Cinema As A Weapon: The War of Metacinema in Inglourious Basterds

The movie that made me fall in love with movies didn’t just work on me once, but twice. I first watched Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds when I was fifteen, and was immediately blown away by how unique it was as a film, let alone a war film. The unconventional narrative style, the length and tension of the scenes, and the fact that the titular basterds are only in about half the movie. It seemed to break all the cinematic rules I’d come to expect from a “mainstream” film, and I preferred it that way. This “outside the box” style of film has stuck with me to this day and greatly informs my taste in films. But it was a few years later, on yet another rewatch, that I finally understood the film better and why it struck such a deep chord with me. On the surface, yes, it’s another war film with a revisionist history ending. But really, the film is a metacommentary on film itself, and to be more specific, other war films. By using WW2 as a template, Tarantino’s metacinematic approach harshly critiques other war films while simultaneously advocating for the power of cinema, fighting propagandist narratives and utilizing the audience within the film’s own metacinematic argument. In short, there's a lot going on under the surface.

At its heart, Basterds is film about films, and uses WW2 as a stage to play out Tarantino’s commentary and critiques about other war films. From the very first frame of the film, Tarantino is letting us know this film is about other films. The song that accompanies the opening titles is Nick Perito’s “The Green Leaves of Summer,” which accompanied the soundtrack for John Wayne’s 1960 film The Alamo, another historical war film. The first title card “Once Upon A Time. . . in Nazi-Occupied France” evokes the titles of films such as Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America. The characters in the film are also constantly playing roles and acting, either for amusement or for subterfuge. Christoph Waltz’s Col. Hans Landa plays the role of the detective, complete with a Sherlock Holmes pipe to complete his look. Shoshanna, a French Jew, assumes the name of Emmanuelle Mimieux in order to avoid detection. British commando Archie Hicox goes undercover as a German captain, and later on, three of the basterds go to the German gala acting as Italians. Hans Landa’s scheme to escape the war involves Landa lying about acting as a double agent. Even the game that’s played in the tavern is one in which characters wear the names of famous characters and must guess who they’re pretending to be. Landa and many members of the basterds unit have nicknames, just like stage names, and even discuss the importance of them near the end of the film.

Everyone is constantly acting, and this is clearly intentional. It lays the groundwork for the film’s metacommentary on other films, in which actors pretend to be these grand, heroic figures in romanticized war epics. The epitome of that criticism is the introduction of Eli Roth’s Bear Jew. After a German officer refuses to divulge crucial information, Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine calls out for the unseen Donnie Donowitz, who’s become infamous among Nazi troops as the bat-wielding Bear Jew. From a dark tunnel, smacking his bat ominously as he nears, Donowitz emerges as a conquering hero to Ennio Morricone’s “The Surrender,” towering above the audience in an upward tilt shot. But as Donowitz finally beats the German officer to death, we watch from far away, looking down on him, the grand music cutting out, and the message is clear. These Americans are not heroes, they’re just more brutes entertained by violence. The basterds laugh and cheer as their victim is beaten to death, and what would’ve been heroic and noble in another film (the death of an enemy), is just barbaric and cruel (the torture of a prisoner), as Tarantino holds on the brutal beating, not letting us look away. T

his point is similarly supported by Shoshanna and Frederick Zoller’s subplot, as the German soldier attempts to win the affection of the French woman. But instead of resolving their differences or falling for one another as would be expected, the two murder one another in a scene of mutually assured destruction. The same can be said for the film’s villain, Hans Landa, who, instead of fighting until the end, simply switches sides to save his own skin. And instead of a cathartic or symbolic death, Landa is tortured by the remaining basterds for their amusement. Again and again, typical film conventions are broken, subverting audience expectations and acting as critiques of other films.

But while critiquing other war films, Tarantino simultaneously uses his own film to advocate for the power of cinema, fighting against propagandist narratives and utilizing the audience in the film’s metacinematic argument. Everything in the film’s story revolves around cinema, whether actual films or fictional ones. Shoshanna runs a cinema, and Frederick Zoller says he’s a great admirer of film before revealing he’s now an actor himself and in his own film, the fictional Nation’s Pride. Lt. Archie Hicox is a film critic and familiar with German cinema, and when he and the basterds are sent to meet up with their contact for Operation Kino, the contact is revealed to be Bridget von Hammersmark, the German movie star. The operation takes place in Shoshanna’s cinema during the film premiere for Nation’s Pride, while Shoshanna has her own plans to kill the Nazi high command in the cinema. The importance of film is so integral that we are reminded throughout the film that we are in fact watching one, with repeated title cards, character names, and even an inserted voice over sequence from Samuel L. Jackson explaining the dangers of nitrate film.

Yet the most metacinematic aspect of the film is the use of Nation’s Pride within the film, as the finale has an audience gathered in a cinema to watch the film, as we watch them in Tarantino’s film. The German audience cheers and claps for the propagandist film, depicting the heroic deeds of Zoller gunning down his enemies as in a traditional war film. In many shots, Zoller fires his rifle directly at the audience, and to us, seemingly punishing the audience for enjoying the spectacle. Nation’s Pride is such an important part of the story that Tarantino cameos not just in Basterds, but in that film within the film as well, as if emphasizing the importance of both. So while fictional war heroics are being acted out on screen, the team of American basterds are infiltrating the premiere to blow up the venue with a suicide plan, killing German officers and civilians alike; far from the cinematic nobility in Nation’s Pride.

But the physical use of film itself is what ends the war, not guns or explosives or a military strategy. Shoshanna piles her collection of 35mm nitrate films behind the theater screen, which is revealed just as Nation’s Pride shows a pile of ammunition on the screen behind it, and the message is clear: this is Tarantino’s ammunition. Film itself. The films are set alight, and the resulting blaze burns down the movie theater while Shoshanna’s own film is projected into the theater, displayed on the cloud of smoke filling the cinema after she’s been killed, like a vengeful spirit given life by 35mm. WW2, in this reality, is ended by the power cinema. And when Lt. Aldo Raine escorts Landa to the French border, he disregards his orders and acts as the cruel soldier he’s always been by carving Landa’s face. But in this final shot, we the audience are now Landa, looking up at Raine and Utivich. Tarantino has defeated his enemies and made his statement against other films, so over Landa’s screams, he now talks directly to us, as Raine locks eyes with the camera and says, “You know what, Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece.”

This commentary and criticism on other films, through film itself, is what made me fall in love with cinema, and moreover, to write my own films. Not just stories with a beginning, middle, and end, but stories that have something to say about other stories and the medium in which they’re told. To contribute a statement on the state of film while also delivering an endorsement on its importance. Films like Inglourious Basterds, while gruesome and violent, show why film is such a malleable medium, and why the most effective weapon used in war is propaganda, or more simply, storytelling. Films that talk about films are my favorite films.