Tag Archives: Nazi

No Hiding Now

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For this meme, I chose to highlight a scene that stood out to me in the film Inglorious Bastards. In this meme, you can see two members from the “Bastards” looking down at a nazi after they just engraved a swastika onto his forehead. Through a Holocaust class I took a few years back, I know that once the Holocaust was over, many nazi’s fled the area and adopted new identities. They did so to steer clear of getting convicted of any crimes they may have committed during the war against Jews and other minorities. That’s why the action the Bastards took regarding engraving a swastika onto the forehead speaks volumes. They did so to show the nazi’s that this horrible identity they have taken on will follow them the rest of their lives by providing society with an easy visual that identifies who they are and what they have done. I also found it clever how, in the top picture of the meme, they filmed it to make it look like the Bastards were much larger than the nazi and how they were looking down at him. 

That Which is Uncovered

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This meme originates from the basement scene in Tarantino’s “inglourious basterds” where the Allied soldiers are discovered whilst disguising themselves as Nazis. The caption translates loosely to: “the one who can see through an identity doesn’t have their own humanity interfering with their judgement”. When one thinks of a meme one usually thinks of a witty or funny commentary derived from a common experience, and given both the cultural significance of this movie’s subject matter and the stark contrast between characters, this film presents many possibilities for, mostly tasteless, attempts at humor. That is why I chose a more serious approach for this, the arguably most important scene in the movie. I was fascinated with how the character of the Nazi was portrayed as so perceptive and outgoing whilst maintaining no convincing underlying humanity. Even in this exact moment when a life-threatening discovery is made, he expresses no fear or concern, but rather seems to except the circumstances with perhaps a hint of disgust. What strikes me most about this interaction is how the Nazi is capitalizing on his lack of empathy by toying with the Allied spies. This interaction as a whole serves to reaffirm the Bastard’s mission for the audience and demonstrate how necessary this re-written vindication is against the cruelty and inhumanity perpetuated by the Nazis.

Blind Loyalty

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I chose these two stills because they showcase the sort of blind loyalty and the “no questions asked” atmosphere that Adolph Hitler was able to construct in his country. This sort of obedience and loyalty was crucial to Hitler’s, the Nazi’s and the Third Reich’s movement in Germany and their areas of interest in their conquests. But how?… How was Hitler able to ensure that his followers maintained this level of blind obedience and loyalty? The answer to this question is highly complex and the ways in which he achieved this level of discipline and obedience was not only through fear, but also through his effort of making those who followed him blindly feel very well cared for and playing on the natural human trait of wanting to feel like one is better than another. Hitler would make sure that those who followed him and took up his ideas as their own were very well taken care of. In the scene where Professor Siletsky is trying to persuade Maria Tura into being a “spy” for the Nazis, he promises her increased rations and her comfortable life back if she would come to the Nazi’s side and proclaim her allegiance to Hitler. By  promising great things and by making people feel superior to others, Hitler was able to create an almost god-like idealization of himself that his followers looked up to so much that they would even jump from an airplane to their death with no questions asked.

Who’s Running the Show?

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This scene stuck out to me during the film because it is the moment everyone realizes that they’ve lost control. It shows the uncertainty and helplessness the characters feel after the war sirens went off and the first bombs were dropped on Poland. I understand that this film is supposed to be ironic and hypocritical but I think this particular still contains a lot of irony in itself. The line, “The Nazis are putting on the show now — a much bigger one”, portrays their loss of power over the situation and also states that now this show/film is being put on/will be about the Nazis. In this still, the performers from the play are hiding. The characters they’re playing were powerful, high-titled people during their lives which makes it ironic that they’re now hiding from war.

What I found interesting about this still is the foreshadowing it is casting on the performers. The image that they are all squeezed in hiding and scared portends their possible future as refugees once the war hits Poland harder. This also could be foreshadowing a rise in the resistance, it could be portending a secret meeting between resisting Poles. This scene discloses a lot of different things which can be taken in multiple ways, but we can be sure that this still reveals unification amongst Poles against Nazis during this time as well as the new distribution of power to the Nazi regime.

The Man Without the Mustache

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The scene that I chose to screenshot was when Hitler enters the theatre near the end of the film. Before this shot, Hitler himself is not actually shown on screen, and is only visually represented by others dressed as him. What I found so interesting about this was that up to this point in the film, Hitler has been referred to and defined by his “little mustache,” and yet when we finally see the actual man, his mustache is nowhere to be seen. In class, we talked about how this film asks what exactly Hitler is, and we discussed the major role that facial hair plays in that. However, the viewer does not ever get to actually see Hitler’s defining feature, so in this shot, we have to draw from everything else in the scene to define who or what Hitler is.

In this shot alone, Hitler’s power and influence is evident by all of the people in the background heiling him and focusing all of their attention on his presence in the foreground. His power is also illustrated by the use of a high angle shot, belittling all of his subordinates and highlighting the idea that he has full control over all of those who follow him. However, this camera position also belittles Hitler himself, just not as drastically as it does his followers. The camera is not immune to critiquing Hitler; it recognizes his power as well as his absurdity by placing him below the eye-line of the camera. Also, in not showing Hitler’s face, the film shows that he has more power as a symbol than just a man; the idea of him is more frightening than he himself is. Like earlier in the film when the portrait of Hitler looses its power once the director realizes that it is just Bronski dressed as him, Hitler as an anonymous symbol of his ideals is more threatening and imposing than Hitler the person. I just find this shot interesting due to the idea that the viewer now has to see Hitler not just as a “man with a mustache,” but is forced to confront the reality of what he stands for and the total control that he has over his followers.