Since his career began in 1992, screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino has developed a reputation as one of the most significant crusaders of the post-modernist movement in film.
Much in the same way that French New Wave film artists used citation as a means of expression, Tarantino’s films aren’t so much exercises in personal narrative as they are individual celebrations of the beauty and diversity of film. Tarantino’s undying obsession and passion for cinema is well-documented. Rare is the American filmmaker whose mere opinions on film nearly outweigh the very works that have brought him notoriety.
No matter the genre, Quentin Tarantino’s films all share an absorption and acknowledgment of cinematic tropes. And more importantly, they each offer a new viewpoint on the very nature of cinema as a whole. So it comes as no surprise that Tarantino’s most recent film, 2009‘s Inglourious Basterds, follows suit.
But what’s most striking about Basterds is that while the film stands as Tarantino’s most visually and narratively complex film to date, it may also be his most personal. This is because the film takes a much more literal approach to Tarantino’s brand of homage filmmaking, and ultimately speaks to the director’s unwavering devotion to the cinematic form.
One cannot begin a discussion of Inglourious Basterds without first addressing the film’s ending. Much has been made of the film’s revisionist approach to World War II, or more specifically, the circumstances of Hitler’s death and the deconstruction of the Third Reich. Basterds presents an alternative scenario in which the Jewish population (personified by the characters of Shosanna Dreyfus and the Basterds) successfully exacts revenge on Germany’s political leaders.
And unsurprisingly upon its release, this decision to essentially re-write history raised questions about the film’s intentions. Noted American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum even went as far as say that the film “seems morally akin to Holocaust denial.”
But to decipher Tarantino’s thought process behind the decision, we need not look any further than the setting for the film’s climax. Why would Tarantino choose to set his climactic bloodbath in, of all places, a movie theater?
The answer is simple: Tarantino saught to champion the power of cinema.
Inglourious Basterds is a film built on the foundation of the magnetism of the movies. Cinema is a frequent topic of conversation amongst the film’s disparate characters, many of whom, including soldier-turned-actor Frederick Zoller and film critic-turned-operative Archie Hicox, are firmly entrenched in the world of the movies. Film is even used, literally, as a weapon, as Shosanna and lover/projectionist Marcel burn nitrate film to create a massive fire within the theater.
So much of the film revolves around the world of movies. However, Tarantino’s aim here is not simply fixated on referencing films for the sake of reference. It’s all about context. The film’s ending focuses on the premiere of a German propaganda movie, which features a German soldier massacring Allied troops. We as an audience watch as the Germans in attendance hoop and holler with glee. With the tide of the war turning and the Germans needing a sense of hope, this was a form of catharsis for them.
However, this moment is suddenly inverted as the film changes to a reel of Shosanna laughing maniacally, cueing a sea of flames that engulfs the theater. And unbeknownst to the Germans, the Basterds spring into action, brutally murdering Hitler and members of the Third Reich in an unrelenting sequence of violence.
The film’s ending is a blitzkrieg of catharsis. It’s cathartic for not only the Jewish characters within the movie, but also for the audience watching Inglourious Basterds who are attuned to the power of the moment (notice Tarantino’s fixation on Donny Donowitz’s visceral glare as he disposes of Hitler).
As Daniel Mendelsohn put it in his article “When Jews Attack”, Tarantino “invites his audiences to applaud this odd inversion - to take, as his films often invite them to take, a deep, emotional satisfaction in turning the tables on the bad guys."
Intrinsically, we recognize that this is not factual and Tarantino has essentially re-written history. But in the context of the moment and of the film, it makes perfect sense. What Tarantino has done has offered us, as an audience, catharsis through film. He has used the medium of cinema (and the very setting of cinema) to offer a hypothetical account of something we have always wanted to see: revenge for the acts of the Nazis. We know this didn’t happen, based on our own basic understanding of history. But Inglourious Basterds is a revenge fantasy, a point cleverly foreshadowed early in the film: the use of "Once Upon A Time.." in the heading of the first chapter is a dead giveaway of the film’s intentions.
Tarantino’s films are a clear indication of how much he values cinema, and nowhere is his passion more obvious than in Inglourious Basterds. One can even argue that Shosanna, a girl who flees Nazi persecution and finds refuge in, of all places, a movie theater, may be the closest thing we’ve seen to Tarantino himself characterized on the screen. The idea of escaping to the movies is embedded in our post-9/11 culture, and in Basterds this concept is illustrated aptly.
Film has the power to anger us, sadden us, and motivate us. Film can give us hope in the most difficult of situations. And as proven through Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, in the movie theater (both literally and figuratively) we can achieve what we’ve always desired.
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