Inglourious Basterds represents the full flowering of Quentin Tarantino’s directorial style, in which all the best individual aspects of his previous efforts and all the directorial influences (which I will attempt to enumerate) have been synthesized into a glorious whole – making this the best film of the decade.

This story of ultimate Jewish revenge, in which a team of hand-picked Jewish G.I.’s (The Inglourious Basterds) follow their leader, Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt, in an homage to 50’s tough-guy actor Aldo Ray) on his quest for Nazi scalps and, perhaps, even the ultimate WWII target, seems, on its surface, to be a 40’s or 50’s pulp story. And, to be sure, it is – but in the grand tradition of the master director, any story can be made into great art in the hands of an auteur.

I’ve always enjoyed Tarantino’s films, in fact progressively so with each effort, culminating in the two Kill Bill movies and Death Proof. But none of these prepared me for the endless glo(u)ries of Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino begins with a tour de force scene in which SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz, in what should be an Oscar-nominated performance) subtly yet inexorably delivers a psychological coup de grace to a French farmer who is hiding a Jewish family. Tarantino, as he unerringly does throughout the film, cuts perfectly and classically during the scene, staying with both actors until attenuated reaction shots are necessary, but also interspersing low angle shots for specific effect. In this scene, as in the film’s entirety, Tarantino’s formalism is immaculate, each shot wonderfully determined – nothing stray or happenstance to interfere with the luscious visuals; his framing methods are manifold, even double-framing within the farmer’s house, using the windows to deep-focus within the frame. Also, toward the end of the film, he double-mirrors Shosanna before her window while David Bowie’s powerful song plays.

Much has been said about Tarantino’s editing style in this film – that it’s choppy or disjointed. I couldn’t disagree more. He has a lot of material to present, and I think he decided to spend a lot of time within each scene, immersing us in his bravura style, before simply moving on to the next marvelous tableau. All of the scenes feature gorgeous camerawork, especially that of the film premiere – instead of constantly cutting back and forth, Tarantino cranes up and down and pans left and right, showing us individual interactions as integral parts of a whole.

Tarantino’s theme is always (beginning with Pulp Fiction) woman’s (or women’s) revenge against brutal men. Although Hitler is told by his lieutenants that one of Raine’s Basterds, the Bear Jew (Eli Roth) is seen as a golem, it is the farmhouse survivor, Shosanna Dreyfus, who is the true golem. As played by Melanie Laurent, Shosanna hatches a plan for the ultimate Jewish revenge, and she is not to be denied. In Tarantino’s films, the women are always strong, never victims; they see right through the men, then patiently bide their time. However, his women are not idealized – they do what they must to survive amidst their milieus of hard and violent men. In addition, I love how his women always know each other at a glance – watch that first moment of introduction between Shosanna and Goebbels‘ French mistress.

For a director so associated with violent male characters, Tarentino in Inglourious Basterds dresses the three main women to the nines. His camera lovingly caresses their faces, almost fetishizing their beauty, but always with a nod to film history, as when Shosanna’s lover delightedly refers to her as Danielle Darrieux, star of Max Ophuls‘ The Earrings of Madame de… The actresses’ faces also show many subtle gradations of emotion – they are the antithesis of one-dimensional objects.

The actors all bear witness to the obvious pleasure in reciting Tarantino’s lines. Brad Pitt’s wonderfully funny performance takes up only a half-hour or so of screen time – would he have agreed to that for just any director? Michael Fassbender as Archie Hickox evokes the ghosts of George Sanders and, even more so, Trevor Howard. Fassbender is a fantastic actor, not well-known yet. Be sure to catch him as Bobby Sands in Hunger and in the upcoming Fish Tank. Christoph Waltz as Landa speaks four languages flawlessly.

Just as Jean-Luc Godard does, Quentin Tarantino loves the great directors of film history. The film features a running stream of them, both verbalized and homaged visually. In addition, I can’t help thinking that this is how some of the giants of the Hollywood studio golden age would have proceeded were they alive and working now. I’m imagining especially Fritz Lang and Sam Fuller, also perhaps Nicholas Ray, unbound by production codes. Some other inferences: Hugo Stiglitz, a German recruit to the Basterds, is named after a Mexican cult actor; and when Raine and two of his Basterds must impersonate Italians in order to gain entrance to the film premiere, the Bear Jew takes the name Antonio Margheriti, who was the director of Cannibal Apocalypse!

Yes, Quentin, this is your masterpiece. – [DVD]

Drama/War

Rated R

DVD Release Date: 12/15/09

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