let's not get too carried away by Inglorious Basterds

(first of all please correct me if I am wrong but..)....here is Tarantino and Hollywood trying to 're-write' history portraying clandestine/resitence soldiers as heros when WE all know (and that Tarantino would like the public to forget for the purpose of his film) the horrendous acts of retaliation the Nazis took on the civilian population for acts of resistance terrorism.
I believe, and please correct me if I am wrong, but the resistance was often considered as 'necessary evil' by the civilian population because they would surely take the brunt of the Nazi reprisals.
Didn't the Germans used to take 10 civilians for each German killed by the resisitance?
Well Mr. Pitt your 100 scalps would mean 1000 civilian executions and now taratino wants to portray them as heros, or it seems to me from the trailers.
Sure Hollwood has to do it's thing and Nazis are easy targets nowadays as instant villains to be had no compassion for but twisting history, and THIS history, the memory of civilians lost, really bothers me.
What do you think?

 

I think........

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-films-tv/33421-tarantinos-inglourious-basterds.html

 

Alright, well I for one am a supporter of this movie, I do not believe that it is a movie to "rewrite" history, but it is a movie that takes place during world war ii, it does involve Hitler, Nazis, Jewish civilians, the US Army, and it does involve a lot of bloodshed.

But it does not make any attempt to rewrite what we know, here we have a movie about a group of Jewish soldiers which in the real world never existed and they take revenge against the Germans and the Nazi party.

Because the soldiers never existed they can do whatever they want within that timeline and make it their own, just as we have science fiction movies such as warbirds which takes place during wwii and has soldiers fighting dinosaurs in the japanese islands we have this film.

Yes the Germans would exact revenge against the civillian population, but in any circumstance there is no or never would be any guarantee that the army wouldn't take any actions against the civillians even without a civillian uproar, or sabotage.

It is a movie and made for entertainment purpopses, it is not there to educate us, give us a lesson, teach us a moral, it is there for entertainment. Just like every movie about the Cold War the nemesis was Mother Russia, in World War II movies the main enemy is Germany and then Japan but in a very distant 2nd.

The movie is not stating every German Nazi fighting against the Allies in WWII were Jew and Gypsy killing villians, but just they were fighting for the other side, and Aldo Raine, and Donny Donnowitz is going to take revenge on the germans and take their scalps in the process.

 

I think that it is a fictional movie and I personally am opposed to when people complain and fuss about fictional movies or books. It is made to entertain and to make money, watch it and move on. If you don't agree with the movie, then don't see it, just please don't complain about it.

 

A strictly for entertainment movie. Watch it and get a kick out of it. Personally, I will wait for it on DVD.

 

I do see what chdoyle is trying to say, that perhaps when the younger ones see it, it could possibly plant untrue seeds in their minds on how the war went down.
My suggestion is this; when i watch something not entirely accurate (e.g.U571), just think of the number of people watching. It's just more people who are going to think of ,and hopefully remember the heroics, horrors, and the fallen.
When the last of the survivors has past, all we are going to have left is our books, and our movies... (For those, not as addicted like us, on this forum anyway)

 

I do agree that this is just entertainment, but at the same time I keep getting told that, apparently, 'the young of today have no patience with books etc'. So I just get a sneaking feeling that they go away from movies such as Pearl Harbor or U-571 thinking - hey, that's how it was.....

 

Hi Jon, well said and that's EXACTLY what I have been trying to get across to others for years now-about movies such as: U 571 and Enemy At the Gates and Battle of the Bulge. I wonder if I should actually complain about what was shown in the great Gregory Peck sea adventure: Horatio Hornblower??? Heck no im not complaining that that movie wasn't historically accurate-who cares if it was meant to be or not? it still was/is a great movie.

As for "Pearl Harbor"-there's no hope for that lost cause.

U 571, all I ever see in complaints about that movie is how the movie makers shafted real history by snubbing the RN on the capture of the Enigma. And if my other postings about the movie and now this one is actually read-I stated just what the film stated as well-that the British captured the Enigma before we did-and it so clearly states in the movie that they did so. It's claimed that hollywood all so conviently left the RN out of the credits-however, the version of the movie I saw at the theaters as well as on TV and on DvD, clearly gives the RN all due credit for the capture of the Enigma-and stated so before we got our mitts on one.

The standard negativity I often read people moaning and groaning about dealing with Battle of the Bulge-is that the tanks used in in the movie as German Tigers-look nothing like German tanks. My comeback always is an I guess will never change-is: the ones making that movie simply just cannot pull a Brigade of Tiger Tanks out of their own back pockets-now can they?

Im not even going to start in on Enemy At the Gates.

Now, why doesn't anyone ever moan and groan about movies like: Battle For the Last Panzer-which is utter and total garbage. Castle Keep is another one as well as Slaughterhouse Five--yet-I have actually seen and read positive comments about the last two of those three mentioned.

 

Thank you Krazy. This is the first reason we should be bothered about the film (as people who care about historic accuracy and respect to the millions of innocent lives lost). It's these films that condition the memory of vast public majority. Very few will take the time to investigate what 'really happened'. Many many people will come out thinking 'this is the way it was' unless there is some kind of disclaimer in the credits (which only 1% wait to see). That's just the way people are, it will be considered 'true'.
If they were sabotaging ammmunition dumps, cutting communications and rail lines the, which were the principle activities of resitance groups, these soldiers in the film might get off with being 'heros' but as we have seen from the trailer they were out to 'kill Nazis' probably without showing the backlash of their actions.
Secondly the argument, 'it's just a film, or just entertainment' I do not buy it because of the sensitive material involved.
Let's just pretend you are going to see the film with a special friend. He would be one of the unfortunate civilians hung in Tulle as a reprisal for resistance activities in 1944. I for one would be very uncomfortable watching a movie glorifying these resistance heros without mentioning or remembering the civilians who lost their lives and were equally, or in fact more so, heroic than those shown in the film.

 

This movie has changed enough events in the movie that if you would wait before judging the film and watch it then you would know that someone would have to be a complete ignoramous to believe that the movie is based on factual events.

IF people do not take the time out of their own lives to know what is truth and what is fiction then that is unfortunate for them, but I refuse to be limited by the entertainment I watch or I refuse to accept that movies should be limited or be carried with disclaimers in movies because someone isnt willing to know whats truth and what is fiction.

 

Make fiction out of Shakespeare, make fiction out ancient Greece but don't make fiction out of WWII when it serves to show disrespect for those who died in order that we may have the freedom and life styles we have today.
Maybe in America where that homeland was only marginally threatened your respect for those who served extend principally to the soldiers who fought but here in Europe, Luxembourg where I am to be exact, it is equally evident the sacrifices made by both the soldier and the civilians alike.

 

First posters have appeared in London and they don't vcarry the name of the movie ; they just say 'The New Movie By Quentin Tarantino'.

Reminds me of when the Sex Pistols' album was released.....

 

That sounds incredible....are they THAT conservative?!

 

I recall reading that NAZI policy in Serbia was to inflict 100:1 casualties against the civilian population for every German soldier killed. This did have a chilling effect with the Chetniks. In France the Maquis did not really activate until after Normandy for fear of reprisals. In Belarus the population figured that the NAZIs meant to kill them all anyhow and it was better to resist. So were the policies of mass atrocity helpfull to the purpose of keeping calm in the rear? The chilling answer would seem to be to be "yes."
JeffinMNUSA

 

LOL @ Battle of the last panzer... Agreed. It should be compulsory watching, purely for the epic disgracefulness of it. LOL again

 

That one sure was a real stinker. I can't honestly think of another movie that is worse than that one is. Not even Plan 9 From Outerspace-was THAT bad. BFtLP is much more terrible than even the lousiest of movies done by Ed Wood-and that's saying a lot.

 

There is a difference between what is possible to bring to the screen and what is not.

1- Does historical exactitude or a sense of wanting to be true to the source material slow down or mar the entertainment value of the film (does it become just a boring history lesson instead of compelling drama)?

This is a balancing act that many script writers and directors get into trouble with. How close is "The Longest Day" to Cornelius Ryan's book? How can you distill such a monumental event involving a million participants into a two or three hour movie? I submit that it ia all but impossible. You can only give a glimpse of the event. Slivers of facts while making it compelling.

2- Is it realistic or possible to bring it to the screen (in a world where there is not a single Panzer tank still in existence, how can you stage a brigade strength attack? or Can you stage the story in the location where the action actually took place?)

Back in 1965 it was not feasible, so Battle of the Bulge has Sherman tanks fighting Sherman tanks. Its ludicrous from any sort of military hardware perspective, but it is oh so much fun to see so many vintage tanks on screen firing at each other. Its hokum on a grand scale. Today CGI can take care of a lot of this. Of course the whole idea of this battle hinging on armor when most of it took place in dense forest is ludicrous.

3- Is your aesthetic intention clearly stated so you wont frustrate expectation?

If a film team reproducing an attack on Pearl Harbor gets the markings on a CGI aeroplane wrong that's just sloppy research and execution. If they constantly state in the pre-release marketing that their intention to pay hommage to the men and women who suffered and sacrificed during a battle and the movie turns out to be a big comic book (à la Armaggedon)... That's just disrespectful.

If, however, the director IS KNOWN for comic book type movies with monster sharks and dinosaurs and he turns out a "Schindler's List" it is in poor taste to criticize the presence of a car of the wrong period or a wristwatch of the wrong type in one scene of the movie. That's just picking nits.

For U-571 I think they were hoist by their own marketing petard. They just wanted to make a good old fashioned adventure story and enigma was a McGuffin. Unfortunately they didn't have the guts to just say "Lets cast it with Brits" or lets have Mathew McConnaha try a Limey accent a show what a poor actor he is. Sure as sh*t Ridley Scott didn't even ask Harvey Keitel to do an accent in the Duellists and that's a classic.

What do you think? Is the intention more important in some cases than the execution?

 

Hmm the return of the dead thread...

Dreadful film. Incorrect in detail or sprit and rather discrediting the actual attitudes of Jewish Servicemen. I asked a Jewish WW2 abotu his thoughts of revenge. His answer was that yer he thought about shootign SSmen out of hand, but he could do it. I would like to think that hsi values were more representative of the actios of the United Nations which won the war, rather than the revenge fantasies of Tarantino.

Given the choice between myth and truth they print and start to believe the myth, no matter how absurd. Hence Washington and cherry trees and the people who take their interpretation of WW1 from Blackadder and Birdsong.