Author Archives: feejl

Look into the Mirror

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Argument: Quentin Tarantino made Inglourious Basterds to force Americans to see their past sins.

 

 

Introduction: Start with a black background with “’I think America is one of the only countries that has not been forced to look [its] own past sins in the face. And it is only by looking them in the face that you can possibly work past them.’ – Quentin Tarantino.” In white letters. I will do a voice overlay reading the quote and stating my argument.

Cross dissolve fade

 

Example 1: Video Clip from Inglourious Basterds where Brad Pitt introduces himself as Lt. Aldo Raine and that he needs 8 Jewish American Soldier. (Time is 21:30 to 21:45) Video stops with Jewish American soldiers and fades to his “Apache battle plan” (Time 22:40-22:44) Cut to “Little Man” scalping the Nazi at the end of the film.(Still image at 2:28:36) Voice over talking about the reference to Native American Genocide and how this is a comparison showing that Americans aren’t any more civilized that we gave the Natives credit for. This is the first time Tarantino holds the mirror up for Americans to face its past sins.

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Example 2:  Video Clip from Inglourious Basterds where they talk about how Americans only win in the Olympics because of the “offspring of slaves” (48:33-48:40) Pause video and talk about how the Germans in the film believe this to be another form of slavery. White Americans were using the descendants of the people they enslaved to bring glory to the country even though they were not treated as equals. Before I finish talking I want to do a subtle fade to the next reference where they are in the bar playing the game with cards on their heads. (1:25:23-1:27:00) This clip is longer because it goes into more detail to explain how this could be the story of the slave in America. Explain how Tarantino uses this to again hold the mirror up for Americans to see their sins. That a Nazi can see our sin but we are blind to it.

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Conclusion:

Cut to the ending where Lt. Raine states that this just may be his masterpiece. (2:29:30) Restate the examples and their significance to my argument. Ending with Tarantino uses Inglourious Basterds as a mirror to force Americans to look their own sins in the face.

Social Media Boredom

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Before this pandemic and social distancing I found myself randomly scrolling through social media during down time but now that I have nothing to do I find that it can’t keep up with my down time. When we were first put in quarantine the memes and gifs were funny. Seeing multiple posts about how nothing has changed because that’s all I do anyways. Then as time has gone by I find these less comical because I do not think that I have ever been this bored. It’s almost like every time I get on any of the sites it’s just more of the same no matter how much time has passed. I find myself switching from Instagram to Tik-Tok then to Facebook. Every day slowly losing my mind a little more with every switch. To ease some of the boredom I first switched to news popping up on my apple news feed. Contradicting news stories mixed with false reports on a magical cure that was used to cure Malaria. I got to the point where I just couldn’t take it anymore. I have now switched to viewing a massive amount of Netflix shows but I’m waiting for the second season of Netflix to come out. I hear that’s not how it works though…Luckily there are other options like Hulu. If this quarantine continues for too much longer I will be forced to subscribe to more and more online streaming services. These have become my only source of entertainment at this point. Before all of this happened I would use sports news to waste time and now most sports news has come to a screeching halt. With all sports being delayed or canceled with the pandemic their is not much news to report. I can only hope that by the time the NFL season starts this will all be a thing of the past.

Family Burden

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While watching Joy this scene stuck with me more than most. The Madame just came back from Nigeria after Joy had been assaulted and found out that her Father was very sick. She brings news of how great her family is doing back in Nigeria because she’s rich. These women travel to other countries to work as prostitutes and live in a house with multiple women sleeping in each room. These women are being mentally twisted to think that they have to bear the load for their families back home. The Madame mentions that Joy’s brother has a brand new shiny car but Joy doesn’t have a car from what I could tell. Why must their families enjoy all of the rewards but share none of the burden. Women like Joy are indentured servants to their madames and the rest of the money they make they send back home to support their families. Scenes like this one really show that these women are conditioned to believe that this is normal by everyone around them. At one point in the movie Precious’ mom is yelling at her because she isn’t making enough money. That she needs to sleep with more random men because it’s easy. All so that they can live luxurious lives back in Nigeria.

Cinema Verité

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Some say that children are the most honest of us all. They don’t always know the difference between what is honest and what is brutally honest. The TV show “Kids Say The Darndest Things” was very positive for this exact reason but the reward with laughter or attention drives kids to perform outside of how they would typically act. The scene in this post shows that kids will perform instead of being honest because they want the attention. When the child that the film follows for a majority of the film starts “shooting” the ships with his arm cannon the other kid does not appear to have played that “game” before. He waits and watches our main actor to see what he is doing then copies his actions. This is the first hint in the scene that shows that these kids are acting even if it’s just in their own minds. Then if you continue to watch you will see that the kid grows tired of shooting the ships when he tells his friend “Enough. You killed ’em all.”. The kid that we’ve seen since the beginning of the show is willing to keep this performance going but his friend is not. The director chooses to show this interaction even though it may not be a common occurrence causing the film to lose some of it’s fly  on the wall approach.

Alien World

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While watching Encounters at the End of the World, I couldn’t help but to be overwhelmed with a feeling of wonder and a sense of not belonging in that world. Someone watching these two clips could forget that these were shot on Earth and not on some distant world that is less evolved.  Therefore Herzog uses non-diegetic sound and otherworldly shots  to create a sense of mystery in order to transport the viewer to another world. By using music that doesn’t necessarily mesh with the scenery Herzog is creating a sense of alienation. The viewer should feel that they don’t belong and that maybe they are the “Aliens” in the world he is documenting. The theme for this week was Nationless and by showing these environments Herzog has created a documentary that isn’t tied to any Nation. We discussed last week that even though this is a documentary the film also has characteristics of western and syfy films. In these two clips Herzog has used elements of both. The bizarre music has a syfy feel to it. I would almost venture to say that the sound is edited to create this effect. The environments he films are also not inviting just like the early west. By using the music and environments Herzog has effectively created a strange world that removes the viewer from their own. Essentially making them “Nationless”.

I don’t want to be German!

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I chose this scene because this shows how Hüseyin is scared of getting his German passport. One could watch this scene and think that he is just scared of becoming German but a deeper dive shows that he is scared of losing his own culture. We talked in great depth about whether of not the guest workers were being taken advantage of and  this scene could be used as an argument for that train of thought. Hüseyin is having nightmares about what the Germans would require of him to become one of “them” and even though the movie uses comedy to portray this the audience can conclude that these thoughts have to have stemmed from his experience since his arrival in Germany.

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History Forever Repeats…

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This scene in “Inglorious Basterds” stuck with me after watching it because this is how Americans felt about Native Americans throughout history. Americans felt that the natives were savages and needed to be killed or somehow converted to a more civilized way of life. Now Lt. Raine feels the same way about Nazis. This scene is another subtle reference to the genocide of Native Americans because Lt. Aldo Raine has “a little injian” in him. Being one of the themes that Quentin Tarantino continues throughout the entire movie with the “King Kong” reference and slavery references makes this is an important scene.

“Aren’t We Human?”

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I have chosen the scene where Greenberg finally gets to perform as Shylock. He has always dreamed of this role and now he gets to perform for Hitler or so he needs to make everyone believe. Greenberg is asked to give the performance of a lifetime in order to distract the Nazis and the monologue from “The Merchant of Venice”  is perfect for the occasion. Even though Greenberg refers to the people of Poland during his performance, the fact that Shylock is a famous Jewish character very clearly draws the connection to the Jewish genocide during World War Two. It shows the frustrations and confusions of Jews that are forced to be refugees. During World War Two, and many times throughout history, Jews have been viewed as a subclass of people but Greenberg pleads with the Nazis to see that they are the same. “Fed with the same food? Hurt with the same weapons?” saying that the same things that nourish their bodies and hurt them are the same for Jews as well. Another very powerful element of Greenberg’s performance is actually at the start of the scene I have chosen. When asked how he got there he responds with that he was born there. Then one of the Nazis asked what made him decide to die there and he responds with “Him!” motioning to Hitler. The people of Poland, France, and Jews world wide did not ask for Hitler. Hitler decided that they should die with no more reason than because that was what he wanted.