Very good article, I agree completely; However just an FYI, the Nazis did actually have Archeological endeavors, perhaps not to the degree depicted in Indiana Jones, but they were looking to find a connection between the Aryan race and our Egyptian ancestors. This was set out by Hitler who had dabbled in the occult for he was a member of an German occultist organization known as the “Thule Society”.

Comment by SolaceInNothing from New Jersey — August 28, 2009 @ 4:35 am

For those of us who can comprehend the violence of WWII (and who can comprehend history generally) but don’t need Tarantino as our macho bluster guide, we understand that in filmmaking we need history-minded directors such as Oliver Hirschbiegels (Downfall) and Andrzej Wajdas (Katyn).

Guess we’re snobs—we prefer well-researched, thought-provoking (and no less horrifying) filmmaking to ‘oh lets just be a non-PC bad boy’, so-called Tarantino-style ‘entertainment’.

Comment by Simone from Brooklyn — August 28, 2009 @ 6:28 am

Hitler was a member of the DAP, a forefunner of the National Socialist party founded by the leader of the Thule Society.

Himmler was always more interested in the occult. He sponsored archaelogical excavations, but they all occurred within the continental. I can’t find evidence of Egyptian digs.

Comment by Michael Brett from Evanston, IL — August 28, 2009 @ 6:35 am

I really think this article missed the point of Basterds as much as Denby’s did. Both are predicated on the assumption that Tarantino set out to make a triumphal, fun, morally simple movie set during World War II. That is clearly not the case. Inglorious Basterds is a very, very smart movie that is principally a commentary on how film colors the way we look at history and morality. The subject of the movie is not World War II, but movies about World War II. The main setpeice is not the slaughter of Nazis in a movie theater, it’s the reaction that that scene provokes. Nothing in this movie can be taken at face value, and Tarantino shouldn’t be compared to Spielberg or Chaplin, he should be compared to filmaker/critics like Godard.

Comment by Rob from Arizona — August 28, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

Rob-

I agree to a point. With the casting of Eli Roth and the final scene, Quentin is most definitely commenting on our willingness to watch human cruelty when we have a side to root for.

But I think Tarantino, at heart, makes films he can watch over and over late at night. The idea is to jam the films with enough subtexts and action that it is watchable again and again.

I don’t think there is anything morally simple about this film. My main problem with Denby’s criticism is his blindness to all but the literal. The viewer is always complicit in Tarantino’s work. His violence, like Eastwood’s, Leone’s, Scorcese’s, and Peckingpah’s is always contextualized. Violence is the lighting on the canvas.

I do think this film is triumphal, though, as are pretty much all of them except maybe Jackie Brown. The good guys win in this film, and Tarantino leaves very little doubt about that. Basterds does lack a true hero, though.

Comment by Michael Brett from Evanston, IL — August 28, 2009 @ 2:17 pm

Yeah, Rob’s right, it actually IS that clever. Not that it’s not also silly simultaneously. Remember, the man’s got no filters.

Comment by Andreas from Uppsala — August 28, 2009 @ 2:22 pm

Great article Michael. I have not seen ‘Inglorious Basterds,’ but do take quite a liking to Tarantino movies. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for documentaries and thought-provoking films, but Taratino movies and movies like ‘Raiders if the lost Ark’ stir the imagination. Yes, you have to take them with a grain of salt, I mean Indiana Jones carried a whip for gods sake.

Comment by Nearz — August 28, 2009 @ 3:38 pm

Excellent rebuttal; unfortunately, Lane would hate Basterds, being that hes more of a snob than Denby. My grandfather, a World War II vet, loved it.

Comment by Conor Crockford — August 28, 2009 @ 9:43 pm

To Simone from Brooklyn—

The movie world you describe sounds incredibly boring and one note. “Downfall” was a great film, but so was “Inglourious Basterds”. They are great films for entirely different reasons, which is indicative of the imaginative capacity of cinema to illuminate the same subject in a multitude of ways.

Tarantino dares to be different; you take him to task for it, but you’re missing a larger point. In an industry filled to the brim with filmmakers who churn out the same watered-down shit over and over, Tarantino is one of the few who hasn’t lost sight of his vision. I think that’s wonderful.

Of course, I guess you’re just too sophisticated to recognize the brilliance of his “macho bluster”. Too bad for you.

Comment by Christopher Eggertsen from Los Angeles — August 31, 2009 @ 11:56 am

I’ve been a big fan of Tarantino since his TRUE ROMANCE screenplay, and this movie falls right into that category.  It’s a movie that attracted me with the promise of action(violence) but won me over with the delivery of dialogue.  He is probably the only director that I’ll don’t apply the “less is more” rule to when it comes to writing lines.  (ex.George Lucas- Great characters that become “dimmed” due to the corny//stupid shit that he’s got them saying)

I personally thought QT outdid himself in InGlorious Basterds. He left the comfort of his hoodlum/heist universe and still managed to make his mark on a path that has been tred on by many directors before him.  But to each his own I guess.  Denby won’t rewatch this movie the same way I won’t rewatch THE THIN RED LINE. We both have different expectations from our WW2 movies.

On a lighter note, does anybody not see Brett’s transparent attempts to “win” Denby over in that last paragraph. “We can end the day with a screening of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.”?  Ninja, please. We ALL know that a night at the movies with Michael Brett always ends up as breakfast with Michael Brett.

Comment by bell from chicago — September 1, 2009 @ 11:35 am

Spielberg used Nazis as cartoonish villains in the Indiana Jones movies, just as Tarantino did in IG. But where Spielberg has tact and restraint, Taratino has none. In a Spielberg entertainment, you don’t see Nazis gunning down captive Jewish families, or comparing Jews to rats. These are elements of history that shouldn’t be exploited for the simple purpose of building tension and setting up a fiery pay off.

Comment by andy from pihladelphia — September 25, 2009 @ 1:44 pm

Spielberg has a Nazi sitting on a balcony picking off campers?!

I think that wins hands down “Most Disturbing Portrayal of Holocaust Violence”. The other nominees are also in ‘Schindler’s List’.

If you don’t like Inglourious Basterds, fine. But criticizing it because it exploits the Holocaust is totally without merit. It has as much to do with WWII history as ‘Meatballs’.

I don’t believe every Jew is a blood-thirsty killer out for vengeance. I’m sure audiences can grasp that it’s a film.

And the award for Best Holocaust Exploitation has to be Life is Beautiful. Nothing else comes close.

Comment by Michael Brett from Evanston, IL — September 25, 2009 @ 3:04 pm

YYou’re right, Inglourious Basterds has nothing to do with WW2—it’s pure fantasy—but it still exploits sensitive WW2 imagery (terrified Jews hiding under floorboard getting machine-gunned to death) that Spielberg wouldn’t dare use in an equally fantastical film like Indiana Jones. And unlike Indiana Jones, which is light and breezy, IG has uncomfortable flashes of real human tragedy: the farm owner who cries as he’s forced to turn in his neighbors, Shoshanna weeping as she runs from her murdered family, and later, kissing Marcel goodbye. Tarantino’s tone is all over the place; that’s not his brilliance, it’s his indifference. Schindler’s List is a completely different story. Exploitative, maybe, but at the very least, underlying the violence is an obvious respect for human life and horror at the events being portrayed.

Comment by andy from philadelphia — September 25, 2009 @ 4:19 pm

Yeah Andy from Philadelphia, god forbid a filmmaker would show Nazi officers to be the truly evil and merciless killers they really were. Give me a break. They DID compare Jews to rats and gun down families (see Michael Brett’s comment) IN REAL LIFE. How is that exploitative? I appreciate Tarantino for having a vision and going for it without pulling his punches. If you don’t like the alternative history he represents in the film and feel that’s exploitative, fine. But the argument you posit above is frankly pretty weak.

Comment by Christopher Eggertsen from Los Angeles — September 25, 2009 @ 4:34 pm

Andy-

Listen to yourself, man.

‘Exploitative, maybe, but at the very least, underlying the violence is an obvious respect for human life and horror at the events being portrayed.’

Huh? Where is the obvious respect? How does the machine gunning of little kids in an apartment equal respect? How does a group of little kids hiding in a pile of shit equal respect?

Spielberg ladles on the Holocaust porn because…it’s a movie! A film! Not a freaking documentary! He wants to illicit a physical reaction.

The scene you have severe problems with is taken almost completely from ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’. Insert Jews for Mexicans. Have the Nazis behave, like, well, Nazis. Whoala!

I very much sense a kind of reverse anti-semitism here. Spielberg, OK. Mel Brooks and dancing Hitlers, OK. Tarantino and a pop-perverted adaption of ‘Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos’? No, that’s offensive.

As terrible as the Holocaust was, it is a story as well as history. Demanding that people portray it in a certain light is a form of censorship. From the reaction of critics, you would think Tarantino is a holocaust denier. He is not denying history. He is telling a story.

Comment by Michael Brett from Evanston, IL — September 25, 2009 @ 10:31 pm

First, if your definition of exploitation is using images to “illicit a physical reaction” then every film ever made is exploitative.

In Schindler’s List, when Spielberg shows kids hiding in shit, or getting gunned down, he lets those moments sink in so you feel their gravity. If you can’t sense Spielberg’s respect for human life behind those images, you’re tone-deaf.

Meanwhile, in IG, Tarantino uses those same charged images for what is essentially entertainment. He doesn’t want you to ponder the bad stuff; he just wants you to quickly internalize it so you crave revenge. It’s simple craft…set up/ pay off.

So Tarantino turned the Holocaust into his own personal spaghetti western. I’ll admit that’s an audacious and imaginative move. It takes balls. It’s exciting to watch. But what purpose does it serve, other than stoking controversy and cementing QT’s reputation as an envelope-pusher? 

QT is not the type of filmmaker to put “lessons” in his films, and I don’t hold that against him. But when a director chooses to co-opt one of the largest most profound tragedies in human history to tell a story, then he or she, by virtue of being part of civilized society, takes on an enormous responsibility. Only the most callous artist would willfully flout that responsibility, and rub it in his audience face by having Jews sink to the level of Nazis by abandoning any shred of justice or morals.

I don’t object to the fact the Basterds killed Nazis. What sickened me was the delight they took in doing so, up to and including Shoshanna’s maniacal laughter in the burning theater. Taraninto wasn’t making an ironic statement about the dehumanizing effect of war…he was just having fun.

And critics are not censors. They have every right to state their point of view, just as Tarantino did with his film. Furthermore, IG has a 69 on Metacritic, meaning Denby is in the minority opinion.

Comment by andy from philadelphia — September 26, 2009 @ 1:11 pm

Who, exactly, does Tarantino have a “responsibility” to? His “responsibility” as a filmmaker, if anything, is to try and make good films. IG was a damn fine one. What’s the problem? Trying to compare “Schindler’s List” to “Inglourious Basterds” is like comparing apples and oranges. Spielberg and Tarantino are ARTISTS, with wildly different sensibilities. Why, in your opinion, does every filmmaker have a “responsibility” to live up to some nebulous moral code? IG is not a propaganda film. As pure entertainment, I haven’t seen a better movie than “Basterds” this year. Ten bucks well spent, and I’d pay to see it again too.

Comment by Christopher Eggertsen from Los Angeles — September 26, 2009 @ 6:59 pm

Andy-

First, I do respect your opinion. Unfortunately, we are very far apart here.

I do believe the art of film is inherently exploitative. When you blow up moving images to thirty feet tall fifty feet wide you are automatically manipulating our mammalian responses.

I have to agree with Christopher on this though. The only responsibility a director has is to the story, and Tarantino displays fierce commitment to his.

And I will again return to ‘Raiders’. What about a Jewish director unleashing literally the wrath of God on the Nazis. Is that not the ultimate Jewish revenge fantasy?!

I can’t get meet you half way on this, Andy. In fact, I think you and Denby just don’t get what Tarantino is trying to do at all.

And in our increasingly PC world, misplaced sensitivities too often lead to implied censorship, much to the detriment of all. What we have learned from the Holocaust is far more important than how it is portrayed. If we view the Holocaust exclusively through the eyes of victims, we miss the ultimately redemptive story of Israel and it’s miraculous success. Thomas Friedman once wrote that Israel’s later fixation on the Holocaust fuels the country’s paranoia and leads to their increasingly questionable military misadventures of the last thirty years. I agree.

The Holocaust happened. But it does not need to be portrayed in ‘appropriate’ ways, and it should not serve as the entire context of anyone’s world view anymore than Hiroshima should be the only way for the Japanese to view the West.

Comment by Michael Brett from Evanston, IL — September 27, 2009 @ 10:33 am