James Bowman on the latest work of Quentin Tarantino, a sort of cartoon treatment of WW2:
“It is important for us to remember that those known to history as Nazis were not cartoon characters. Nor were those who fought and finally defeated them. Nor was that defeat accomplished by a gang of bloodthirsty, free-lancing American Jews in search of revenge who manage to commandeer a ludicrously implausible scheme to assassinate the entire German high command, including Hitler and Goebbels, in a small Parisian cinema by setting fire to a pile of nitrate film. I know, I know. Mr. Tarantino’s are not real Nazis, any more than these are real historical events. But that doesn’t seem to me enough of an excuse for them when American schoolchildren — for whose eyes this film is principally intended — may scarcely be supposed to know what was real.”
I think I’ll give the movie a miss, having never cared for any of Tarantino’s output. A friend of mine once told me that he thought T’s films were brilliant, but wicked, morally empty. For balance, here is a slightly more favourable review by Roderick Long.
It is important to remember That Tom is not a real cat, that Jerry is not a real mouse, and the reality is that in nature the mouse usually loses and dies a gruesome and all too real bloody death.
Once I have accept those facts, may I please be allowed to laugh at Tom having a pool cue smashed over his head, even as it defies all known laws of physics?
This is not a new argument. Solon the law giver made similar arguments in the sixth century b.c, railing against the new fangled invention of the greeks called “Theatre”
Teenagers are quite able to distinguish entertainment from history. They have always been able to in the past and there is no reason to panic now.
I’m usually fan of Tarantino but i absolutely hated Inglorious Basterds.
Ham acting, wooden and deeply uninspired dialogue, almost total lack of action (remarkable given the way it’s been marketed) and its duration just left me thinking that somebody really needs to team Tarantino up with a top class editor who will not be afraid to tell him to shut the fuck up and cut at least an hour of self-indulgent fluff from his movies.
Christophe Waltz has rightly been lauded for his performance as the “Jew hunter” but given the stolid contributions by the rest of the actors you could probably have cast a toilet seat and enjoyed a comparatively charismatic performance.
The general standard of films is pretty awful – poor stories, poor acting, excessive noise, ludicrous levels of violence, foul language, political correctness, … I can’t think of anything good to say about them. And, splutter, splutter,… cinemas and some DVDs have the cheek to broadcast advertising for 10 to 30 minutes ahead of the film you paid for.
From what little I’ve seen of Tarantino’s film ouvre I’m no fan, so I too will be giving this one a pass. (Plus, from the trailers I’ve seen, the accent affected by Brad Pitt is atrocious enough to keep anybody away!) And what is the point of gratuitously misspelling both words in the two-word title? That doesn’t win any points with me, either.
I understand Dontmindme’s point, and in general I would agree with it. Still, if you’re going to create cartoon characters in a fantasy world, why go to the trouble of using real historical characters? Tarantino seems to be pretending that he’s pretending, and not doing it well.
Oh, and as to teenagers being “quite able to distinguish entertainment from history” — puh-leeze! Have you actually talked to any teenagersn (or even twenty-somethings) recently? As a group their knowledge of history, especially recent history, is abysmal, and I have absolutely no confidence in their ability to distinguish fact from fiction. That’s not an agrument which is going to get you anywhere.
Your Roderick T Long link corrected for you, Jonathan.
With absolutely no disrespect intended to those who were affected by it, I have to say that I think WWII is starting to pass into the realm of “Ancient history”.
Growing up in the 70s, the echoes of the war made it a very real and almost visceral thing to me. Yet I would hear of other wars such as the Boer War and consider how distant it seemed to me and how immediate it must have seemed to those alive around those times and contemplate that the second world war would inevitably suffer the same fate. Indeed, the first world war was already somewhat more distant, perhaps only maintaining a more solid connection due to its connections to the war that followed it, particularly the Germans (And talking of cartoonish, it’s amazing to think back to just how distorted and garish the image of Germans we were presented back then was and, indeed, how much of a monster Hitler was considered. To the point that the danger of “normal men” was barely a consideration).
Anyway, I guess my point is that as time has passed, it’s almost inevitable that respect and honor for the sanctity and dignity of what passed has waned. Not that that makes it right.
Laird
Fictional films about WW2 have been made during and since WW2. QT is not the first to think of this (Where Eagles Dare being a personal favorite). The children of the sixties did not grow up believing the raid on the Schlos Adler, lead by Richard Burton, and heroically supported by Clint Eastwood actually hapened.
The audience, many no doubt teenagers were quite able to understand the story was make believe.
There is no evidence to suggest that a modern teenager is any less genetically human than his grandparents, and no evidence to suggest he/she is any less human.
People should recognise what does and does not constitute a threat to society and be less concerned with QT an his (over rated in my view) films and more concerned with a government which over the last 10 years have brought in ever more draconian and authoritarian laws.
Big Brother, on the other hand That should be banned…
Gordon Bennett
If you go down Hamburg way…
Whoa, there, Dontmindme, I never said anything about teenagers being “less human” than us old fogies; I said that as a group their knowledge of history is awful. (What can one expect? They’re a product of the awful public schools.) I never complained about fictional films set during WW2 (historical fiction is a respectable genre); I merely questioned the point of making a fantasy such as this with a real historical figure (Hitler) as a central character. And I certainly never called for censorship of the movie or called it a “threat to society”; I merely complained about “stupidity in titling”. As threats go this one is way down on the list.
Lighten up!
Dontmindme: when Eagles Dare was a very different type of film from what I understand Tarantino is doing. The film had a recognisable hold on reality, despite its at-times wonky plot (there was, for example, a sustained effort by the Allies to fool the Germans about the plans for the Second Front, just as there were attempts by allies to root out double-agents).
And Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood are in a different class from Pitt.
Kellys Heroes
The Dirty Dozen
Casablanca
A Matter of Life and Death
None of these films are true, none are even vaguely plausibly true. They are all however good to truely great movies, featuring good to truely great actors and directors. Only one has a recognisable hold on reality (Casablanca)
Then there are movies like Churchill: The Hollywood Years. Not attempting to be true or realistic, quite the opposite!
Dont get me wrong, I dislike QT movies, he is far to self absorbed in his self referential film scripts to make good movies for people outside the movie world (IMHO). I certainly do not believe he makes movies that stand the test of time. But is he guilty of making a film that a whole generation of gulible illiterate teenagers will be fooled into believing is real history – I think not.
Dontmindme, it is interesting you mention Kelly’s Heroes. That was entertainining in a certain way, for sure (not a great film, IMHO). But remember that these films, made in the Sixties, already began to treat WW2 in that sorta post-modernist, lets-not-take-it-seriously manner of the QT types.
There is, for sure, a place for great comedy when set against the backdrop of war, or indeed romance, etc. Wars are absurd in many ways, and throw up plotlines and devices that are ideal for great film art.
Of course, some of my revulsion is simply explained by my dislike of QT, of a lot of the narcissistic crapola that surrounds modern Hollywood, Pitt, and the rest. But that maybe my sign of getting old.
I had this argument with my father recently. Such arguments being between us can never be civilised but in essence his argument was that he felt that cinema should be used to raise the cultural and moral level of the population “like it used to”
Alas I have a far more mundane and less uplifting view. Hollywood is still there after the best part of 100 years because it is profitable. It is profiable, not because of evil studios dominating the market with underhand business practice and accounting, but because it makes content suffcient people want to see year in year out. It used to do that in the heyday my father misremembers, it still does today.
Every so often it makes a culturally and morally uplifting film by accident. We should content ourselves with that, because it is all we are going to get.
We must not forget, that a vast amount of so-so renaissance art was destroyed or painted over, because no-one can get it right everytime, even when the are trying to do uplifting.
It is not the job of art to improve the viewer, or to educate them, or to present them with some particular ideology. The entire mistake of the past hundred years has been- as a consequence of the modern, collectivist idea that everything is propaganda- to demand that art perform this function, in replacement of its former, normal function, which was to simply delight or entertain, and which is all art should be about.
The dissection of artistic works as ideologically sound or unsound is the product of minds who have ruined our civilisation with their ideological fervour; it is the likes of Bernard Shaw writing plays primarily to espouse socialist ideas, and so on. Now everybody has to get their oar in and try to dictate what should or should not be seen- that is what is politically correct or politically incorrect- and let us not delude ourselves here, there is political correctness in all ideologies, the right and the left alike. Conservative values are just as much a form of political correctness as progressive ones.
Just as it is not the job of the state to “improve” people, it is not the job of the arts to “improve” people either. Entertainment, be it a low comedian or a posh ballet, is just whatever the punters want to pay for because it brings them pleasure. A person who cares for freedom will apply no other criteria. It’s either enjoyable or it isn’t. That is all there is.
Ian B
I coul not agree more. I hope I di not give an impression otherwise
Andy Borowitz is reporting that Quentin Tarantino announced a sequel to “Inglourious Basterds” titled “Ignomunious Douchebugs.” Seems about right.
I wonder if Professor Long has a hidden agenda here.
As a Rothbardian he is anti American intervention in World War II – and it is not a good position to say “we should have allowed the Nazis to take over the world”.
So a private enterprise solution to the National Socialist Germany problem is needed (to avoid the above position).
“But the film is absurd Paul” – yes, but no more absurd that other private enterprise solutions to the National Socalist Germany problem that Rothbardians have come up with.
Next we will perhaps have a essay about how a group of adventurers (or perhaps some American corporations) could have defeated the Communist invasion of the Republic of Korea in 1951. Or how allowing the Communists to take over the world would not have been so bad (for it would have been easy for the United States to survive as an island of freedom in a totalitarian world).
And so on, and so on.
Such is “left libertarianism” – when it just not a matter of Christian bashing (something Murry Rothbard himself strongly opposed).
All the above being said, R. Long has some fine writings to his credit.
Also – the film may well be a lot of fun.
“A person who cares for freedom will apply no other criteria” than whether something gives people pleasure.
That is exactly what our foes say we believe Ian B.
I am not a cultured man – but to say that a libertarian can not be a cultured man (which is what you are saying) is tommyrot.
What about Albert J. Nock and so many others?
Where they uncultured barbarians – who measured things only in terms of pleasure (and measured that in Dollars and cents)?
This is an “economic man” sterotype – a sort of Jeremy Betham (pushpin is as good as poetry) position.
By the way when a film maker (or any other artists) starts thinking “I do not care if this is good in itself – as long as it brings in the ignorant punters” that is when they go into decline.
Actually this covers more than the arts:
When someone only cares about bringing in money – when the work itself is no longer valued (just the cash it brings in) then the work will go into decline.
That is as true for a banker as it is for a painter.
A banker should care about the long term fate of his customers (both borrowers and depositors – who are likely to be the same people at different times of their lives).
A banker who thinks “I do not care if these fools have got in over their heads – I have got my bonus for selling a lot of unsuitable products and by the time they go bankrupt no one will remember that it was me who led them into not being able to pay the bank back” is not just a bad man – he is a bad BANKER as well.
Just as the painter who thinks “I do not care what is on the canvas – my reputation has got to the point where the fools pay up because I sign my name on the painting, and the cash is the only think I want out of this” has become a bad painter. He does not care anymore – and it will show in his art (even if only a few people see it at first).
At what point may we credibly depict the events and people of WWII in non-historically accurate terms? I think, during and after.
Tarantino is a big talker. I got it. I am not going to see Basterds for a history lesson, but to get some vicariously violent revenge. I am ok with that. As for his moral vacuousness, again, I do not consume his content looking for Popish pearls.
I agree with Ian’s point that a lot of misery has been caused by people who assign a function to Art. Art is what it is, and for the purposes of the Artist alone… as soon as you say ‘Art should…’ you have lost my attention.
Frankly I am a little surprised and annoyed by the people who want to assign or deny a role to other people’s art.
Art is an individual matter. If an artist wants to teach or state something, that is their concern alone. If a consumer of art wants it to do something or not do something, that is their concern alone.
This statement is founded in a collectivist mindset, regardless of the author’s subsequent assertions. It is not for anybody but the artist to assign or deny a role to their art. If I choose to use my art as a weapon in pursuit of my ideals, it is nobody’s business but my own.
Well put, Mid.