Why "Inglourious Basterds" is Still Quentin Tarantino's Best Film

Scene from Inglourious Basterds

For Quentin Tarantino, the year 2009 was a turning point for his career that at the time seemed unexpected. With the success of Pulp Fiction now 15 years behind him, his three films since were a mix of underappreciated (Jackie Brown) and more stylized (Kill Bill). He still had the knack to entertain audiences, but what exactly was his defining achievements in his career? With Inglourious Basterds, he did something unfathomable. He didn't just dive into genre, this time taking on the World War II action films, he found a way to remind audiences that he was a gifted writer, capable of pushing boundaries that hadn't been seen in over a decade. He had the style, but Inglourious Basterds proved that he was capable of being an auteur, kicking off a decade of repurposing history through cinema to explore some of the most important themes of the 21st century, but with plenty more razzle-dazzle.

The current decade of Tarantino has been defined by exploring history. Django Unchained deconstructed slave dramas through a blaxploitation lens and (controversially) used language to challenge our understanding of history. The same could be said for The Hateful Eight, which was closer to a direct political commentary presented through a claustrophobic western-meets-ultraviolent dinner theater. With Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood out this week, he's getting closer to our reality by citing celebrities like Sharon Tate and murderer Charles Manson. But what exactly does he have to say in 2019 about the film world? It makes sense that he would be attracted to 1969, which was a tumultuous and exciting year on every front. While that has yet to be seen by most, it's interesting to start with the film that set him on this path.

In the lead-up to Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino noted that he wanted to make a WWII drama where Jews killed Adolf Hitler. It's easy to wish fulfillment, and arguably the only time that spoiling a movie has been culturally accepted. Still, he was at a crossroads with the writing when he wondered how faithful to reality he should be. With one spark of genius, he decided that he had no masters to serve. He could divert onto his own path since these characters don't exactly crossover with, say, MacArthur or Churchill. It was a revelation that has informed his filmography since, for better or worse. Where he had used film as reference points in his previous work, Inglourious Basterds was going to present HIS take on history through the lens of cinema. Only this time, Hitler wasn't going to hide out in a bunker. He was going to get brutally assaulted by gunfire as Eli Roth stared vehemently into his face inside of a burning theater. 

It would be one thing if this was the extent of the story. However, those who actually see the film will notice that there's so much else at play from the very first scene. His earliest films, Reservoir Dogs,  Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown, all existed on a thesis statement in an opening scene. Inglourious Basterds would do the same, though to compare the four beyond this is a bit foolish. Sure, it was the familiar stylized language. Villain Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) would pull out a comical pipe to smoke. However, that's to ignore what is being witnessed here. Some could call it self-indulgence, especially at an unwieldy running time, but it is the art of Tarantino finally coming into his own as a screenwriter. Where he gets praise as an action director, he made his bones on writing the most kinetic scripts imaginable. In Inglourious Basterds, he embraces something even more perverse in writing: the long con.

The scene plays out between Landa and a Frenchman who is believed to be occupying Jews. This is the introduction to the world. The titular "basterds" won't appear for almost 3/4 of an hour. What is here is the most confident piece of filmmaking he has ever made not because it's showy, but because of its intensity between the lines. It establishes Landa in control as he creates a self-mythology about how he's a Jew hunter that "thinks like a Jew" and thus captures them easily. There are so many small details in the script that Waltz captures in performance, easily becoming one of Tarantino's greatest characters in the process. He is despicable deep down, but he's charming and charismatic enough to capture the audiences' interest. Tarantino knows that evil's face needs to be attractive for it to work, and here he manages to make the smile simmer with fear as the conversation rounds 20 or so minutes, where the camaraderie shifts to something more dastardly. He's there to capture Jews after all.

But what's more impressive within the confines of this scene is the use of language. This is not a reference to word choice, though that has been a hallmark of Tarantino since day one. This is a literal use of the languages that divide us. The scene takes place in "Nazi-occupied France," and thus Landa is talking in French when he starts the interrogation. What becomes unnerving is the moment of comedic levity when he asks to shift the conversation to English. While it may strike the viewer as being silly, what it's really doing is showing how versatile Landa is at breaking across boundaries. Language cannot stop him, even as it stops the Jews hidden under the floorboards. As much as the script slowly unveils the scenery of this cabinlike room, it's the choice to cut to English that comes across most staggering. It's presumed that the Jews cannot understand Landa, and thus are helpless to understand his tactics. It's in English that his plans are laid out bare in haunting detail as if it's too much for subtitles. 

The scene ends in gunfire that presumably kills all except one of the Jews, Shoshana Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent). She escapes to a theater: the great unifier across all languages. While the theater plays to Nazi interests later in the plot, it's a place that's romanticized. After all, Tarantino feels like a walking projector. He knows how prints of the film are brittle and burn easily. He knows the appeal of Charles Chaplin across opposing cultures. He creates cinema as the great unifier, which seems fitting for his sensibilities. Shoshana uses film to save the world from hatred, even at the cost of her life. It's a staggering third act that is matched by the intensity and itself a build that relies on heist-like techniques to convey the struggle Some of the basterds are strapped with bombs while others much overcome Nazi guards to assassinate Hitler. As much as the film uses language to show the division, this is where Tarantino incorporates his action technique very well. He may use David Bowie's "Cat People" (the most idiosyncratic of song choices in the film) to kick things off as Shoshana dons make-up like war-paint, but what follows is a mix of drama and action the likes of which he's never matched before or since.

The basterds round out the cat to Landa's mouse. Even when Landa is not onscreen, he is a daunting presence that makes entering Germany a deathtrap. However, there's sadism to the basterds. They're willing to kill Nazis for the sake of entertainment. Tarantino chooses to reflect this with close-ups of scalpings and gruesome imagery of a man being badgered by a bat. It's violent in ways that get the audience on their feet. Even then, the first major kill by Sgt. Donnowitz (Roth) is drawn out as the basterds try to get knowledge out of a captured soldier. Everything about the scene is elaborate, and Lt. Aldo Ray (Brad Pitt) acts like it's all for fun. The scene maybe plays better in 2019, in a point where "punch a Nazi" is an accepted attack, as it captures a world where everything goes right. The Jews are not oppressed. They're taking names as they murder those that have been linked negatively to them for over 70 years now. As wish fulfillment, it's downright beautiful.

Landa's path crosses from time to time with actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). It's no less uncomfortable as Tarantino once again uses Landa's affectless attitude in a restaurant to show how in command of the situation he is. Even if Hitler is the endgame, Landa is the ultimate foe. He isn't ashamed of what he's doing. He embodies evil in ways that are sometimes comical. Tarantino knows that for every scene that draws out longer, the real tension comes in how Landa will go down. Maybe he will get away with his crimes, which is, of course, a step too far for the basterds. There's an intertwining series of obstacles to the final exchange where Ray declares carving a swastika into Landa's forehead "his masterpiece." It's a self-indulgent phrase every way about it. For Landa, it's the completion of his mission in Nazi-occupied Germany. For Tarantino as a filmmaker, it's about how he created this elaborate ode to film saving the day, even in the most destructive way possible.

Is it his most intense? Not in terms of how many moments of adrenaline are placed on the film. There's nothing as wild in movement as Kill Bill's four hours. However, Tarantino uses Inglourious Basterds in a way that shows his command on language. Every scene feels long with ebbs and flows that are created to disarm the audience. The opening scene reflects this best with how Landa misleads the audience to think that he's merely doing his job. It's something that pops up over and over, and it helps to look further into characters as they each con each other. In the quiet is several characters performing strategic ways to not be killed by the other. The war is in their heads, and it's best reflected by language. Over and over, the basterds rely on their limited knowledge of European languages to get out of traps. They send Lt. Hicox (Michael Fassbender) into a Nazi bar to retrieve information and save von Hammersmark. Ray's broken French allows him into the theater as a fake movie director while Pfc. Ulmer (Omar Doom) uses his slightly-better Italian to bail him out.

Of course, it's most impressive that Inglourious Basterds ended up being his highest-grossing film since Pulp Fiction. While by no means a failure, it was evident that he was turning a corner. His next film, Django Unchained, is the only film (not adjusted) to outgross it to date. Considering that it was an epic that fictionalized WWII and presented characters in several different languages, it's odd that audiences loved it as much as they did. It's among his most challenging films simply on a viewership level. It could be that the idea of killing Nazis was more appealing than killing Bill, but it was also the moment where Tarantino embraced a new style of filmmaking. He was still infusing style at every turn and making as many obscure references as he could in the technique. However, he was finding subtext that these films inevitably held. He asked the question: why do we continue to watch WWII films and what do we want from them? For most Americans, that answer is to see good overcome evil and there was no piece of realism that was stopping Tarantino from fulfilling it. This was a movie, after all. All of his films exist in this prism.

For the first time in 15 years, it was also the point where he began to receive the critical acclaim that put him into the Oscars circle. Every film since has had at least one Oscar-nomination (And 2/3 of them earning Waltz an award for Best Supporting Actor). Inglourious Basterds was the follow-up to Pulp Fiction that many were waiting for because it reflected his use of style in a more mature context. His script was allowed to be plodding, so long as it leads to one explosive exchange that was more powerful for the wait. The film earned a Best Picture nomination and solidifying his status as an Oscar darling. It was the start of a filmmaker who wasn't only challenging himself visually but with how long he could trust the audience to stick with him. The Hateful Eight is an arguable division point but the ultimate culmination of this, as it turned into a three-hour film about awful people waiting to turn on each other. He was finally producing scripts that were confrontational but also had a deeper meaning. It just so happened that this was about language and cinema, and how it plays tricks on the audience. Few films have been able to reflect this in a way that was both highly stylized but also hid deeper meanings the further in that you explored it. 

Inglourious Basterds is an odd film for Tarantino in the grand scheme of things because he hasn't really gone this intricate since. Django Unchained was a return to more action-driven mayhem, and The Hateful Eight was one long thesis on America's underlying transgressions. There was no point where made a film with stops and starts this energetic, using language to punctuate a shift in plot. Maybe he doesn't need to, but then again it would be nice to have a film again that explored how he uses film to better understand what we want in our lives. It's as much fantasy as it is a chance to answer tough questions. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood looks to be some sort of return, but it's hard to say how much he'll be able to explore the connection of boundaries as he did something as simple as French and English scenes budding up against each other in conflict. If nothing else, he used his fictional landscape to entertain as well as cleverly explore cinema's impact on the world. 

After 10 years, the film remains the moment where Tarantino moved from a stylized filmmaker who looked to be stuck as merely an entertainer. After this moment, he was thinking of a bigger purpose in his films. While it comes at an arguable expense, with many of his themes being controversial or problematic, it reflects a filmmaker who once again has gained the anticipation of pop culture. It isn't just what dazzling images he can bestow upon us every few years. Now it's a chance to take the iconography that was taken for granted and explore why we look at them in certain ways. How could Landa be charming and also the worst character in the film? Tarantino doesn't take any of it too easy, forcing the audience to challenge themselves. This is the world of film that he lives in, so why not ask why it matters as a form of communication and entertainment? This is his best film in large part because it's the perfect understanding of what he brings as a screenwriter. It was never just about wish fulfillment. It was about understanding why we wanted those wishes to come true in the first place.