Inglourious Basterds analysis

Inglorious Basterds

This is an American-German film made in 2009 and the genre of this film is War. The themes that ran throughout this film were violence, revenge, conflict, discrimination, etc. This film was directed and written by Quentin Tarantino, produced by Lawrence Bender and cinematography by Robert Richardson.  The production company of this film was A Band Apart, Studio Babelsberg and distributed by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures. The budget of the film was $70 million and made a box office at $321.5 million.  The location of the film is in England and Germany and most of the languages were set in English, German and French.

The scene opens with the title, directors and company production credits. It then says ‘chapter 1, once upon a time in Nazi occupied France’ already showing that it is a Nazi based story. Already from the word ‘Nazi’ suggests that this is a war like film involving Hitler, the holocaust and features involving WW2.  The scene opens up with a wide shot view of a house based in a farm with cows, green field and a man axing a tree down.  The scene then presents a woman hanging laundry, then noticing a vehicle coming their way from a far distance. The micro feature of performance is used by the woman presenting her fear when seeing the vehicles and also by communicating with the man the audience first saw at the beginning.  The close up shot of their face shows how they feel fearful, potentially foreshadowing something to occur in the film.

The audience notice that it is the colonel visiting this family, already performance and mis-en-scene with

their military clothing shows why such a superior man is coming to a man that lives in a farm.  The colonel clearly asks the owner whether he is hiding any Jews in his house, the man denies it and a camera shot shows that he is hiding Jews beneath his floorboards, again shows why these German soldiers are here. The soldier continues to interrogate the man showing his dominance through performance.  The man gives up and tells him that he is hiding Jews, close up shot showing his fear and his face about to tremble when he tells the colonel. Making the audience understand and feel sympathetic.