And why you should see Inglourious Basterds - by Nathan Mattia
Disclaimer: Since 1994’s Pulp Fiction made him a cinema sensation for many (you may have been busy watching Forrest Gump that year) Quentin Tarantino has written and directed some of the most innovative, and to some, offensive films of this generation. From Jackie Brown to the Kill Bill movies, he’s not afraid to take risks and shock his audiences with strong (but often hilarious) language, over-the-top violence, drug use, or out-of-order-plots. Here below are the reasons you should see his latest film, Inglourious Basterds, even if you’ve never heard of him before, or you were offended by one of his previous offerings.
I don’t know if he’s ever been into using drugs, but Quentin Tarantino is a man who knows the fleeting happiness of addiction. Whether your drug (or idol) of choice is sweet revenge, heroin, a cigarette, or a five-dollar milk shake, he knows how to capture the giddy joy of the fix. Nearly 3 years have passed since the last Tarantino movie (I refuse to count Grindhouse, thanks) and Inglourious Basterds, a film about a group of World War II Nazi hunters, totally fills the cravings.
I find four things fascinating about Tarantino’s films across the board:
1. Tarantino knows how to get career making performances out of his actors (as long as his actors aren’t him). This can be good and bad in the long run (did Travolta really need a comeback?). But Brad Pitt and company are in top form here, and you can expect an Academy Award nomination for Cristoph Waltz playing a Nazi Colonel—if political correctness doesn’t get in the way.
2. Tarantino knows how to authentically capture the quiet moments of a good story. Witness a conversation between spies interrupted by a Nazi officer. Or the interrogation of a Jewish sympathizer. They drift. They chase rabbits. The camera lingers through a cigarette when other directors would cut to the equivalent of another explosion or shopping montage. We take the time to take breaths with the characters as suspense builds. It is these moments that make Tarantino’s movies feel authentic and true, even when much of his dialogue would rarely happen in real life. That juxtaposition is part of where his genius lay, and few other writers in Hollywood can accomplish this these days.
3. On the other side, the suspense does not build for nothing and this movie pops with crisp action. Since it’s a Tarantino movie, this means lots of guns, and they are put to good use here. Sometimes death comes in slow motion with music that is just right. Sometimes it is completely over the top and comical. And sometimes death is stark and ugly and completely unexpected, just like real life. But lethal justice is meted fairly in Tarantino’s worlds, even though the heroes sometimes die too. This is why I can sit next to someone in a theater whose favorite part of the film is a torture scene. Tarantino’s worlds are moral, even if they are twisted somewhat.
4. I NEVER know where the plot is going and this is totally awesome.
Inglourious Basterds is a Nazi war-movie, a revenge tale, an action flick, and a talkie film rolled into one. And you never know what’s coming at you next. Assassination attempts, comic cameos, scalpings; be ready because they are all here and unless you cheat and ask someone, you won’t know where.
If you’ve ever liked a Tarantino movie at all, or are appalled at the lack of originality and guts in modern cinema, Inglourious Basterds is the balm for what ails you. At the end of the day, you should see it because it is excellent movie making.
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Nathan is a husband, father, pastor, and writer. He is known as an aesthete of fine tobaccos and gets his kicks from teaching history to middle-school students.
These are his thoughts, what are yours?
Rethink Mission is about the intersection of the gospel, the church and culture. Weekly we feature reviews and other interactions with artistic expressions of the culture around us.
I can think of one reason why no believer should watch Tarantino’s films or any othersuch anti-Christ film or tv show: Philippians 4:8. You guys that (who knows, maybe even sincerely) cry out to God for revival and for his presence in your lives, etc. then sit down in front of a movie/tv program that so greives the Spirit of a Thrice Holy God that he would never draw near. It’s a shame. Give it up yall. Christ will never be “cool.”
Great stuff, Mattia. I haven’t seen it yet, but plan to soon. Thanks for not giving away the plot.
Timothy – instead of simply blasting condemnation, it would be helpful if you would articulate your thoughts a little better and enter into dialogue. Is the thrust of your objection the violence?
I agree that the violence is excessive. In fact, that is the point with Tarantino. Unlike most of the action movies out there that try to titilate the audience with safe-almost-offensive violence, Tarantino shocks his insensate audience back to life.
I taught Shakespeare’s MacBeth in a private Christian school for years. For all its poetry and Elizabethan English, it is an incredibly bloody and shocking play. It was designed to shock the audience with brutality – in order to explore the nature of ambition, morality, and beauty. Would you also condemn Shakespeare?
Wow- “anti-Christ film or tv show.” What does that even mean? Anything that’s not overtly Christian? Anything with violence? I’m reminded of how the Pharisees condemned Jesus for subjecting himself to people & places that they wouldn’t dare go. I’m guessing you didn’t watch Inglorious, huh?
Inglorious Bastards was a great film. I don’t necessarily applaud the violence, but the beauty in film making, originality, and redemption which it captures are amazing.
I was distracted when I read the disclaimer above and sort of woke up when I came to the part about taking risks and shocking his audience, often with hilarious results and I thought it was about you, Mattia. I’ll never forget your teaching at the men’s group. You were a hoot.
Totally unrelated to the above discussion, but I read a really interesting review of this somewhere that made me at least pause before going to see it. Reviewer points out that essentially, it’s about the Jews becoming the Nazis, and asking if that’s what we should really be rooting for.
It’s not just enough to have justice served on those we thought to be evil, but instead, the Jews in the crew become just as atrocious and cruel and violent as the Nazis actually were. I haven’t seen it yet, so I have no idea if it’s accurate, but it certainly made me stop for a second and think about it, because my first (probably subconscious) thought when I saw the trailers was “oh, that’ll be sweet to see the Nazis getting what they were dishing out.”
Which I didn’t realize until I read that review. Anyway. Feel free to straighten me out, you folks that have seen it. Totally talking blind here.
Ah, found the review. Was in Newsweek:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/212016
A couple quotes:
“In Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino indulges this taste for vengeful violence by—well, by turning Jews into Nazis. In history, Jews were repeatedly herded into buildings and burned alive (a barbarism on which the plot of another recent film, The Reader, hangs); in Inglourious Basterds, it’s the Jews who orchestrate this horror. In history, the Nazis and their local collaborators made sport of human suffering; here, it’s the Jews who take whacks at Nazi skulls with baseball bats, complete with mock sports-announcer commentary, turning murder into a parodic “game.” And in history, Nazis carved Stars of David into the chests of rabbis before killing them; here, the “basterds” carve swastikas into the foreheads of those victims whom they leave alive.”
And:
“Do you really want audiences cheering for a revenge that turns Jews into carboncopies of Nazis, that makes Jews into “sickening” perpetrators? I’m not so sure. An alternative, and morally superior, form of “revenge” for Jews would be to do precisely what Jews have been doing since World War II ended: that is, to preserve and perpetuate the memory of the destruction that was visited upon them, precisely in order to help prevent the recurrence of such mass horrors in the future. Never again, the refrain goes. The emotions that Tarantino’s new film evokes are precisely what lurk beneath the possibility that “again” will happen.”
Interesting thoughts for sure. And the review was written by a Jewish man, I believe.
Nathan, great review man. I personally really love Tarantino’s films…always have. I haven’t seen this one, but I don’t expect this to be any more or less amazing than any of his other films (including Grindhouse, which was awesomely bad).
As far as the “Christian” argument is concerned. Is it “bad” for you to watch violence in movies? Well, I don’t really know, but I’m guessing that when God commanded the Israelites to butcher thousands in the Old Testament they saw what was happening. However, if you feel the spirit leading you to not watch films that depict violence…then you shouldn’t!
That being said, I believe that out of a sense of desperation to find an identity that’s “not in the world” we, the body of Christ, have become hyper-sensitive to things that are not nearly as bad as we make them. Are we really in that great a need for something to be passionate about? I’m not. I love film! I love paint! I love music! I love all of my friends and especially my friends who are not believers! I love all of the things that God has put her for us to enjoy and all the things that Christ died to protect.
Sorry if that was a little long….The Dresden Dolls always get me all riled up…
If Christians can’t watch a film with bad language or violence, how can they expect that they will be able to move the areas of biggest need for a Savior?
Those areas will have the highest drug rate, highest violence rate and worst language. If you can’t watch a film without depending on the Holy spirit so you don’t sin, how could you live amongst the hurting?
Here goes a really long response…
*SPOILER ALERT*
As someone who’s seen the movie, who hasn’t ever really been enamored with Tarantino films in general (but who considers himself a lover of truly good film) and also as someone who is a Christian, my answer to the quesion is:
Yes: seeing a movie with strong violence and/or language CAN be helpful.
Though obviously it’s not an issue that’s so black-or-white as to say “yes, it is helpful” (which may imply that it’s ALWAYS helpful) or “no, it is not helpful” (which may imply that it’s NEVER helpful). It depends on the situation, really. For instance, this movie is generating a conversation about what is helpful for Christians to view and what isn’t. That in itself is a testament to just how “helpful” a movie such as this can be. But maybe it’s not so immediately helpful for a “young” Christian who is still trying to figure out what is helpful for him or herself as a Christian.
1 Corinthians 8 talks about a similar situation: whether or not eating meat sacrificed to idols is appropriate or not. For the weaker believer, it’s not. For the stronger believer (one who “knows better”) it’s fine–unless it makes the “weaker” believer stumble. Of course we don’t have to worry too much about eating meat sacrificed to non-existent idols in the United States in 2009. (Our biggest meat-eating concerns actually center around other concerns, both environmental and ethical–but that’s another issue.)
So let’s turn our attention to the content of the film itself and to whether or not the violence/language/etc of the film is helpful to Christians in any way. Like I said, so far it’s generated some conversation here about what might or might not be appropriate for a believer. And that’s a really good thing for individual Christians to personally and individually wrestle with. But is the violence helpful?
I think that, for me, yes it is. I also think that for our media-saturated society it is as well–not to mention appropriate.
Not only does the violence give us a brief glimpse (and terrifyingly, only a glimpse) of what happened to Jews during the Holocaust, but we also see to what extent the violence against Jews was cheered on by the Nazis. Of course this being a Tarantino film, he asks these questions through the use of film WITHIN his own film, while also turning these questions around and around. In Tarantino’s film, the Nazis were cheering on the violent exploits of a Nazi sniper who killed 300 enemy soldiers (and whose experience Goebbels had turned into the movie the Nazis were cheering). When Inglourious Basterds was over though, the crowd itself (myself included) was cheering the death of 300 Nazis (the theater where they were watching the movie burned down). Of course being burned to death was appropriate for the Nazis (who burned millions of Jews), but was cheering on the death of these 300 Nazis (who had been cheering on the death of 300 enemies) right? This is a human question, not just one for Christians. And it’s one that got me to thinking deeply about my own response.
Of course the film is much richer than just the irony I mentioned. Tarantino widens this question about racial violence with the inclusion of a Southern man (Pitt) with a little American Indian in his blood, who orders his men to scalp the Nazis they kill. He also (appropriately) marks the Nazis who he lets live with a scar on their foreheads (of a swastika). In one sequence of the film, Waltz’ character let a Jewish girl go free (after he’d killed her family), yet she was ultimately the one who burned the theater down (her lover was also black). So Tarantino widened the field to allow for these questions: which violence was ever appropriate to commit–the violence against Africans? American Indians? Jews? How about our own violence as we cheered the death of the Nazis? Is that appropriate?
Tarantino does offer us an alternate ending to WWII, and isn’t it one that we all wish were the real ending: with Hitler & all his men being burned to death during a night of violent entertainment. But in offering us this alternate ending, Tarantino actually never cheapens the weight of the fact that millions of Jewish people were really killed during WWII. If anything, through its fantasy re-enactment, it actually treats the fact of the Holocaust with gravity and solemnity–and it’s this that makes Inglourious Basterds an elegy of sorts for those who were really killed during WWII.
So is it helpful for Christians to watch violent movies? It’s not such an easy question to answer. If we patently say “yes” or “no” then we’re really ignoring the question and refusing to answer it with the kind of depth and respect that it deserves. And in each instance (and for each individual) there’s a lot that goes into trying to answer such questions.
It’s complex. And that’s the real answer I think. Christians need to possibly reside IN the question, and need to possibly resist a definite answer. God is often quiet in our lives and what does this do? It forces us to wrestle with really finding “the answer,” whatever the question might be.
Another aspect to the question is that, for Christians to ignore pertinent discussions going on in the culture in which they exist is to simply retreat from the culture. That reminds me of the separation of the Amish, and I think the Gospel deserves to be more than something that segregates people from one another.
On that note, I might recommend what is probably one of the best films i’ve ever seen: Silent Light (Stellet Licht) by Carlos Reygadas. The first 5 minutes alone are worth the purchase price. Other films include: The Seventh Seal, Ordet, Dreyer’s Joan of Arc, Eraserhead, 2001, Eyes Wide Shut (or really, anything by Kubrick) and anything by Stan Brakhage. This list could really go on… blah blah blah.
I’m sorry everyone for writing such a long response. This movie really, really got me thinking when my wife and I saw it. And it’s one that I think is going to keep me asking questions.
Is the same group of people who praised The Passion of the Christ criticizing the violence of Inglourious Or are both movies “antichrist” and unjustifiable for their historical depictions?
Those are all wonderful attempts to “rethink” what Christians should and should not think about, look at and watch. Now let’s look to the Word of God for the truth.
”Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8
It will be worth your time to do a word study on each of those words in order to resist loading them with a meaning of your own making. (i.e. “the critics loved it, so it must be praiseworthy!”) If something doesn’t measure up to God’s standard, I don’t care if it’s Shakespeare or Facing the Giants; it’s out. 99% pure, 1% pure – I’m not drinking it.
Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you” II Corinthians 6:17
To whoever suggested that we must defile ourselves with bad language and drugs and violence in order to minister to people who live around bad language drugs and violence… Something tells me that the extent of your ministering in the hood has been watching John Singleton movies, but just in case you’re serious, please consider the above.
“I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me” Psalm 101:3
Does somebody have a different translation with maybe a footnote there that says “except for really awesome culturally relevant movies and tv shows?”
‘Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee and established thee? (Deuteronomy 32:6
I’m sure the pastor who wrote this piece (along with Jonathan McIntosh and 99% of the other Christians reading this) have all read the above scriptures many times. The difference, I assume, will be in the “interpretation”. I am only left to assume that in some other interpretation of the Bible there is a god with whom holiness is only one of many available options for the believer, a god who winks at sin and chuckles at “corny, over the top” portrayals of murder. One who has a good sense of humor about wickedness when it’s only on tv. It’s not like you are actually murdering someone, you’re just watching someone pretend to murder someone. What’s the big deal? Like, everyone knows it’s not ok to fornicate, but it’s ok to watch pornography. Well, maybe if it’s softcore and the actors are just pretending to do it for the camera.
Please, please forgive me for not finding a more humble and gentle and loving way to say all of the above and if you are a brother please know that I am only motivated by love for Christ and a zeal to see his bride purified – but please, whatever you think of the way ive said what I’ve said, ask yourself if it’s true. Holiness unto the Lord!
Ps – the old culturally irrelevant (but true) phrase I meant to use up there is “99% pure,1% sewer – I’m not gonna drink.” And neither is a Thrice Holy God.
Timothy – “‘99% pure,1% sewer – I’m not gonna drink.’ And neither is a Thrice Holy God.” That is just not true. Jesus drank from a cup that was 0% pure, 100% sewer. He counted it joy to drink from such a cup that we might be saved. I would even go as far as to say that He not only drank from this cup, but He fully immersed Himself in it.
Jonathan McIntosh – “Is it helpful for Christians to watch movies with strong violence/language?” I would say that it depends. There are some movies that some of us should never watch, and we should have an attentive ear to the convictions of the Holy Spirit. And on the other side of that, we need to also have an attentive ear to what aspect of the gospel the Holy Spirit might be speaking into our lives through a particular movie. The gospel is in almost every movie, and we should be looking for where it is revealing itself so that we can show it to our unbelieving friends.
We also need to remember that we are ambassadors for Christ. Ambassadors learn the language and culture of the foreign land where they live. Movies, good or bad, are part of the language and culture of the foreign land we find ourselves in. We should prayerfully engage in this culture so that we might better share the language and culture of our Father’s home.
Timothy raises some points that need to be addressed. I think what we’ve got here ultimately is a basic conflict over no less than what the Christian life looks like and our mission on this earth is.
In way of addressing this, I’d like to start by asking a few questions.
-what does be “holy as I am holy” mean?
-what does mission look like in the New Testament Era?
-how does one keep personal holiness in a culture that is anti-God?
-how does one reach people in a culture that cares nothing for God?
-How much of human culture is effected by the fall?
-How much of human culture does God want to redeem?
-What is our part in that redemption?
-What examples of this are we given in the Bible?
-To what degree are we to participate in human culture?
-and what exactly is James referring to when he tells us that true religion is keeping oneself unstained by “the world”?
James – what was in the cup that Christ drank? The cup that he repeatedly begged the Father to allow to pass from him, if at all possible? What could have been in that cup that the very thought of having to drink from it caused the God/Man Jesus Christ’s soul to be “exceedingly sorrowful, even to death”? Just the thought of having to drink the contents of that cup caused our Lord to agonize in prayer all night long until large drops of blood dropped out of the pores of his skin. So, James, answer me this one question: What was in the cup that Christ drank?
-what does be “holy as I am holy” mean?
See what men like Stephen Charnock, Arthur W. Pink and A. W. Tozer have to say about God’s holiness in their respective works on the Attributes of God. You will not find any more careful and thoroughly biblical treatments of the subject than theirs.
In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet, under the influence of the Spirit, says: “Are You not from everlasting. O LORD, my God, my Holy One? [...] Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor.”
There is one small glimpse of the holiness of our God that we are commanded to imitate. What about you, Christian? Can you look on wickedness with favor in movies/tv? Do you approve evil by watching other people sin and by encouraging others to do the same? If you do you do so on your own. God can not look on wickedness or approve evil because he is holy, and he has commanded us to imitate him. Holy can be biblically defined as: “Utterly pure, separated from sin.” The Bible tells us that God hates sin, that he cannot sin nor will he tempt others to sin. God is so pure that he cannot tolerate sin in any form in his presence. That leads to an important implication: holiness and sin cannot coexist. If you want to be holy as God is holy, you must adopt his attitude toward sin. You must abhor it as he does. If you coddle sin or excuse it or dabble in it you cannot be holy as he is holy.
The rest of your questions must be answered through the lens of the above truth.
Pastor Mattia, I earnestly hope that biblically-informed answers are of more importantance to you than the simple act of asking questions; and I would love to hear your answers to the questions you posed above.
Also, James – if you’re still out there, I am waiting for you to clarify your previous statement by answering the question I asked you above. If James has moved along, someone else please take a stab at it for him.
Hi Tim,
To reiterate what I said above, only more succinctly: Tarantino, with this film, is drawing attention to the fact of Nazi violence (as well as our own, & other historical violence) within the context of viewing movies in a movie theater. & also (in particular) the glorification of violence (in ourselves &)in the media.
My own perspective toward this film (& POSSIBLY other violent films) are all absolutely, 100% informed by all of the Bible verses you mentioned:
Philippians 4:8-
Tarantino’s film forces the viewer to direct the question about whatever things are pure and holy (that’s a paraphrase, obviously) toward the violence we’ve seen in the past, *as well that part of ourselves* that makes us applaud the death of even the most historically vile governmental system of certainly the 20th century, if not all of history.
That CLEARLY jibes with the quote Phillippians, by asking us to ask those questions of ourselves.
II Corinthians 6:17-
Again, Tarantino’s film asks us to ask ourselves “what is unclean” in our own actions and in our own beliefs. These questions again, obviously clearly jibe with what God asks of us through the Bible.
Psalm 101:3-
Certainly violence & murder is wicked. Again, Tarantino’s film points a finger right at that fact. & for those humans (& unfortunately Christians sometimes) that think it’s OK for this kind of violence (yes, even in the case of wars past and present) THOSE are the people that have turned aside from the Lord.
Deuteronomy 32:6-
I’m pretty sure I’ve established the connection between asking ourselves what is wrong with a violence that we endorse (through war, government action, and applauding the violence of a movie) with what God does NOT want. To do that, I have shown, is what angers the Lord.
Also, my comments earlier are directed toward a deepening of our faith through asking these kinds of questions. We DO hopefully come to answers (as I have even through Tarantino’s film) through this kind of questioning, rather than making sweeping assumptions about the Bible & about what God asks of us. Assumptions only lead to more assumptions and a shallow faith, which is NOT what I want–and probably most of the people reading this site.
To take something seriously, in this case a film, you have to approach it on its own terms:
Is a dumb summer action flick all it wants to be? In that case, count me out: that kind of violence is EXACTLY what Tarantino is criticizing here (as well as the genuine violence of war).
Is it something that people watch just because it’s cool, awesome & culturally relevant? The assumption that this is the only reason people watch a movie like this undercuts the intelligence people might use when approaching something like this as a “serious” statement–though there are people who see it just because it’s cool unfortunately.
Is it something that is just a series of violent images in front of people’s eyes? MAYBE. & that’s the point with the majority of voices here. To each his own, as the old adage goes. Or to return to what I mentioned before, it CAN be helpful, to those who aren’t weak in their faith. To those who are weak in their faith, or who don’t/can’t appreciate it for what (I think) Tarantino intends for this film, then go see something else, or spend the night on the internet.
The unfortunate truth of the internet though, is that it’s not 100% pure either (a quick search will prove that point). & neither is language (truly), or the cellphones we use (I’m stretching into hyperbole here to hopefully prove a point).
Good can sometimes come out of “bad.” This film is an intelligent (& perhaps ironic) example.
& didn’t something good come from Nazareth?
& by the way, i’m not going to join in on this anymore.
spending my time like i have so far arguing for/against something on the internet is a waste of life in my humble opinion.
also in my humble opinion is that we should try to look past whatever differences we have because we are to be UNITED in Christ.
let’s pray for that.
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