If you decide to watch a film by Quentin Tarantino, you mostly know what you're up for. You know Pulp Fiction, the celebrated black comedy in which a guy in the back seat gets his head blown off because the car hits a bump in the road. You know Kill Bill, in which hundreds of people get killed by Uma Thurman in a revenge fight. You know that Tarantino films are bloody, macabre, funny and far off reality. That's what you're expecting when you decide to see a Tarantino.
But the new Tarantino film is totally different. This time, the fun is not so far off reality, and that's what makes the film a very gruesome experience - at least if you watch it in Europe. The first twenty minutes show a nerve-wracking scene. A Nazi officer, played by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, discovers a Jewish family in the house of a French farmer and has them murdered. Unlike former Tarantino films, a long intensive and deep-reaching dialogue in French and German language preceeds the kill. This is not fun. This is good acting of highly qualified actors. After watching that dialogue, you don't feel like laughing about the kills any more.
The film continues with a weird interplay of trash-talking American-style Brad Pitt humor, fighting scences and a serious and well-acted character study of the only survivor of the farmhouse massacre. That HAS to touch you as a viewer if you have an inkling of historic sensitivity. It's not a problem for me to parodize Nazi history, if it's done in a sensitive way. But Tarantino doesn't really choose if he wants to show an irrealistic black comedy or a serious revenge story in a historic setting.
If it was only for that, you could still shrug off the film as an uninformed American-style war movie. But the really sad part is that highly qualified European actors sign the movie with their name. German actors Til Schweiger and Diane Krüger as well as my personal favorite Daniel Brühl and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz have a high potential and have starred in outstanding films before (let me just remind you of Daniel Brühl in "Goodbye Lenin"). Of course it's their right to appear in funny and parodistic films. But a history-based film like this one also sends a political message. An American's vision of Europe and European history is often shaped by Hollywood movies like this one. And many Americans will now get to know the actor Daniel Brühl, one of the very few German actors with a reputation outside of the country, in the role of the self-loving Nazi whom he displays in the Tarantino movie.
It's a real shame to see the actors' talents wasted in a movie like this one.
I just finish watching the movie - i knew immediately these actors are not hollywood actors. They are the real talented, under-rated, european actors. I think Mr. Feldhof should lighten up a little bit since this is a good opportunity for American audience to get to know these excellent actors and enjoy their fine acting for a change. I'm sure with this movie, hopefully they'll have more movie deals coming their way.
ReplyDeleteBravo to all of them!
Dear Julia,
ReplyDeletethanks for your comment. I absolutely share your view that these are highly talented actors of whom we will see good movies in future - the Oscar for Christoph Waltz is the best proof for their quality.
However, I do have a problem with the storyline of "Inglorious Bastards". As I said, Quentin Tarantino for me does not distinguish if he wants to make a quality movie with good dialogues, deep characters and a coherent story or a trash movie like Pulp Fiction (which I love because it also has very good actors and where it is clear from the beginning in which category this film belongs - the category you shouldn't take too seriously).
But this distinction does not take place, leaving me between laughter, shock and apprehension when I watched the movie. I don't think that a movie which draws on real historic events to a degree that you cannot consider it a fully fictional film should play around with European history like this - and be stamped with the names of highly qualified European actors.
Obviously, this touches a different historic sensitivity in Europe than it does in the States - particularly for me as a German, although it is clear that WWII was as much a European as a German phenomenon. No objection to WWII parodies in principle, but they should clearly state that they want to be a parody. This film didn't and therefore I had my first impression confirmed when I recently watched the film again.
However, it is good to see that there is some debate on the topic - how boring would it be if everybody had the same opinion?
Yep, montrer ou parler de la Shoah au cinéma est sans doute le débat le plus épineux (et insoluble) du Septième Art des soixante dernières années. Tarantino y participe avec un film de guerre révisionniste rigolo puisque tous les dignitaires nazis crèvent à la fin. Et je suis d'accord avec toi, dans cette optique là ce film ne s'adresse pas à tous les spectateurs et suppose un MINIMUM d'éducation historique et critique au préalable.
ReplyDeletePour ce qui est de la "vision américanisée et holywoodienne" je suis pas trop d'accord puisque ce que fait Tarantino s'apparente plus à un espèce de pot-pourri ultra-référencé et volontairement décalé, distancié, humoristique, qui n'est je pense pas trop néfaste pour le spectateur (même le spectateur américain, oui oui, à moins qu'il soit VRAIMENT aussi con qu'on dit).
Par contre je te renvoie à La liste de Schindler de Spielbierg qui lui choisit de dramatiser et théâtraliser le massacre des camps d'extermination avec des effets de suspences réalistes et typiques du cinéma Holywoodien qui ne laisse aucun autre choix au spectateur que d'être passif et se conformer à une vision unique... et là du coup j'ai l'impression que c'est plus problématique.
bouh
La Liste de Schindler, je dois avouer que je ne l'ai pas encore vu, donc je ne saurais pas le juger. Par contre j'ai entendu un peu sur "Valkyrie" de Tom Cruise et j'ai vu The Good German avec George Clooney moi-même; pour ces deux-là je pense que Hollywood à pris une approche plus respectueux vis-à-vis non seulement l'Allemagne mais l'histoire de l'Europe en entier. Effectivement il faut distinguer entre les films qui viennent de Hollywood - il y a des bons films ainsi que des mauvais films. Je dis pourtant qu'il est plus facile de condamner un film purement américain qu'un film signé par des acteurs européens.
ReplyDeleteEt comme j'ai dit avant, je ne considère pas ce film complètement "décalé, distancié et humoristique"; il y a trop d'éléments lourds, trop de drame et pas assez de distance...