sentence is gibberish...."

Your description of QT's films as abstract art is fantastic. I believe QT's films are best when they are "conceptually enjoyable, visually thrilling, and viscerally exciting, but not particularly emotionally engaging." To that point, I found Jackie Brown to be an enjoyable, but forgettable film, largely because it is not an all-out attempt at capturing what QT loves about film and pop culture. What I value most about QT's films is that they exemplify the auteur theory of directing movies: his films are visual representations of how QT sees the world and of where his mind was during the time he made each film. His perception of life seems to be largely constructed by the films that have excited him and the music that resonated in his core. We have all experienced art in one form or another that have made us FEEL something. QT is the rare person who has the ability to remain fixated on those feelings, discuss those interests at great length, and to regurgitate them into a language of his own in the medium of film. In a good QT film, you can feel his excitement for the material he is cribbing from. I love it when I find a person who shares some of my interests and can turn me onto something I haven't seen or heard before and QT is the only person I can think of who creates his art based around that notion. I've enjoyed QT's films on their own merit and as vehicles for pointing me towards other films or music that I haven't experienced before.

I actually have the opposite experience with Ingmar Bergman. I don't find Wild Strawberries, Winter Light, Through a Glass Darkly, or The Silence to be anywhere near as rewarding as the films where he's hung his ideas around more plotting or abstraction as we see in The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring, Persona, or Cries and Whispers. Unlike Bergman, I enjoy QT when his films are the most representative of what's going on in his head.

I love that you've tied QT to Looney Tunes. No group of individuals have done "Wouldn't it be cool if..." better than the guys of Termite Terrace. We often hear criticisms of QT's style being a mash-up of other movies but you could easily excoriate the creators of Looney Tunes for the same sins.

I also finally caught up with Death Proof in the last week. If you haven't seen it, I'd also recommend checking out Planet Terror. Robert Rodriguez does a much better job of taking QT's "Grindhouse" concept and crafting a film around it than QT did (not that I mind; Death Proof was still fantastic in its own right, even if the "Grindhouse" concept was simply tacked onto it). Planet Terror probably wouldn't have worked outside of the "Grindhouse" concept, but within it, I found it to be a perfectly crafted piece of film making. Planet Terror really showed me how much Rodriguez understands the language of film (which makes my memories of some of his past films all the more frustrating). Outside of a few overcooked shots (in a film that is all about being over-the-top), the film had me engaged on a level that most films rarely do, especially if they are zombie gore fests. I've probably oversold it here, but it's definitely worth a viewing if you're ever in the mood for a really well-made, wacky sci-fi/horror film.

JE: Muchas gracias, haggie! To paraphrase Wilco, QT is NOT trying to break your heart.

Just to carry the off-topic discussion of Saving Private Ryan even further past its welcome: I still don't think we've accurately identified the heart of the scene in question (i.e. Upham's killing of the German soldier). This is a complex moment and one that must be analyzed carefully or it becomes one of the more unsavory scenes in the film. (It's certainly a rod with which I've beat SPR in the past; but I'm no longer convinced my righteous indignation was entirely justified.)

There's definitely something to Paul's notion that Upham learns, and here illustrates, the difference between civilian and soldier morality in wartime. That's surely one component of Upham's arc and a tragic one at that, which the especially washed-out photography of the scene indicates. On the other hand, I find it difficult to follow Paul's argument to the same ultimate conclusion, i.e. that Upham realizes this prisoner should not have been taken, this life should not have been spared, and/or that the earlier act of mercy could only be repaid in blood and shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. There's certainly room for this interpretation, but I consider it a fault of the film rather than a strength.

So what's really going on, then? First, I think we can agree that Upham experiences a shift from passivity (cowardice) to active, personal responsibility (courage) and, having recognized the cost of his inaction during combat, manages to overcome his paralysis in the face of killing or being killed. Good.

Next, we can similarly agree that Upham's decision to kill the German soldier is intended as a corrective, but a corrective for what, exactly? This is where things get tricky because his motives are multiple. For starters, there's the simple recognition that if he'd "grown a pair" earlier, instead of cowering on the staircase, etc., he could have saved one or both of his fellows. So guilt becomes a factor, and the German soldier dies as a corrective for Upham's own cowardice. (If you like, you can easily extend this guilt right back to Upham's efforts to save the German in the first place. His return is in many ways Upham's fault, so the execution can also be considered a corrective for Upham's own naive show of mercy.**) But this isn't sufficient to lift the scene above the ugly and unsatisfying because it remains purely personal.

(**If this is indeed the case, however, then why does he let the other Germans go?)

Revenge or payback is another obvious component -- simple eye-for-an-eye morality -- with Upham executing the German for the lives he's taken from the American squad. (And again, if you like, this can be extended to their first meeting, where several of the American's urged for the German's death as further retribution for the medic's.) But again, I don't think this is enough to justify the scene, even if it's meant as an illustration of "the tragic effects of war", which have transformed this merciful young man into a hardened soldier. It's still solely personal.**

(**And once again, if this is just payback for lives lost, or a new-found hardened resolve against taking prisoners, then why does Upham let the rest of the German's go?)

No, the real key to the scene (in addition to Upham's guilt w/r/t his cowardice/naivete/mercy, and his urge to "balance the scales") is the breaking of trust and the perversion of good will the German soldier's actions represent. Upham fought to save this man's life, urged mercy on his companions, and ultimately sent the fellow on his way. The only condition asked was a relinquishment of arms: to exit the war willingly and without further confrontation with allied forces. To this the German soldier gave his word. The fact that he then returns, willingly -- after Upham not only saved his life but bought him freedom from the war -- and proceeds to kill further members from the squad ... well, that simply cannot be borne. Such a debasement of trust, good will and basic humanity (perhaps a symbol of the very war itself, its capacity to destroy all codes, moral, honour-bound or otherwise) is the ultimate objection (and one that's much more boradly universal than personal), and Upham kills him for it.

In the end, there's no denying the (obviously intentional) implication that killing becomes a hideous necessity during wartime -- and the scene is clearly meant as a horrible realization of this fact for both Upham and us -- but if this is the only thing we're meant to walk away with -- the notion that this German soldier simply should have been killed earlier rather than later -- then I'd call it a pretty disgusting little moment. No, the film doesn't handle the point very well or very clearly (though perhaps we should give it credit for a layered complexity, despite the fact it's so easily misinterpreted), but I still think there's more going on than a simple assertion of "soldier morality in wartime". At least I hope there is.

Glad you liked basterds Jim or we might have had a problem. It's a glorious film. I concur with the lack of emotion in most of Tarantino's films. However, in inglorious I found unexpected, almost startling, pathos in the ultimate fate of Shosannah. It gave me more of an emotional surge than any film going experience this year.

I think the ending is a triumph. I could go into a complex symbolic analysis (I think Tarantino represents the eventual triumph of the Jewish people over their persecutors through their prominent role in a medium which now exerts the most cultural influence in Western civilization. The conflagration at the films end being a literal representation of the Jews implicit triumph of their hardships) but I think its open to infinite interpretations. This has a definite shot at Best Picture come next year.

I loved the movie, and a lot of what you've written certainly has merit.

However, I disagree that Eli Roth isn't effective. I just think his participation has been talked about so much people can't help but over-scrutinize it.

I think he does work, I think he is menacing, AND I think the fact that WE are able to separate the actor from the "character" is intentional. As you suggest, the team is made up of people acting as characters to help heighten their own myth.

I think my favorite aspect of this movie, aside from Hans Landa, is the Shoshanna character and story.

It almost feels like she has no idea she's in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Her whole storyline, her relationship with her lover, and even her undeniable simultaneous attraction and repulsion by the young German hero suggest a depth I'm happy to see coming from Tarantino.

While Tarantino does seem to handle affection better than love, I don't doubt that while he lay dying, Mr. White loved and protected Mr. Orange as fiercely as a person is capable of. Alabama and Clarence Worley's love worked for me as well.

But for me, the relationship between Max Cherry and Jackie Brown is just about as great a cinematic love as any movie I've seen.

Tarantino suggested when he screened the movie here in Austin that he actually viewed Shoshanna and Zoller as his own Romeo and Juliet... The twist being that they literally killed each other instead of simply inspiring each other to commit suicide.

Which means in his eyes at least, Shoshanna loved Zoller as he loved her... But she would never allow herself to love him... In that way she was both Juliet and Tybalt in one while Zoller morphed from Romeo to Mercutio with their final confrontation.

JE: "It almost feels like she has no idea she's in a Quentin Tarantino movie." Beautiful! (SPOILER) I did feel a kind of reflexive "Awwww" when she got shot, because it's hard not to feel a little bad when something like that happens to an orphaned Jewish child survivor of Nazi atrocities who grows up to be a gorgeous cinema owner (and is showcased in ravishing costumes and compositions) and plots to kill the Nazi high command with the help of her comparably gorgeous black lover/projectionist. But the WAY it is filmed gave me chills: the red of her dress; the projector continuing to inexorably unspool ("alive" while she is no longer, continuing actions she has set in motion but will not witness). THAT's where the emotion comes in for me. As for Eli Roth: As I mentioned, I had seen pictures of him, but had never seen him "act" except in his small role in "Death Proof." I didn't have any preconceptions about him as a screen presence, though I'd seen his movie "Hostel" and thought it was surprisingly slack and boring. So, I didn't really have preconceptions about him. I wanted him to blow me away when he emerged from that tunnel. He didn't, and it was all downhill from there...

Thanks, Jim. Regarding Pulp Fiction: Jules' redemption is played out when he humanely allows Ringo to leave, when he buys his life, in his own words. As he says, he tries to become the shepherd. Butch's redemption comes when he goes back for Marcellus, making them, instead of enemies, partners and survivors, as was set up in the Walken monologue at the beginning of that chapter.
Now, for Inglourious Basterds, which needs more time and repeat viewings for me to have a real coherent argument, but I'll give you what I see so far. Revenge is tempting, and revenge against the cartoon Nazi's of film is both easy and tempting. But when you look at that revenge squarely and then take the desire to its logical conclusion, you start to see what revenge does to the avengers. Pitt is a neck-scarred caricature of a caricature, less a real character or human than any other person in the movie. Roth's Bear-Jew is a sadist who takes on mythic proportions that can only underwhelm when he's finally given a voice. The choice of Roth is deliberate, not as the hiring of a friend, which is how so many have taken it, but as a comment on the kind of movies Roth makes, which revel in gore without cause or compass or even style. At one point he is called a golem, and so as he destroys Hitler we see the mythic legends of Judaism rising up and rewriting history with Old Testament wrath. But look at his eyes when he does it, and his role takes on all the weight that many claim are missing.
So the avengers lose their humanity, and then eventually, through the history-making medium of movies, so do we. After all, Tarantino, in making a movie about Jewish rebellion under the subjection of the Jews, heads off any of the potential self-righteousness of a movie like Saving Private Ryan by specifically pointing out the subjugation of blacks in America. This is carried by propaganda into the movie King Kong, and then by analogy into Nation's Pride, where we laugh as Hitler revels in the carnage and then catch ourselves doing the same thing through the climax of this movie. The finger points back at us.
But to me, the kicker is the final scene, where we get an elongated, extreme close-up of Pitt tearing into Nazi flesh and etching in blood the symbol that has dominated so much of the movie. While there is a respectable philosophy to this act, which you outlined above, the visceral impact of the moment makes us cringe. We are confronted by the dissonance between our desire for revenge and the feelings inspired by the actual action of vengeance. Tarantino won't allow us to look away. If we wanted us to love violence or vengeance more than we already do, he would have been forced to either cut earlier or distance the shot.
To try and put my fragmented thoughts together, while vengeance may be justified, it takes a moral toll on the avenger, who is probably guilty of his or her own victim-creating atrocities anyway (as America is guilty of subjugating blacks and then controlling the image of blackness through the media). While we certainly feel a desire for justice in the abstract, when we are confronted with the true physical impact of our revenge, we either lose our humanity to sadism (Roth, Pitt), or turn away in disgust and sympathy for our worst enemy.
By the way, you've made me change my mind and now I agree that Death Proof is about revenge. You have no idea how hard I had to twist and cheat to not use the word revenge when I was explicating it above.

I think the movie's supposed to carry some emotional weight. Just watching it and not knowing how the Shoshanna/Zoller relationship was going to play out, and watching Zoller be so sweet to Shoshanna, I almost wanted them to get together (and the less-cynical part of me thought they would). I don't think I was watching the movie wrong for taking their relationship halfway seriously - since you kinda have to for that whole subplot to work. I think the implication is that in any other historical circumstance, they would have fallen in love, and there is something a little tragic about that. I'm not saying I was balling or anything, but I think there is something there.

And I feel the same way about the White/Orange relationship in "RD," the story of Butch Coolidge, and the relationships between Grier and Forster in "JB" and Thurman and Carradine in "Volume 2." I agree it's not Tarantino's number one aim, but I think he knows you have to be at least somewhat emotionally involved in the characters to care what happens to them, so he gives you...enough.

Otherwise I agree with everything you've said and appreciate your insight (except I thought that insane kill-happy glare in Roth's eyes was enough to make up for his admittedly less-than-intimidating physical presence). Here's a question that'll probably annoy you: what'd you think of the 360 shot in the movie theater around Waltz when he's talking to Kruger? It's done in almost the exact same context as the one in "TDK" that you treated so dismissively. Yes, in "IG" there's the extra tension added because Kruger is afraid of being found out, but, the setup is basically the same: a scary villain intimidating a helpless woman, making her head spin. What'd you think?

JE: I thought that 360-degree (+) shot in "IB" was annoying and gratuitous (and until you mentioned it I'd blocked it out of my memory entirely). See my post, "Dogme 09.8 Manifesto: Ten limitations for better movies: http://bit.ly/858Jf . But there was only one of them in the 153-minute film -- not three, as in the first half of "TDK." It has been done well over the last half-century or more. Hitchcock did it beautifully with James Stewart and Kim Novak and a hotel room and a stable in "Vertigo," and with Cary Grant, Grace Kelly and fireworks in "To Catch a Thief", De Palma with Sissy Spacek and William Katt at the prom in "Carrie"... But I think it's one of those show-off shots that has become so hackneyed that filmmakers shouldn't even attempt it unless they really have something new to do with it. Can anybody think of an inventive use of the spinning 360-degree (+) shot in the 21st century?

Jim, a terrific piece on QT. A few stray thoughts I had:

1) In all the constant comparisons to other directors that QT gets, I'm always surprised how rarely Russ Meyer comes up. To me, "Basterds" seems almost intentionally Meyer-esque: the out of nowhere voice-overs, the Nazi symbolism, the mix of violence, caricature, anachronistic music, etc. Even editing-wise and shot-wise, there are Meyer-isms everywhere, the way that some shots seem to linger forever to the way that when there are cuts, they are fast and furious and move the plot forward quickly and impatiently.

2) "Tarantino actively discourages emotional identification with any particular character beyond the confines of a particular scene"-- this is such an astute observation of QT's style, and in so many ways it is what I always love so much about his films. He has often, in interviews, spoken of his films as being novelistic, and perhaps in much the same way that you can read a novel, put it down, and then come back to it days later and reacquaint yourself with a character, he keeps his characters at a distance so that we never lose sight of the larger picture-- this is a really unusual device, but he always makes it seem so simple. So many film-makers get lost juggling ensemble casts and byzantine plots, but perhaps it is because they refuse to hold their characters at any kind of reasonable distance. It's interesting: I feel like the way he frustrates the viewer's ability to identify with his characters compels one to re-watch the films in order to be able to share those all-to-brief moments again.

3) On a similar tangent: I was thinking, after seeing IB, about how we don't really see Aldo do anything particularly heroic or even superlative in this film. And it made me think that another thing that makes QT's films so special is the perverse way that he takes the pivotal moments of a character's arc, and removes them from the scenes that he actually shows. In his earlier films, this manifested itself overtly in the way that Reservoir Dogs didn't show the heist, or Pulp Fiction didn't show Butch's boxing match. But in IB, we are dumped into a world where the Basterds are already legends to the Germans-- and from then on, we are parceled out only tidbits of their supposed legend. We see them kill the nazi commander in order to find out where the next treefort of Nazis is hiding; but in a more conventional war film, we would then be shown the actual subsequent attack on said treefort. In this one, of course, this course of action is never mentioned again and it considered inconsequential. Even the scar on Aldo's neck is a taunt to the audience: it is so visible in so many shots, and yet there is not the slightest nod to its existence by any of the characters. We are left to speculate, but we won't be shown how he got it. Of course, we can guess that Tarantino himself could probably fill two hours telling us the fascinating backstory on the scar-- but it's a backstory that he excised at some point in making the film, and I find that highly edit-focused methodology fascinating, especially in a film that is such a shaggy dog tale itself.

JE: Great observations. "Death Proof" plays like a warm-up for QT's reported remake of Russ Meyer's "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"

Fair enough. Well, I don't want to get too much into "TDK" because I don't think there's any way I'll change your mind about that one, but, the 360 degree shot on the rooftop is of Oldman and Eckhart having a circular (I had to say it) argument, and it stops still behind Batman - we only see his dark mask, pointed slightly downward - watching silently. So there is some purpose to it.

But anyway, I see what you mean. What's worse is the 360 shot montage Bay uses in "Transformers 2" spinning around LaBeouf and Fox embracing - he doesn't use the same shot, he cuts over and over again between different 360 shots all spinning around them. It's nauseating. Your prejudice toward it reminds me of when I was young, and I noticed that in so many of the movies I was watching, whenever the actor had a dramatic monologue to deliver, the camera would slooowly zoom in on their face. I can't stand seeing that shot in any movie, anymore.

JE: There's an even worse shot than the slow close-up zoom now. I've seen it on "24" and a few other places: the jump-zoom. The camera will suddenly push in (optically) just a little bit, on an actor's face or to slightly re-frame a shot. It's supposed to "intensify" a moment, often just after a cut -- and to provide the illusion of artificial movement in case we can't handle a shot that stays still for more than a second or two. It's like taking a big fluorescent highlighter to the screen.

I kind of disagree about the whole violence-morality issue with Tarantino's movies because he always has his characters flat-out state their reason why they did what they did (this was implied in my last post about "recurring elements in Taratino movies"). When you see Brad Pitt he gives a whole little monologue about WHY he is doing the violence he is doing--one of the reasons you mentioned: the scare tactic. Portraying violence in a movie for the sake of violence would be wrong, but Tarantino doesn't do that. Here are some flat-out statements in his previous films, from his characters themselves, about why they are actingly violently (whether this is manipulative is kind of a matter of personal taste):

"True Romance": "He is not worth one of your tears. Would you rather it have been me?!"

"Natural Born Killers": "Everybody's got the demon in here, Okay? The demon lines in here; it feeds on your hate...cuts, kills, rapes...It uses your weakness, your fears. Only the vicious survive. We're told we're no good pieces of shit from the time we could breathe. After a while, you kind of become bad...After the Indian we were gonna quit killin'; the old man took it out of us...it was just a mistake. I was just runnin' with the animals in the darkness...Mr. Rabbit, bloody fangs...little madness goin on and I don't know...we're just runnin'..and I'm just Mr. Rabbit eatin' every other animal in the forest. Death, just--death just kind of becomes what you are. After a while you begin to like it."

"Reservoird Dogs": Mr. White: "The choice between doin' ten years and takin out some stupid motherfucker..ain't no choice at all. But I ain't no madman either."

"Pulp Fiction": "My name is Pitt and your ass ain't talkin your way outta this shit."

but later he talks about how he's trying to be "the shepard" and how he's going to "walk the earth."

"Jackie Brown": Ordell "Now, that my friend is a clear cut case of him or me. And you best believe it ain't gonna be me."

"Kill Bill": Bill: "I'm a murdering bastard, you know. And there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard."

"Inglourious Basterds": (Brad Pitt)Lt. Aldo:

"...we're only goin be doin' one thing, and thing only, Killin Nazis. The members of the National Socialist Party have conquered Europe through murder, torture, intimidation, and terror. And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. Now I don't know bout y'all? But I sure as hell, didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half Sicily, and then jump out of a fuckin air-o-plane, to teach Nazi's lessons in humanity. Nazi's ain't got no humanity. There the foot soldiers of a Jew hatin, mass murderin manic, and they need to be destroyed. That's why any and every son-of-a-bitch we find wearin a Nazi uniform, there gonna die."

JE: Verrrrry interesting (as Nazi Arte Johnson used to say on "Laugh-In"). You're right that Tarantino characters often articulate a kind of code of conduct (even the jokey one about never calling a Kiwi and Aussie in "Death Proof") to explain or justify their actions. They're ALWAYS explaining themselves and lecturing others about the way the world is supposed to work. Sometimes these lectures are of a moral or ethical nature; sometimes not. ("Not many people got a code to live by anymore" -- from the Repo Code in "Repo Man.") But I do think the swastika-scarring, as articulated by Raine in "IB," is rooted in some kind of moral view: that Nazis should not be able to hide from their pasts once the war is over. Is that a genuine "moral code" or just a screenwriter's shorthand motivational device that doesn't mean much in the overall scheme of things? That's one of the things people are arguing about with regard to "IB."

I've noticed that too, it's kinda like trying to focus on something and getting hit in the back of the head. The best use of it I've seen was in the rain/confrontation scene in "Cassandra's Dream," and, I think it was right after a cut. But that's different, a thousand times subtler than the "24" style "jump-zoom." Allen's been using a lot of small visual touches lately, there's one shot near the end of "Whatever Works" that's slightly out of focus. I won't say why incase you haven't seen it, but I think in context it was pretty clever.

And, to Daniel: I remember reading a clip from the screenplay of "Inglourious Basterds" in a magazine (might have been GQ) about a year ago. It was Raine's opening monologue and it mentioned the scar in the description, saying it was from a noose, but that "it will never be explained."

Can anybody think of an inventive use of the spinning 360-degree (+) shot in the 21st century?

The only one that immediately came to mind isn't even from the 21st century -- but it's close. There's a sequence in "The Matrix" that, if I remember correctly, is actually two 360-degree shots cut together -- one spinning around all the characters in the "real world" about to "jack in," and one spinning around a phone in the Matrix, around which all the character are about to appear.

But uh... no, I'm not sure how "inventive" you can really call that. :P

Although... one other shot suddenly comes to mind from "In Bruges." Again, I don't recall if it's exactly a full 360-degree shot, but near the end of the movie, there is one shot that circles around Ray and Chloe as they're kissing outside the bell tower. As the shot circles around them from right to left, it picks up Ken and Harry walking in the background from left to right -- without either party noticing the other. That, I would argue, is a great use of a 360-degree (or close-ish?) shot -- one of many moments in the movie that pick up on all these little ironies and coincidences that are just beyond the view of the characters, but ultimately mean life or death (mostly death...) for many of them.

And on another note, I hate, hate, hate "jump-zooms." All the talk was about the ridiculous lens flairs, but nothing annoyed me more in "Star Trek" than the terribly unnecessary jump-zooms in so many of the space sequences. They don't make me think, "Wow, this is intense!" They make me think, "Wow... this cameraman in outer space is lousy at filming space ships."

Even "Wall-E" (a movie I love) slipped into the whole jump-zoom, artificial-camera-movement style a few times, and it was distracting in kind of the same way. The first half of the movie is supposed to be all about Wall-E's isolation as the last sentient thing on Earth, but every time the camera seemed to be "struggling" to "keep up" with him as if there was actually a cameraman operating it, it just makes me think that... well, apparently there's a cameraman operating it.

Kevin H., first off I appreciate the lengthy and thoughtful response. Second off, your point about Upham's thought-process (ie, his good will was betrayed) is completely correct, and once you think about it, it's obviously true. I had overlooked it, and misunderstood what was very likely the character's actual motivation at that moment.

However! That does leave us, having solved the character, having to solve the director and the scene, and the overall meaning and the implications. You seem to say that, with that motivation (his good will being betrayed), the scene is not a 'pretty disgusting little moment', or at least is less disgusting. But a couple of things should be noted. The act is the act, regardless of its motivation. And a purely personal motivation (as it would certainly be if, as is likely, Upham shoots the soldier more or less for betraying his faith in humanity) is, to me, no better or worse than a simply practical, general, 'should have killed him sooner, would've saved some lives' motivation. To many moralists, killing for a personal reason as Upham does is probably WORSE. Anyway few people serious about ethics would say it's any better than killing for practical, less personal reasons. The other thing we have to think about then is that the character DID betray Upham's trust. He DID return to the field, and he DID shoot and kill our protagonist. So that, whatever Upham's actual motivations were (ie, whether or not they included a realization and giving in to 'the nature of war'), Spielberg as the director is making a statement about the nature of war - in war there is no trust, no fellowship between men of opposing armies, no humanity. Now seeing as how Spielberg is saying that, what can the character of Upham - who we have to say is the closest thing to a stand-in for Spielberg or for 'ordinary' people in the film - what can Upham's being so morally offended by this person's betrayal of trust (a truth of war) that he murders him in cold blood, say about Spielberg?

I think it remains a pretty disgusting little moment, any way you look at it. And in fact I think the nearer you get to the truth (Upham's motivations, Spielberg's motivations), the uglier the scene gets. Ultimately it can probably be read as Spielberg being so morally hurt/ fed up with war 'morality', and what war makes men do and be, that he has his surrogate character commit an act far more egregious than any we had seen previously in the film, when it was all done in the spirit of war. And Spielberg, to my mind (and this was and still is the crux of this little side-debate), does not condemn Upham for it at all, and does not show him condemning himself for it.

And that's why he should stick to making movies about sharks.

"Is that a genuine "moral code" or just a screenwriter's shorthand motivational device that doesn't mean much in the overall scheme of things?"

I think there's a moral reason that Tarantino explains why the violence was done whether right or wrong or whatnot. So, I think it could go either way, in regard to how the characters feel about it, but it is clearly very important to Tarantino that WE KNOW they are doing it for a reason. He said on Charlie Rose recently that he feels his characters are "refreshingly free of morality"...but he knows that that doesn't matter as long as we know why they do it.

Tarantino movies are almost always about bad people dealing with issues of morality. Characters with a lifetime of sin behind them encountering a situation that makes them contemplate, honestly, what they should do. His movies are about the situation, not the lifetime. That's why Mr. White can be the "good guy" when he's in the warehouse, even though he's probably killed just as many people as Mr. Blonde. Or, Jules and Vincent and their separate reactions to the "divine intervention." A super assassin who gets pregnant. And through these situations he draws - or highlights - a line. A thin, delicate line, one that's hard to find, but a line nonetheless.

Thinking about it, "Death Proof" and "Inglourious Basterds" are his most morally interesting movies to date. The girls in the second half of "DP" aren't your typical Tarantino villains, but ordinary people, who - when faced with an extraordinary situation - casually decide to murder someone. The "heroes" in "IB" are soldiers, and soldiers in WWII at that, where killing is, in a way, justified. But it's the murderous glee they've picked up that makes it grey. Is it okay for them to enjoy the work they do? Should they brood about it instead? How should we feel about it? I think the better question is how do we feel about it.

And Landa is the other moral puzzle. He's almost worse than a true Nazi, a true patriot. He's a rat, just out to save himself. Compare the handling of his character to that of Werner, the first Nazi we see the Basterds kill. No one in the movie comes off as noble or brave as he does. But he gets the worse death, while Landa (and the other treasonous Nazi) is allowed to live. What does it mean? I don't know.

There is only one group that I wholeheartedly recommend Tarentino movies to: English majors. They can appreciate the dialogue more than anyone else. It's almost poetic, even down to the cliches that pepper it.

My favorite cliche in a QT movie wasn't even spoken at all: the opening text card shot of "Kill Bill" featured the "Klingon Proverb" "Revenge is a dish best served cold" from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Being a Trekker, I loved it.

For non-English majors, my recommendation is the same: Watch the first 15 minutes or so of "Pulp Fiction." If you like it, keep going. If not, take the disc out and put something else in. QT is an acquired taste.

I just saw IB and came away with mixed emotions. One of the most disappointing aspects of this film is his inconsistency in vision and style. I found the film projector booth sequence with Shosanna and Zoller absolutely beautiful, but discordant with the tone and history of their previous interactions, especially in the gonzo context of the rest of the film. It makes me delirious with delight to think of the full-film version of, say, a Shosanna/Zoller love tragedy a la Romeo and Juliet, or the Van Hammersmark double-crossing created by someone with the talents of QT -- unfortunately, it's something I don't think he could or would ever produce himself.

That is why I found IB partly disappointing -- there are moments of grandeur in there, but they tend to get lost in the murkier wider context of what is in effect a comedy. There are beautiful vignettes scattered throughout the film like diamonds in a rough, but IB is just simply not cohesive enough to make the whole film shine. Where, for example, does Van Hammersmark even come from? Her presence is never quite explained, nor entirely rational. Such inconsistencies mar QT's greater vision.

Oh to think what a great short-film director QT would be...

JE: Tarantino says the reason it took him so long to make this movie (he started after "Jackie Brown" in 1998) was that he ended up writing something that was so long it could have been a mini-series but not a feature film. The words "short" (as in "brevity") and "Tarantino" are incompatible.

Just have to say, I disagree with you about Eli Roth's performance. There was a quality to him that evoked a 30's New Yorker. With that baseball bat, he looked like a cast member from Eight Men Out. And in his final scene, I thought the look on his face when he was gunning down Nazis was perfection. In fact, the close-up of his face as he gunned them down is one of the images that most strongly sticks with me from the film.

Now, I didn't know who the actor was playing the Bear Jew until I looked it up after the movie. Could that have been an influence on you, knowing in advance that he was primarily a director by trade? Or did it simply not affect you the way it did me?

Just got back from seeing this and noticed you made reference to Tarantino's quote about Red Dawn. I immediately thought of that movie as I was watching some of the scenes in Inglorious Basterds unfold. And how appropriate that in the credits John Milius is thanked!

I don't understand the backlash towards this film and its historical inaccuracies...I mean Jesus people it begins with the words "Once upon a time..."!

Anyway -- I have nothing more I could possibly say about this film because you have so brilliantly covered it here. (Well that's a lie...I do have more to say, but I will do so at my own blog...which I am sure I will have to make a disclaimer telling readers that my blog name is in no way affiliated with Tarantino's film! Hehe).

Great stuff as always, Jim.

It's not so much Roth's look that doesn't work, as his voice and his - well his acting, for lack of a better word. His whole manner.

Harry,

I'm not a Trekkie, a Trekker or even someone who has seen every bit of Star Trek that's ever been filmed, but even I know that the Khan is the first to mention the old Klingon Proverb about revenge in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. However, we do learn that Shakespeare was a Klingon in The Undiscovered Country.

Tully:

You are correct. I don't know how I misquoted that one. I guess it's because I'm more of a Next Generation fan than the Original Series.

Boy, is my face red right now. Better go hide in my man cave.

Pretty fair assesment. . .thrilling, but not moving. . .that's mostly about right, except for 2 exceptions:

The ending of "Kill Bill 2," and the ending of "Jackie Brown." In both cases, QT dials it WAAAY down and gives us understated longing instead of his usual slam bang nuttiness.

Don't get me wrong, QT is one of my favorite filmmakers ever, but those two scenes are the only moments where he does "moving." He's quite good at it. I'd like to see him direct a straightforward drama. Although that seems like a waste, since his rather UNstraightforwad understanding of genre is his greatest contribution to film.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of Kill Bill Vol. 2. I found the last 20 minutes of that to be incredibly moving. I didn't expect that. Carradine's "superman" speech is strangely awesome.

Jim, I'm not sure how you missed the many ways in which Tarantino complicates audience feelings of revenge. (spoilers ahead...)

Five chapters, right?

The first one establishes Landa (and by extension the Nazis) as a bad guy, a murderer, and a racist (whose defense of racism [squirrels and rats] was chillingly convincing for a moment).

The second introduces the "Basterds" (who are called that for a reason). There's Raine's monologue, which has tinges of racism to it ("the German will fear us", etc., not to mention the conflation of "soldier in the German army" with "Nazi" [which are strictly the party officials]). There's the introduction of Stiglitz a little later, a tongue-in-cheek blaxploitation glorification of a man whose claim to fame is a series of brutal murders. Then we have the extraordinary scene in the ditch, in which the first German soldier is portrayed as a brave, noble person. The Ennio Morricone music is playing for him, as is the slow-motion, etc. Raine's interrogation of him takes place against a backdrop of dead bodies on a slope, strongly reminiscent of Holocaust imagery. And when he's killed, the Basterds turn his death into a trivial entertainment--a movie, a sporting event. They cheer, and rather than asking us to empathize and cheer with them, Tarantino cuts away, asking us to stand outside and observe them critically.

Then there's the chapter involving Shoshanna, and the war hero who is also humanized ("I thought I was just a uniform," he says).

Following that, we have Operation Kino. The British are undermined as ridiculous, standing around in that giant empty room, drinking and talking about "cine-mah". It's Hicox's mistakes that sink them in the bar, and get sympathetic new father Wilhelm murdered.

Finally, the storylines come together in the massacre. First Hitler and the Nazis get a kick out of watching the violence in "Nation's Pride", and then the audience of IB get a kick out of the fictional audience burning to death, screaming in terror. (I think it's deliberate that the image from Nation's Pride which plays over the shot of the pile of nitrate film is the pile of bullets, there's a direct comparison there.) When Roth and "Decocco" machine-gun Hitler and co. to death, it's literally senseless--overkill, since they would have burned or exploded anyway.

We close with the off-putting carving of the swastika, the last line playing over Landa's cries of pain.

Tarantino does an excellent job of balancing audience identification, vilifying his heroes and humanizing his villains, in order to problematize the notion of taking vicarious pleasure from a revenge film. QT acknowledges the powerful draw of revenge (and uses it), but is saying with IB that that impulse is ultimately destructive.

JE: Nice observations, Kyu. It wasn't that I didn't notice these things, and I don't deny that they're there. It's that I didn't feel most of them working as you did. I don't think they're there to "problematize the notion of taking vicarious pleasure from a revenge film." If anything, I think they're there to play "gotcha!" with the audience. (Though anyone's entitled to read moral implications into any technique, no matter what the filmmaker's motives may or may not be.) It's part of the zing and sting of the picture. Stiglitz and "The Bear Jew" get big, comic-book superhero introductions in Chapter 2, right before the latter bashes in the head of the Nazi soldier for propaganda purposes. They chose him to scare the other, weaker soldier into providing the information they knew they'd never get from the first guy. Practical tactical approach. Revenge is, by definition, destructive (that's why they call it revenge!). But I'm curious: Do you think "IB" is equating itself with the the propaganda epic "National Pride" in some ways, and the Nazi audience with the "IB" audience? If so, what do you think are the implications of that?

We view that ditch scene differently, I think. I see the big superhero introductions as ironic, given the violent/prosaic reality (Stiglitz as a personality-less murderer, Roth as an absurd hyped-up baseball fan). I do disagree that they "knew" they'd never get info out of the first guy. Aldo Raine certainly seems to think the guy will tell him--it's in the way he reiterates which info he needs, in the way he says honestly, "Yeah, I do expect that from you."

As for revenge being destructive, I meant self-destructive, but that's an argument I haven't really gathered enough evidence for as of yet. I'm still unpacking this very complicated movie.

I think "IB" is absolutely equating itself with "Nation's Pride" in some ways. I think Tarantino's movie is partially talking about the way in which history quickly becomes myth/image/iconography, specifically 20th century history, through cinema. I think it's talking about how we tell stories of the past from a particular vantage point, knowing all the "facts" (which are so misleading, you know)--which relates to the notion of the climax and alternate history, how we expect things to go a certain way because that's what we've been told, and because movies never deviate from that "factuality".

I still haven't decided how far IB means to go when it compares the Nation's Pride audience to IB's audience. At the very least, I think Tarantino is saying, "Revenge (or your emotional reaction to it) is not as simple as you think."

Great reading, this entire thread.

But to quibble--whoever wrote the "Klingon proverb" literally stole it from the old Italian saying...

JE: That's Tarantino's attribution in the film. He knew what he was doing.

The thing you all seem to be missing about Eli Roth as 'the Bear Jew' is that he's not supposed to be truly huge and hairy. Just like in the second to last scene with Landa, the 'Little Man' of the Inglorious Bastards is just a little short, not some kind of deadly circus midget as he is made out to be in the telling of the tale. We are meant to see how the story grows; how a relatively tall guy, a little goofy, with a baseball bat who knocks over a cuffed Nazi will become poofed up into 'the Bear Jew' by single allowed-to-escape survivors with swastikas cut into their foreheads.

Far better to claim he was an unkillable ten foot tall Golem-Jew than to say that he was slim, boyish, had a New York accent, went on about baseball, and was just kind of tall.

JE: Part of the trouble, I think, has to do with Hugo Stiglitz's '70s exploitation movie flashback, which precedes the introduction of "The Bear Jew." Stiglitz is every inch the larger-than-life characters he's built up to be. Given the build-up to Eli Roth's emergence from the tunnel, do you think his appearance is supposed to be (comically?) anti-climactic? I suppose that's a possibility, but it didn't quite play that way for me either time I saw the movie.

Here are some points for consideration.
1.Landa suffers from Hubris, he is so accustomed to victory that his character expects nothing more then then to get away scott-free, but this is film(drama/theatre) and the "gods" must punish him for it.
2.Shosshana lives because she is a tight-lipped, she dies when she starts talking. Also Mélanie Laurent spoke so much with her body language and facial expressions, there really wasn't a need for her to verbally dance with other characters.
I have only seen the movie once so maybe I shouls see it again.

Thank you for this site and the discussion on "IB" it provides - finally I have found a place to enjoy the thoughts of others on one of the rare films which just don't let you go for days and days.

I am not sure if it plays a role in the few points I wish to make on "IB", but I feel I should tell you that I write from a German perspective.

1. QT's Morality and the Title

When I read the various analyses of the movie's morale or non-morale it came to my mind that the title might be seen too narrowly if just confining it to Raine's basterds. The whole movie is full of inglorious basterds of different degrees and kinds:
Landa, an SS jew hunter; Zoller- less for his last desparate approach on Shosanna but for his gleefully slaughtering a good deal of a regiment single-handedly instead of accepting that this might be the day to say "Ei sörrender"; Diehl's SS-officer - one of the few really clichéd German characters in the movie; Bridget - a spy and traitor, though not as effective as she wishes to be (as Aldo knew from the start ("a basement")- I also wonder if the casting of the usually abysmally bad Diane Kruger as a 3rd-Reich-starlet was a conscious decision, she suits the role effortlessly this time!); the film-critic who is less of a bastard but an inglorious wannabe 007; the NS-leadership in the cinema; the poor farmer who is bullied into collaboration; maybe even Shoshanna whose actions are absolutely justifiable but when juxtaposed to her friend's cautious warnings gain the air of a suicide-bomber's fanatism.

I see it as the director's comment of the time and situation that nobody gets away clean (and alive).
The survival of Raine and Landa, if I am not mistaken virtually the only surviving major characters, the final scene in general, makes sense when you take them to a level beyond the story; representing QT's alter ego (after all, it is his revenge-fantasy and both stem from Tennessee) and QT's favourite creation in the context of this film they may hardly die.

Afterthought: has anybody else noticed that the last shots of Landa after he realized that Raine won't accept his Bingo-capitulation make Waltz look completely different from all other scenes - standing in the forest closely ressembles Bruno Ganz's Hitler in "Der Untergang" when for the last time venturing into the sunlight.

2. I know that QT has seen and digested a lot of movies in his life. Probably more than I ever wish to know. Still, I found it amazing how deeply he got into discussing different aspects of German film- and cultural history. The movies, actors and directors he mentions even leave most younger Germans clueless. The discussion on "Winnetou" is priceless considering that these novels and films are, as far as I know, virtually unknown outside of Germans.

Contrary to many movies set in WW II, most Germans in IB seem to be more carefully crafted then I would have expected considering the premise. Maybe this is helped by seeing so many (to me) familiar faces. Nevertheless, I found this general impression quite pleasing considering that this was QT's first non-contemporary movie though still decidedly not a historical one.

3. Hans Landa / Fredrick Zoller

a) While most other character's names have somehow been interpreted as nods to actors/directors I have found no such trivia on these two characters. I hereby offer my own:

After the first few minutes, still in the midst of chapter one, a thought raced through my head: "Oh my God, this is a Nazi-Columbo".
Failing to find any other likeness to the name (Formula-1-champion Niki Lauda makes no sense at all despite being Austrian) I cling to the theory that the naming is a twisted nod to the TV-detective. It is almost rhyming slang. Just say both names out loud.

b) Fredrick Zoller. A clear allusion to the Prussian king Fredrick the Great (1713-86) whose dynasty, the Hohenzollern (!) later ruled the German Empire until 1918.
As Zoller is an ambivalent character, so is this king; a monarch of the era of enlightenment, a composer and skilled flute-player, friend of contemporary philosophers such as Voltaire he is also a ruthless conqueror (allegedly having justified his attack on Austria directly after his ascension to the throne as a mean "to become famous") and a military genius.

Additionally, movies about Fredrick the Great were very popular in 1930s Germany and Hitler himself never got tired of alluding to this historical figure.

4. "He would rather compare himself to David O. Selznick"

A great line but also one which provokes a comment. Hicox hits the nail here, but the IB doesn't. I forgive it for that, because "Stolz der Nation" (anyone thinking Birth of a Nation?) surely suits the story.
However, the blatant propaganda pieces such as Riefenstahl's "documentaries" or anti-semitic dirt such as "Jud Süß" were not representative for Goebbel's output.

a) The Ufa's showpieces in the 40s desparetly tried to mirror Hollywood's contemporary masterpieces: "Münchhausen" was a fantasy in the style of the "Wizard of Oz", "Kolberg" (despite being a propaganda movie in its message) was supposed to be the German "GWTW".
b) It is amazing to see how the escapism of most films was directed not only into completely ignoring the ongoing war, but even the regime altogether. Watch a comedy/drama/love story of the Ufa and try to find a swastika or a uniform... they all seem to be set in the days of the republic.

However, I am glad I wouldn't have to suffer through the complete carnage of "Stolz der Nation" (not taking the burning cinema into account). The few moments were like watching someone else play Counterstrike.

5. Violence

OK, we knew we would get some. I have to refer to my wife here who, despite being a huge fan of Kill Bill, found most of the violence in IB nauseating and disgusting.

Odd...I thought. Despite the negative karma of the iconography, I prefer a swastika scar to being hacked to pieces by the bride any day.

In my opinion, the point is that unusual violence was shown to us. We are in WW2 and what do we see? Tanks? 0 Planes? Zero. Gunfighting? Little. Someone getting beaten to death with a basey, people being skalped, foreheads disfigured with a knife, a woman being throttled. This is all very antediluvian and very different to the modern day SPR-inspired iconography of WW2-movies. Wait - when did I last see a woman being choked to death in a movie? Must have been in the era of black and white.

I agree with your review almost 100% but I have more to add. Below is my analysis:

I have been surprised by how many critics dismissed the film Inglourious Basterds (sic) as a shallow entertaining romp that appeals to humanity’s base desires. As an audience member who dislikes most Hollywood action films, I would not have enjoyed this film if it were so shallow. In the past, I was reluctant to see Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction because I don’t enjoy violence. I soon discovered that it was worth enduring the Tarantino’s gore because his movies presented subtle, ironic and brilliant commentary on our culture.

For me Inglourious Basterds was no exception. I saw the cartoonish, juvenile vision of history presented in this film as a metaphor for the neo-con Bush/Palin view of history and foreign affairs. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is a George W. Bush-like American war hero: brave, daring and brash, but simplistic in his moral views and totally tone deaf to foreign cultures (this point is made comic when Aldo impersonates an Italian). Aldo also is not averse to senseless and cruel torture, a characteristic that can be equated with Bush policies (its OK to torture our enemies because they are really bad, Nazi-like guys).

Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), the worldly polyglot Nazi villain, is also a caricature. He is the antithesis of the passionately patriotic, anti-intellectual American hero. He is a charming, dispassionate internationalist. He is sophisticated and practical. He tortures his victims psychologically, but avoids the kind of vengeful physical torture committed by Aldo. He is not a man with strong patriotic instincts and is perfectly happy to double cross the Nazis and begin a new life in America. In neo-con America (think former UN ambassador John Bolton) internationalism often equals wrong-headedness at best, and malevolency at worst.

Tarantino’s “alternative ending” for WWII is also Bushian. The “freedom fighters” overcome the “evil doers” in a satisfying blaze of glory. The historical improbability of the adventure is right-wing wish fulfillment (bold, simplistic, English-only-speaking Americans carry-out a war-ending mission) Viewers don’t have to endure the time-consuming Battle of the Bulge or engage in a competition with Russia over the right to claim credit for ending the war. Simplistic neo-cons envision a similar end for the “War on Terror.” They would have us believe that America can win this “war” without any attempt to analyze or comprehend our enemy’s culture. All we need to do is give neo-con leaders the resources to blow up all the bad guys.

That Inglourious Basterds is a parody of the America’s Hollywood vision of itself at war(as portrayed in westerns, Dirty Dozen-style films and Toby Keith lyrics) is made manifest by the movie’s constant thematic references to the media, films and film making: The Basterds mission is "operation kino” ( kino is the German world for film); one of the Basterds is a British film critic whose deadly gaffe threatens to sabotage the mission; a movie star is a double (or triple) agent; a German war hero plays himself in a “film within the film” called Nation’s Pride (a movie that presents an idealized Nazi view of WWII history); a Jewish cinema owner “rewrites” history by inserting an alternate ending (sound familiar?) into Nation’s Pride; and finally the Jews are avenged as Hitler dies in a theater that shows German propaganda films. All these self-conscious references hint at Tarantino's ironic message: The media (and films in particular) often simplify the ambiguities of war into fiction, fantasy and wish fulfillment.

Tarantino' subverts his cartoonish "John Wayne" vision of WWII by inserting discomforting moments into the narrative: horrific beatings, graphic scalping, etc. Many Hollywood war films gloss over such gore. By forcing us to participate in the Basterds’ sadism, Tarantino compels us to confront our own feelings about violence, revenge and torture. This point is reinforced towards the end of the film, as Hitler and the Nazis laugh and cheer American deaths in the film Nation’s Pride. A few moments later, we are encouraged to cheer with similar gusto as Hitler is assassinated and the theater full of Nazis is destroyed by Jews.

The director also challenges insular America by having most of the action take place in other languages (Aldo Raine would “not abide” subtitles.) Tarantino even mocks American’s tendency to believe that the world should speak English for their benefit by inserting a self-consciously improbable episode in his first scene: After the German villain Landa begins his interrogation of a farmer in impeccable French, he asks the Frenchman if they can continue their conversation in English. This stunt is so obvious that one must assume that Tarantino is teasing the subtitle-weary audience. In an old-fashion Hollywood film, the English speaking would continue, but Tarantino perversely persists in taunting anti-internationalist Americans (and subverts the money-making potential of his film) by having most of the subsequent action take place in French and German.

After seeing the film, I searched for reviewers who shared my interpretation and was disappointed to see how many critics took the action at face value. Thankfully, your review presented a more nuanced reading! Tarantino made a film that could be enjoyed in a straight forward visceral way by action fans or dismissed by the literal-minded PC crowd. By reading the film as I did, the cartoonish one-dimensional characterization of the Basterds made sense, as did QT’s unusual decision to make a foreign-language American “propaganda” film.