In what ways can Inglourious Basterds be considered postmodern?
Inglourious Basterds is definitely a war film that differs in many ways from the usual aspects you would expect to find in a more traditional war film and is post-modern in various ways.
First of all I will speak about the general mise en scene of the film. The title of the film is shown, in contrast to the white credits, in the yellow, the director, Quentin Tarantino’s favourite colour and now the colour he is most known for using in his films. He then continues to use the same font that he usually uses in his films for the main actors and actresses within the film and also shows them in yellow, before switching back to white to show the rest of the actors and guest appearances. This itself is post-modern as it is something that is done purely for the fact that Tarantino likes the colour himself and therefore chooses to continually use it for all of his films. Once all of the credits have finished the screen simply goes black momentarily, before we see the title of ‘Chapter One’ followed by ‘Once upon a time’. This is obviously is a traditional beginning to a fairy tale story. Tarantino continues to split the film up throughout with ‘Chapter Three’ etc. This is obviously very post-modern, as not only is it being a bit different and varying to the ways that a normal movie would be shown, but also it is reminding and informing the audience that what they are actually about to watch is in fact a movie and nothing more, something that most films often try and make you forget through special effects etc.
Yet another way that this film is post-modern is in the way that it continually provides us with on screen notes, to help the viewer understand and make sense of what is actually happening in the film and, who is who, in terms of characters. The first example in the film of this is right at the beginning where a date appears on the screen, 1941, this instantly informing us that we are in the period of time in which world war 2 was taking place. Obviously, informing us of the date is not something that would be deemed as post-modern, as many films will give us the date to give the viewer an idea of what time period we are in, however there are further examples within the film that are post modern. Text also appears on the screen, seemingly scribbled by hand, informing the audience of whom a character within the film is, Goebbels. There is also the use of a voice over [Samuel L Jackson] in the film, giving us information on nitrate film and its flammability compared to paper. All of these features are post-modern, as it is helping the audience out and pointing out things that may make the film more understandable if they don’t already know them. Things such as handwritten annotations appearing on screen informing us who exactly a certain character is would simply not happen in films such as Saving Private Ryan, also a world war 2 film. To just add more post-modern elements to all of this, Tarantino chooses to get Samuel L Jackson into the film by giving him the role of the voiceover that informs us about the nitrate. Samuel L Jackson is a Tarantino favourite and is continually used in his films, so this is post-modern, as once again something has been done slightly different to other films just so Tarantino can, in some way, work his favoured personnel into his film.
Further ways in which Inglourious Basterds is post modern is the way Tarantino includes so many of his own personal likes in the film. On top of what I have already spoken about, Tarantino also includes a short part of the film where he manages to have all focus onto Diane Kruger’s foot. This is one of Tarantino’s well-known fetishes and definitely helps to add to the post-modern aspect of the film. Furthermore, Tarantino also uses cameo appearances with actors that he perhaps appreciates their work, even if it means only using them for one line, such as Mike Myers and also Rod Taylor.
In terms of colour, Inglourious Basterds is also post modern in the way that in differs to most World War 2 films. With Inglorious Basterd’s being set in WW2, a time that is generally shown in war films as being in black and white, you would expect it to be in either black & white, or at least as so many newer world war 2 films are now shown, such as Saving Private Ryan, in a somewhat bleached, dulled out effect. However, Tarantino helps show Inglourious Basterds another way, with it being shown in vibrant colours, for example when we are shown the movie premiere, there are several vivid colours, such as Lt. Aldo Raine’s [Brad Pitt] perfectly clean, white jacket and also the striking red dress worn by Shosanna Dreyfus matching her bright red lipstick. This is once again Tarantino going totally against what is expected of him and showing that he doesn’t actually want to do the same as everyone else, he wants to stand out, and using post-modern aspects to his work in the process.
Also in comparison to other war films, Inglorious Basterds is very different in terms of the way that the characters are presented. If you watch a war film such as Saving Private Ryan, you can see the sheer panic on the characters faces, the doubt and often see them praying and kissing crucifixes etc. Whereas on the other hand in Inglorious Basterds everyone seems fairly laid back & relaxed as if it is just some kind of game. This could be seen as yet another way Tarantino is trying to remind us, this isn’t actually real, and it is only a film. Tarantino also always shows the ‘soldiers’ as being immaculately dressed with their hair expertly styled, not showing one mark that may make you believe that they are actually taking place in a war. This itself is post-modern, as with most war films you will see them looking as they would of in the real war, rough, rugged, exhausted, dirty, unshaven and in the same dirty clothes they had been in for weeks.
Furthermore, other war films seem to have a lot more gunfire and action within them, showing hundreds of dead bodies all within the same shot, whereas Inglourious Basterds has more of a stress on the narrative of the film itself and not just continuous action. The killings when they do happen are much more stylised and there is a lot of focus on them, with the scalping and the beating of a Nazi with a baseball bat. When there is action, there is a tense build up, with the use of handpicked music helping to build up to a climax within the scene, where everything at this point will just boil over.
In relation to the music, the tracks that are used, and the timing of their use in Inglourious Basterds is a very big talking point, especially in relation to the way that they add to the post-modernism of Inglourious Basterds. Throughout the movie, Tarantino uses various genres of music, including Spaghetti Western soundtrack clips, R&B tracks taken from Blaxploitation movies and also the David Bowie Song ‘Cat People’. There are several examples in Inglourious Basterds where the music is contrapuntal. This means that the music makes us feel something that is totally different to what we are viewing. For example, there is one particular part of the movie, where Fredrick is walking up the stairs to see Shosanna, the music we hear is building up extreme tension, and as she opens the door to him, it comes to a climax where you expect something to happen and you are left guessing whether he has gone up there to shoot her etc. However, what we are seeing is in fact the opposite, with Fredrick calmly walking up the stairs and presenting himself immaculately for Shosanna and when she opens the door to him he actually asks her a question jokingly. Another example of contrapuntal music within the film would be later on in that particular scene, Shosanna has just shot Fredrick, and as she is watching the film that Tarantino put within the film (Nation’s Pride [also a post-modern element]) she looks back at Fredrick, this time as he groans in pain and looks at him almost as she is regretting what she’s done. Fredrick then rolls over and actually shoots her himself, all of this takes place whilst the music being played actually sounds as if the pair of them should be out on a romantic date, or together dancing side by side. However in fact they have just shot each other to death and lay apart, in pools of their own blood.
In terms of the narrative, Inglourious Basterds is not only disjointed, including flashbacks to previous occurrences, but it is hyper real. Tarantino actually alters dates and events that, as we know happened in the war. For example, Hitler and his men did not die in a movie premiere, which was hosted by Shosanna, however although many viewers will be aware of this, Tarantino still changed the event, and had Hitler die in that building. Furthermore several things happen within the movie that probably wouldn’t of necessarily been able to happen, for example, would the ‘Basterds’ really of been able to get into the premiere with their dreadful Italian accents, let alone with bombs strapped to them. However, all of this is Tarantino being post-modern with his work and he is once again highlighting with the change of historical events, what you are viewing is not ‘real’, it is a film, nothing more.
Tarantino references lots of people and particular scenes within his own in Inglourious Basterds, not only referencing people who would have been around at the time, but referencing people who may have been from a generation later than when the film was set, e.g. David Bowie. This is post-modern as Tarantino is using lots of various pieces of work to actually make his own and could possibly be viewed as a slightly different take on bricolage, with the way that Tarantino uses certain parts of a scene that were used for one thing, but he uses them in a totally different way. For example, Tarantino references the film; ‘The Searchers’ where he was Shosanna running away and the view we see is that of her running away through an open doorway, the same as in ‘The Searchers’.
Another way in which Inglourious Basterds is post-modern is the way that Tarantino breaks what is known as the ‘fourth wall’. This in films is the wall that is generally not broken between the audience and the film. However Tarantino chooses to break this on purpose throughout the film, once again reminding the audience that this is still only a film. For example, in Chapter One of the film Tarantino allows the camera to go actually down and through the floorboards, as if they weren’t even there, Obviously if they were real floorboards, you wouldn’t be able to just go through them, however the camera seemingly does this. Furthermore, in this chapter alone we experience more breakages of the fourth wall by showing us that there is a clear ceiling in the form of wooden beams, however the camera then goes to an aerial view showing that in fact they are on top of the beams. This shows that their location is in actual fact just a film set and nothing more, once more reiterating the fact that it is just simply a film.
In terms of theorist being applied to Inglorious Basterds, I believe that you could actually apply a few of the theorists successfully to the film, including John Fiske’s theory, however I believe that the theory that is most appropriate to the film is in fact Levi Strauss’ theory. This theory states that ‘any text is constructed out of socially recognisable debris from other texts’. He saw that writers construct texts from other texts by a process of addition, deletion, substitution and transposition.
If we apply this to Inglorious Basterds, especially when broken down into the four categories that Levi Strauss believed they were broken up into; addition, deletion, substitution and transposition, things begin to make a lot of sense. For example, if we look at addition, we could say that the fairy-tale element to the film is definitely added in from other texts, as this is not something we would usually expect to come across in a ‘war’ film. In terms of deletion, these are fairly obvious. For a film that is supposed to be all about WW2, there isn’t actually one major, all guns blazing, battle scene. This is something that we would usually come across in a war film, and therefore it is something that Tarantino has decided to ‘delete’ from his movie. If we then look at substitution in becomes apparent that Tarantino has actually subsidised things such as extreme amounts of death by gunfire to a more reserved amount of dead bodies, and when these people are killed, there is often a stylised killing, for example when one of the German Nazi’s is beaten to death with a baseball bat. Finally, if we look at the category of transposition, it’s clear that Tarantino has actually transformed a lot in the film. One of the main talking points would obviously be the way in which he actually transformed/changed history as we know it, with Hitler actually being killed at the movie premiere. There are also further examples, where Tarantino has taken ‘debris’ from other texts in terms of transposition, for example when he paid homage to ‘The Searchers’ where he used a similar door shot for when Shoshanna is running away and escaping from Hans Landa.
Overall, I believe that Inglourious Basterds is definitely a post-modern film. This is due to the way that there are several ways in which Quentin Tarantino often tries to make the audience see that this film is just a film with for example the way he breaks the fourth wall etc. Furthermore the use of music in Inglorious Basterds is also extremely post-modern, as Tarantino deliberately uses tracks that were not released at the time that this film was set it, for example David Bowie’s Cat Song and the use of many genres such as tracks taken from Spaghetti Westerns. Finally, with Tarantino totally glamourizing war, changing the history and making the whole narrative hyper real, showing no real emotion of any of the soldiers and is if the whole thing is just one big game, he really does use post-modern aspects.
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