I never understood this aspect of Inglorious Bastereds. There's an obvious parallel being presented between the Nazis in the audience, and the IRL audience, but what exactly is the takeaway supposed to be? Hateful 8 and Once Upon a time in Hollywood rubbed me the wrong way for the same reasons - there seems to be obvious high school level allegories and themes, but without an overall point being made.
I’m not sure QT is going for a coherent deep message with any of his movies. At least, not ones he doesn’t basically always contradict in the same movie. I always saw him as a fetishizer of (among other things) movies when they were churned out as product more than art. It’s why pulp fiction is called that and starts with the definition of pulp fiction basically being cheap, mindless, targeted-to-release-dopamine efficiently, bulk content. He’s making that kind of film from the 70s that somehow gets all the pieces together to exist even though the script is at least 50% corny/bad. But he gets unlimited budget (from Harvey Weinstein) and full-on movie stars and just goes all-out on them.
But then in most of the movies there is at least some navel-gazing/meta cinema tributes. And basically every plot line in IG is about movies or Hollywood or German Hollywood. And (outside the opening scene) the only ones who are not, the Basterds themselves, describe Donny bashing Nazis as “the closest thing we have to going to the movies.” So it’s not just the fantasy story where America beat the Germans, it also this fantasy story about Hollywood winning the war.
I’m with you when it comes to seeing the good parts of QT films like killing Nazis and racists whites, but calling a spade a spade shouldn’t be frowned on. The dude isn’t a communist by any means. Like what was the point of “once upon a time in Hollywood”? I read an interview where QT basically ranted about hippies ruining Hollywood and the death of Sharon Tate was the final nail in the coffin for golden age Hollywood. Pretty much indistinguishable from a chud screed.
yeah i would agree that there are underlying wistful and elegiac feelings or themes in OUaTiH (looking to the past, loss, feeling washed up, the subversion of history as wish fulfillment), and i think it's fair to view these as being conservative-coded or having conservative-valences. i'm of the feeling that it's his most textured and mature work (I think the violence with in it is much more complicated, esp of course with the dialogue with the Manson kids before the climax), so i guess i'd disagree that it's indistinguishable from a chud screed because i don't think the film is really that cut and dry, as being primarily didactic or being a vessel for a "message" (and because of course QT is a formal and technical master or w/e).
more broadly, my dismissive post above is simply an expression of skepticism, from, like, that famous Susan Sontag essay, at the contention that art is or supposed to be reducible to a series of statements, which are to be unearthed by interpretation. i'm not sure that's how we should engage with art, and by doing so it cuts off a lot of what's valuable.
and, more so, to your comment, and this is more a personal disposition, but i'm not of the feeling that a work needs to align so completely with my political convictions. i think in OUaTiH, there's room to have a bit of empathy for this loss of a cultural moment, for the loss of these old cultural gods (pre-New Hollywood heroes), without also disclaiming that this loss still wasn't necessary or a good thing or whatever. (having said that, i think Django is a good example of a film which has a very intentional and pointed view of the world that is very different from my own (that Django is good and correct to only lookout for himself), to the point that i think much less of the film because of it. whether or not i can insist you be open to OUaTiH while discarding Django for myself, I'm not prepared to argue here.)
No I’m not saying everything we watch should only reinforce our political views or anything, it’s that out of all his movies I think it’s pretty easy to pick out the symbols and meaning, but with OuaTiH it was easily the hardest to understand for me (which makes sense I went in expecting a movie about the Manson family, when in reality it was a movie made for people who love movies, which I’m not really). My point being i think for QT, but more broadly libs can’t really do deep cultural analysis well and when they do it’s surface level at best or pretty much a lib screed at worst.
In this context, I feel like if he was trying to make that point then it would include more of a "by killing Nazis you become a Nazi" critique. I'm down for critiquing hero worship and individualist adventurism, but not by satirizing or smearing antifascists.
it wouldn't have to. like if there was enough revisionist stuff (like the americans raising the flag over berlin in jojo rabbit) and a bunch of anti-soviet content then you could make it clear the message isn't some mealymouthed liberal i-am-very-smart nonsense like that
not effective as a political tool but art never is. if people wanted to take a 'by killing Nazis you become a Nazi' lesson from it that's no different than the white supremacists that love american history x or the fash that love starship troopers.
Hmm. I don't fully understand how that would resolve it, but I do also agree that the perceiver is usually in a stronger position to interpret the perceived than the artist's intention so it's true that certain segments will interpret it however blatantly incorrectly they want anyway.
the underlying message of this hypothetical film being that americans/the capitalist west didn't want to fight fascism and certainly shouldn't be called antifascist, and that despite being the fourth reich themselves their war-glorfying media has consistently rewritten that history to suggest that they were the defenders of the free world at the time and minimize the efforts of the communists that did the bulk of the work defeating fascism, communists that they immediately targeted with war and violence as soon as the fascists were defeated. while also doing everything in their power (including the horrific bombing of japan) to ensure those fascists were recuperated into american empire instead of seeing justice.
I can't reply to every comment in this thread or every thread that mentions this film, but I'll just say here: it's just wild, frankly, the amount of john brown apologists, romanov family exterminator defenders, there's-a-difference-between-good-things-and-bad-things-acknowledgers, who nonetheless seem squeamish at QT films. Like, nah, miss me with the Zoomer policing, it's absolutely sick that the Nazis get domed in IG, it's dope that lady protagonists in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof all fuck up abusive men, it's dope that Django exterminates an entire plantation (it's not dope that his redemption is solely for himself and I'm depicted as the well-meaning but naive Christoph Walz character, but I don't need to agree with him on everything).
Like come on, the problem with the world isn't that we're too open to violence. That is an ur-liberal take. The problem is that violence is unjustly distributed and allows some people's flourishing at the expense of so many others.
why are you calling for my banning? i too consider myself a john brown apologist. did you read my post?
the point that was I was responding to, or, at least, what I took the point to be, perhaps erroneously, was: "Inglourious Basterds would be good, if the message of the film was: the audience who is watching the film, who is enjoying the violence, is just like the German audience, within the film, watching the propaganda film, who is enjoying that same violence -- therefore, the audience who is watching IG, qua their enjoyment of violence, is just like the nazis."
wild that you thought my comment was relevant to reply to with this
my dig at tarantino here is the fact that he's a likely sex pest and loves the edginess of having white actors say the gamer word on camera. I've got no problem with a bit of the ol' ultraviolence, and in general don't feel strongly about his movies one way or the other.
this specific comment is about how he'd be the greatest to ever do it if inglorious bastards was a critique of the citizens of the fourth reich sitting in the theater watching his movie, but we all know it ain't that deep
look, i think the film holds out the opportunity for self-reflection, about the audience's own relationship with violence, that you might appreciate. but, just because the film has, i think in the most felicitious reading, a different message than what you would want (a film about the power of film vs a film about how the audience is wretched) doesn't mean that the film "ain't deep." it's just has different aim than what you want from it.
there's room of course for films that rub an audience's face in their own wretchedness, about their own complicity. Haneke's Cache, Haneke's Funny Games, The Sopranos come to mind. they're great, also thematically rich, but obviously to different ends.
he would be the goat if that were true but every indication says he has no idea and is actually just another hollywood ghoul
I never understood this aspect of Inglorious Bastereds. There's an obvious parallel being presented between the Nazis in the audience, and the IRL audience, but what exactly is the takeaway supposed to be? Hateful 8 and Once Upon a time in Hollywood rubbed me the wrong way for the same reasons - there seems to be obvious high school level allegories and themes, but without an overall point being made.
It's a common aspect of a lot modern movies and shows, and really reveals the hollowness of the themes and a lack of understanding by the writers about what their own show is about.
The message is very clear to us erudite, enlightened viewers. Behold! A tiny peek inside the mind palace of Quentin Tarantino!
Also:
"I'm gonna say the N-word and wank off to some feet. Nobody can stop me."
I’m not sure QT is going for a coherent deep message with any of his movies. At least, not ones he doesn’t basically always contradict in the same movie. I always saw him as a fetishizer of (among other things) movies when they were churned out as product more than art. It’s why pulp fiction is called that and starts with the definition of pulp fiction basically being cheap, mindless, targeted-to-release-dopamine efficiently, bulk content. He’s making that kind of film from the 70s that somehow gets all the pieces together to exist even though the script is at least 50% corny/bad. But he gets unlimited budget (from Harvey Weinstein) and full-on movie stars and just goes all-out on them.
But then in most of the movies there is at least some navel-gazing/meta cinema tributes. And basically every plot line in IG is about movies or Hollywood or German Hollywood. And (outside the opening scene) the only ones who are not, the Basterds themselves, describe Donny bashing Nazis as “the closest thing we have to going to the movies.” So it’s not just the fantasy story where America beat the Germans, it also this fantasy story about Hollywood winning the war.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
this sounds like a problem with the interpreter, and not the work, tbqh
I’m with you when it comes to seeing the good parts of QT films like killing Nazis and racists whites, but calling a spade a spade shouldn’t be frowned on. The dude isn’t a communist by any means. Like what was the point of “once upon a time in Hollywood”? I read an interview where QT basically ranted about hippies ruining Hollywood and the death of Sharon Tate was the final nail in the coffin for golden age Hollywood. Pretty much indistinguishable from a chud screed.
yeah i would agree that there are underlying wistful and elegiac feelings or themes in OUaTiH (looking to the past, loss, feeling washed up, the subversion of history as wish fulfillment), and i think it's fair to view these as being conservative-coded or having conservative-valences. i'm of the feeling that it's his most textured and mature work (I think the violence with in it is much more complicated, esp of course with the dialogue with the Manson kids before the climax), so i guess i'd disagree that it's indistinguishable from a chud screed because i don't think the film is really that cut and dry, as being primarily didactic or being a vessel for a "message" (and because of course QT is a formal and technical master or w/e).
more broadly, my dismissive post above is simply an expression of skepticism, from, like, that famous Susan Sontag essay, at the contention that art is or supposed to be reducible to a series of statements, which are to be unearthed by interpretation. i'm not sure that's how we should engage with art, and by doing so it cuts off a lot of what's valuable.
and, more so, to your comment, and this is more a personal disposition, but i'm not of the feeling that a work needs to align so completely with my political convictions. i think in OUaTiH, there's room to have a bit of empathy for this loss of a cultural moment, for the loss of these old cultural gods (pre-New Hollywood heroes), without also disclaiming that this loss still wasn't necessary or a good thing or whatever. (having said that, i think Django is a good example of a film which has a very intentional and pointed view of the world that is very different from my own (that Django is good and correct to only lookout for himself), to the point that i think much less of the film because of it. whether or not i can insist you be open to OUaTiH while discarding Django for myself, I'm not prepared to argue here.)
No I’m not saying everything we watch should only reinforce our political views or anything, it’s that out of all his movies I think it’s pretty easy to pick out the symbols and meaning, but with OuaTiH it was easily the hardest to understand for me (which makes sense I went in expecting a movie about the Manson family, when in reality it was a movie made for people who love movies, which I’m not really). My point being i think for QT, but more broadly libs can’t really do deep cultural analysis well and when they do it’s surface level at best or pretty much a lib screed at worst.
Would he be though?
In this context, I feel like if he was trying to make that point then it would include more of a "by killing Nazis you become a Nazi" critique. I'm down for critiquing hero worship and individualist adventurism, but not by satirizing or smearing antifascists.
it wouldn't have to. like if there was enough revisionist stuff (like the americans raising the flag over berlin in jojo rabbit) and a bunch of anti-soviet content then you could make it clear the message isn't some mealymouthed liberal i-am-very-smart nonsense like that
not effective as a political tool but art never is. if people wanted to take a 'by killing Nazis you become a Nazi' lesson from it that's no different than the white supremacists that love american history x or the fash that love starship troopers.
Hmm. I don't fully understand how that would resolve it, but I do also agree that the perceiver is usually in a stronger position to interpret the perceived than the artist's intention so it's true that certain segments will interpret it however blatantly incorrectly they want anyway.
the underlying message of this hypothetical film being that americans/the capitalist west didn't want to fight fascism and certainly shouldn't be called antifascist, and that despite being the fourth reich themselves their war-glorfying media has consistently rewritten that history to suggest that they were the defenders of the free world at the time and minimize the efforts of the communists that did the bulk of the work defeating fascism, communists that they immediately targeted with war and violence as soon as the fascists were defeated. while also doing everything in their power (including the horrific bombing of japan) to ensure those fascists were recuperated into american empire instead of seeing justice.
I can't reply to every comment in this thread or every thread that mentions this film, but I'll just say here: it's just wild, frankly, the amount of john brown apologists, romanov family exterminator defenders, there's-a-difference-between-good-things-and-bad-things-acknowledgers, who nonetheless seem squeamish at QT films. Like, nah, miss me with the Zoomer policing, it's absolutely sick that the Nazis get domed in IG, it's dope that lady protagonists in Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof all fuck up abusive men, it's dope that Django exterminates an entire plantation (it's not dope that his redemption is solely for himself and I'm depicted as the well-meaning but naive Christoph Walz character, but I don't need to agree with him on everything).
Like come on, the problem with the world isn't that we're too open to violence. That is an ur-liberal take. The problem is that violence is unjustly distributed and allows some people's flourishing at the expense of so many others.
deleted by creator
why are you calling for my banning? i too consider myself a john brown apologist. did you read my post?
the point that was I was responding to, or, at least, what I took the point to be, perhaps erroneously, was: "Inglourious Basterds would be good, if the message of the film was: the audience who is watching the film, who is enjoying the violence, is just like the German audience, within the film, watching the propaganda film, who is enjoying that same violence -- therefore, the audience who is watching IG, qua their enjoyment of violence, is just like the nazis."
i disagree with this, as gestured at above.
wild that you thought my comment was relevant to reply to with this
my dig at tarantino here is the fact that he's a likely sex pest and loves the edginess of having white actors say the gamer word on camera. I've got no problem with a bit of the ol' ultraviolence, and in general don't feel strongly about his movies one way or the other.
this specific comment is about how he'd be the greatest to ever do it if inglorious bastards was a critique of the citizens of the fourth reich sitting in the theater watching his movie, but we all know it ain't that deep
look, i think the film holds out the opportunity for self-reflection, about the audience's own relationship with violence, that you might appreciate. but, just because the film has, i think in the most felicitious reading, a different message than what you would want (a film about the power of film vs a film about how the audience is wretched) doesn't mean that the film "ain't deep." it's just has different aim than what you want from it.
there's room of course for films that rub an audience's face in their own wretchedness, about their own complicity. Haneke's Cache, Haneke's Funny Games, The Sopranos come to mind. they're great, also thematically rich, but obviously to different ends.