On why... Inglourious Basterds is Terrible

...and a general critique of Quentin Tarantino

I felt compelled to write this after watching Inglourious Basterds for the first time, and let it be known before I begin that I am a massive Tarantino fan. At least, a fan of his first three films.

And that is why I go so far as to say this film is terrible. With Reservoir Dogs he created an incredibly tense, compelling and shocking movie. As a debut it was stunning and it remains undiminished today. Then came Pulp Fiction ,which redefined modern cinema and is possibly the coolest film ever. Following it with Jackie Brown, he reached a peak that I don't believe he has even come close to since. In fact he seems to have tumbled down the other side of the peak into some ravine, broken all his limbs and long since given up on trying to crawl out.

Anyway, let's define clearly the ingredients of a Tarantino film, both good and bad.

1. Dialogue!

Of course it is. His skill with it follows the trajectory of success of his films, as in it's brilliant in RD, better in PF and absolutely genius in JB. After that however, it falls away into a mess of self-indulgence and self-reverence. His dialogue is at its best when it is rambling and seemingly tangential, but obviously makes sense in the context of the particular film. This is why the 'quarter pounder with cheese' and 'let's get into character' dialogues from PF are particularly good; they give us a bit of backstory about Vincent, an idea of Jules' attitude to his job and we really get the sense that these are two guys talking shit on their way to work. My other favourite moment of Tarantino dialogue is in JB, when Ordell and Louis are talking in the campervan after the botched deal, pondering what went wrong. Ironically, the best bit about this dialogue is the silence. Tarantino lets Jackson just think... and then he says, 'It's Jackie Brown'.


2. Non-linear time frames

A Tarantino hallmark not used since Kill Bill (I think!). This is the one I've always felt a bit uneasy about, thinking that it can come across as arbitrary and more as a gimmick than anything else. I like it very much in PF however; it creates an emotional story arc for the audience where there wouldn't be one had the events been presented in chronological order. RD uses it very well to reveal things to the viewer that the characters don't know.

3. Violence

He doesn't like to talk about it (I'M NOT YOUR SLAVE AND YOU'RE NOT MY MASTER), but it is nevertheless a big part in every single one of his films. And it all began so well! In Reservoir Dogs it is genuinely shocking and difficult to watch, as all violence should be. In fact, just to demonstrate how well handled it is in this movie, the camera actually looks away from the violence at THAT particularly difficult moment. (about 2:21 in)

In his first three movies, the violence was just part of them, part of the stories they told. But then something happened, related to my next ingredient...


4. References

Supposedly the ultimate fanboy turned auteur, his oeuvre is littered with obscure movie references, blatant plagiarism and instances of him simply copying the music of other films to achieve the same effect. Again, in the first three QT offerings, this was done well and watching these feels like watching the work of a genuine cinephile.


But, and this applies to all of the ingredients, Tarantino seems to have started listening to what was being said about him. He heard that audiences liked his dialogue, so from then on he made every single character sound like him, and talk for hours about nothing at all and go on and on and on. This is made worse when the actors delivering the lines are not up to scratch; it definitely takes a Harvey Keitel, a Pam Grier, a Sam Jackson, a Christoph Waltz to convincingly say his lines. But look at  Pulp Fiction in particular, it is full of different characters talking in different ways and it's interesting. Then look at Kill Bill and Death Proof : they're all Quentin Tarantino! The men, the women, the Americans, the Japanese... all Quentin Tarantino. And watching numerous Tarantinos talking to eachother for hours on end is very unpleasant. Watching one do a ten minute interview is difficult enough.

What has happened to the violence and references is related. After much thought, I've concluded that success must have gone to his head and he is surrounded now by yes-men and fanboys who don't have the guts to tell him when he's going off track. This is the only explanation I have for why an obviously talented, disciplined and exciting film maker could stoop to such lows as KB, DP, IB and Django Unchained .

They actually fall into two easy categories. Kill Bill and Death Proof both suffer from a tremendous lack of discipline. They both are intended as homages to martial arts cinema and grindhouse respectively, but both fail in their intent. JB is an homage to blaxploitation, and it works so well because it takes the feel and the look of the genre it admires and takes it somewhere new and original. It is exactly what it needs to be and no more; it is tight, disciplined. If Tarantino in his first three films is a lean, swanky suit wearing wunderkind, then in every movie after that he is a bulging, slobby, lazy layabout, inviting you into his bedroom to show you clips of his favourite movies. And that is how his new movies feel; like they were made by somebody who has nobody around him willing to speak up and say when a scene is losing its way. Too long, too unfocused , too silly and completely unoriginal.


And now on to Inglourious Basterds. The first and most obvious criticism is that it seems to be AS LONG AS WORLD WAR II ITSELF. And there is no excuse for it. Even the least avid film fan can see how flabby it is. It is like this because Tarantino can't bear to hear his dialogue cut down, he feels that every single precious thought of his must be brought to bear on screen. Even in the good scenes, one feels the passage of time and the gnawing sense of boredom creep in. Even the opening scene - the best in the film and one I think rather brilliant actually - takes far too long. Just cut it down Quentin!

And write some interesting dialogue please! The tedious scene with Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger in the bierkeller contains such banal conversation it makes 2001 feel like ,well, Pulp Fiction! The bits that I thought interesting were the quips about German and French cinema. At these points it felt like the film might be approaching an underlying theme, but one was soon reminded by a gratuitous scalping scene or bewildering Mike Myers cameo that the film's only purpose was to be fatuous and silly. On that note, let's talk about the ending.

What?!

I just don't get it. The film is utterly boring and tedious and then suddenly we're gunning down Goebbels and Hitler?

What?!

Oh I get it! This supposed Jewish revenge fantasy- morally dubious anyway- is not even really that. What the Jews really needed was Aldo Raine and Tarantino. That way then the war would have gone much better. Scalped Nazis and Hitler dead. But oh wait, Aldo Raine has an Italian name, claims to be part Native American and comes from Tennessee, and Tarantino has an Italian name, claims to be part Native American and comes from Tennessee... So what the Jews really needeed was Quentin Tarantino and Quentin Tarantino.

And from a moral standpoint, it is utterly contemptible, and I feel the same way about Django Unchained. I know it's deliberately historically revisionist (obviously), and I know that one is supposed to look at the violence in the same way as in KB not as in RD,PF or JB, but that is a thin veil to hide behind Quentin, and one can easily see your glee and excitement at the hideous gore through it. When Eli Roth's character took a baseball bat to a Nazi's head I felt physical revulsion in a way I never have in a Tarantino film, it was truly horrible. And not in a good way. Said Eli Roth

“It’s almost a deep sexual satisfaction of wanting to beat Nazis to death, an orgasmic feeling. My character gets to beat Nazis to death. That’s something I could watch all day. " 
That's enough from this onscreen and offscreen psycho I think.

The point at which the film really lost me was the end of the bierkeller scene, the conclusion of the standoff involving Aldo Raine, von Hammersmark and Wilhelm. The film had extensively belaboured the point that the latter was a new father, willing to let the others go alive and not altogether too bad. And then they shot him. I was so jolted out of the film that I think I started actually shaking my head. I just couldn't work out the direction of this movie's moral compass; do we cheer the Basterds on, do we fear them, do we take away the standard message that war is hell? What? And then I realised; Tarantino doesn't even know! If your film has actual Nazis in it and you can't work out which characters' side to be on, then your film has serious problems! What a mess. What a disappointment.




As an afterthought, I should point out that I thought Shoshanna the best female character Tarantino has written since Jackie Brown. She was the only character I truly liked in the film. And on this point I suppose I should also note that there were some terrific performances in this film, all faults are the director's!

My Favourites- Books

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” - Joseph Brodsky

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” -Fran Lebowitz

If you don't read then what the hell are you doing with your life? Unlike listening to music, where you need a CD player or ipod or other such modern device which I don't own, or watching a film, which requires your attention for hours at a time, reading is so easy to do! Just grab a book and kick back for twenty minutes or so. Of course you can read for a solid few consecutive hours, and blissful hours they will be, but a dozen pages before bed or a chapter or two to pass a spare hour will be more than enough. Even, god forbid, put your phone away on the bus and take out a novel!

You will be a better person for it. Besides the joy of learning to use new words and simply seeing the language used expertly, you learn to have a longer attention span again. Books offer no instant gratification; you must invest yourself into the activity before you gain any reward. And of course, losing oneself into an engrossing novel is an utterly thrilling experience. Unlike watching a film (or at least, the way you should watch a film), you can leave the book through the day, ponder its events and language, work it through your mind, picking up little details and subtleties so that when you return to the book, it is all the richer and more personal.

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

That really is the peculiar thing about novels, and poetry or any creative literary work. A lover of books feels the words they have read stitching and embellishing the fabric of their soul, becoming a part of them as surely as their memories of their real lives. At the end of 'Fahrenheit 451' (VERY MILD SPOILER ALERT) the protagonist meets a group of exiles, who each preserve their lost culture by memorising a book important to them. I pose the question to you; if you had to ,almost, become a book in this way, what would it be?

I will talk about poetry another day; it is a wonder too wonderful to add as a sidenote here, so I will just add a clip of Christopher Walken reading Poe's masterpiece, 'the Raven'. (albeit with somewhat distracting background noises)

On to my favourite books! This has been perhaps the most difficult list to compile but I've done my best. And once again, these aren't necessarily the best books ever written, but they are my favourites.

A word of warning, there are some very well known novels here, but I'm not going to apologise for being mainstream. To extend a quote of Mark Twain's, the greatest tragedy that can befall a classic is for it to become highly praised and never read.


#10
The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck

This is an honest book whose writer sought not to deceive or confound or belittle the reader, but enlighten them. To open their mind's horizons to the suffering and hardship of those who can do little about it. Honesty and anger pulse through the words in this novel, more so than anything else I've read. A definite favourite.

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage"


#9
Lord of the Flies- William Goldman

A truly, deeply disturbing book that, nevertheless, everybody should read. You do largely realise where the the novel is heading fairly early on, but I suppose that is the point. The slide into chaos and madness is all the worse because we, and the characters, realise it is inevitable. Images from scenes in this book- images described disconcertingly realistically, remain with you for a long time.

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.” 



#8
A Scanner Darkly- Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick wrote incredible science fiction novels and short stories, and I have almost all of them. The vast majority of which deal with questions of the nature of reality and identity. 'A Scanner Darkly' feels quite different to the rest of his works, it is less sci-fi than most of his novels and much slower paced. Written from painful personal experience, it documents the blurring worlds and minds of undercover narcotics agent Fred/Bob as he attempts to find the source of a dangerous new drug, Substance D, or as it's better known, Death. The most sad and poignant of all Dick's works.


“Imagine being sentient but not alive. Seeing and even knowing, but not alive. Just looking out. Recognizing but not being alive. A person can die and still go on. Sometimes what looks out at you from a person's eyes maybe died back in childhood.” 




#7
The Bell Jar- Sylvia Plath

Sad and fairly depressing by anyone's standards, this is nevertheless a fantastic book and one I enjoy reading (although enjoy may be the wrong word). It is a very relatable situation that Sylvia Plath brings to bear in the novel; a young person whose life is entirely centered on academic success suddenly finds this path closed to her. She struggles against the internal and external pressures closing down around her, smothering her like a bell jar. Her mother doesn't understand ( " I knew you'd decide to be alright again ") and the sympathy you feel for her is tremendous. Beautifully written, of course; Plath is also a wonderful poet and the prose shimmers with life and meaning.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” 




#6
The Lord of the Rings- J. R. R. Tolkien

The richest, most exciting, most beautiful fantasy world ever created. Incredible, dark forces of evil mass in Middle Earth, vastly outnumbering those who want a free world, armies clash, ancient alliances reform, cities are destroyed and at the heart of it all, a hobbit and his gardener undertake an epic journey. Magnificent is not good enough to describe this. I love the 'Lord of the Rings'.


"The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater." 





#5
Flowers For Algernon- Daniel Keyes

When I arrived home after buying this book I sat down on the sofa and starting reading. I didn't stop once until I finished it a few hours later. There were tears in my eyes as I put it down. Algernon is a mouse on whom scientists have performed an experimental medical procedure to dramatically increase his intelligence. Charlie Gordon is a man possessed of an IQ level 85, who holds a menial job in a bakery and who attends reading and writing classes at an adult learning centre with Alice Kinnian. He wants to work hard to be smarter, and the scientists would like to perform their procedure on Charlie. It is succesful, but as he reaches ever greater heights of intelligence, he finds he cannot relate to the people around him any better than before the operation. And as Algernon starts to deteriorate and regress, Charlie has to deal with what this means for him. A beautiful book told with compassion and elegance.


"How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence." 





#4
The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald

The book from which the title of this blog is taken. It is regarded as a classic for good reason. It is precise, incisive, witty, elegant and very sad. Fitzgerald's prose can often be too flowery and extravagant, but in this novel he hits the perfect balance, such that I enjoy physically reading 'the Great Gatsby' more than any other book. That he could make such a biting critique of the careless rich so delicate shows how great a writer he is. If anybody is thinking of reading any of Fitzgerald's other works (which is well worth doing) then I suggest 'the Beautiful and Damned'.


"I was within and without. Simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." 











#3
1984- George Orwell

A writer's dystopian vision has never been better conveyed than in '1984'. Some people find it dry and tedious for the same reaons that some people (myself included) love it. Orwell describes and describes and describes in minute detail the physical, emotional and idealogical state of affairs in his bleak world, to the degree that the utter futility Winston feels when struggling against the Party tyranny is very deeply felt and understood by the reader. I love quite how bleak it is; Orwell very early on sets the rules for his story, and doesn't break them to give anybody a happy ending. A stark warning that freedom is the most precious of human rights.


"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows." 








#2
Moby Dick- Herman Melville

When I say I don't know anybody who's read 'Moby Dick', I am being quite literal. It stuns me, but perhaps it is its imposing length. There really isn't any way to describe the experience of reading this book, an epic both in length and scope. Melville writes with a contained intensity that hurls and shrieks itself off the pages at times, at others the chapters slowly wind down to a reasoned philosophical observation. The actual plot is sometimes forgotten as Ishmael begins to talk about other matters entirely, most famously in the 'Cetology' chapter, where he just describes various kinds of whales. It is far more interesting than I have made it sound! Indeed, the overriding memory I have of the book is the dense, dramatic language that swirls and surges and thunders like the ocean itself. Extraordinary.


"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can." 







#1
Catch 22- Joseph Heller

A joke and a tragedy and a drama and a character study and a crime novel all in one, sometimes all on the same page. I would love to meet Joseph Heller to find out if this style of writing is at all reflected in his personality! Put simply, this novel is my favourite of all time because it is just so good. It is interesting an enjoyable and then while you're laughing something farcically tragic will occur, bringing the harsh reality of World War II back to bear. It is filled with characters who, as soon as you meet them, introduce another character to you until the scenes are filled with people called Yossarian, Major Major Major Major, Aarfy, Milo Minderbinder, Lieutenant Scheisskopf, Orr. This novel truly is a masterpiece, the writing and plotting is so expert thqt, beneath all the craziness and time shifts, you don't even see it there. And a novel in which the hand of the writer cannot be seen is a great novel indeed.


"Men," he began his address to the officers, measuring his pauses carefully. "You're American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it." 

My Favourites- Albums

To get things rolling I believe I'll briefly list my personal favourite songs,books and films. These won't be the only ones I'm going to look at in detail in the future, but I won't go in to great depth at this point.

Firstly, my favourite of the three media is most certainly music. I'm a musician myself, so it's the medium I most understand how to express myself and understand how others do too. It can be the most abstract and arbitrary of all art in that in the absence of lyrics, and sometimes even with lyrics, there is no visual imagery conveyed save what the individual listener might perceive. Where cinema can quite literally place you in a scene with images, music must convey essences of moments, the periphery of feelings. The same goes for literature, a skilled writer being able to place you convincingly wherever they wish. That's not to say music doesn't do this well; the well known 'Moonlight Sonata' and 'Raindrop Prelude' were not named so by their composers, but such was the strength of imagery, through music alone, that through years of use the names have stuck.

      Abstract as it can be, in my mind music is the purest of arts, perhaps because of that. At the risk of sounding like I believe myself to be the first person ever to ask this, what makes a chord sad,happy,weary,bitter etc ad infinitum? Who cares when there are songs as joyous as 'Diamonds On the Soles Of Her Shoes'?

As heartbreaking as Jeff Buckley's version of 'Hallelujah'?

As awe inspiring as 'Kashmir'?

As spiritedly angry as 'Livin For the City'?

Anyway the point is, I love music. At some point I'll talk about why I love cinema and books too, but for now (because it's too hard to rank ten) my top five albums:

#5
Astral Weeks- Van Morrison

A confession: I'm primarily a folk musician, so there are more folk albums to come! But firstly, this album is amazing by any standards. The passion and talent and emotion are perfectly matched to the barest of production jobs, resulting in a desperately beautiful, lyrically majestic and altogether wonderful album of wonderful songs which run together into one wonderful folky stream of conscious.

#4
Helplessness Blues- Fleet Foxes

It came as no surprise to me that Robin Pecknold, of Fleet Foxes, was heavily influenced by Astral Weeks in the making of this album. While the overall tone of the songs and style may be rather different, the same earnest, honest spirit is here at the heart of the music. Helplessness Blues is one of my favourites because of the richness and sense of adventure in the songs; they manage to sound both experimental yet confidently assured of themselves. 'Sim Sala Bim' and 'The Shrine/An Argument' are my choice picks.

#3
What's Going On- Marvin Gaye

I am definitely going to look at this one in more detail in the future, but briefly: What's Going On is the one album everybody should own regardless of other musical tastes. It breathes with passion and life and anger and hope in every bar, Marvin's vision channeled perfectly through each musician in the extremely talented band.

#2
Graceland- Paul Simon

An absolute fucking classic and a masterpiece. Putting aside the social context for a moment, just listen to the songs on Graceland, they are unreservedly amazing and I come back to this album time after time. Paul Simon is one of the greatest songwriters of all time and he has never expressed himself better than on this album nor found his music so fully realised by his fellow musicians. From beginning to end, it is a joy to behold. Very recently deposed, this used to be my #1.

#1
Once I Was An Eagle- Laura Marling

I'm more reserved about my affection for this than Graceland, but also much more in awe of it. As a friend of mine said, quite simply, 'it's art'. Some people seem alienated by the structure of this album, I think because they've become attuned to music nowadays not taking the time to slowly expand on its themes and motifs, never fully engrossing a listener in the way classical music does. Not that ...Eagle is in any way classical, but it shares some sensibilities. But i for one, was fully mesmerised by this incredible achievement of Laura Marling's. It could have come straight from the '60s, being the closest thing to a cohesive album that has been released in the last 50 years (save some Zeppelin perhaps, who's albums I have saved for another day, along with the Beatles). That's all I'll say for now, as I will look at this more closely in the future. The full album isnn't available on youtube so I've picked my favourite, 'Little Love Caster'.

Thank you very much for reading, any thoughts please let me know!