By Peanut
Can a historical film flip the script on history - and still be considered historical?
I argue "Yes" in the case of Inglourious Basterds, which injects a giant shot of Quentin Tarantino epinephrine into the heart of a WWII drama. Specifically, he imagines a fictional counterpart to Hitler's Gestapo terror squads: the Basterds, a crew of Jewish-American guerillas led behind enemy lines by Brad Pitt's "Aldo the Apache." While the Basterds and their deeds exist outside the real historical timeline, their adventures (and those of the revenge-seeking Shoshana) shine a spotlight on the the defining themes of the war.
Brutality and Mercy - Seeing as this is a Tarantino film, we expect the Inglorious Basterds to be defined by their brutal methods. Yet for all their bat swinging and machine gunning, the Basterds demonstrate a remarkable capacity for mercy. Case in point: Aldo will let a Nazi soldier live so long as he answers his questions honestly. This does serve a practical purpose - the survivor will enhance the Basterds' infamy in recounting their violent acts - but it helps to contrast the absurdity of the Nazis' violence to the purposefulness of the Basterds'. Their goal is to end the war - ASAP. While they take personal enjoyment in achieving that end, this humane goal supercedes their individual well being.
The Nazis were not the only ones guilty of senseless brutality during the war. The British killed hundreds of thousands in their bombing raids against Germay, as did the Americans against Japan (including the two nuclear attacks). At the same time, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt declined to drop bombs on the Nazi concentration camps, perhaps because he couldn't stomach killing the innocent prisoners inside. Whether or not FDR made this decision out of a sense of mercy for the death camp detainees, the ultimate consequence was that America left the gas chambers untouched, and 12 million people (including 6 million Jews) were murdered in those camps between 1939-1945. The Basterds serve as more than just an instrument of revenge: they illustrate when it's best to display mercy, and when it's best to inflict brutality.
Nice to know that Tarantino doesn't pull any punches - or baseball bat swings -
when taking on as dark and heavy a subject as World War II.
Innocence Lost - In films like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, we see the dehumanizing effect of WWII on the soldiers and civilians involved. Inglorious Basterds does an excellent job of illuminating this loss of innocence for soldiers and civilians alike. On the soldier side, we're introduced to "The Bear Jew" (Eli Roth), a Basterd who strikes fear in the hearts of Nazis with his Louisville Slugger. Yet this super soldier image stands in contrast to his innocent former self, symbolized by his Boston accent and references to Ted Williams and Fenway Park. By the end of the film, he's like a machine-gun-wielding psycho - a hyperbolized portrait of the shell-shocked GIs who ultimately returned from the war.
The story of Shoshana reveals the civilian side of lost innocence. The Nazi reign over Western Europe shatters her childhood and transforms her into a cold, calculating revenge-seeker. Even though her plot to take down the murderous Nazi regime was pulled from Tarantino's imagination rather than the history books, Shoshana embodies the anguish and the courage that defined the experiences of so many victims and survivors.
So - what does it all mean? I say that alternate histories have incredible value when they can find a way to shine more light on the historical narrative. Inglourious Basterds is outstanding entertainment in its own right - incredibly well written and acted - and it tells familiar stories in a new, revealing, and necessarily bloody way. 3 PB Jars
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