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I watched Inglorious Basterds from start to finish the other day. So far I had been just catching bits here and there. Now, I like Tarantino films, but I understand that members here have very mixed opinions of his work, which I respect. This film, however, really stands out and it wouldn't surprise me if people who didn't generally like QT would like this one.

Anyway, here's the observation.

There's a good deal of foreign language contained in this film: German, French, even some Italian. There are entire scenes where English is barely spoken or not at all. There's a good deal of humor and nuance based on language and cultural differences, such as the English agent impersonating a German officer under suspicion because of what is perceived as a bizarre accent, finally giving himself away because he uses a hand gesture for the number 3 that is different than what Germans use. I thought all of this was incredible attention to detail and quite ingenious. In particular with that scene, I thought it was clever because in many WWII films there is an agent who impersonates a German officer and for some reason they get away with it even though German is a secondary language. This seems at the very least an extremely difficult thing to pull off.

What I wonder is what Europeans think of the film. For instance, do Germans watch the scene in question and does it makes sense, that is, the bizarre accent he is accused of or the issue with the hand gesture? Or do they look at a scene like that and think it's ridiculous? Does the humor involving language and cultural differences play out the same, is it less funny or more funny to them? In particular I though the scene in the movie theatre with the members of The Basterds trying to pretend they are Italian and being called out by Christoph Waltz's character was hilarious. How does that scene play out for a European viewer?

Anyway, that was an observation that stood out when I viewed the film recently. Does anybody else have any insight?

That's something I've always been curious about. I watch a lot of foreign films, and I wonder how much I'm missing from the actor's performances because I don't understand the language. Especially since acting is so nuance intensive.

I remember reading a review of the movie Traffic, where the reviewer praised Benicio del Toro for speaking Spanish in an actual Mexican accent. Apparently many movies use Spanish actors to perform Mexican roles. The only time I can tell the difference is when Spaniards speak with a Castillan accent. (They replace all the "s" sounds with a "th.")

I can notice it when non-Americans speak in an American accent, if they're not so good at it. Still a bit difficult. The HBO series "The Wire" used a lot of actors from Great Britain, and if I didn't hear them talk in their regular voices, I never would have noticed they weren't native American speakers. (I'm still surprised when I hear Christian Bale talk in his regular voice.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k

When I saw this movie in the theater, I barely noticed how much of it was subtitled.  Later, when I watched the DVD with my parents I couldn't believe how little dialogue was in English.

Personally, I consider this film the worst Tarantino has ever directed and his only serious misfire. I had great expectations about it, but when I finally watched I found it quite boring and too dialogue based. Now, I know, when you watch a Tarantino film you know it's going to be dialogue based. But IB being a war film I expected it to have some serious action going on as well, and it certainly doesn't. And the dialogue it's good, alright, but there's just too much of it. Like when they're fixing Diane Kruger's leg after the shootout in the tavern, the characters keep just talking and talking, and it's just too much for me to stomach. And even the Spaghetti western touches didn't work for me. The opening scene, for instance, goes on for way too long and the camera setups Tarantino took from Sergio Leone look too unnatural.

Not that all is bad, thoufh. I'll be the first to admit that for all the dialogue Tarantino's films have, they never feel too static. And the final scenes in the movie theatre, where all the usual rules are broken and Tarantino even achieves a remarkable methaphoric level, are just amazing, easily the best Tarantino has ever shot. But it's too litle and too late.

Now, if he had directed this film as he did with "Death Proof"... there he allowed room for all his usual obsessions, but at the same time he managed to pull off a satisfying genre film.

Well, we will disagree on Inglorious Basterds, clearly, but that's cool. It's not my personal favorite. My favorite is actually Jackie Brown believe it or not. I did like Basterds quite a bit, though. It wasn't really a war film, and I never got the impression from the marketing that it was, so that's the only area where I would disagree with you conceptually, but other than that it's just subjective opinion. You made it quite clear that many of the elements that you typically like in a QT film just didn't work for you this time around. That's quite fair.

When I saw the marketing I actually didn't expect to like the film. Something about it just didn't seem right to me. It was the use of language and the things done with it that actually made me enjoy the film more than I thought I would.

Actually, the main thing I was wondering by posting the thread was my wondering how the movie tracks for European viewers in terms of the items I brought up in my original post. Speaking of which, I found this article that suggests that Germans, as odd as it may seem, love the film. It doesn't however, address the language nuance aspects I was hoping for.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/16023 (http://bigthink.com/ideas/16023)

Well, I for one I'm a Spaniard. We use to dub everything here, but I can't remember how much of the film was subtitled and what they had dubbed. I distinctly remember some people in the theatre expresing their disgust in the opening scene, which, IIRC was subtitled in order to reflect better when the actors switch languages from French to English.

That's interesting. It's wierd how avatars affect perception on this board for me. Every time I see your avatar of Terence Stamp from The Limey and the name Neville, I keep picturing that you are British.

It's a disguise  :wink:

One of the reasons I started posting here was to avoid my English from getting rusty.

That's outstanding. Incidentally, your written English is quite good. The very amateur linguist that I am, I would never have guessed it was not your primary language.

Really? I made quite a lot of typos back there, and some serious concordance mistakes. I corrected my original message, but you can see them in the text you quoted from me. I also keep confusing words with similar spelling, such as "though" and "thought", or using double consonants where I shouldn't.

But I like it here. I've learned lots of coloquial English expressions since I'm posting here. It's been years, though.

Well, I never worry about typos, I make them too. Typos are usually pretty obvious and not really an indicator of language skill. I do the same thing with "though" and "thought" as well.

 :teddyr: :teddyr:

Before I realized that your avatar was Terence Stamp, I thought that was you, Neville and I also thought "Don't get on this guy's wrong side."  :teddyr: :wink:

Here's what I had to say last year:
"INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Pointless poop - a real waste of money, resources, talent, even a few very good ideas... I feel a dumb film review coming on... since when did QUENTIN TARANTINO start blatantly ripping himself off, rewriting history stupidly, and missing opportunity after opportunity to create something genuine?  A HUGE disappointment."   

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,128938.msg320908.html#msg320908 (http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,128938.msg320908.html#msg320908) 


I also own this DVD and perhaps I need to look at it again.  I was offended by INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS' mix of cheap thrills, dopey dialogue and race murder... though I suppose there's things there to recommend it.  I do like QUENTIN TARANTINO movies, but this one seemed even more contrived than usual.  I didn't take it that TARANTINO was so much breaking rules as indulging himself (y'know, like ROB ZOMBIE). 

Interesting. There's no disguising I liked it. What I'm finding interesting is that QT fans are seeming less likely to appreciate Inglorious Basterds, while it garnered more mainstream appreciation by people that probably aren't big QT fans. It seems that way thus far, anyway. I thought the dopey dialogue came mainly from the character Aldo Raines. Aside from him, I thought much of the rest of the dialogue was quite good.

TARANTINO dialogue is baloney; always has been always will be.  Unrelated, I had a few issues with this movie: "the Bear Jew," the powerfully unsettling opening sequence and then the good ol' boy savagery of beating "Naa-ahzees" (actually German soldiers who were hardly all Nazis) to death with baseball bats. 
Who doesn't love the idea of HITLER being machine gunned in the face?  :bouncegiggle:  "That's entertainment..."  Yeh it's a fantasy, a stupid fantasy.  But it ain't history.  How...did she get there?  Where...did she get a theatre?  Wha...was the point of that and not running away forever?  Well, there'd not've been this movie.   :lookingup:
Forget it. 

Cracked.com had a Photoshop contest, "If Movie Posters Told the Truth".  For one of my three entries, I made a poster for this movie.

(http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg144/DKaidian/artwork%20and%20photos/inglorioustruthfulcopy.jpg)

I mean, the film had some decent bits, but I think that's really about it.

Personally, I perferred the original (granted the films are pretty much nothing alike, but still...)

I'm not trying to argue the movie with you. I liked it, you didn't. I was just commenting that you claimed to enjoy QT films but didn't like this one, and your reasons are what they are.

Personally, I loved the movie.  I think it had a nice balance between humor, suspense, and action.  Granted, it's not a typical war movie (that's one of the things I like about it), so it tends to be a little short on the action, but just about any scene involving Hans Landa sitting down one on one with someone (opening scene in the house, at the restaurant with Emmanuelle/Shoshanna, at the theater with Bridget von Hammersmark) provided more tension and thrills in just sit down conversations than a lot of movies with full blown action sequences.

Plus, you get some nice (dark) humor with the Basterds themselves (I can understand either loving or hating Brad Pitt - I thought he was hilarious) and some great individual scenes (the whole bar sequence, exchanges between Fredrik and Emmanuelle).  

I felt that, while the dialogue did have a similar STYLE in that Tarantino fashion, it avoided my normal complaint about his dialogue, which is all of the pop culture references.  For the first time since Pulp Fiction (which, admittedly was filled with the pop culture references that I just complained about), I was riveted by all of the dialogue in a QT film.

While others may not have enjoyed this aspect, I also loved that he rewrote history.  We've seen the real thing countless times in movies past, so it was nice that the end just went completely off in fantasy land.  I'm not sure that I always need movies that are in a historical context to actually be historically accurate.  I mean, lots of movies that take place during wartime (or other historical events) don't necessarily adhere to history.  This one just went so far off the path, that there was no question that it became fantasy (I gotta wonder if there was at least ONE guy who saw it in theaters and when Hitler was machine gunned, leaned over to his friend and whispered "you know, that's not how it really happened").  I was able to go along with it and enjoy it.  

I do agree with a previous poster that not all German soldiers were Nazis, but, if I'm not mistaken, all of the ones that the Basterds attacked WERE.  Even if they weren't, I think it would be reading too much into it if we call him on that.  I don't think he's making a political statement - the Basterds were just a ragtag group who liked killin' Nahzis.  Again, I felt that they were almost the comic relief in the movie.  Albeit, what they did isn't a typical comedy subject, but again, it's unique and I thought it was great.

As far as how Shoshanna/Emmanuelle got to where she was and why didn't she run - I got the feeling that she had been planning to get revenge all along.  Watching that happen to your family will do that to you.  She didn't necessarily plan to do it in the manner that she did, but she had to obtain work somehow.  Granted, they didn't go into great detail about how she got the theater (what she told Fredrik about inheriting it may or may not have been the truth), but I didn't feel that it really mattered.  She had time between the opening scene and current time to build something like that up.  She wouldn't want to leave though because she came across as someone who had nothing else to lose/live for than to exact revenge and perhaps even bring an end to the war.  She was waiting patiently for her chance...

I've probably gone on long enough and will happily expand upon my thoughts if anyone addresses anything specifically, but I just have to say that I enjoyed this movie very much.  Trust me, I'm no QT fan boy either.  I mean, I really enjoy Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill, but Reservoir Dogs hasn't been enjoyable to me since the first time I saw it (I've tried re-watching it, and it just doesn't work for me anymore) and Death Proof is not particulary high on my list (although, it does have a killer final 15 minutes or so).  I did not expect to like Inglorious Basterds as much as I did, but I have to admit that, despite owning the Blu-Ray, I still sit down and watch everytime I'm flipping through the channels and I come across it.  In fact, my wife is so tired of me watching it (although she loves it too), that I, too have been called an Inglorious BASTERD a time or two...

I think Tarantino's dialogue is one of his strongest points. I could not disagree more with Allhallowsday on this point. Different strokes and what not.

BTM's post pretty much sums it up for me, except I think it is a strong point rather than a failure.

The entirety of Inglourious Basterds is a series of conversations of people desperately trying to avoid the inevitable failure of communication. It's a cat and mouse that inevitably fails and ends up in a hail of bloodshed. That tension is the point of the movie.

As for the remainder of the ultraviolence, everybody wants to destroy Adolf Hitler's head. Point, tension, release. It surprised me, but I can't complain.

I enjoyed this film.  The dialogue was riveting.

One thing though...

Since QT writes all the dialogue, any character could be him.  If you've ever watched an interview with him, he talks pretty much the same way his characters talk.  Meaning, take almost any character from any of his movies and transplant QT's head on their body.  Like Hans Landa...great character, but it might as well have been QT dressed in a Nazi uniform.
Try envisioning that the next time you watch one of his films.