MrPikes’ Top 10 Favorite Movies: #9 Inglourious Basterds (2009)

This post is part 3 of 12 in a series. To read the entire series in order: MrPikes' Top 10 Favorite Movies

So I had to pick a Tarantino film because I think he is one of the most important writer/directors working. I could have just as easily gone with Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) or Death Proof (2007), because they’re all worthwhile in their own ways. I ultimately chose Inglourious Basterds because (to see the spoiler, highlight the following text):

Quentin Tarantino alters history and prematurely kills Hitler. Holy filet of fuck, the balls on this guy. DUDE, HE KILLS HITLER. HE SHOOTS HIM IN HIS STUPID TOOTHBRUSH MUSTACHE FACE WITH A MACHINE GUN AND SETS THE GODDAMN BUILDING ON FIRE.

I love his choices and I love listening to him talk about his projects. He has this incredible enthusiasm that totally comes through in the dialogue of his characters. For example, Tim Roth’s rooftop monologue in Reservoir Dogs when he tells the story about a drug deal gone screwy is absolutely in Tarantino’s voice. Tarantino is a master at building tension, as with the opening French farmhouse scene in Inglourious Basterds or the Mexican standoff scene in Reservoir Dogs or The Gimp scene in Pulp Fiction or the overdose scene in Pulp Fiction or The Bear Jew scene in Inglorious Basterds or the…

He brazenly and unapologetically borrows from film genres and the signature techniques of other brilliant directors (oh, and Brian De Palma) and then he expands on them. He’s a huge fan of movies and frequently pays them direct or indirect homage. One of my favorite examples is the vignette he directed for Four Rooms (1995) (another Tim Roth joint in which Tarantino is himself a character). Tarantino’s character, in full spasm, tells Roald Dahl’s story Man from the South as it was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960) (the one with Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre). The crux of the story is a bar bet over whether or not a cocky young man can light his Zippo ten times in a row. If he wins, he gets a convertible. If he loses, he gets his left little finger chopped off. The characters in Four Rooms then go on to reenact the bet.

The first time I watched this was on a VHS machine with a “back up 10 seconds” feature, and I burned up the machine rewinding the punchline I don’t know how many times while howling my fool head off.

I don’t know what it is about his approach to actor direction, but some of the best performances I have seen from specific actors have occurred in Tarantino movies. In the case of John Travolta, the performance he gave in Pulp Fiction singlehandedly resurrected his career. Choosing to focus on a positive aspect of that outcome, we got Get Shorty (1995). So as not to confuse, Get Shorty is not a Tarantino project, but it’s a great movie based on the novel of the same name by Elmore Leonard, and Leonard’s writing had a significant impact on Tarantino’s own (I can do this shit all day).

I suspect at the root of the performances he gets out of actors is that he has vividly imagined exactly what he wants to see and he would get in there and create it himself but he is a far better director than he is an actor. That’s not a knock; I love his cameos. It’s instead an observation on the frustrating gap between what you can do in your head versus what you can project into the world. Tarantino needs great actors (oh, and Michael Madsen) to accomplish that, and Steve Buscemi, David Carradine, George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Harvey Keitel, Brad Pitt, Ving Rhames, Tim Roth, Kurt Russell, Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Christopher Walken and Bruce Willis don’t seem to mind obliging him.

Bonus fun film fact about From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) (co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino): Tarantino acted and directed the first half of the movie, which is all hard-boiled bank robbers on the lam. At the moment Tarantino’s character dies, Rodriguez takes over direction and the movie’s tone, ahem, makes a subtle shift.