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Why we're writing about Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino's latest film, the World War II action satire Inglourious Basterds, doesn't seem like something we should write about, but it is: As the film unwinds, it becomes apparent that it's all taking place in an alternate universe. Or, as star Eli Roth calls it, it's a "fairy tale." With Nazis.
We won't spoil which major events are different in Tarantino's world, but when you notice events diverging from reality, the director has a solid explanation.
"You can definitely say, 'Look, there is a point in the movie that history went one way, and we go another,'" Tarantino said in a group interview last week in Beverly Hills, Calif. "Now, where I'm coming from that is basically my characters changed the course of the war. Now, that didn't happen because my characters didn't exist, but if they had existed, everything that happens is fairly plausible." (Spoilers ahead!)
Tarantino's "Basterds" are a group of Jewish soldiers who hunt Nazis. He also invented Nazi war hero Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a sniper who killed 300 Allied troops with his rifle while holed up in a lighthouse. The Nazis made the propaganda film Nation's Pride in his honor, starring Zoller himself. Both Hitler and Goebbels themselves attend the film's premiere.
The writer/director came up with this plotline after scrapping his first draft. "I had a different story, and it was just too big," Tarantino said. "It was just too big. I had the opposite of writer's block. I couldn't stop writing. I couldn't shut my brain off, and I literally said, 'OK, I'm going to take out this story because that's the thing that derailed me way back when,' and I came up with a new story. The new story is the one about Frederick Zoller, about him being this German Audie Murphy character. He gets a movie about him, and the mission would be the blowing up of the actual premiere."
Were Hitler and Goebbels actually in attendance at the premiere of Nation's Pride, had the film or its subject actually existed, perhaps the Allies would have sent some "Inglourious Basterds" after the Nazi gala. Tarantino's filmmaker friend and the film's co-star, Eli Roth, shared his perspective on the alternate history.
"It's a work of fiction, and he's not constrained by the rules of history," Roth said in an exclusive interview later that day. "By making the movie not historically accurate but making the characters honest and accurate, by having them speak in their native tongue, the characters are much more human and much more relatable. In the story, it leaves you free to draw your own conclusions, to draw your own associations to it. Quentin's an artist. He says this is a fairy tale. 'Once upon a time,' and that's it. It's so much fun. It allows you to really just enjoy it and experience that and get that thrill of experiencing that. It's something that everybody's thought of."
Hindsight indeed gives victims of tragedy thoughts about how they could have thwarted such events. Filmmakers are no exception.
"It made me think about after September 11th, how I had fantasies of going back in time and being on those planes and killing those hijackers," Roth continued. "I think that Quentin has actually tapped into something very, very real, which is this human wish to go back in time and sacrifice yourself to stop evil and save thousands. That's a very, very real thing."
Inglourious Basterds opens Friday.
By REDante at 8:55 AM ON 08/17/09
ok, I understand how youre trying to explain why youre writing this article, but come on thats kind of stretching it. If they promote it to be a scifi/fantasy/horror flick thats one thing, but from what ive seen its just a tarentino
inaccurate war movie, and as always, war movies are usually inaccurate. Unless it goes to the point where we see wolfenstein coming out of the woods, or goes the way of 300....im sorry this is an interesting but not necessary article.
By Simon Jessey at 8:55 AM ON 08/17/09
"Quentin Tarantino's latest film, the World War II action satire Inglourious Basterds, doesn't seem like something we should write about..."
Why? Doesn't have any wrestling in it, then?
By j-dub at 9:11 AM ON 08/17/09
Okay, I understand your reasoning for writing on this movie, but it is a major stretch. Writing about this would be no different than writing about the Dirty Dozen.
By joesocwork at 9:12 AM ON 08/17/09
LOL! SyFy had to justify this one huh! LOL! So b/c a movie is not about reality, [i]that[/i] makes it science fiction? So does that finally explain why you feature pro-wrestling?? :D
By Anachronite at 9:20 AM ON 08/17/09
SyFy idiocracy. If your going to print spoilers, please print SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!! Thanks for ruining the alternate universe thing for me before I could see it! Freaking idiots! Probably the same person that came up with the SyFy thing. Dumbest name ever.
By ChaiGrl86 at 9:27 AM ON 08/17/09
All of you people are NUTS! It is Tarantino for crying out loud. Just enjoy the article. Everyone is probably going to go see it anyways! Take a chill pill!
By Feryl at 9:40 AM ON 08/17/09
@Anachronite
come on now...isn't it kind of obvious that the movie isn't historically accurate and thus an alternate reality type set up? If something like this actualyl happened don't you think they would teach about it in history class? For that matter, if not in the schools there would've been a book or something about it.
By jdmiic at 10:28 AM ON 08/17/09
It can hardly be called a spoiler when the alternate universe plot has been widely reported in the media for a considerable time. One of the quickest ways to make sure someone completely disregards your opinion is to call them idiots right off the bat.
Captcha fails AGAIN
By wellington23 at 11:26 AM ON 08/17/09
Thanks for not placing a spoiler alert. What happened to you guys?
By hardedge at 11:56 AM ON 08/17/09
Yeah, I always wanted to hear Brad Pitt do a lousy Clack Gable impression.
By speaker for the dead at 12:04 PM ON 08/17/09
When did you all become self appointed editors of the articles posted in here? Who cares? Like has already been said.. Tarantino's movies tend to appeal to the science fiction crowd and man can not live on scifi alone.
By MaryAnnMc at 12:49 PM ON 08/17/09
I really appreciate this article. The alternate history timeline really appeals to me. That works for me a lot better than thinking of it as simply "inaccurate."
I had not planned on seeing this movie, but now I will.
By JT at 2:44 PM ON 08/17/09
Thanks for the Spoiler ya knuckleheads!
By Eveil Deah at 4:18 PM ON 08/17/09
I been waiting to c Tarentino in the directing realm again...
By Omen at 6:07 PM ON 08/17/09
It's false,but true.
By ToxicMunkee at 6:19 PM ON 08/17/09
This article needs more Ice Spiders.
By Michael at 8:48 PM ON 08/17/09
@Anachronite
If you hate SyFy and Sci-Fi Wire and reports about fantasy movies with alternate WWII histories, what're you doing lurking around this site? Perhaps Hypocrinite would be a better user name for you?
By joesocwork at 9:21 PM ON 08/17/09
Hey, without speaking for anyone else, I'm just amused that the author felt the need to explain why they are writing a column about the movie for this forum. It begs (the rhetorical) question what else do they have to justify! :P
By jayson at 11:34 PM ON 08/17/09
@Simon Jessey: LOL! Nice one on the wrestling comment. HAHAHA
By Horrid at 2:22 AM ON 08/18/09
If War is Hell then certainly Syfy is Purgatory if they expect us to swallow this ... justification.
By Pass On This Horrible Junk at 5:54 AM ON 08/18/09
Yikes, it’s such a horrible clunker of a movie!! 8O
Not one good review for this thing at all, and do you blame the reviewers? Anti-American, racist, dumb, gore-infested, an incapable lie of society that never happened and never could. What causes anyone to make such biologically, socially and culturally impossible, inept and fictitious crap? LSD? KGB? It must be. What a mess and what a money loser. I'm glad I didn't invest in this nonsense. It has lost so much money, it's ridiculous!! 8O
It’s too bad for him this dreadful movie will end so many careers including his own, both in America as well as in his native eurasian homeland.
Fortunately, movies like this don’t even make it to DVD, so maybe we’ll all be spared the embarrassment.
By goddogx at 4:26 AM ON 08/19/09
pass on this horrible junk may be dumber than any previous poster since the name change IMHO LOL!
Visit mobile.syfy.com/wire on your mobile device.
goddogx:
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