“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.”
-T.S. Eliot (from an essay on Philip Massinger)
Measured against Eliot’s criteria, Quentin Tarantino is a mature artist. Whether or not his latest Inglourious Basterds is “better” than its many influences, it’s inarguably different. The title comes from the 1978 Italian film called The Inglorious Bastards, itself influenced by the classic The Dirty Dozen. Tarantino’s film is littered with other references and homages, particularly to German cinema from the silent era onwards.
He had this to say in an interview with the Atlantic: “Holocaust movies always have Jews as victims. We’ve seen that story before. I want to see something different. Let’s see Germans that are scared of Jews. Let’s not have everything build up to a big misery, let’s actually take the fun of action-movie cinema and apply it to this situation.”
If you haven’t heard, Inglourious Basterds is a World War II movie set in Nazi-occupied France, though it departs from reality in several ways. One plot-line follows a group of soldiers called The Basterds, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (played by Brad Pitt). The soldiers are Jewish-American (though Raine is not) and their mission is to hunt, scalp, and otherwise terrorize Nazis.
Tarantino is a big fan of martial arts movies, including the sub-genre of “revenge movies,” which usually involve the main character’s family being killed (or something similar) in the first scene and then build toward bloody retribution. Think The Bride from Kill Bill, or Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction for that matter. Inglourious Basterds is basically a revenge fantasy on a giant scale. And it will make a lot of people uncomfortable, probably because it is so pleasurable to watch. There is very little emotional suffering, and the physical violence is stylized to the point where it is almost beautiful. The film as a whole has no political agenda, and no moral message, though I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem. Critics have called Quentin Tarantino’s vision superficial and nihilistic, among other things. I’d say Inglourious Basterds is no more nihilistic than Wolverine, and the dialogue is a huge improvement.
Continuing with Eliot’s criteria, Tarantino “borrows from [filmmakers] remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest,” making him “good” rather than “bad.” Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown draw on the genres of the heist film, crime film, and blaxploitation film, respectively. Kill Bill is a tribute to westerns and kung fu films, and Death Proof is a bit of a car-chase/slasher flick. Whether or not you like Tarantino, you have to acknowledge his ambition. I’d also say that T.S. Eliot’s assessment applies to all artists. Though influence is impossible to escape, one can hope to create something “unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn.”
Shosanna death was extemly graceful. Red on red with red. Incredible. A beautiful death indeed.
I think Shoshonna carries the weight of the emotional suffering in the movie. Granted, she’s stone cold throughout most of the action, but I felt as though Tarantino kept bringing us back to why she was that way. Also, Zoller went through a little angst himself, even though he was still a Nazi douche.
I want to want to rail against the fact that the Basterds really didn’t feel any kind of remorse or even hesitation regarding what they were doing, and honestly, I expected to feel the inclination before I saw the movie. I like to think it’s a tribute to Tarantino’s setup in this film that I feel no such desire. You’re right - the violence in this movie is -fun-, and it’s -Nazis-, so it’s entirely guilt free. I found myself unconcerned by the issues of humanity and demonization, which in any narrative I encounter, I’m always looking for no matter how awful the villain - but in this film, it was straight hilarity. (Dude, when “The Bear Jew,” whom I want to marry more than a little, was like, “All the way to Lansdowne Street!” I almost fell out of my chair laughing, and I still couldn’t tell you why other than the fact that a cartoonish Boston accent applied to those circumstances was the BEST THING EVER.)
Anyway, I digress.
I really like Tarantino for a lot of reasons; I love the hyperviolence and the dialogue, the pastiche of stories sewn together not with invisible seams, but beautiful and clever ones. He has a fetish for strong, interesting women (and their feet, which is just funny to me), and he writes the most unique and entertaining characters. Sometimes I feel as though I’m being clubbed over the head with his many influences, and that may well be because in the end, I’ve never been that much of a fan of most of the genres he’s always pulling from, and so some of the tricks he pulls just grate on me. But in the end, he does make it his own thing, a better thing, because of his understanding of his art, and of people, and of what one needs from the other.
YAAAAY Tarantino!
JC, I agree. Love the David Bowie as well.
Linda, I would say Shoshonna does carry the weight of the emotional suffering–what little there is. She is cold throughout, you’re right. She keeps it together remarkably well while eating strudel with someone who murdered her entire family. Eli Roth’s character is way hilarious, even the baseball bat braining scene!