In 2009, Quentin Tarantino successfully recovered from the lackluster reception to his grindhouse slasher Death Proof with an Oscar-winning masterpiece. a compelling performance by Christoph Waltz etc.
As with all Tarantino movies, Inglourious Basterds has both moments of twisted humor and moments of edge-of-your-seat intensity. So, here are Inglourious Basterds’ 5 Funniest (And 5 Most Shocking) Moments.
Funniest: “The Germans’ nickname for me is ‘the little man’?”
At first, it was odd to see B.J. Novak, a.k.a. Ryan from The Office, show up in a Quentin Tarantino film. But the longer he was on the screen, the clearer it became that he was perfect for that particular role (Pfc. Utivich). Utivich is a lot like Ryan. He’s usually the “straight man” in his scenes and he has a deadpan delivery style.
This is on display in this scene towards the end of the film. Aldo Raine tells Hans Landa that his nickname is “the Jew Hunter,” while Landa tells Aldo that his nickname is “the Apache.” Unfortunately for Utivich, his nickname isn’t flattering.
Most shocking: Landa’s men open fire into the farmhouse floorboards
The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds is one of the most intense sequences ever put on film. Col. Hans Landa and his men arrive at a French dairy farm, looking for Jewish refugees. Quentin Tarantino establishes early in the scene that the dairy farmer is hiding a Jewish family under the floorboards. The scene plods along at a slow pace, with the two characters discussing milk at length, but we remain hooked because we know about this hidden conflict.
The conversation intensifies when Landa begins to hint that he’s onto the farmer, and offers his family safety in exchange for revealing if the uned-for family is hiding in his place. The farmer agrees and confirms that the family is in there. Then, Landa orders his men to open fire.
Funniest: “Gorlami.”
When Aldo Raine and his comrades infiltrate the premiere of Nation’s Pride disguised as Italians, Hans Lando tests their accents and their command of the Italian language, because he was suspicious. This was terrific for building tension because it meant that the viewer was the only one with all of the information; no one in the scene knows everything that we know.
But it was also great for comedy because there’s a running gag that Aldo doesn’t tweak his thick Southern accent in the slightest when portraying an Italian soldier. This is particularly evident in his labored pronunciation of “Gorlami.”
Most shocking: "The Bear Jew" strikes
Quentin Tarantino masterfully built up the suspense to the Bear Jew’s entrance in Inglourious Basterds. His frightened victim waited on his knees, staring down a darkened tunnel, listening to the bat that was about to cave in his skull clattering along the wall, getting closer and closer. It’s a really intense sequence.
Thankfully, Tarantino didn’t show the beating in closeup and quickly cut to a wider shot as the Bear Jew’s bat struck. But it was still a suitably brutal scene. It’s made even more shocking by the character’s nonchalant attitude. He’s even cracking jokes: “Teddy f***in’ Williams knocks it out of the park!”
Funniest: “Say ‘auf Wiedersehen’ to your Nazi balls!”
Quentin Tarantino utilizes the Hitchcockian “bomb under the table” suspense-building technique a few times in Inglourious Basterds. One example is the opening scene at the farmhouse. Another example is the “Who Am I?” scene, in which we know some of the characters are undercover and one of them has a gun pulled under the table while they play a harmlessly fun game above the table.
The scene is about 20 minutes long and it’s mostly inconsequential dialogue, but we remain hooked, waiting for Hugo Stiglitz to cry out, “Say ‘auf Wiedersehen’ to your Nazi balls!,” before opening fire on his opponent’s crotch.
Most shocking: “I think this just might be my masterpiece.”
Brad Pitt’s final line in Inglourious Basterds can easily be read as a meta-commentary from Quentin Tarantino, declaring the darkly comic World War II epic to be his greatest film. (There’s an earlier moment to this effect during the Nation’s Pride screening, when Adolf Hitler leans over to director Joseph Goebbels and tells him, “This is your finest film yet.”)
But the takeaway from the final scene of Inglourious Basterds is that Hans Landa’s career in the S.S. will not be forgotten about. Landa almost emerged as the hero of World War II in this alternate timeline, but Aldo Raine swiftly saw to that.
Funniest: “Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein, nein!”
Much like Taika Waititi has done with his new movie Jojo Rabbit and Mel Brooks did with his groundbreaking comedy classic The Producers, Quentin Tarantino presented Adolf Hitler as a cartoonish caricature in Inglourious Basterds.
It’s important to have harrowing, realistic portrayals of the horrors of World War II in movies like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List (both helmed by Steven Spielberg, both masterpieces) to ensure that it’s never forgotten about, but it’s also important to have satirical takes like this to take away Hitler’s power. Mocking a hatemongering tyrant like Hitler in a movie like Inglourious Basterds is a brash, bombastic way to combat hate speech.
Most shocking: The first scalping
When we first meet Aldo Raine, recruiting his team in the film’s second chapter, he announces to his men that they each owe him “one hundred Nazi scalps.” Aldo’s plan was similar to an Apache resistance, in that a group of Jewish American soldiers was going behind enemy lines to start shedding Nazi blood to get their message across.
So, going into the film’s middle act, we were expecting to see some S.S. officers get their scalps removed. But that still didn’t make it any less horrifying when the first scalping appeared on-screen. Film buffs will spot Quentin Tarantino cameoing as the scalped soldier in this scene.
Funniest: “That’s a bingo!”
Before he discovered Christoph Waltz, Quentin Tarantino began to fear that he’d written an unplayable role with Col. Hans Landa. Waltz really nailed the character. Landa wouldn’t have been anywhere near as unique or memorable without Waltz’s Oscar-winning performance in the role. We never cease to be unnerved by this character, and yet he’s oddly charismatic.
He’s completely reprehensible, of course, but he’s also smooth, polite, mostly calm and collected, and a good conversationalist. He’s deceptively hilarious, too, in the scenes where he’s not terrifying. His enthusiastic delivery of the slightly mispronounced idiom “That’s a bingo!” will never not be funny.
Most shocking: Adolf Hitler is shot to pieces by Jewish soldiers
Quentin Tarantino has created his own subgenre of revisionist cinema in the past decade with his own brand of historical revenge fantasies. In Django Unchained, a black slave in the antebellum-era Deep South is freed and trained to kill white slavers for money. In The Hateful Eight, a black bounty hunter marches a naked Confederate soldier to his death.
And in Inglourious Basterds, a platoon of Jewish soldiers heads to to kill and scalp hundreds of Nazis. In the film’s final act, Tarantino rewrites history to show Adolf Hitler being shot in the face by two of those Jewish soldiers.
