For a minute or so, it looks like the protagonist of Inglourious
Basterds is going to be Perrier LaPadite, a humble French dairy
farmer just trying to eke his way through World War II in the French
countryside with his daughters. Into LaPadite's island of relative
calm comes Col Hans Landa. The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds
is over 15 minutes long, which is extraordinary in and of itself. 15
minutes is a huge amount of screen time to spend on a scene,
especially an opening scene, especially a two-handed opening scene
where one of the characters will never be seen again. That's just the
beginning of the daring and audacity of Quentin Tarantino's screenplay.
The scene is one long suspense beat, a pattern that will be repeated
throughout the movie. Over and over, Tarantino slowly ratchets up the
tension until is is almost a relief when the tension explodes into
violence. Which is, as it turns out, one of the things that elevates
Basterds to the level of high art -- Tarantino repeatedly uses the
audience's desire for release against it. The movie doesn't merely
use violence, it's about violence, particularly violence in movies,
or in popular culture anyway, and the way it can be used to
manipulate an audience, or a populace. It repeatedly gets you longing
for violence and then, by the time it shows up, it's not what you
wanted or expected it to be. The movie as a whole doesn't offer up
easy answers, rather it asks extremely uncomfortable questions.
Shortly into the first scene, it becomes clear that LaPadite isn't
the protagonist, Landa is. LaPadite is reactive, Landa is the one
driving the scene every step of the way. The performances in Basterds
are extraordinary, and Christoph Waltz as Landa is extraordinary even
by the standards of the rest of the movie, but the performance, if I
may be so bold, rises from the ingenuity of the screenplay.
<http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/284894.html>Link
--
Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2010/03/todd-alcott-analyses-inglourious.htm>monochrom
at 3/20/2010 11:56:00 AM
