Introduction:

Quentin Tarantino is one of the greatest filmmakers within the modern era. He successfully blends genres together to form something brand new and interesting for the audience, even from foreign cinema, due to his humble background as a former video store clerk. His most transnational film, Inglourious Basterds, uses language to take the audience into differing and engaging settings. The two rival characters represent this use of language in film, Colonel Hans Landa and Sosshana Dreyfus. 

What is shown on screen:

While this introduction is being read aloud, I would like to insert pictures of Tarantino and his various famous films. I would like to show his importance to film and the transnational nature of them through films like Kill Bill and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, not just Inglourious Bastards.

Transition: 

I would like to have music and black title sequences that are featured in the film to show to the viewer the change between different languages in the video essay. 

The Farm (French potion of the Video Essay): 

The most important French scene actually occurs right at the beginning of the movie at Shosanna’s family farm. The threatening, villainous character of Colonel Hans Landa. Typically in popular culture, French is thought as a language of love, yet Tarantino is able to shift it on its head with Landa threateningly interrogating Perrier LaPadite while speaking the language. Landa is shown to have a differing mentally then the French people that he is speaking to, with him denying the classically French beverage of wine for a glass of milk, which is as German as beer. The Colonel makes himself entirely at home in the scene, taking a seat at the table and inviting LaPadite to join him and even changing the language of their discussion to English, representing the absolute power that he wields in the situation. LaPadite even asks Landa to smoke his pipe in his home, which the Colonel allows. During this whole exchange, the whole Dreyfus family is underneath the floorboards of the farmhouse. 

The tension within the scene finally escalates to its zenith, when Landa gets up, appearing to leave, invites the soldiers into the house to fire on the floorboards. His fatal flaw in the scene is allowing Shossana to escape the farm, to which he states, “Au revoir Shoshanna!” 

Shown on screen:

I would like to show the farm, Landa at the table with LaPadite, and of Shossanna escaping from the house. I would want to show my readers what is going on with the scene that I am discussing.

The Basterds (English):

The Bastards are an elite commando unit of Jewish American soldiers, led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Raine speaks with a Southern American accent in the film to reflect a gruff, no nonsense leader. A leader with a Southern accent is a common trope in American war films to showcase these characteristics without outright saying it. Raine puts emphasis on various words to make them reverberate in the audience’s eardrums. Words like Nazi, apache, and scapling stick in the minds of the audience, even after the film transations to Hitler’s warroom. His accent is a greater reflection of the rough brutality that the basterds themselves posses against the Nazi threat. Hitler is even afraid of this band of commandos. Raine as the leader of the Bastards, represents their mission, motiviations, and ideals. Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz is a German defector to the Basterds, showing the blending of English with German inside of the film. The Basterds trust him because of his skill with killing Nazi’s. An additional important Basterd is Sergeant Donny Donowitz who is affectionately referred to as the “Bear Jew,” because of both his physical stature and brutality. Donowitz speaks with a fairly stereotypical American accent, as do most of the other Basterds. This further shows the differentiates Raine as the leader of the team. 

Shown on Screen:

Photos of the various Basterds motion within the paragraph.

The Nazi (German):

German is the language of the villains of the film. It is common for characters in the film to speak multiple languages. A key scene of a foriegner attempting to appear as a Nazi is the mission that Leuntiunt Archie Hicox, who is in fact British, undergoes to find out information about the permier of Nation’s Pride. Hicox and the Basterds revenoirs with Bridget Von Hammersmark, a British spy. Hicox’s unusual accent attracts the attention of some German enlisted men, who are celebrating the birth of one of their comrades’ sons. One of the drunk enlisted men even asks Hicox where he is from because his accent and mannerisms are so odd. This comotion attracts the attention of a Nazi officer, who is sitting in the tavern reading. This officer claims that he has an ear for accents and he can not place Hicox’s. The officer further questions what their group is doing in France. The group is able to lie their way up until Hicox gives away that they are fakes, when he gives the British gesture of three using different fingers than the Germans. Only someone with knowledge of Britain and Germany would be able to notice this small like thing that completely gives them away. This leads to a shootout in the tavern killing everyone beside Von Hammersmark. 

Scenes shown:

Hicox talking with the Officer and the Officer approaching the table. An additional still of Von Hammersmark at the table with the enlisted Germans.

Conclusion:

Language plays a key role in making Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino’s most transnational film to date. The way that little gestures and accents affect the overcome of the film is truly a masterpiece. French, English, and German all have distinct importance in the film.

Music used:

I would like to find some epic music orchestral music to reflect the tone of the movie itself.