The Movie I’ll Always Remember: Inglorious Basterds

I very recently watched this film on the plane ride to Europe as I thought its topical

nature would prove to be interesting and relevant to my studies here. I am also a fan of Quentin

Tarantino’s unconventional style of filmmaking. I thoroughly enjoyed this film for the historical

material as well as the artistic shots throughout the film.

I love the title of this film because this band of violent soldiers self-proclaim to be these

unpleasant and ruthless characters known for humiliating Nazis. Also, the misspelling of

‘basterds' feels very authentic to Tarantino’s unique style. I think that he chose to misspell the

title to symbolize how the group of killers are a chaotic ragtag group. The misspelling also

makes me think of Europe’s general view of Americans' stupidity. The fact that this group failed

to even spell their own squad’s name right feels all too American. However, I appreciate this

incompetency with the contrast of how effective this team ends up being, since (spoiler alert),

they succeed in killing Hitler. 

Immediately after watching this film I started to research the historical accuracy. While

the majority of the film is a curation of Tarantino’s imagination, the group was very loosely

based off of an American group of Jewish spies from Brooklyn in a pre-CIA program. While the

real group did not go around scalping Nazis, I was fascinated to find out they parachuted deep

past enemy lines right here in Tirol to gain information that would end up saving thousands of

allied lives. 

Tarantino uses unbeatable paradoxes throughout the film. The satirical lens of this

movie is already the opposite tone of a war movie. In the opening scene, the shot shows a

beautiful French countryside that reminded me of the Heimat style in Austrian films. Soon after,

an entire Jewish family is slaughtered. Another time I saw this was in the character Fredrick

Zoller. He seemed overly charming and friendly only to be the extremely vicious “jew hunter.” I

am a big fan of Tarantino’s artistic approach. I recently learned that he writes himself into every

one of his movies and I think that is a genius was to immerse himself in the entire film.
 My favorite scene in the movie was the fight scene in the tavern basement. The lighting

in the scene was very dark and the main characters were on edge. Tarantino did a great job of

pulling in the viewer for this scene. The camera uses an eyeline match to make viewers feel like

they are there physically. The confusion and chaos of the fighting gives a good sense of what it

would have been like to witness.

A recurring theme that I noticed in this satire is the glorification of the American

experience in World War 2. Brad Pitt’s cowboy like character is an example of the exaggeration

of America’s valiant self-image. He speaks with a thick southern American accent, embodies

strong masculinity, and commits acts of violence for the greater good. Even Pitt’s character’s

nickname in the film, ‘The Apache’ insinuates American irony. Americans dehumanized

American Indians in their home country, yet still get celebrated for defeating racially intolerant

people abroad. The movie as a whole pokes fun of wartime propaganda on both German and

American sides. The German propaganda movie shown at the end of the film, “Nation’s Pride” is

a ridiculous presentation of German culture that highlights the mindlessness of wartime

propaganda. At the same time, the entire movie is hypocritical because in real life the group of

spies were not scalping, mutilating, and degrading every Nazi they encountered. The graphic

violence committed by the basterds makes the viewer question the morals of the main

characters as they completely disregard human suffering and the unspoken rules of war. This

calls attention to the irony of the film because it becomes difficult at times to support the ‘good

guys’ when they are cruelly murdering dozens of men. As a viewer, you want to support their

Jewish agenda of getting a small amount of justice against the Nazis, but if their brutality does

not make you uncomfortable, you’re missing the point. In conclusion, I would recommend this

film to anyone and will surely always remember the impact it has on me.