Victor Grippi – The Atomic Writer

This weekend marked the opening of Inglorious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino’s take on the 1978 original movie Inglorious Bastards. Yes he changed the spelling. The movie centers around a group of American Jewish soldiers led by non-Jewish, part-Apache Southerner Aldo Raine, played by Brad Pitt puffing out his jaw to look like Marlon Brando, yeah right. “The Basterds” are famous throughout the Third Reich for scalping and/or bludgeoning Nazis. Of course, it never happened: It’s an unabashed wet dream of vengeance, as they hunt Nazi scalps in German occupied France.

The movie is divided into five chapters.
Chapter One: Once Upon a Time … Nazi Occupied France
Chapter Two: Inglorious Basterds
Chapter Three: German Night in Paris
Chapter Four: Operation Kino
Chapter Five: Revenge of the Giant Face

This is the ultimate revenge movie set within a myth of its own. If you like QT’s other movies: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1 and 2, and his last, Death Proof, then you will enjoy his latest. QT’s inner mind works overtime as his genre mixing and history bending skills are at their best. I enjoyed the long drawn out scenes where each character speaks volumes without saying a word. This is very reminiscent of Hitchcock, where the scene builds and builds, with each turn of the screw, up to its eventual climax.

The interrogation scene at the French farm is a much-needed emotional release following the overture, which grounds Inglourious Basterds in the real world—at least through the lens of cinema. To the beat of Ennio Morricone spaghetti Western music, a French farmer watches a jeep filled with Nazis travel the road to his house as he chops wood with his daughter. Close-ups of his anxious face alternating with long shots of the vehicle coming nearer and nearer, his eyes meeting those of his three terrified daughters—the sequence comparing favorably to both Leone and Hitchcock. What follows is an unnervingly polite interrogation over a kitchen table by Nazi Jew-hunter Hans Landa, played by Christoph Waltz.

As the camera begins to circle and Landa moves in for the kill and this good farmer edges ever closer to betraying the family he has bravely hidden, each dramatic beat is brings us closer to the final climax. This is what I enjoy most about the movie. Long scenes that are expertly developed and have dialogue dripping with sub-text that adds just the right amount of seasoning to the main plot point of the scene. We know something is going to happen, but every time we venture a guess, the plot turns and we frantically realize we were wrong. Keeping the audience guessing on the edge of their seats is what GREAT WRITING is all about. Of course, The Atomic Writer strives to achieve this very effect in all he writes, but let’s get back to this discussion. Leaving the audience in a state of suspended animation, as they bite their nails immersed in concentration, waiting for the shoe to fall, is what QT does best. I won’t go into the other excellent scenes like this, I’ll leave for you, my readers, to visual enjoy…

And we must not forget Mike Myers, as the British General who outlines operation Kino. I almost lost it, and fell off my seat, during the first close up of Mike Myers trying to play it straight. I kept thinking he was going to bust into an Austin Powers skit at any moment.

Here’s a snippet of the script:

This movie is well worth seeing whether you are a QT fan or not. Hey, if The Atomic Writer likes it, then you will too.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking…what if.

Victor Grippi
The Atomic Writer