The morality of killing the enemy: I saw Inglorious Basterds tonight...

***DANGER***- I do describe a scene from the movie. It will not give away any of the plot, but it might ruin the scene for anyone who wants to see the movie. Continue with that in mind.

Overall, it was an amazing film. I am a sucker for cinematography and stylized story line. With that in mind, this movie certainly qualifies as fine art as far as I'm concerned.

But I came away from the movie disturbed by a certain element of the film and the reaction of the audience. It involves the graphic scenes depicting the "Inglorious Basterds" murdering Nazi soldiers. This certain part of the film was presented in a comical manner. And the entire audience burst out in fits of laughter as one Basterd (a glorified giant of a soldier with a heavy New York accent) bashed the head of a Nazi soldier to a pulp with a baseball bat. He then continued to beat the body several times as the camera panned over to the horrified faces of the remaining Nazi soldiers who had been captured.

Now I'm not so sure what was so hilarious about that scene. The entire audience was beside themselves with laughter and quite a few people were clapping in celebration. I could see how the description of the particular Basterd doing the killing could be seen as funny in any other context. But to juxtapose that comedy with the brutal killing of a human being seemed really disturbing to me. I wanted to laugh because my brain was telling me to go along with the audience. But I just sat there taking in my environment with absolute disgust.

This theme of glorifying the brutal and ruthless killing of the enemy continues throughout the movie. It seemed very animalistic. And it really did bother me.

I wanted to love this movie. And one part of myself is telling me to stop whining about the killing of Nazi soldiers. But another part of me is extremely unsettled by the entire experience.

I just don't find anything funny about killing people. Even if the one being killed is the most deserving of persons. It just does not seem funny to me.

I work part time at a drive in theatre so I see lots of movies. There is one point in this movie that I truly loved. That was the idea that you have to have a way to identify the Nazis, even when they take off the uniform. Considering that the central idea of the movie is a film by Goebbels, sort of the head of the MSM of the time, and that today we have so many "nazis" in that industry not wearing the uniform, it leads to some interesting speculation...lol. Not that I'm saying Rush or Manatee should have anything carved in their foreheads....lol.

Seriously though, how many people in this country could truly identify the "nazis" today? Almost makes you wish they would wear the uniform...lol

if one doesn't find "anything funny about killing people"?

it's frigging tarantino for pete's sake.

that would be like going to see a jerry bruckheimer film if one didn't find special effects and bombasticism appealing.

i'm not criticizing, i just think its funny.

How the movie glorified the actions in the scenes.

I don't know. But it bothered me.

jules and vincent smoke a room full of people in the opening scene
vincent accidentally shoots marvin in the face
bruce willis kills kills a boxer in the ring (ok that one was offscreen), he smokes vincent, and then kills zed with the sword...
i think almost all of the deaths are on screen, am i missing something?

the only thing i remember happening off screen is marcellus tossing the somoan out of the window into a greenhouse, but the guy lived.
:shrug:

"Why the fuck did ya do that?"

:rofl:

Brett dies off screen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czb4jn5y94g

the guy with the "hand cannon" gets killed offscreen

After viewing the Marvin scene again I agree you see him die
I remembered it as blood flying into the front seat but the camera shoots through the back window as his head explodes

Butch kills the other boxer offscreen

it's Maynard that gets killed with the sword
Zed gets shot by Marsellus and then killed later offscreen

The Gimp gets knocked out by Butch and is left for dead to hang there (that one is arguable- but technically he doesn't die till later)

Flock of seagulls dies on screen

maynard dies on screen

Vincent dies on screen

Marvin dies on screen

So, it's about half
The Marvin death threw me

:hi:

kills Maynard with the sword, Marsalles Wallace takes care of Zed off screen..

Reason enough not to see it.
He should be known as Arrogant Basterd.

Because the movie is called Inglourious Basterds!

Clever.

:rofl:

:/

(you find yourself doing this during "Kill Bill" volumes one and two, which are nothing but comical brutality, a la Kung Fu style...)

It's to provoke that with which you are uncomfortable !

I'd rather watch movies like that and provoke those base feelings, because it's not mindless, it's provoking.

Maybe I'm on the edge when it comes to movie watching, cause I also liked "Natural Born Killers" so much I named my kittens, "Mickey" and Mallory" (remember Mickey and Mallory Knox? Boy, was THAT a message on glorified violence and the media!)

I have no problem with that. But I find it unsettling that most of the audience found nothing provocative about the sequence in the film where a man is beaten to death with a baseball bat. And it was extremely graphic. I mean on levels I had never seen before.

I could understand if they were trying to show the true brutality of killing and war. But I cannot understand the angle they took with the scene and the reaction of the audience.

and condemning it. The movie was very deep, I can't stop thinking about it. He makes the Germans almost sympathetic in that scene, yet in the scene before Nazi's gun down an entire family. The movie is full of pieces like that, where we are asked to feel sympathetic for the Nazi's because we are all human and even they have their human moments, but then again they are fucking NAZIS and they were some evil fucks and they got what they deserved. He rounded out the Nazis more than any other WWII movie I've seen. IMO it makes them (the Nazis) more terrifying because they are just people after all.

Inglourious Basterds is a crazy dream for sure, what did you think?

Shut it haters, this movie was good.

And the idea of Good and Evil. Can polar opposite absolutes truly exist? Can a being ever be truly evil or truly good? Or is every being a mixture of both positives and negatives?

If you look at it from that angle, a Nazi soldier is simply a man. A man that does atrocious things but is not and cannot be absolutely evil.


The same argument can be made for Adolf Hitler himself. While some cringe at the idea that Hitler could possibly have any positive side to his existence, it seems entirely impossible that Hitler was purely evil.


This is why I have a problem with labeling our enemies as being "evil". That simply cannot be true. They are just men.

a gratuitously violent film with awesome cinematography and stylized story line?

lol

I should save thoughts like this for my Sunday Morning Atheist Club discussion.

While I am sorely tempted to think some people are pure evil (Dick Cheney comes to mind), I really don't believe it. Everybody is a mix of what we would label good and bad.

That's why I have a huge problem with the whole premise behind fighting and killing in wars. One woman's precious son faces off with some little boy's beloved daddy. Neither is evil by any stretch, yet they both think of the other as evil. They have to or else they can't aim the gun at the other and pull the trigger.

Adolph Hitler=Monster is pretty simplistic. What's the story there. If he never had any power maybe he would have been Mr. Rodgers.

Barack Obama (who I personally believe to be a thoughtful and good man) finds himself president after a life time of easy going non-violence. Next thing you know he's giving the orders to bomb a bunch of people half way around the world and have sharp shooters blow out the brains of three bad guys on a raft. I'm not saying he's wrong for doing these things, I'm just saying that before 2009 this man probably never hurt a fly. Now he's swatting them dead and in charge of an expanding military presence in Afghanistan.

And how about those pirates on the raft? What's their story?

That is just the position he is in.

I guess my point is that in an ongoing war soldiers have to demonize the entire opposing army in order to do their jobs. And the government has to set up a good/evil storyline to get the people behind a war.

Next thing you know we are rooting for our 'side' (which of course is fully supported by God) like it's a football game, and soldiers are killing civilians because they don't really think they are quite human (a quote I read yesterday about the My Lai massacre).

Yet if you step outside this reality, pull yourself away from your country's mindset and look at both sides, you see they are just like us (God's on their side too!).

Sometimes you really have to conduct a war, but it would be nice if we didn't try and pretend our opponents are all evil and we have the goodness of God on our side.

It is the human condition. The despots and the sheep? I'm not so sure that the sheep don't buy into the "good war" propaganda for their own reasons. And there are many of them. How much of it is who some people become in groups and why they form them.

Sigmund Freud thought that the human race couldn't evolve fast enough to save itself in the end.

Rent the DVR or read the book: The Boy in the Stryped Pajamas.

I was so angry because I was asked to feel empathy/sympathy for the Commander in charge of "Outwith". :-(

'right vs wrong' meme (not so much 'good vs evil') is "Munich".

It's a Steven Speilberg movie that deals with one aspect of the Israeli response to the Black September massacre of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.

It's a movie based on the book "Vengence" by George Jonas. It presents a fictional account of a Mossad team sent to assassinate certain Arab individuals with a history of violent 'anti-Israel' activities.

The whole 'right vs wrong' theme permeates the whole film. While it's told from an Israeli viewpoint, the Arab perspective is given a respectful viewing as well. You are given an opportunity to see the Arab targets as sympathetic human beings being hunted by a group of Mossad agents. Yet, interspersed throughout the movie, you are shown flashback excerpts of the massacre of the defenseless athletes.

As I said, it's not a 'good vs evil' film, but rather a 'right vs wrong' with some individual members of the Mossad team questioning the 'rightness' of their actions - yet continuing with their jobs.

...Stalingrad. It's German but you can get it over Netflix and at Blockbusters. This movie left me speechless.

I just don't see it as a 'classical' warfilm. I don't have a problem with depressing. War depresses me and I find Stalingrad better than, say, Rambo. I'm not implying, by the way, that you like that movie. It's just the first one that popped into my mind. I could have just as well taken Red Dawn (ha ha)! I saw Stalingrad when it came out in German theatres back in the day and it was the first WW2 movie I'd ever seen, that portrayed the human side of the Wehrmacht soldiers. It brought home the fact that the enemy is also human; dangerous thoughts when fighting a war. Letters from Iwo Jima is also great.

But I can't weigh in until I see the movie.

Maybe we need to feel and connect to what or who is good and evil.

It was like watching a video game - she moved from room to room fighting a shit-load of guys until she gets to the "Boss" level

terrible movie

... and strange (quirky?) has its own little messages.

Personally, I found it to be quite entertaining, but I'm also one of those readers who likes magic-o-realism. I loved Carlos Castaneda's tales of the Yaki Indians and another strange novel, called 1,000 years of solitude.

pulling both wristwatches from militarily incarcerated assholes *and* Vincent leaving his spray-gun on the kitchen counter as he takes a dump behind a closed bathroom door a few steps away - unlikely to say the least. Tarantino puts together some of the stupidest Lg buttered popcorn shit on the screen, that's what he does the very best though as to whether death is even capable of being funny we may need to refer to The Stone Age - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkz83VFEk1A

Not the killing part, but the "WTF is WRONG with you people?" moment.

There is a scene where a child is TRAPPED IN A CLOSET WITH A DEAD BODY FALLING ON HIM and comic music is played while he screams in terror/horror.

It wasn't funny then; its not funny now. I was sitting with friends who were darn near pissing themselves with laughter, and I was ready to walk out of the film. The comic music was apparently the "CUE" to laugh.

But it wasn't funny, and I was absolutely freaking horrified.

(Add in the kid was *fat* and his friends made fun of him, and I started to get pissed because 'wasn't this supposed to be a comedy?')

My friends and I talked afterwards, and we determined that I had been "unsensitized" to the cues because I didn't have a television for several years prior to this experience.

but real live actors doing it.

:D

That scene fucking rules, BTW.

manipulation or reason. Just be glad it was only a movie and the audience was just being hysterically deadly in their imaginations.

...I found Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction excellent movies. The Kill Bill series was, in a word, ridiculous. One of the best movies made criticizing media sensationalism, when it comes to violent crime, and the 'if it bleeds, it leads' mentality is a Belgian movie called Man Bites Dog (C'est arrivé près de chez vous, 1992). It's made as a documentary, in which a film team accompanies a serial killer, while he works. Natural Born Killers missed the mark entirely, and in the end became the very embodiment of that which it set out to criticize. I recall reading at the time it came out, that some U.S. adolescents had found new heroes in Mickey and Mallory, imitating their dress and attitude. Man Bites Dog blows Stone's work out of the water, in spite of the fact that it was low budget and the final project of 3 film school students. It's not for the faint of heart as it plays a nasty trick on the viewer, who will laugh at some of the crimes in the beginning. However, when you reach the end, you are made aware of your own quiet approval. Then you just feel ill. Brilliant and very uncomfortable.

Here is an example. It's harmless compared to the rest of the movie, but illustrates my point quite well (relevant scene begins at 6min50sec):

Man Bites Dog

If you like these types of movies, you will not be disappointed. The film crosses almost every line you can imagine, so get ready for a rough ride. Afterward, though, you'll have plenty to talk about.

You obviously didn't stay for the credits.

the same ideology the Nazis used; that by virtue of being part of a group (in this case Nazis) a person deserves death. What is a Nazi? A member of the National Socialist Party? SS soldiers? Any German soldier? Non-German soliders conscripted into the German army? A German citizen? Non-ethnic German citizens of Germany? These distinctions are all collapsed into the idea of 'Nazi'. Reminds me of how the term 'Al Queda' gets thrown around.

But it's a Q.T. - film - so I have misgivings about blood and gore - not my thing at all. I still think I'll see it - but I NOW know when to cover my eyes. :pals:

It looks cartoonish, ridiculous to the point of absurdity, a comic book rendition of WWII. No thanks.

Not that I'm saying you're wrong not to see a movie made that way. But either way, I think it (like most QT movies) is intentionally made to be over the top crazy.

The horrific stories that my Dad told me of immoral conduct by "The Allies" was astounding to me. He described open MURDER and CORRUPTION ... you can't imagine ... well Taratino can.

Real war is that INSANE.

I love Quentin Taratino's gift of dark humor and the absurd. However, what has been shown in the previews of this flick - ARE NOT FAR FROM THE REAL THING, i.e. the insanity of war.

I haven't seen the movie, I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to see it. However, to are right about war, it is nasty, crazy, and brutal. I also think it could be a fascinating study on the nature of revenge. Did you know although much of the story in Inglorious Bastards is fictional it's overall history is not so far from the truth. The French resistance did take violent revenge against collaborators after the war. They probably did so against during the war also.

My dad suffered nightmares after returning from WWII. As he became aged he elaborated war's details with sadness. One experience was his going ahead of his company and being forced him to kill three Germans in a machine gun nest. He said, "They gave me a battlefield commission for killing them but it wasn't courage, I was forced to kill them ... it was either me or them." Then he went on to tell me how one of the Germans must have been no older than 16 or 17 years old. He looked down at him before the rest of his company had caught up with them and cried out, "You never did anything to me!" All the while he could hear his helmet bouncing down the steep hill. He said he can still hear that in his nightmares ... the sound of that helmet.

We can't imagine the emotional pain and guilt some of our soldiers must bear for the rest of their lives once they return from war.

It was just too close TO ME. Not unlike "Natural Born Killers" would be to a family whose relatives were murdered by a craven psychotic.

It's selfish, but some subjects are just too close. :shrug:

And at this point, after "Kill Bill" and "Death Proof", he knows people are just expecting him to try to outdo himself as far as the violence. But his style is still brialliant as is most of his writing. His movies do have some interesting and complex layers to discover if you can get past the blood they're usually worth the trip to the cineplex.

From the ads it looked like a comedy action flick I might enjoy seeing, but I would be upset to see what you describe. Now, I've only seen one Tarantino movie (Reservoir Dogs not very long after it came out - a friend's video rental), so I hope I can be forgiven for not automatically knowing to expect that level of gratuitousness in the violence (violence porn, really).

I remember being surprised at the glowing terms with which a friend described killing a bunch of gooks caught out in the open.

The idea that fighting all-out, with no rules, wins wars. And winners get to write the history books.

What if we pursued the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with that ethos, rather than "nation buidling"? That's the way the US won WWII and the Indian Wars. If LBJ had lost the 1964 election, and Goldwater had nuked Hanoi, would there have been a peace movement in the late 60's to have given birth to the progressive movement we see today? Wouldn't the whole Vietnam thing just have been over with as soon as it started, without the names of 45K American dead on a wall in Washington, D. C. to remind us about the meaning of war?

What if Bushco had used all-out war tactics in Afghanistan and Iraq? Surely, if he were to do that, he'd have ordered the complete carpet bombing of the territories in Northwest Pakistan, and Osama bin Laden would surely be dead. If he had done so the day after the 2004 election, it would be over with by now.

In the film, mercy is shown as a weakness. When Col. Landa allows Shoshonna to escape, he plants the seed of the future destruction of the German leadership. When she turns over the wounded body of Zoller, because she starts to feel sorry for him, it takes a very bad turn for her. When Col. Landa turns over his weapons to Lt. Raine, he suffers a consequence for it.

Even in this alternative history ending, WWII is brought to a speedier end by two unlinked groups looking to achieve their own separate suicide bombings. We who are civilized shake our heads at the suicide bombings in the Middle East, but we see how it achieves the aims of those who carry out the missions, even though we don't want to look.

That's what's disturbing about the movie. The idea that might makes right is terribly unsettling to anyone who believes in negotiation and peace.

I know - *weird* but she was in a Karate "Fight Club" and it would pump us up before matches.

That said, we never, for a moment, believed THESE particular Quentin Taratino movies were "real."

Anyone who has seen real death through War Time battles either turns COLD and sociopathic OR they're affected emotionally in a variety of dysfunctional ways. True, there's some people who can emerge from four tours in the ME fairly unscathed - yet humane people. Those fortunate people have strong social support systems and an UNUSUAL strong and balanced temperament. Those completely unaffected are few and far between if they exist.

Yes, I have enjoyed all of Taratino's flicks but purposely decided NOT to see this one. It's way too close to reality.

My entire family tree back to the civil war has had someone serve in the Army including myself. My father was a demolitions officer who cleared mine fields during WWII. As Dad aged he shared more and more horrific experiences with me because we were so close.

NOTHING about WAR should be celebrated.

WAR is HELL ... it should be the LAST resort. Continuing to occupy a nation that has not surrendered is "endless war."

America has lost her soul - The Pentagon owns Barter Town but the public does not see THEIR children coming home maimed and mentally traumatized with PSTD. It's sickening ... vile. :puke:

appreciate your post. Like ever expanding ripples in a pond, the terrible brutality and cruelty of war effects families, communities, generations.


I'm not a big fan of Taratino anyway, no matter how clever. I'm just sick of all the violence depicted in film.

:evilgrin:

I see, just a bunch of thugs and bimbos clawing each other eyes out.

in the Junior Olympics. Naw! Not real and her skills could not be used for self defense ... FOR REAL. :eyes:

My father in law hated the Nazis. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht off his farm in 1942 at age 17, sent to the
Russian Front, got his leg blown off at Stalingrad, and was returned to his farm in 1943, a cripple at age 18.
He was a German soldier, forced to wear the uniform, but was certainly never a Nazi, or a member of the Hitler
Youth before that. His only wish, when his two children got married, was to have only girls as grandchildren,
so they would never be drafted into military service (he got his wish).

Another friend's dad, also sent to the Russian front, told how his unit had caught two women who were thought to
to have been partisany, or Russian anti-German partisans. My friend's father was told to shoot the two women on the
spot. He refused. His officer insisted that he shoot them or be shot with them for insubordination. Another soldier
of the unit said just calm down, and said he would take care of it. He escorted the two women around the side of a
barn, there was a burst of gunfire, and he came back, and said, OK, it's taken care of. War transforms people into
beings they themselves wouldn't recognize.

As for Quentin Tarantino, I've never met the guy, but he sounds just a little weird. He met a woman friend of ours
in an airport once last year, asked for her email address, and started sending her email about how much he liked her
and couldn't stop thinking about her. She is 35, single, and quite attractive, so I can understand his reaction. He
was sending her email saying he had this project he was working on in Germany (presumably this film), but wanted to
see her as soon as he was done, etc etc etc. One fine day, the emails just stopped. Poof! He must have met another
woman in some other airport.

because those who deny it, usually act it out innappropriately. Live life with peace in your heart but if you are called to act out in a violent matter if necessary, you do so. Not with glee, not with "honor" or some created message to make oneself feel better, but because you have to.

One of my favorite bands, Spearhead have a message. "A piece a piece for you, a piece a piece for me, a piece a piece for every peaceful person that you see. A piece a piece for you, a piece a piece for me, but I don't act peaceful if your not that way to me".

There is time for everything under the sun.

Neither should be taken lightly or with joy.

have never been in danger and have felt the fear and the experience. I take a middle road. Live in peace and if you are forced to protect those you love, you do it with the utmost surety.

Especially violence against socially acceptable targets like Nazis. Hell, I was a history major and I know that not all Germans were Nazis but I find hard to muster up any feelings for German soldiers being killed. I find what they represented too disgusting.

Inglorious Basterds (Which I loved BTW) is a send-up to the 60s war films like The Dirty Dozen and Kelly's Heroes. Over the top, partly anti-war and satirical. I delivers exactly what it promises, blood and fun. QT at his best.

Also I found the violence more acceptable because they were Jewish soldiers, I mean who would deny some Jewish people a shot at the assholes who tried to destroy them?

Yeah, war is brutal and WWII was a total war. It's hard for us to imagine it but the whole country (Ours, theirs) were mobilized for victory. And yeah there were brutal crimes on both sides but I have never read about a war without crimes. One theme from this movie comes from real life, on the days directly after D-Day, most US units had "no prisoners" rule for the SS. Which meant if they caught a person in a SS uniform they were dead. I know that is morally wrong but I have also read about the SS so the emotionally part of my brain goes "Well, they earned it."

All good movies should make you think for better or worse.

Individuals and small groups can and do reject violence but on the whole, we're a violent species.

I do however, at times feel like I must come from different planet than some other people out there,
especially when it comes to spectator violence.

I haven't seen the movie yet, I'm not sure if I will, I can't stand watching violence. I think its over the topness is part Tarentino and the nature of the blck comedy genre. This isn't really new Dr. Strangelove made a comedy about nuclear annihilation.

However from what I read, for all its being fictitious, crazy, and over the top, Inglorious Basters seems if you look at its over all theme one of the more honest films abut WWII, and war in general. the film is nasty, brutal, and crazy just like war. I don't think the Bastards were shown as heroes. You are right there are some real life points that come from this movie, such as the US units not taking prisoners and killing anyone in an SS uniform. In addition I read that the French resistance after the war killed or wounded collaborators.

Edited for clarity.

except for the fact that at war people do kill people

There was no bastards unit, and no plan to burn down a theater. However, fiction, even absurd fiction like this movie can have elements of overall truth about human condition. It was my fault for not being clear. I edited my post a little to make my point clearer.

The more I thought about your response, the more miffed I am. I have no idea why I must justify my post to you, but I am. I didn't outright say that it was fiction, because I assumed everyone knew that. I know Hitler committed suicide in a bunker, and I know it is absurd fiction. I did call it crazy and over the top which should have been enough. Maybe you just scanned my post.

My point was, fiction, even absurd fiction can have an over all truth about human nature. A Christmas Carol, A Modest Proposal, Catch 22, Brave New World, Candide, and 1984, are all fiction some more absurd than others. More relatedly, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now. I'm not Putting Inglorious Bastards on the same level. I'm just saying fiction can contain over all truths about human nature.

In the last part of my post, I did say there is one very small spec of truth despite it's over the top craziness. None of the things they did happen in the movie,there were groups such as the French resistance that did rage violence on Nazis after the war. I can't remember everything the did, but I do remember the french resistance shaving the heads of female collaborators. I also heard the gouged out eyes, but I'm not so sure about that. what I meant by more honest, despite its over the top nature, I know that none of the events happen, what I meant is most WWII movies, especially the older ones. show the allies as heroic and glorious. This movie despite Again, I know the events in the movie were totally made up, but I haven't seen the movie, from what I gather it is an allegory that the allies could be just as brutal as the Nazis.

action films are, how to put this nicely, sucking badly.
:thumbsdown::thumbsdown:

My favorite war film ever was "The Young Lions" which was around 1959 with Marlon Brandon in it as a German. It showed not only the brutality (as much as they could back then and in black and white), but also the humanity on both sides.

The continuing theme of all of Quentin's movies is about violent people. He wants to portray how they live and function amidst stomach-turning violence and horror. That's his shtick. Don't read more into it than what's already there.

By the way, that movie, not that I am interested in even watching it, is pure fantasy.

The director is famous for eliciting that response in his audiences.

There was a similar scene in another recent WW II movie, regarding the Resistance. The audience didn't laugh... the set up was very different from what I am sure happened here. So people didn't laugh... just sat there, realizing the horrific nature of the whole war.

Then again that was based on an actual event, and that actually happened.