Inglorious Bastards
Encyclopedia
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino
and starring Brad Pitt
, Christoph Waltz
and Mélanie Laurent
. The film tells the fictional story of two plots to assassinate the Nazi Germany
political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietor (Laurent), and the other by a team of Jewish Allied soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt).
Development on Inglourious Basterds began in 1998, when Tarantino wrote the script for the film. Tarantino struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming and moved on to direct the two-part film Kill Bill
. After directing Death Proof
in 2007 (as part of the double feature Grindhouse), Tarantino returned to work on Inglourious Basterds. The film went into production in October 2008 and was filmed in Germany and France with a production budget of $70 million. Inglourious Basterds premiered on May 20, 2009 at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival
, where it competed for the Palme d'Or
. It was widely released in theaters in the United States and Europe in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company
and Universal Studios
.
The film was successful at the box office
, grossing $320,351,773 in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date. It received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award
nominations. For his role as Hans Landa
, Christoph Waltz
won the Best Actor Award
at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the BAFTA Award, Golden Globe
and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
.
In 1941, SD
Colonel Hans Landa
(Christoph Waltz
) arrives at a dairy farm in France to interrogate Perrier Lapadite (Denis Menochet
) about rumors that he is hiding the Jewish Dreyfus family. Landa pressures the farmer to confess to hiding the family underneath his floor. Landa then orders the SS soldiers into the house to shoot through the floorboards where they are hiding. The entire family is killed, except the teenage Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent
), whom Landa allows to escape.
In the spring of 1944, 1st Special Service Force First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt
) is tasked to recruit a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers for a mission to go behind enemy lines and bring fear to all German servicemen. He tells the soldiers that they each owe him one hundred Nazi scalps
. They operate with a "take no prisoners" attitude and come to be known as the "Basterds". One survivor of an attack by the Basterds, a soldier named Butz (Sönke Möhring
), is interviewed by Adolf Hitler
(Martin Wuttke
). Butz's account of the attack is shown in flashback
: his squad was ambushed and his sergeant (Richard Sammel) was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Staff Sergeant Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth
), known by the Germans as "The Bear Jew". Butz then reveals that Raine carved a swastika
into his forehead with a knife.
In June 1944, Shosanna has assumed a new identity as "Emmanuelle Mimieux" and is operating a cinema in Paris
. She meets Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl
), a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film
, Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride). Zoller is attracted to Shosanna and convinces Joseph Goebbels
(Sylvester Groth
) to hold the premiere of his film at Shosanna's cinema. Shosanna realizes that the presence of several high-ranking Nazi officials provides an opportunity for revenge and resolves to burn down the cinema during the premiere by setting fire to a large quantity of extremely flammable nitrate film.
A British General, General Ed Fenech (Mike Myers) learns of the premiere and "Operation Kino" is conceived, and Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender
) is recruited to infiltrate the event, aided by the Basterds and German film actress and British spy, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger
). Hicox and two of the German-born Basterds (namely, the deadly Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger
) meet with von Hammersmark at a tavern where Major Dieter Hellstrom (August Diehl
), of the Gestapo
, notices Hicox's odd accent and that he gives the wrong (non-German) three-fingered order for drinks; three fingers up instead of two fingers and the thumb. This results in a firefight and a standoff with a German serviceman, Staff Sgt. Wilhelm (Alexander Fehling
), leaving everyone dead except von Hammersmark. Raine interrogates von Hammersmark, and upon learning that Hitler will be attending the premiere, devises a plan whereby he, Donny, and Omar (Omar Doom
) will pose as von Hammersmark's Italian escorts at the premiere. Landa later investigates the tavern, retrieving von Hammersmark's shoe and an autographed napkin.
At the premiere, Landa asks to see von Hammersmark privately, where he makes her try on the shoe. Convinced to his satisfaction that she is in league with the Basterds, he suddenly strangles her to death. He then orders Raine and Utivich (B. J. Novak
) to be arrested. Communicating by radio, Landa makes a deal with Raine's commanding officer (Harvey Keitel
) to be granted a full military pension and American citizenship, in exchange for allowing Donny and Omar—still seated in the cinema—to kill the Nazi high command. During the film, Zoller goes to the projection room to see Shosanna and confronts her angrily due to her multiple rejections of his advances from the beginning. When his back is turned, she shoots him multiple times, but he manages to shoot her dead before succumbing to his wounds. The film is then interrupted by an inserted close-up of Shosanna informing the audience that they are going to be killed by a Jew. At the same time, Shosanna's employee and lover, Marcel (Jacky Ido
), who has locked and bolted all the exits of the cinema, ignites the nitrate film stacked behind the screen. Omar and Donowitz disguise themselves as waiters and kill the soldiers guarding Hitler with hidden pistols
. They then kill Goebbels and Hitler, and shoot into the crowd of panicking Nazis until the timers on their bombs go off and destroy the cinema, killing everyone inside.
Landa and his radio operator drive Raine and Utivich to the American lines, and according to the deal, Landa surrenders to Raine and hands over his weapons, allowing Utivich to handcuff him. To Landa's shock, Raine then shoots the radio operator and orders Utivich to scalp the dead man. Raine then carves a swastika
into Landa's forehead, because he hates the idea of Landa just walking away without an indication of his crimes, proclaiming, "You know something, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece."
in an interview, he became "too precious about the page," meaning the story kept growing and expanding. Tarantino viewed the script as his masterpiece in the making, so he felt it had to become the best thing he had ever written. Tarantino described an early premise of the film as his "bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission film. [It's] my Dirty Dozen
or Where Eagles Dare
or Guns of Navarone
kind of thing." According to Tarantino, all his films make the audience laugh at things that aren't supposed to be funny, but the sense of humor differs in each.
By 2002, Tarantino found Inglourious Basterds to be a bigger film than planned and saw that other directors were working on World War II
films. At this point, Tarantino had produced three nearly finished scripts, proclaiming that it was "some of the best writing I've ever done. But I couldn't come up with an ending." Consequently, the director held off his planned film and moved on to direct the two-part film Kill Bill
(2003–2004). After the completion of Kill Bill, Tarantino went back to his first storyline draft and came up with the idea of turning it into a mini-series. Instead he trimmed the script, using his script for Pulp Fiction
as a guide to the right length. He then planned to begin production of Inglourious Basterds in 2005. The revised premise focused on a group of soldiers who escape from their executions and embark on a mission to help the Allies
. He described the men as "not your normal hero types that are thrown into a big deal in the Second World War".
In November 2004, Tarantino decided to hold off production of Inglourious Basterds and instead took an acting role in Takashi Miike
's spaghetti western
film Sukiyaki Western Django and made a kung fu film entirely in Mandarin. This project foundered as well, and he ultimately directed a part of the 2007 Grindhouse instead, before returning to work on Inglourious Basterds. The title of the film was inspired by the English title of director Enzo G. Castellari
's 1978 war film
, The Inglorious Bastards. When asked for an explanation of the film's title spelling during a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino said, "I'm never going to explain that". When pushed on it, Tarantino would not explain the first u in Inglourious, but said, "The Basterds? That's just the way you say it: Basterds." Tarantino later stated in an interview that the misspelled title is "a Basquiat
-esque touch." He further commented on Late Show with David Letterman
that Inglourious Basterds is a "Quentin Tarantino spelling."
Tarantino originally sought Leonardo DiCaprio
to be cast as Hans Landa, before deciding to have the character played by an older German actor. The role ultimately went to an Austrian, Christoph Waltz
, who, according to Tarantino, "gave me my movie" as he feared the part was "unplayable." Pitt and Tarantino had wanted to work together for a number of years, but were forced to wait for the right project. When Tarantino was half way through the script for Inglourious Basterds, he sensed that Pitt was a strong possibility for the role of Aldo Raine. By the time he had finished writing, Tarantino thought Pitt "would be terrific" and called Pitt's agent to ask if he was available.
Tarantino asked Adam Sandler
to play the role of Donny Donowitz, but Sandler declined due to schedule conflicts with the film Funny People
. Eli Roth
was cast in the role instead. Roth also directed the film-within-the-film, Nation's Pride, which used 300 extras. The director also wanted to cast Simon Pegg
in the film as Lt. Archie Hicox, but the actor was forced to drop out due to scheduling difficulties with Spielberg's
Tintin adaptation. Irish actor Michael Fassbender
began final negotiations to join the cast as Hicox in August 2008. The Office actor and writer, B. J. Novak
, was also cast in August 2008 as Private First Class Smithson Utivich, "a New York-born soldier of 'slight build'".
Tarantino talked to actress Nastassja Kinski
about playing the role of Bridget Von Hammersmark and even flew to Germany to meet her, but a deal could not be reached and Tarantino cast Diane Kruger
instead. Rod Taylor was effectively retired from acting and no longer had a talent agent
, but came out of retirement when Tarantino offered him the role of Winston Churchill
in the film. In preparation for the role, Taylor watched dozens of DVDs with footage of Churchill in order to get the Prime Minister's posture, body language, and voice, including a lisp, correct. Taylor initially recommended British actor Albert Finney
for the role during their conversation, but agreed to take the part because of Tarantino's "passion." Mike Myers
(as Gen. Ed Fenech), a fan of Tarantino, had inquired about being in the film since Myers' parents were in the British Armed Forces
. In terms of the character's dialect, Myers felt that it was a version of Received Pronunciation
meeting the officer class, but mostly an attitude of "I'm fed up with this war and if this dude can end it, great because my country is in ruins."
Director Enzo G. Castellari
also makes a cameo appearance
in the film. He previously cameoed as a German in his own Inglorious Bastards and reprised the same role in this film, but under a different rank and SS organization. Bo Svenson
, who starred in Castellari's The Inglorious Bastards, also has a small cameo in the film, but can be seen more closely in the Nation's Pride trailer. Samuel L. Jackson
and Harvey Keitel
, who have both previously starred in Tarantino's films, make small voice-only contributions as the narrator and an OSS
commander, respectively. Two characters, Mrs. Himmelstein and Madame Ada Mimieux, played by Cloris Leachman
and Maggie Cheung
respectively, were both cut from the final film due to length reasons.
to prepare what he planned to be his movie for production. In July 2008, Tarantino and executive producers Harvey
and Bob Weinstein
set up an accelerated production schedule to be completed for release at the Cannes Film Festival
in 2009, where the film would compete for the Palme d'Or
. The Weinstein Company co-financed the film and distributed it in the United States, and signed a deal with Universal Pictures
to finance the rest of the film and distribute it internationally. Germany and France were scheduled as filming locations and principal photography
started in October 2008 on location in Germany
. Filming was scheduled to begin on October 13, 2008, and shooting started that week. Special effects were handled by K.N.B. EFX Group with Greg Nicotero and much of the film was shot and edited in the Babelsberg Studios
in Potsdam
, Germany and in Bad Schandau
, a small spa town
near the German border with the Czech Republic
. Roth claimed that they "almost got incinerated", during the theater fire scene, as they projected the fire would burn at 400 °C (750 °F), but it instead burned at 1200 °C (2000 °F). He claimed the swastika
was not supposed to fall either, as it was fastened with steel cables, but the steel liquefied
.
Following the film's screening at Cannes, Tarantino stated that he would be re-editing the film in June before its ultimate theatrical release, allowing him time to finish assembling several scenes that were not completed in time for the hurried Cannes premiere.
on the Internet and several Tarantino fan sites began posting reviews and excerpts from the script.
The first full teaser trailer
for the film premiered on Entertainment Tonight
on February 10, 2009, and was shown in US theaters the following week attached to Friday the 13th
. The trailer features excerpts of Lt. Aldo Raine talking to the rest of the Basterds, informing them of the plan to ambush and kill, torture, and scalp unwitting Nazi servicemen, intercut with various other scenes from the film. It also features the spaghetti-westernesque terms Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied France, which was considered for the title of the film, and A Basterd's Work is Never Done, a line not spoken in the final film (the line occurs in the script during the Bear Jew's backstory).
The film was released on August 19, 2009 in the United Kingdom and France, two days earlier than the U.S. release date of August 21, 2009. It was released in Germany on August 20, 2009. Some European cinemas, however, showed previews starting on August 15. In Poland, the artwork on all advertisements and on DVD packaging is unchanged, but the title was translated non-literally to Bękarty Wojny (Bastards of War), so that Nazi iconography could stylize the letter "O".
censored the film's German publicity website, as the display of Nazi iconography is restricted in Germany. The title has the swastika
removed and the steel helmet
has a bullet hole instead of the Nazi symbol. The download section of the German site was revised to exclude wallpaper downloads that feature the swastika openly. Though the advertisement posters and wallpapers must not show Nazi iconography, this does not apply to "works of art" according to German law
, so the film itself is not censored in Germany.
n release, on the way to an opening weekend gross of $38 million, giving Tarantino a personal best weekend opening and the number one spot at the box office, ahead of District 9
. The film fell to number two in its second weekend, behind The Final Destination, with earnings of $20 million, and grossed $73.8 million in its first ten days. Inglourious Basterds opened internationally at number one in 22 markets on 2,650 screens making $27.49 million. First place openings included France, taking in $6.09 million on 500 screens. The United Kingdom was not far behind making $5.92 million (£3.8m) on 444 screens. Germany took in $4.20 million on 439 screens and Australia with $2.56 million (A$2.8m) on 266 screens. It has come to gross $120.8 million in the United States and Canada and $199.5 million in other territories, making its worldwide gross $320.3 million. Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's highest grossing film, both in the United States and worldwide.
reports that 88% of 256 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average
of 7.7 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 76%, based on a sample of 41 reviews. According to the site's summary of the critical consensus, "A classic Tarantino genre-blending thrill ride, Inglourious Basterds is violent, unrestrained, and thoroughly entertaining." Metacritic
, which assigns a score of 1–100 to individual film reviews, gives the film an averaged rating of 69 based on 36 reviews.
The initial reactions of critics at the Cannes Film Festival
were mixed. The film received an eight to eleven minute standing ovation from critics after its first screening at Cannes., although Le Monde
, a leading French newspaper, dismissed it, saying "Tarantino gets lost in a fictional World War II". Despite this, Anne Thompson of Variety
praised the film, but opined that it was not a masterpiece, claiming, "Inglourious Basterds is great fun to watch, but the movie isn't entirely engaging... You don't jump into the world of the film in a participatory way; you watch it from a distance, appreciating the references and the masterful mise en scène
. This is a film that will benefit from a second viewing". Critic James Berardinelli
gave the film his first four-star review of 2009, stating, "With Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino has made his best movie since Pulp Fiction," and that it was "one hell of an enjoyable ride." Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
also gave the film a four-star review, writing that "Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is a big, bold, audacious war movie that will annoy some, startle others and demonstrate once again that he's the real thing, a director of quixotic delights." Author and critic Daniel Mendelsohn
was disturbed by the portrayal of Jewish-American soldiers mimicking German atrocities done to European Jews, stating, "In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino indulges this taste for vengeful violence by—well, by turning Jews into Nazis". British critic Peter Bradshaw
stated he was "struck... by how exasperatingly awful and transcendentally disappointing it is". While praising Christoph Waltz's performance ("a good actor new to American audiences"), David Denby
, of The New Yorker
, dismissed the film with the following words: "The film is skillfully made, but it's too silly to be enjoyed, even as a joke. [...] Tarantino has become an embarrassment: his virtuosity as a maker of images has been overwhelmed by his inanity as an idiot de la cinemathèque."
The film has met some criticism from Jewish press, as well. In Tablet, Liel Liebowitz criticizes the film as lacking moral depth. He argues that the power of film lies in its ability to impart knowledge and subtle understanding, but Inglourious Basterds serves more as an "alternative to reality, a magical and Manichean world where we needn't worry about the complexities of morality, where violence solves everything, and where the Third Reich is always just a film reel and a lit match away from cartoonish defeat". Anthony Frosh, writer for the online magazine Galus Australis, has criticized the film for failing to develop its characters sufficiently, labeling the film "Enthralling, but lacking in Jewish content".
The film received four Golden Globe nominations including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Supporting Actor for Waltz, who went on to win the award. The film also received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations and went on to win the awards for Best Cast and Best Supporting Actor, which was awarded to Waltz. The film was nominated for six BAFTA Awards
, including Best Director for Tarantino, winning only once—the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor
for Waltz. In February 2010, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards
, including Best Picture
, Best Supporting Actor
for Waltz, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay
. Waltz was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
.
and a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray Disc
on December 15, 2009 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment
in the United States and Australia. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 7, 2009 in the UK. On its first week of release Inglourious Basterds was number two, only behind The Hangover
, selling an estimated 1,581,220 DVDs making $28,467,652 in the United States.
The German version is 50 seconds longer than the American version. The scene in the tavern has been extended. Although in other countries, the extended scene was released as a bonus feature, the German theatrical, DVD and Blu-ray Disc versions are the only ones to include the full scene.
to compose the soundtrack for the film. Morricone was unable to, because of the sped-up production schedule of the film conflicted with his scoring of Giuseppe Tornatore
's Baarìa
. However, Tarantino did use eight tracks composed by Morricone in the film, with four of them included on the CD.
The opening theme is taken from the folk ballad "The Green Leaves of Summer", which was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin
and Paul Francis Webster
for the opening of the 1960 film The Alamo
. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, including spaghetti western
, R&B and David Bowie
's theme
from the 1982 film Cat People
. This is the first of Tarantino's soundtracks that does not include dialogue excerpts from the film. The soundtrack was released on August 18, 2009.
twenty-second season, featured an Inglourious Basterds sequence during a World War II flashback.
When Jewish, 6 in 7 in (2.01 m), 314-pound American football
player Gabe Carimi
was drafted in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft
by the Chicago Bears
, he was nicknamed "The Bear Jew", a reference to the character in Inglourious Basterds.
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
and starring Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
, Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
and Mélanie Laurent
Mélanie Laurent
Mélanie Laurent is a French actress, director, singer and writer. She is best known to international audiences for her role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which she won Best Actress from the Online Film Critics Society and the Austin Film Critics...
. The film tells the fictional story of two plots to assassinate the Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
political leadership, one planned by a young French Jewish cinema proprietor (Laurent), and the other by a team of Jewish Allied soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt).
Development on Inglourious Basterds began in 1998, when Tarantino wrote the script for the film. Tarantino struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming and moved on to direct the two-part film Kill Bill
Kill Bill
Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart, the second volume being Kill Bill Volume 2....
. After directing Death Proof
Death Proof
Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car...
in 2007 (as part of the double feature Grindhouse), Tarantino returned to work on Inglourious Basterds. The film went into production in October 2008 and was filmed in Germany and France with a production budget of $70 million. Inglourious Basterds premiered on May 20, 2009 at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival
2009 Cannes Film Festival
The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
, where it competed for the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
. It was widely released in theaters in the United States and Europe in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company is an American film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979...
and Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
.
The film was successful at the box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
, grossing $320,351,773 in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date. It received multiple awards and nominations, including eight Academy Award
82nd Academy Awards
The 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2009 and took place March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. The ceremony was scheduled well after...
nominations. For his role as Hans Landa
Hans Landa
Colonel Hans Landa is the primary antagonist of the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. He is portrayed by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz.- Character :...
, Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
won the Best Actor Award
Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
The Best Actor Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.- Award Winners :-External links:* * ....
at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as the BAFTA Award, Golden Globe
Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture
The Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association in 1944 for a performance in a motion picture released in the previous year....
and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
.
Plot
In 1941, SD
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
Colonel Hans Landa
Hans Landa
Colonel Hans Landa is the primary antagonist of the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. He is portrayed by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz.- Character :...
(Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
) arrives at a dairy farm in France to interrogate Perrier Lapadite (Denis Menochet
Denis Menochet
Denis Menochet is a French film and television actor. Menochet is perhaps best known to an international audience for his role as Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis for harboring Jews, in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds.Elizabeth Weitzman, a...
) about rumors that he is hiding the Jewish Dreyfus family. Landa pressures the farmer to confess to hiding the family underneath his floor. Landa then orders the SS soldiers into the house to shoot through the floorboards where they are hiding. The entire family is killed, except the teenage Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent
Mélanie Laurent
Mélanie Laurent is a French actress, director, singer and writer. She is best known to international audiences for her role as Shosanna Dreyfus in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which she won Best Actress from the Online Film Critics Society and the Austin Film Critics...
), whom Landa allows to escape.
In the spring of 1944, 1st Special Service Force First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
) is tasked to recruit a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers for a mission to go behind enemy lines and bring fear to all German servicemen. He tells the soldiers that they each owe him one hundred Nazi scalps
Scalping
Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war...
. They operate with a "take no prisoners" attitude and come to be known as the "Basterds". One survivor of an attack by the Basterds, a soldier named Butz (Sönke Möhring
Sönke Möhring
-Life and work:He grew up in Herne. His father was an Army officer and his mother worked as a teacher. Möhring has a sister and two brothers. After his brother Wotan Wilke Möhring became an actor, in the early 2000s Sönke followed him to also become an actor...
), is interviewed by Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
(Martin Wuttke
Martin Wuttke
Martin Wuttke is a German actor and director who reached international recognition for his portrayal of Adolf Hitler in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds.-Life and career:...
). Butz's account of the attack is shown in flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
: his squad was ambushed and his sergeant (Richard Sammel) was beaten to death with a baseball bat by Staff Sergeant Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth
Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award...
), known by the Germans as "The Bear Jew". Butz then reveals that Raine carved a swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
into his forehead with a knife.
In June 1944, Shosanna has assumed a new identity as "Emmanuelle Mimieux" and is operating a cinema in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. She meets Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl
Daniel Brühl
Daniel César Martín Brühl González Domingo is a Spanish/German actor. He is best known as Daniel Brühl.-Personal life:Brühl was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. His father was the late German stage director Hanno Brühl and his mother was a Spanish professor. He also has a brother and a sister...
), a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film
Propaganda film
The term propaganda can be defined as the ability to produce and spread fertile messages that, once sown, will germinate in large human cultures.” However, in the 20th century, a “new” propaganda emerged, which revolved around political organizations and their need to communicate messages that...
, Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride). Zoller is attracted to Shosanna and convinces Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
(Sylvester Groth
Sylvester Groth
Sylvester Groth is a German film actor and tenor.He is best known to English-language audiences for appearing in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, in which he portrayed Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels....
) to hold the premiere of his film at Shosanna's cinema. Shosanna realizes that the presence of several high-ranking Nazi officials provides an opportunity for revenge and resolves to burn down the cinema during the premiere by setting fire to a large quantity of extremely flammable nitrate film.
A British General, General Ed Fenech (Mike Myers) learns of the premiere and "Operation Kino" is conceived, and Lieutenant Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender is an Irish-German actor. He is best known for playing Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class...
) is recruited to infiltrate the event, aided by the Basterds and German film actress and British spy, Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger
Diane Kruger
Diane Kruger is a German actress and former fashion model. She is known for roles such as Helen in Troy, Dr. Abigail Chase in National Treasure and its sequel, Bridget von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds, Anna in Mr...
). Hicox and two of the German-born Basterds (namely, the deadly Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger
Til Schweiger
Tilman Valentin "Til" Schweiger is a German actor, director, and producer.He is one of Germany’s most successful filmmakers. Since 1968, when the FFA started counting, no other German actor has drawn more people to the cinemas. He runs his own production company, Barefoot Films, in Berlin.-Early...
) meet with von Hammersmark at a tavern where Major Dieter Hellstrom (August Diehl
August Diehl
August Diehl is a German actor, known for playing SS-Sturmbannführer Dieter Hellstrom in Inglourious Basterds and Michael "Mike" Krause, Evelyn Salt's husband, in the movie Salt.-Life and career:...
), of the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, notices Hicox's odd accent and that he gives the wrong (non-German) three-fingered order for drinks; three fingers up instead of two fingers and the thumb. This results in a firefight and a standoff with a German serviceman, Staff Sgt. Wilhelm (Alexander Fehling
Alexander Fehling
Alexander Fehling is a German film and stage actor. He is best known to English-language audiences as Staff Sgt. Wilhelm in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds.-Life and career:Fehling was born in Berlin...
), leaving everyone dead except von Hammersmark. Raine interrogates von Hammersmark, and upon learning that Hitler will be attending the premiere, devises a plan whereby he, Donny, and Omar (Omar Doom
Omar Doom
Omar Doom is an American actor, musician and artist. Doom is best known to audiences for his role as PFC Omar Ulmer in the 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino.-Early life:...
) will pose as von Hammersmark's Italian escorts at the premiere. Landa later investigates the tavern, retrieving von Hammersmark's shoe and an autographed napkin.
At the premiere, Landa asks to see von Hammersmark privately, where he makes her try on the shoe. Convinced to his satisfaction that she is in league with the Basterds, he suddenly strangles her to death. He then orders Raine and Utivich (B. J. Novak
B. J. Novak
Benjamin Joseph Manaly “B. J.” Novak is an American actor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, and director. He is best known for being a writer and co-executive producer for and playing the role of Ryan Howard on the US version of The Office, as well as appearing in Inglourious Basterds...
) to be arrested. Communicating by radio, Landa makes a deal with Raine's commanding officer (Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
) to be granted a full military pension and American citizenship, in exchange for allowing Donny and Omar—still seated in the cinema—to kill the Nazi high command. During the film, Zoller goes to the projection room to see Shosanna and confronts her angrily due to her multiple rejections of his advances from the beginning. When his back is turned, she shoots him multiple times, but he manages to shoot her dead before succumbing to his wounds. The film is then interrupted by an inserted close-up of Shosanna informing the audience that they are going to be killed by a Jew. At the same time, Shosanna's employee and lover, Marcel (Jacky Ido
Jacky Ido
Jacky Ido is a Burkina Faso-born French film actor. He is best known to English-language audiences for his role as Marcel, the film projectionist in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds....
), who has locked and bolted all the exits of the cinema, ignites the nitrate film stacked behind the screen. Omar and Donowitz disguise themselves as waiters and kill the soldiers guarding Hitler with hidden pistols
Sedgley OSS .38
The Sedgley OSS .38 glove pistol is a World War II firearm. It was manufacted by Sedgley, Philadelphia for the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Navy. It is a single shot, break action .38 Special pistol. It was designed by the Naval Intelligence Office....
. They then kill Goebbels and Hitler, and shoot into the crowd of panicking Nazis until the timers on their bombs go off and destroy the cinema, killing everyone inside.
Landa and his radio operator drive Raine and Utivich to the American lines, and according to the deal, Landa surrenders to Raine and hands over his weapons, allowing Utivich to handcuff him. To Landa's shock, Raine then shoots the radio operator and orders Utivich to scalp the dead man. Raine then carves a swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
into Landa's forehead, because he hates the idea of Landa just walking away without an indication of his crimes, proclaiming, "You know something, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece."
Development and writing
Tarantino spent just over a decade writing the script for the film because, as he told Charlie RoseCharlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
in an interview, he became "too precious about the page," meaning the story kept growing and expanding. Tarantino viewed the script as his masterpiece in the making, so he felt it had to become the best thing he had ever written. Tarantino described an early premise of the film as his "bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission film. [It's] my Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen
The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 film directed by Robert Aldrich and released by MGM. It was filmed in England and features an ensemble cast, including Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas, and Robert Webber. The film is based on E. M...
or Where Eagles Dare
Where Eagles Dare
Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 World War II action-adventure spy film starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It was directed by Brian G. Hutton and shot on location in Upper Austria and Bavaria....
or Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone (film)
The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American Action/Adventure war film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley...
kind of thing." According to Tarantino, all his films make the audience laugh at things that aren't supposed to be funny, but the sense of humor differs in each.
By 2002, Tarantino found Inglourious Basterds to be a bigger film than planned and saw that other directors were working on World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
films. At this point, Tarantino had produced three nearly finished scripts, proclaiming that it was "some of the best writing I've ever done. But I couldn't come up with an ending." Consequently, the director held off his planned film and moved on to direct the two-part film Kill Bill
Kill Bill
Kill Bill Volume 1 is a 2003 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart, the second volume being Kill Bill Volume 2....
(2003–2004). After the completion of Kill Bill, Tarantino went back to his first storyline draft and came up with the idea of turning it into a mini-series. Instead he trimmed the script, using his script for Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction (film)
Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
as a guide to the right length. He then planned to begin production of Inglourious Basterds in 2005. The revised premise focused on a group of soldiers who escape from their executions and embark on a mission to help the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
. He described the men as "not your normal hero types that are thrown into a big deal in the Second World War".
In November 2004, Tarantino decided to hold off production of Inglourious Basterds and instead took an acting role in Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike
is a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions...
's spaghetti western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
film Sukiyaki Western Django and made a kung fu film entirely in Mandarin. This project foundered as well, and he ultimately directed a part of the 2007 Grindhouse instead, before returning to work on Inglourious Basterds. The title of the film was inspired by the English title of director Enzo G. Castellari
Enzo G. Castellari
Enzo G. Castellari is an Italian film director. He became famous during the 1960s by directing several spaghetti westerns with such titles as Go Kill and Come Back Enzo G. Castellari (born July 29, 1938) is an Italian film director. He became famous during the 1960s by directing several spaghetti...
's 1978 war film
War film
War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...
, The Inglorious Bastards. When asked for an explanation of the film's title spelling during a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Tarantino said, "I'm never going to explain that". When pushed on it, Tarantino would not explain the first u in Inglourious, but said, "The Basterds? That's just the way you say it: Basterds." Tarantino later stated in an interview that the misspelled title is "a Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
-esque touch." He further commented on Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
that Inglourious Basterds is a "Quentin Tarantino spelling."
Casting
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
to be cast as Hans Landa, before deciding to have the character played by an older German actor. The role ultimately went to an Austrian, Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He received international acclaim for his portrayal of SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and...
, who, according to Tarantino, "gave me my movie" as he feared the part was "unplayable." Pitt and Tarantino had wanted to work together for a number of years, but were forced to wait for the right project. When Tarantino was half way through the script for Inglourious Basterds, he sensed that Pitt was a strong possibility for the role of Aldo Raine. By the time he had finished writing, Tarantino thought Pitt "would be terrific" and called Pitt's agent to ask if he was available.
Tarantino asked Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer.After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office...
to play the role of Donny Donowitz, but Sandler declined due to schedule conflicts with the film Funny People
Funny People
Funny People is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written, co-produced and directed by Judd Apatow, and starring Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, and Leslie Mann. The film was released on 31 July 2009 in North America, and on 28 August 2009 in the United Kingdom. Funny People uses considerably more...
. Eli Roth
Eli Roth
Eli Raphael Roth is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds for which he won both a SAG Award and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award...
was cast in the role instead. Roth also directed the film-within-the-film, Nation's Pride, which used 300 extras. The director also wanted to cast Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...
in the film as Lt. Archie Hicox, but the actor was forced to drop out due to scheduling difficulties with Spielberg's
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
Tintin adaptation. Irish actor Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender
Michael Fassbender is an Irish-German actor. He is best known for playing Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Magneto in the superhero blockbuster X-Men: First Class...
began final negotiations to join the cast as Hicox in August 2008. The Office actor and writer, B. J. Novak
B. J. Novak
Benjamin Joseph Manaly “B. J.” Novak is an American actor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, and director. He is best known for being a writer and co-executive producer for and playing the role of Ryan Howard on the US version of The Office, as well as appearing in Inglourious Basterds...
, was also cast in August 2008 as Private First Class Smithson Utivich, "a New York-born soldier of 'slight build'".
Tarantino talked to actress Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski
Nastassja Kinski is a German-born American-based actress who has appeared in more than 60 films. Her starring roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of the title character in Tess and her roles in two erotic films , as well as parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move; Paris,...
about playing the role of Bridget Von Hammersmark and even flew to Germany to meet her, but a deal could not be reached and Tarantino cast Diane Kruger
Diane Kruger
Diane Kruger is a German actress and former fashion model. She is known for roles such as Helen in Troy, Dr. Abigail Chase in National Treasure and its sequel, Bridget von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds, Anna in Mr...
instead. Rod Taylor was effectively retired from acting and no longer had a talent agent
Talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...
, but came out of retirement when Tarantino offered him the role of Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
in the film. In preparation for the role, Taylor watched dozens of DVDs with footage of Churchill in order to get the Prime Minister's posture, body language, and voice, including a lisp, correct. Taylor initially recommended British actor Albert Finney
Albert Finney
Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....
for the role during their conversation, but agreed to take the part because of Tarantino's "passion." Mike Myers
Mike Myers (actor)
Michael John "Mike" Myers is a Canadian actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer of British parentage...
(as Gen. Ed Fenech), a fan of Tarantino, had inquired about being in the film since Myers' parents were in the British Armed Forces
British Armed Forces
The British Armed Forces are the armed forces of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.Also known as Her Majesty's Armed Forces and sometimes legally the Armed Forces of the Crown, the British Armed Forces encompasses three professional uniformed services, the Royal Navy, the...
. In terms of the character's dialect, Myers felt that it was a version of Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
meeting the officer class, but mostly an attitude of "I'm fed up with this war and if this dude can end it, great because my country is in ruins."
Director Enzo G. Castellari
Enzo G. Castellari
Enzo G. Castellari is an Italian film director. He became famous during the 1960s by directing several spaghetti westerns with such titles as Go Kill and Come Back Enzo G. Castellari (born July 29, 1938) is an Italian film director. He became famous during the 1960s by directing several spaghetti...
also makes a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
in the film. He previously cameoed as a German in his own Inglorious Bastards and reprised the same role in this film, but under a different rank and SS organization. Bo Svenson
Bo Svenson
Bo Svenson is a Swedish-born American actor, known for his roles in American genre films of the 1970s and 1980s.-Early life:...
, who starred in Castellari's The Inglorious Bastards, also has a small cameo in the film, but can be seen more closely in the Nation's Pride trailer. Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor,...
and Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, who have both previously starred in Tarantino's films, make small voice-only contributions as the narrator and an OSS
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
commander, respectively. Two characters, Mrs. Himmelstein and Madame Ada Mimieux, played by Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman
Cloris Leachman is an American actress of stage, film and television. She has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards—more than any other performer—and one Daytime Emmy Award...
and Maggie Cheung
Maggie Cheung
Maggie Cheung Man yuk is a Chinese actress from Hong Kong. Raised in England and Hong Kong, she has over 70 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983...
respectively, were both cut from the final film due to length reasons.
Pre-production and filming
Tarantino teamed with The Weinstein CompanyThe Weinstein Company
The Weinstein Company is an American film studio founded by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 2005 after the brothers left the then-Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979...
to prepare what he planned to be his movie for production. In July 2008, Tarantino and executive producers Harvey
Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...
and Bob Weinstein
Bob Weinstein
Robert "Bob" Weinstein is an American film and theatre producer, the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films, and current head, with his brother Harvey Weinstein, of The Weinstein Company.-Career:...
set up an accelerated production schedule to be completed for release at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
in 2009, where the film would compete for the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
. The Weinstein Company co-financed the film and distributed it in the United States, and signed a deal with Universal Pictures
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
to finance the rest of the film and distribute it internationally. Germany and France were scheduled as filming locations and principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
started in October 2008 on location in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Filming was scheduled to begin on October 13, 2008, and shooting started that week. Special effects were handled by K.N.B. EFX Group with Greg Nicotero and much of the film was shot and edited in the Babelsberg Studios
Babelsberg Studios
The Studio Babelsberg, located in Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world. Founded in 1912, it covers an area of about . Hundreds of films, including Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel were filmed there...
in Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
, Germany and in Bad Schandau
Bad Schandau
Bad Schandau is a spa town in Germany, in the south of the Free State of Saxony and the district of Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge. It is situated on the right bank of the Elbe, at the mouth of the little valley of the Kirnitzsch.-Geography:...
, a small spa town
Spa town
A spa town is a town situated around a mineral spa . Patrons resorted to spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. The word comes from the Belgian town Spa. In continental Europe a spa was known as a ville d'eau...
near the German border with the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. Roth claimed that they "almost got incinerated", during the theater fire scene, as they projected the fire would burn at 400 °C (750 °F), but it instead burned at 1200 °C (2000 °F). He claimed the swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
was not supposed to fall either, as it was fastened with steel cables, but the steel liquefied
Liquefaction
Liquefaction may refer to:* Liquefaction, the general process of becoming liquid* Soil liquefaction, the process by which sediments become suspended* Liquefaction of gases in physics, chemistry, and thermal engineering* Liquefactive necrosis in pathology...
.
Following the film's screening at Cannes, Tarantino stated that he would be re-editing the film in June before its ultimate theatrical release, allowing him time to finish assembling several scenes that were not completed in time for the hurried Cannes premiere.
Release
When the final draft of the script was finished, it was leakedInternet leak
An Internet leak occurs when a party's confidential information is released to the public on the Internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such...
on the Internet and several Tarantino fan sites began posting reviews and excerpts from the script.
The first full teaser trailer
Teaser trailer
A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic, challenging advertisements that anticipate a larger, full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. These advertisements are called "teasers" or "teaser ads"...
for the film premiered on Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight
Entertainment Tonight is a daily tabloid television entertainment television news show that is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution throughout the United States, Canada and in many countries around the world. Linda Bell Blue is currently the program's executive producer...
on February 10, 2009, and was shown in US theaters the following week attached to Friday the 13th
Friday the 13th (2009 film)
Friday the 13th is a 2009 American slasher film directed by Marcus Nispel and written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. It is a reboot of the Friday the 13th film series, which began in 1980 and the twelfth Friday the 13th film in total...
. The trailer features excerpts of Lt. Aldo Raine talking to the rest of the Basterds, informing them of the plan to ambush and kill, torture, and scalp unwitting Nazi servicemen, intercut with various other scenes from the film. It also features the spaghetti-westernesque terms Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied France, which was considered for the title of the film, and A Basterd's Work is Never Done, a line not spoken in the final film (the line occurs in the script during the Bear Jew's backstory).
The film was released on August 19, 2009 in the United Kingdom and France, two days earlier than the U.S. release date of August 21, 2009. It was released in Germany on August 20, 2009. Some European cinemas, however, showed previews starting on August 15. In Poland, the artwork on all advertisements and on DVD packaging is unchanged, but the title was translated non-literally to Bękarty Wojny (Bastards of War), so that Nazi iconography could stylize the letter "O".
Censorship
Universal PicturesUniversal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
censored the film's German publicity website, as the display of Nazi iconography is restricted in Germany. The title has the swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
removed and the steel helmet
Stahlhelm
Stahlhelm is German for "steel helmet". The Imperial German Army began to replace the traditional boiled-leather Pickelhaube with the Stahlhelm during World War I in 1916...
has a bullet hole instead of the Nazi symbol. The download section of the German site was revised to exclude wallpaper downloads that feature the swastika openly. Though the advertisement posters and wallpapers must not show Nazi iconography, this does not apply to "works of art" according to German law
Censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany guarantees freedom of speech, expression, and opinion to its citizens as per Article 5 of the constitution. Despite this, censorship of various materials has taken place since the Allied occupation after World War II and continues to take place in Germany in various...
, so the film itself is not censored in Germany.
Box office
Opening in 3,165 screens, the film earned $14.3 million on the opening Friday of its North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n release, on the way to an opening weekend gross of $38 million, giving Tarantino a personal best weekend opening and the number one spot at the box office, ahead of District 9
District 9
District 9 is a 2009 South African science fiction thriller film directed by Neill Blomkamp. It was written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, and produced by Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James...
. The film fell to number two in its second weekend, behind The Final Destination, with earnings of $20 million, and grossed $73.8 million in its first ten days. Inglourious Basterds opened internationally at number one in 22 markets on 2,650 screens making $27.49 million. First place openings included France, taking in $6.09 million on 500 screens. The United Kingdom was not far behind making $5.92 million (£3.8m) on 444 screens. Germany took in $4.20 million on 439 screens and Australia with $2.56 million (A$2.8m) on 266 screens. It has come to gross $120.8 million in the United States and Canada and $199.5 million in other territories, making its worldwide gross $320.3 million. Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's highest grossing film, both in the United States and worldwide.
Critical reception
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 88% of 256 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average
Average
In mathematics, an average, or central tendency of a data set is a measure of the "middle" value of the data set. Average is one form of central tendency. Not all central tendencies should be considered definitions of average....
of 7.7 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' "Top Critics", which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 76%, based on a sample of 41 reviews. According to the site's summary of the critical consensus, "A classic Tarantino genre-blending thrill ride, Inglourious Basterds is violent, unrestrained, and thoroughly entertaining." Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a score of 1–100 to individual film reviews, gives the film an averaged rating of 69 based on 36 reviews.
The initial reactions of critics at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
were mixed. The film received an eight to eleven minute standing ovation from critics after its first screening at Cannes., although Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, a leading French newspaper, dismissed it, saying "Tarantino gets lost in a fictional World War II". Despite this, Anne Thompson of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
praised the film, but opined that it was not a masterpiece, claiming, "Inglourious Basterds is great fun to watch, but the movie isn't entirely engaging... You don't jump into the world of the film in a participatory way; you watch it from a distance, appreciating the references and the masterful mise en scène
Mise en scène
Mise-en-scène is an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means "visual theme" or "telling a story"—both in visually artful ways through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction...
. This is a film that will benefit from a second viewing". Critic James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
gave the film his first four-star review of 2009, stating, "With Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino has made his best movie since Pulp Fiction," and that it was "one hell of an enjoyable ride." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
also gave the film a four-star review, writing that "Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is a big, bold, audacious war movie that will annoy some, startle others and demonstrate once again that he's the real thing, a director of quixotic delights." Author and critic Daniel Mendelsohn
Daniel Mendelsohn
-Life and career:Mendelsohn was born on Long Island. He graduated with a B. A. in Classics from the University of Virginia, which he attended from 1978 to 1982 as an Echols Scholar, and received his M. A. and Ph. D. in Classics from Princeton University, where he was a Mellon Fellow in the...
was disturbed by the portrayal of Jewish-American soldiers mimicking German atrocities done to European Jews, stating, "In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino indulges this taste for vengeful violence by—well, by turning Jews into Nazis". British critic Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...
stated he was "struck... by how exasperatingly awful and transcendentally disappointing it is". While praising Christoph Waltz's performance ("a good actor new to American audiences"), David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
, of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, dismissed the film with the following words: "The film is skillfully made, but it's too silly to be enjoyed, even as a joke. [...] Tarantino has become an embarrassment: his virtuosity as a maker of images has been overwhelmed by his inanity as an idiot de la cinemathèque."
The film has met some criticism from Jewish press, as well. In Tablet, Liel Liebowitz criticizes the film as lacking moral depth. He argues that the power of film lies in its ability to impart knowledge and subtle understanding, but Inglourious Basterds serves more as an "alternative to reality, a magical and Manichean world where we needn't worry about the complexities of morality, where violence solves everything, and where the Third Reich is always just a film reel and a lit match away from cartoonish defeat". Anthony Frosh, writer for the online magazine Galus Australis, has criticized the film for failing to develop its characters sufficiently, labeling the film "Enthralling, but lacking in Jewish content".
Accolades
Christoph Waltz was singled out for Cannes honors, receiving the Best Leading Actor award at the end of the festival. Film critic Devin Faraci of Chud.com stated: "The cry has been raised long before this review, but let me continue it: Christoph Waltz needs not an Oscar nomination but rather an actual Oscar in his hands.... he must have gold".The film received four Golden Globe nominations including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Supporting Actor for Waltz, who went on to win the award. The film also received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations and went on to win the awards for Best Cast and Best Supporting Actor, which was awarded to Waltz. The film was nominated for six BAFTA Awards
63rd British Academy Film Awards
The 63rd British Academy Film Awards, hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, took place on 21 February 2010 and honoured the best films of 2009. The Hurt Locker took home the most awards, receiving 6 BAFTAS...
, including Best Director for Tarantino, winning only once—the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor
BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Best Actor in a Supporting Role is a British Academy Film award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding supporting performance in a film...
for Waltz. In February 2010, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards
82nd Academy Awards
The 82nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2009 and took place March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. The ceremony was scheduled well after...
, including Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
, Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
for Waltz, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the...
. Waltz was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
.
Home media
The film was released on Single Disc DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on December 15, 2009 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Universal Studios Home Entertainment is the home video division of Universal Pictures...
in the United States and Australia. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 7, 2009 in the UK. On its first week of release Inglourious Basterds was number two, only behind The Hangover
The Hangover (film)
The Hangover is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Todd Phillips and written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha and Jeffrey Tambor...
, selling an estimated 1,581,220 DVDs making $28,467,652 in the United States.
The German version is 50 seconds longer than the American version. The scene in the tavern has been extended. Although in other countries, the extended scene was released as a bonus feature, the German theatrical, DVD and Blu-ray Disc versions are the only ones to include the full scene.
Soundtrack
Tarantino originally wanted Ennio MorriconeEnnio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
to compose the soundtrack for the film. Morricone was unable to, because of the sped-up production schedule of the film conflicted with his scoring of Giuseppe Tornatore
Giuseppe Tornatore
-Life and career:Born in Bagheria near Palermo, Tornatore developed an interest in acting and the theatre from at least the age of 16 and put on works by Luigi Pirandello and Eduardo De Filippo.He worked initially as a freelance photographer...
's Baarìa
Baarìa - La porta del vento
Baarìa is a 2009 Italian film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. It was the opening film of the 66th Venice International Film Festival in September 2009.-Plot:...
. However, Tarantino did use eight tracks composed by Morricone in the film, with four of them included on the CD.
The opening theme is taken from the folk ballad "The Green Leaves of Summer", which was composed by Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin...
and Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...
for the opening of the 1960 film The Alamo
The Alamo (1960 film)
The Alamo is a 1960 American historical epic released by United Artists. The film was directed by John Wayne, who also starred as Davy Crockett. The cast also includes Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey as William B...
. The soundtrack uses a variety of music genres, including spaghetti western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
, R&B and David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
's theme
Cat People (Putting Out Fire)
"Cat People " is a song by David Bowie, the title song of the 1982 film Cat People. It was written by Bowie with producer Giorgio Moroder. A re-recorded version of the song appears on the album Let's Dance...
from the 1982 film Cat People
Cat People (1982 film)
Cat People is a 1982 American erotic horror film directed by Paul Schrader and starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell and John Heard. The film co-stars Annette O'Toole, Ruby Dee, Ed Begley, Jr. and John Larroquette. Jerry Bruckheimer served as executive producer...
. This is the first of Tarantino's soundtracks that does not include dialogue excerpts from the film. The soundtrack was released on August 18, 2009.
In popular culture
On December 5, 2010, The Fight Before Christmas, the eighth episode of The SimpsonsThe Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
twenty-second season, featured an Inglourious Basterds sequence during a World War II flashback.
When Jewish, 6 in 7 in (2.01 m), 314-pound American football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player Gabe Carimi
Gabe Carimi
Gabe Carimi , nicknamed "The Bear Jew", is an American football offensive tackle for the Chicago Bears.Carimi had 49 starts at left tackle in his four-year Wisconsin Badgers college career, which culminated at the 2011 Rose Bowl. He was awarded the 2010 Outland Trophy, as the nation's top...
was drafted in the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft
2011 NFL Draft
The 2011 NFL Draft was the 76th installment of the annual NFL Draft, where the franchises of the National Football League select newly eligible football players...
by the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
, he was nicknamed "The Bear Jew", a reference to the character in Inglourious Basterds.