Inglorious Basterds Analysis

Inglorious Basterds Dir. Quentin Tarantino

Inglorious Basterds is a 2009 American-German war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells the fictional alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's political leadership. Tarantino wrote the script in 1998 but struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming and instead direct the two-part film Kill Bill. A co-production of the United States and Germany, the film began filming in October 2008 and was filmed in Germany and France with a $70 million production budget. Inglorious Basterds premiered on May 20, 2009 at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. It was widely released in theatres in the United States and Europe in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures.

Mise-en-scene: The outfits and scenery blended the performances and the music very well. For example the American olive coloured uniforms to show us what side they were on nearly immediately, as well as the black uniforms of the Nazi and the various close ups of medals and the Nazi Swastika. It gives us plenty of information with just a few seconds without wasting time with dialogue. The lighting of the cinema was also very sinister and dark during the end when the Nazi's were trapped in the burning building. This has connotations of the dark minded people meeting a dark, grave ending fitting for the crimes that they have committed against people.

The film opens with the title, directors and company production credits. It then says ‘chapter 1, once upon a time in Nazi occupied France’, this shows that the film is going to be based on or around the Nazis. From the word ‘Nazi’ this suggests that it is most likely a war like film involving the holocaust and someone's perspective of what happened in World War 2. The scene opens up with a wide shot view of a house based on a farm with cows, a green field and a man chopping down a tree. The scene then presents a woman hanging washing, then noticing a vehicle coming her way from afar. Performance is used by the woman showcasing her fear when she notices the vehicles coming and also by communicating with the man shown to the audience first saw at the beginning. The use of a close up shot of their face shows what they feel, which could be fear and nervousness.