The Case for Quentin "Inglorious Basterds"

Originally posted on the Tree.com Arts Channel

I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino. I have been since I first saw the trailer for “Reservoir Dogs,” and read an article on him in “Premiere” magazine years ago, touting him as the next hot thing. I’ve followed his career closely since. I even loved “Jackie Brown!” “Pulp Fiction” WAS my favorite movie for a long time.

But now, I’m making the case for “Inglourious Basterds” as Tarantino’s masterpiece. Yes, even better than “Pulp Fiction.” “Pulp Fiction” was epic. It exploded Tarantino into the mainstream, got him an Academy Award, for best screenplay. With “Pulp Fiction” however, he hadn’t yet hit his stride as a director and all around filmmaker yet. He was still in progress. “Pulp Fiction” was an indie film, shakily directed by a man still honing his vision.

“Kill Bill” as a whole was my next favorite Tarantino film, stealing the crown from “Pulp Fiction.” I thought it was his most cohesive film, well written, well acted, well paced, and finally well directed. It literally vibrated off the screen. It was a revenge story, a kung fu story, a spaghetti western, a Japanese manga cartoon, but ultimately a journey and a love story. It’s really a shame to look at it in two parts; it needs to be one whole bloody affair. And it is bloody.

But for me, “Inglourious Basterds” is the masterpiece. Tarantino hit his stride and is firing on all cylinders as a writer, director, and visionary. A World War II buddy movie that’s also a spaghetti western about revenge. The screenplay took nearly ten years to complete, and during the time he was writing it, Tarantino worked on “Kill Bill” and “Death Proof,” his half of “Grindhouse.”

Tarantino includes Hitler, Goebbels and Goering as characters in the film, and rewrites the end of WWII. The revenge element has to do with a girl named Shosanna, whose family is killed by Colonel Hans Landa, the “Jew Hunter.” She hides as a cinema owner in France, plotting her revenge. She not only gets a chance to get back at the Colonel who killed her family, she gets revenge on the German leaders who have chosen her theater to screen a propaganda film. The “Basterds” are a group of American soldiers tasked with not just killing Germans, but scalping and branding them with swastikas. When word gets out that the German top brass will all be in one small French theater on the same night, the Basterds are assigned to take out said Germans.

The film opens with a sweeping scene set in a farmhouse with an interview between Colonel Landa, in an Oscar winning performance by Christopher Waltz, and a small dairy farm owner. Waltz is truly chilling in this scene, which most likely was the only scene needed to determine the Oscar win. Landa calmly converses with the dairy owner, even asking for 2 glasses of milk. The tension builds as Landa finally get the farm owner to confess that he is hiding Jews underneath the floorboards. This is Tarantino’s best written two guys sitting down scene since a scene in “True Romance,” which featured an “I know I’m going to die” talk between a Mafioso played by Christopher Walken, and a father hiding his son on the run with mob drug money played by Dennis Hopper.

There is a card-playing scene in a tavern that drips with tension, despite running a bit long. Two of the Basterds and a British spy are dressed in German uniforms. They  engage in a friendly drinking game with some real Germans, and the Brit agent’s faux accent gives him away. Firefight ensues, almost everyone dies. Eli Roth gives an underrated performance as the “Bear Jew,” known for his violent efficiency in killing enemies with a baseball bat. Interestingly, Roth also directed the film within the film the Germans are all there to see, “Nation’s Pride.”

For me, one of the most brilliant scenes in the film shows Shosanna getting ready to exact her revenge on her sworn enemies gathered downstairs in her theater. She knows she probably won’t come out alive. The scene fades in with Shosanna dressed in a stunning red dress staring out a window at red nazi banners adorned on the buildings around her theater. She contemplates her fate, while drinking very red wine, applying very red lipstick, with very red nail polish. Red, the color of revenge. All set to David Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire.” A fitting subtle but not so subtle music video.

Brad Pitt brings a certain Southern Charm to his character of Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds, but I was a little disappointed in his portrayal. He’s definitely overshadowed by many of the other actors in the film, even some with minor roles.

No doubt, every Tarantino film is a tour de force. But for me, “Inglourious Basterds” is head and shoulders above the other films, even if the head is missing a scalp. I have a feeling Tarantino is going to keep coming up with bigger and better films, and I’ll have another favorite movie within the next couple of years.