So, is this a Jewish revenge fantasy? “That wouldn’t be the section of the video store I’d put it in,” said Quentin Tarantino. (But it totally is.) We screened the first public cut of Inglourious Basterds at Cannes; now we present a playful preview into Quentin’s Basterd brain …
Yeah, just call him Jew Hunter.
The film starts in the French countryside in 1941. On a dairy farm. A French farmer and his three daughters receive a visit from Colonel HansLanda (Christoph Waltz). Is it a friendly visit? Well, it’s excruciatingly polite. But the Colonel’s nickname IS “Jew Hunter.”
What a Deutsch-bag.
Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) is orphaned by Landa. She makes her way to Paris where she runs a gorgeous movie theater. Pay attention tothe marquee. You may know “Pabst” as a brand of beer. Well, it’s also the last name of a brilliant German director. Shosanna (understandably)hates Nazis, but she respects film talent, Deutsch-y or not.
Brad, the Southern Pitt bull.
You’ve seen the trailer so you know that Brad Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who organizes a dirty less-than-a-dozen of American-Jewish soldiers to treat the Nazis cluttering Occupied France with all the courtesy a starving pit bull shows an adversary. Raine, a no-nonsense former bootlegger, has a Southern drawl, but he’s a very sharp ration biscuit. That figures — he’s from Tennessee, like a certain hyperactive director.
A matinee showing of Nazi-beating, please.
Hostel writer-director Eli Roth plays Basterd recruit Donny Donowitz, aka “The Bear Jew.” When he meets a Nazi, he’s hostile, all right. “Watching Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies around here,” says Lieutenant Raine. Thanks to Donny’s trusty baseball bat, each show is a smash hit.
1944 – 1941 = 4 years. Right?
The action soon zips ahead to June 1944. The screen tells us it’s been four years since the massacre of Shosanna’s family. (Which means the screen also tells us somebody can’t count). Now living as a Gentile under an assumed name, Shosanna (that spelling is almost as annoying as”Basterds,” wouldn’t you say?) is courted by German soldier and film buff Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). His family runs a cinema in Munich. Oh, yeah — the numbers 58, 150 and 32 made Zoller enough of a war hero to play himself in a propaganda film, courtesy of Nazi bigwig Joseph Goebbels, head of the film industry.
Magna Cum Laude in Film, er, Murder.
Perhaps you’ve always thought film critics are sissies or nerds. Wrong. Look closely at suave and hunky British soldier Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender). His pre-war profession and film scholarship make him an ideal candidate to parachute into France to implement a fiendishly clever plan to obliterate a bunch of high-ranking Nazis.
German Toast doesn’t taste like French.
Actress Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is the toast of the German film industry. Once she crosses paths with the Basterds, itbecomes more difficult not to become simply toast.
Got guns? Yes. Got balls? Well …
We know from other war movies that soldiers are trained to resist intimidation and withstand torture. Somehow, stating one’s name, rank and serial number seems like an inadequate response to the announcement: “I’ve got a gun pointed at your testicles.” Especially when another individual at the same table adds, “So do I.” Here’s a story problem to work on while waiting for the August release of Inglorious Basterds: Three fake male Nazis and one real one each have a scrotum and a gun. How many will be able to father children after Quentin’s screenplay is done with them?
No knife-lifting allowed.
It’s convenient that a swastika is so easy to draw. That way you can draw one with a knife on an unusual surface.
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INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Movie Stills | Trailer | Director Quentin Tarantino
On the Red Carpet in Cannes
