July 15, 2019
'Inglourious Basterds'
The Ringer's Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin wait for the cream before they eat their strudel as they rewatch Quentin Tarantino's seventh major film, 'Inglourious Basterds,' starring Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, and Diane Kruger.
Cast
Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine
Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa
Mélanie Laurent as Shoshanna Dreyfus
Michael Fassbender as Lt. Archie Hicox
Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark
Eli Roth as Sgt. Donnie Donowitz
Daniel Brühl as Frederick Zoller
August Diehl as Major Dieter Hellstrom
B.J. Novak as Pfc. Smithson Utivich
Sylvester Groth as Joseph Goebbels
Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill
Mike Myers as General Ed Fenech
Denis Ménochet as Perrier LaPadite
Samuel L. Jackson as Narrator
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Written by: Quentin Tarantino
Notes
- Made $320 million in global box office – considered a comeback for Tarantino after the poorly received Grindhouse.
- Eight Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay; Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor.
- Tarantino spent almost 10 years trying to put the movie together, at one point considering making it a miniseries.
- Only about 30% of the movie is spoken in English – most of the dialogue is in French, German, or Italian.
- 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the score doesn't reflect how passionately some critics disliked the film – Jonathan Rosenbaum compared it to Holocaust denial, Christopher Hitchens compared it to 'a great pot of warm piss emptied slowly over your head'.
- Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars.
- Tarantino said discovering Waltz 'gave him his movie' – he had feared the role was unplayable.
- Brad Pitt accepted the role after Tarantino visited him at Chateau Miraval in France, where they drank five bottles of the estate's own rosé.
- This was the first time Tarantino worked with an in-his-prime movie star – he usually rediscovers underappreciated assets.
- The movie was produced by The Weinstein Company; Pitt had famously declined to work with Weinstein for years after Harvey allegedly propositioned Gwyneth Paltrow.
- Sally Menke's last film as Tarantino's editor before she passed away.
- An early iteration of the project reportedly included Stallone as Aldo, Bruce Willis as Donowitz, and Schwarzenegger as Hugo Stiglitz.
Categories
Most re-watchable scene
- The opening dairy farm sequence – a 20-minute conversation between Landa and LaPadite that is one of the most searing, memorable scenes ever filmed.
- The La Louisiane Tavern scene with Fassbender, Kruger, and Hellstrom – Hitchcock-level tension built around a card game.
- The introduction of the Bear Jew – the tunnel, the bat, the emergence, the Teddy fucking Ball Game speech.
- Shoshanna's lunch with Goebbels and Landa – 'wait for the cream' and the terrifying glass of milk.
- The Gorlami scene – introducing 'my three Italian compatriots' to Landa with those Godfather hands.
- The Cat People scene – Shoshanna putting on makeup and the dress, preparing for the night.
- The Hans flip at the end – the politicking, the bluffing, the flips within flips.
- Hickox meeting Fenech and Churchill – the Scotch and the globe, Fassbender and Mike Myers discussing Pabst and Selznick.
What aged the best?
- Christoph Waltz's performance – even though he plays one note now, this was a revelation.
- The writing – Tarantino's crowning achievement as a dialogue writer, and most of it isn't even in English.
- The World War 2 French Resistance vibe – taverns, leather jackets, Mélanie Laurent's high-waisted wide-leg pants.
- The seamless multilingual performances – actors switching between German, French, Italian, and English.
- The Ennio Morricone score, largely drawn from existing spaghetti western soundtracks.
- The movie gets better the further you get from the anxiety of the critical conversation about who can and can't make what.
What aged the worst?
- Eli Roth's feel for the game of baseball – he doesn't seem like a Boston guy, more like a New Yorker who learned the vocab phonetically.
- Fassbender being in only two scenes of the movie – every second on screen is electric, but he doesn't show up until the 50th minute and is in it for about 17 minutes.
- The David Bowie 'Cat People' needle drop – too anachronistic for the otherwise consistent tone.
- The slow-mo when Frederick shoots Shoshanna – one of the only bits of filmmaking in the film that feels cheesy.
Casting what-ifs
- Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play Hans Landa – the movie would have been entirely in English.
- Michael Fassbender tried out for Landa five times and was heartbroken; got Hicox at the expense of Simon Pegg, who chose Tin Tin instead.
- Adam Sandler was rumored to play the Bear Jew.
- Nastassja Kinski was initially going to play Bridget von Hammersmark but turned it down.
- Early iteration reportedly included Stallone as Aldo, Bruce Willis as Donowitz, and Schwarzenegger as Hugo Stiglitz.
- Tarantino almost didn't cast Mélanie Laurent because he thought she was too famous – she convinced him otherwise.
Over-acting award
- Eli Roth – wins the Saul Rubinek Award by bylaws, since his character Donnie Donowitz is the father of Lee Donowitz from 'True Romance'.
- Sylvester Groth as Goebbels – weeping in the theater, every line reading is goofy.
Best "heat check" performance
- Eli Roth.
- Mike Myers – spent two days on set.
- Rod Taylor as Churchill.
- Alexander Fehling as Wilhelm.
- Dion Waiters Award is tough – everyone does a lot with a little in this movie.
Best "that guy"
- Denis Ménochet as LaPadite – the dairy farmer from the opening.
- August Diehl as Hellstrom.
- BJ Novak – recognizable from The Office.
- Rod Taylor – sharing a title card with four other people.
- All the Basterds are also screenwriters in real life – a clever Tarantino-esque flourish.
Half-assed (internet) research
- Hellstrom's King Kong theory is actually Tarantino's from his interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
- The title card in the beginning is Tarantino's handwriting.
- Aldo's ligature marks on his neck are from surviving a lynching attempt – revealed in the screenplay.
- Donnie Donowitz is Lee Donowitz's ('True Romance') father; Aldo is assumed to be the great-grandfather of Floyd from 'True Romance'.
- Frederick Zoller is based on Audie Murphy, the real American war hero who became a movie star.
- Bridget von Hammersmark is based on Zarah Leander, a Swedish actress who was also a Russian spy during WW2.
- Landa's speech comparing Jews to rats is influenced by the real Nazi propaganda film 'The Eternal Jew'.
- Lillian Harvey, whom Goebbels screams about, fled Nazi Germany after helping a Jewish choreographer escape to Switzerland.
- Le Corbeau, the film Shoshanna takes down from the marquee, is a famous 1940s French film with hidden anti-Nazi messages.
- Eli Roth directed Nation's Pride, the film-within-a-film.
- Enzo Castellari, director of the original Inglorious Bastards, appears in the movie; Bo Svenson from that film appears in Nation's Pride.
Apex Mountain
- Christoph Waltz – unquestionably, his first American film and an Oscar-winning performance.
- Brad Pitt – arguably; his run around this time (Ocean's 13, Jesse James, Burn After Reading, Benjamin Button, Basterds) is remarkable.
- Diane Kruger – definitely.
- Quentin Tarantino – debatable; 'Pulp Fiction' at age 29 might be higher, but this revivified his career.
- Mélanie Laurent.
Picking nits
- 'Operation Kino' – Kino is the German word for movie theater, not a very subtle code name for assassinating Hitler at a movie premiere.
- Nazi security is shockingly bad – any Italian filmmaker can walk in off the street with dynamite strapped to their legs visible to the naked eye.
- Lt. Hicox describes GW Pabst as German when he's Austrian – and gets the cosign from Fenech and Churchill despite this error.
- The soldiers at the next table in the tavern can't hear any of the sensitive conversation happening quietly right next to them.
- Bridget von Hammersmark leaves behind her high-fashion shoe AND a napkin bearing her name and kiss at the crime scene.
- Shoshanna's recorded message in the burning theater is in English despite the rest of the film being largely multilingual – a filmic flourish and Wizard of Oz homage.
- Hitler has to get up in the middle of the movie to get his own gum – nobody can give Hitler gum?
- The extremely flammable nitrate film is just sitting in massive piles behind the screen – nobody notices.
(Probably) unanswerable questions
- Does Landa recognize Shoshanna during the strudel scene? The milk order and the 'one more thing I forgot to ask' suggest he does.
- Is Landa already orchestrating a 'kill the Nazi high command' scheme of his own at the premiere?
- How did Shoshanna come to own the cinema under her assumed identity as Emmanuelle?
Who won the movie?
- Quentin Tarantino – this revivified his ability to get money and movie stars; it discovers new talent (Waltz) and spotlights great talent (Pitt); in the 'movie of the century' conversation.
- Christoph Waltz – Tarantino said Waltz 'gave him his movie,' and it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role.
- The movie is his second highest-grossing film of all time.