Debating Inglourious Basterds

• Published in: Film quarterly Vol. 63; no. 2; pp. 19 - 22
• Main Author: Walters, Ben
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berkeley University of California Press Books Division 01.12.2009
• Subjects: Collaboration; Conflicts; Fiction; Motion picture criticism; Motion picture directors & producers; Nazi era; Tarantino, Quentin; Tone; World War II
• ISSN: 0015-1386; 1533-8630
• DOI: 10.1525/FQ.2009.63.2.19

The blatantly conspicuous process shots deployed in Pulp Fiction and 1970s-style credit sequence of fackie Brown metastasized into the wholesale genre-raiding of the Kill Bill films, and the metatextual larks of the Grindhouse collaboration with Robert Rodriguez, whose pseudo-retro exploitation fare came furnished with scratches, distortions, and trailers for nonexistent schlock, lnglourious Basterds retains elements of this: it opens, for instance, with a Universal Studios logo whose vintage hints at neither the film's setting nor its production date, but the jDeriod midway between, the tone of whose genre pictures it apes. In this hypercinematic world, what could be worse than being rendered unfit for a close-up? lnglourious Basterds both salutes and problematizes the power of film, appreciating that bad guys as well as good can adore and exploit this potency, and recognizing that to be a spectator is not without moral consequence: only a thoughtless viewer will not see him or herself reflected in shots of Hitler cackling as he watches Americans being slaughtered in Nations Pride.