Raine on Hitler's Parade

Raine on Hitler’s Parade
The misspelling of the word bastard in the title of “Inglorious Basterds” was strictly a mistake or whim of director Quentin Taratino, for which he has not offered a rational explanation.
The story had several chapters; each with a heading, very much like in a novel. It also had three main characters. They were: Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the name a tribute to actor Aldo Ray who was in several war movies in the 1950s; Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a canny SS officer nicknamed “the Jew Hunter”; and Shosanna Dryfus (Melanie Laurent), the lone survivor of a family exterminated by Col. Landa—she is bent on revenge at all costs. The ‘Basterds’ were a Jewish death squad that, like the members of “The Dirty Dozen,” were a collection of quasi-crazed killers led by Lt. Raine that had been dropped behind enemy lines to terrorize the soldiers of the Wehrmacht. Two of the disconcerting things they do were to scalp dead Germans and kill the uncooperative officers with a baseball bat. Taratino, in a daring move, mixes fable with revisionist history, which I found engaging and a fantasy that didn’t come true but oh, if only it had…
The opening scene in the film involves Colonel Landa’s unannounced visit to a French farmer to question him about a Jewish family from the region who are unaccounted for, a mystery the SS spokesman wished to clear up. Landa was a slick fellow, full of guile and compliments, but he was a good detective with a nose for the truth. He’s not called “the Jew Hunter” for nothing. He figures out the missing family was under the farmer’s floor boards. He brings in three soldiers with machine guns who fire into the floor, killing four of the five members. Only Shosanna survived and ran like the blazes to some woods a couple of hundred yards away. Landa saw her running but decides to let her escape. Nor does Taratino inform us of the consequences for the French farmer and his three daughters. One wonders about that. It’s one crack in the solidity of the film.
Then we are introduced to the Jewish Death Squad. We witness them scalping some dead soldiers—Lt. Raine was part Indian—and a Jewish soldier called “Jew Bear” take a Louisville Slugger to the head of uncooperative German officer. The one soldier left alive was spared to be sent back to camp branded by Raine’s Bowie knife (another reminder that the story resembled an American Western), as he carved a swastika in the man’s forehead, which the soldier later showed to Hitler. The Basterds not only resembled “The Dirty Dozen,” but they act like the “The Wild Bunch.”
When Shosanna showed up again four years later she is the owner of a cinema in Paris, a business she inherited from a deceased Aunt and Uncle. She was on a ladder removing a name from the marquee, which coincidently was featuring one of Leni Riefenstahl’s earlier popular mountain climbing epics from the 1920s. She was of course the German filmmaker who became famous as “Hitler Filmmaker,” the Director of “Olympiad” and “Triumph of the Will,” two films that were both propaganda and filmmaking of high quality. While on the ladder she was approached by a young German soldier who obviously likes her but she brushes him off. Then she discovered he is a national hero for killing scores of American soldiers from a church Bell Tower, which repulses her. His name was Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) and he persudes Joseph Goebbels to make a movie about his heroic experience, with Zoller in the movie playing himself, like Audie Murphy playing himself in “To Hell and Back.” Moreover, when the film is completed they agreed to hold its grand premier at Ms. Mimieux (Shosanna’s new name) theater with not only members of the Nazi elite in attendance. Later on, Hitler decided he should be there too..
The British horned in on the proceedings by sending Lt. Hicox (Michael Fassbender) to France to meet with a German actress named Brigit von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) who was a double agent. Hicox was selected because he was a scholar of pre-war German film but proves to be an inept spy. The rendezvous takes place in a basement bar full of drunken German soldiers Raine doesn’t like the idea at all but sends a couple of Basterds to the meeting. When Hicox blows his cover a ferocious gun battle explodes and all are killed but the actress who is shot in the leg. Raine rescued her, but Cinderella forgot her fancy high heels shoes and Col. Landa finds them when he examines the scene. He saves them as evidence.
Now the plot was clear: Both Ms. Mimieux and Lt. Raine, without knowledge of what the other was planning, will try to kill Hitler and as many Nazis as possible inside the theater while they watched the movie at its premier. Ms. Mimieux plan was to ignite some very flammable film while her partner, a black man who was her lover as well as projectionist, would have locked all the doors so no one would escape the flames. They would die too, but they didn’t care. Raine’s plan was to get inside by accompanying the German actress with the four remaining Basterds carrying dynamite strapped to their legs. They pose as Italian diplomats, which was silly but no matter. Col. Landa grabs Hammmersmark. Forces her to try on the shoes she had left behind, when they fit, he strangles her on the spot. Then he has Raine and one of his associates grabbed and hauled away, but he takes one of the bundles of dynamite and shoves it under Goebbels chair. At that point I wondered what the hell was going on.
Well, I found out soon enough. He had his two captives removed to another location for interrogation, and while they have a dialog all hell breaks loose in the theater; there are explosions, a hysterical crowd that can’t get away from the flames or the machine gun fire of the two last Basterds up in the balcony, and finally the building blows to smithereens, killing Hitler and all his henchmen, effectively ending the war with a flourish. Who could not wish but that was so? Knowing that would be the likely scenario Landa tries to make a deal with the astonished Raine and his military superiors who he contacted by phone. Not only will he save their lives, he wants to go to America, be given a house on Cape Cod, and be forgiven of past crimes against humanity and start life over a free man. Raine is told to accept the deal and he does, with one exception: he carves a swastika in the forehead of Landa so everyone will know what he was during the war.
At Cannes, where the film premiered, Christoph Waltz walked off with the award as Best Actor for his performance as Colonel Landa. As far as I am concerned he stole the show with his outstanding, even flashy, performance. Brad Pitt’s characterization of Lt. Raine was good but seemed more artificial next to Waltz’s. Melanie Laurent was radiant as Shosanna/Ms. Mimieux. Taratino makes her and Ms. Hammersmark rather like two femme fatales. Laurent fakes a sexual invitation to Zoller up in the projection booth in order to distract him while she gets her gun out of her purse to shoot him; Kruger shoots the remaining German soldier in the basement shoot-out after he had surrendered his machine gun to Lt. Raine. When Raine inquired what happened to the actress Landa said,” Let’s just say she got what she deserved.”
‘Inglorious Basterds” was ten years in the making; it went through many permutations until it found its final form. Taratino changed his mind a number of times about who would play what part, and there were the inevitable conflicts of schedules. But the core group he ended up with was solid and preformed well. The Golden Globes came out last week and the film was nominated for four awards, including Best Drama, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor, to Christoph Waltz.