Assignment 4 – Inglorious Basterds, Aaron Lemoine

Assignment 4 – Part A

Aaron Lemoine

VISA 1500

Dr. Terryl Atkins

I chose a scene from Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) because it is one of Tarantino’s most ambitious action film’s that holds many broad scenes that create and form the structure of this movie. It’s also the last action movie I watched. Being one of the most innovative and exciting directors, Tarantino makes a rewrite ending of World War Two. And in this film, there is a huge theme of vengeance between the Jews and Nazi’s. When watching this movie with Mise En Scene in the back of my head, I understood how the defining scenes were sometimes taken with a single shot. And they were often dark in tone, creating intensity and more seriousness to the theme of vengeance, as well to the violence within the scenes.  Like many of Tarantino’s films, he tracks and moves his camera shots from time to time between rooms, floors, and maintains continuous shots that divulge the top of walls. “In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino often uses crane shots and tracks the characters from above, establishing a sort of Eye of God camera angle that underlines his authority.” (Dima) This allows us to understand the room and the scene environment. 

This specific action scene in Inglorious Bastards is shot in a low light, low contrast theme that as an audience, gives us the thought that something big is bound to happen, but we don’t know when or why. I  felt as an audience, this scene is tense because both Bridget von Hammersmark, Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz, and Fredrick Zoller are all undercover spy’s in a bar full of Nazi soldiers. After a long conversation with Major Hellstrom, their cover is blown and a gun fight takes place killing nearly all but one character (von Hammersmark). The shots in this scene are extremely efficient and economic, instead of using separate shots he actually conveys many 2-in-1 shots. (He does this when the bartender pours their drinks and shows them sitting down at a table in the distance). The scene itself is quite lengthy, but Tarantino builds off of this by creating a fast tempo fight scene that also involves slow motion in order for the audience to identify the obviousness and severity of the action. Tarantino wants this audience to perceive violence as a consequential outcome for unlawful or immoral behavior. It also represents not only the dark situated basement bar that it takes place in, but it also speaks to the amount of dark circumstances that are about to take place shortly after this scene is finished. He uses diegetic sound to intensify the theme of revenge when the violence begins. The loud and aggressive, gorey gun fights display the true violence of this movie when at its peak. The film made nearly 322 million worldwide at the box office making it one of Quentin Tarantino’s most successful gross revenue movies in his long filmmaking career.

References:

Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: Film Kills – Bright Lights Film Journal, Dima, V, (2009) Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds: Film Kills, Bright Lights Film Journal

Inglourious Basterds – Box Office Mojo, Inglorious Basterds. Box Office Mojo. (n.d) Retrieved from November 25th, 2021