Michael Rydberg
Iain Ellis
English 203
9 December 2013
Quentin
Tarantino
Youth rebellion has been a huge
part of American society, but has been especially prevalent in the movie
industry. One movie writer who has been rebellious throughout his movies is Quentin
Tarantino. His two most recent movies, Inglourious
Basterds and Django: Unchained,
have exemplified his rebellious attitudes and writing. He is able to shed a
humorous light on some of the most horrific periods of time in the history of
the world. Tarantino is able to appeal to much of the youth population in his
writing styles as well as his attitudes towards the people of power throughout
history. Tarantino successfully rebels against the norms of the movie industry
by using his fantasy mind to create an alternate history through the use of
satire, mockery, and over the top language.
The first movie to look at is Inglourious Basterds. This movie is a depiction of World War II,
where the Nazi’s are looking for Jews and the Nazi’s are taking over Europe.
There are 8 Jews in America who are chosen to go to France and execute Nazi’s. Each man is required to scalp one hundred
Nazi’s. Their task as many would believe would be nearly impossible to have been
a success, but they are able to make the most out of their mission. Then a
Jewish woman is able to kill all of the high brass Germans in a cinema that
they light on fire and shoot all of the Nazi leaders. (Inglourious Basterds)
The
other movie, Django: Unchained, is
set just before the civil war in the South of the United States. There is a
Bounty Hunter, Dr. Shultz, who frees Django from slavery and has him help find three
men who have worked on one of Django’s previous plantations. When that was a
success, Shultz takes Django along and they begin collecting bounties as a
team. This is not liked by many men who are able to see Django treated with
much respect, required by Shultz. After some time of working with Dr. Shultz,
he decides to keep working together through the winter. He also helps find
Django’s wife, Broomhilda who is at one of the biggest plantations in the
South, Candyland. (Django Unchained)
Both of these movies are able to
take a terrible point in history and through his use of fantasy make a new kind
of history, where the minority and oppressed are able to come back and
challenge as well as take over the oppressors.
Critic Tom Charity calls Inglourious
Basterds an “outrageous revisionist revenge fantasy” (Charity). Tarantino
is able to shed a new light on what could have happened in history and gives
the Jews an alternate look on the way the war could have gone. Although no one
would believe it, he is able to take a sticky situation and make it into a
humorous movie beloved by many. The violence used is so far over the top that
no one would believe it could actually happen. The basterds are a good
representation of a group who fights back at those who have changed their
lives. Through the use of “inversion,” Tarantino is able to help reverse the
history and shed a different light on the holocaust to make it seem better for
the Jews, and worse for the Nazi’s (Mendelsohn). Although some do not agree or
take offense to his style of writing, he sticks to what he knows best and is
able to make successful films. That is part of his rebellion. Everyone is not
going to like a rebellious writer, and his appeal is towards the younger
generations. The people who would take offense are the ones who lived during
the travesty. His idea of revenge can bring people together though, if they can
look beyond face value. He takes everything the Nazi’s had and ruins it, and
that can make the idea more acceptable. His movie can be contrasted by those of
Steven Spielberg, like Saving
Private Ryan. This movie is a very accurate account of the invasion at
Normandy in World War II. Spielberg makes his work to appeal to those who want
the honest and truthful movie that is more like a documentary and brings the
violence in as a real vision of what was happening, rather than falsifying it
for humorous purpses. These two movies show the age gap in America. The older
generation likes Spielberg, while much of the youth would like the humor
Tarantino is able to put in the movie. This is able to exemplify the reasons of
his rebellion because he uses nearly no true information, but uses the
imagination to create a mere fantasy for the period of WWII in which the Jews
are successful in taking down the Nazi’s, instead of following the gruesome
truth of what actually occurred then. Tarantino is able to resist the
mainstream documentary that most find as the best movie looking on an event in
the past.
In Django Unchained, Tarantino is able to do a similar thing. He has
Django become a bounty hunter to kill white men in the south. There was no way
any black slave could be freed in the south and find respect in so many places
during that time period, which can exemplify the inversion of history. He was
able to get revenge on those who made his life hell while he was enslaved. This
transfer of power gives the enslaved a chance to get back at those who rule
them. Although it was impossible the transfer of power in that time period, it expresses
how the society has turned now with less racism and anyone can have any job. According to American History USA, “A
black man could never get away with killing two white men in 1858 Tennessee” (Bryan).
This is very true in the fact that not many black men had rights in the south
during the slave times. This is used as a way for the slaves to fight back
against the white people who were ruling them. Tarantino is trying to give the
enslaved a good ending in their lives as a slave. In
the movie, Dr. Shultz asks “How do you like the bounty hunting business?” and
Django replies “Kill white people and get paid for it? What’s not to like?” (Django Unchained). This Quote shows how
over the top, and how Django is in a major fantasy land. Django is able to
fight back at those, especially the Brittle Brothers, who made his life
miserable when enslaved. He is allowed to do nearly anything he wants, and has all
the rights of any person in the nation. The movie also brings a twist of a
western into it. This makes the movie more unrealistic because those are two
completely time periods, but Tarantino is able to bring them together.
Tarantino is able to make a movie that is completely over top believable and
entertaining to the audience. This has great appeal to youth because they are
concerned about a good storyline more than the complete truth. They are less
worried about the truth and accuracy of history, but would rather laugh and
enjoy a movie that is meant to solely entertain and take revenge on those who
gave the blacks no rights in the pre-Civil War era.
One way Tarantino is able to
present these outrageous fantasies is through the use of mockery and
satire. One scene from Inglourious Basterds that shows this is
when the Germans are in the cinema watching their account of killing everyone throughout
WWII, but then the Jew owner of the cinema lights the movie reels on fire,
causing the Germans burn and be locked in the cinema while the Jews can kill
them. This is mocking the Germans, because just before they were laughing and relishing
their accounts of killing others, and now they are in the same spot as those
they had kill. Also the use of fire pokes fun at the way they were killing
Jews. Everything they did was turned around on them.
The way the basterds
must kill the Nazis by scalping them is another way to degrade the Germans and
help get revenge at those who were the bad guys. In Django, there is a scene
where a group of white men put sheets over their heads and acts like they are a
part of the KKK, but the scene turns into an argument over the eye holes. This
scene is considered a “SNL type skit” as they just complain about their hoods,
while they should have much more on their minds (Denby). SNL is a show that
makes parodies about recent problems in the world. SNL has been a show that
appeals to much of the youth population, and emulating this can bring more
likeness from them. This humor appeal is great to make people enjoy the movie.
Another reason this scene can be found humorous is the KKK had never been
created by this point, so it is almost a retro-fitting of what they would have
done in pre-Civil War. This is another point where the actual history is being
altered to be used as a point of humor. They are more worried about the hoods
than they are their main goal, Django. Tarantino is able to make fun of the KKK
and how some things they did could go completely wrong and made them seem not
as bad. They had bad intentions, but were unable to succeed in the effort.
The last way
Tarantino appeals to his youth rebellion writing is through his use of over the
top, explicit language. In Django,
the use of “nigger” is present throughout the whole movie, whether it is a
plantation worker or owner, or Django or Stephen. It is said “one hundred and
ten times” which is a great amount to use one word, especially one of the most
vulgar terms in the present day society that no white person is supposed to
say. Some can see it as showing how life was during the years of slavery, but
others say the overuse of the word makes it lose its “didactic value as a sign
of racism” (Denby). By the end of the movie, after it has been said so many
times, it just becomes a normal word in the movie that causes people to think
less about the word. Having Django say it, makes him to seem more white than
black in his actions, as he is able to control them and kill the whites. In Inglourious Basterds, Lt. Aldo Raine
talks about a meeting he had set up by one of his men, saying “You didn't say
the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin' basement” (Inglourious Basterds). This is a great example of the language that
fills a Tarantino movie. Many people take offense to the language he uses, because
it can be too over the top. This harsh language is becoming a part of the
younger society as they rebel against the older society who believes in being
proper and polite. He abolishes all of those thoughts and just does what he
thinks will get the youth population the most pleasure from his movie.
As you can see, Tarantino takes
a very unordinary track on his moviemaking. He does not worry about what anyone
will think, rather makes the movie he sees as being the best and most
successful. His writing is one-of-a-kind and can be spotted and known instantly.
He attacks the people of power, whether it is the Nazi’s during WWII or the
whites during slavery, and shines a microscope on them and allows the oppressed
to take their hatred out on them. He revolts in the way his imagination can
take his movies to an extreme that not many would ever think to see. Tarantino
says, “Holocaust movies are always having Jews as the victims… I want something
different. Let’s see the Germans that are scared of the Jews” (Rainer). This
quote is able to show Tarantino does not care what others do, but would much
rather see things from his point of view. His love for the revenge brings out a
new type of movie as well as his blend of genres in his movies. This makes him
a remarkable writer and one who rebels against the norms of Hollywood writers.
Works Cited
Bryan, Dan. "Django Unchained or Django
Unhinged? A Critical Perspective." American History USA RSS. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.americanhistoryusa.com/django-unchained-or-django-unhinged-a-critical-perspective/>.
Charity, Tom. "Review:'Basterds Is Quite
Glorious'" CNN. Cable News Network, 21 Aug. 2009. Web. 11 Dec.
2013. <http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/21/review.basterds/>.
Denby, David. "“Django Unchained”: Put-On,
Revenge, and the Aesthetics of Trash." The New Yorker. N.p., 22
Jan. 2013. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/01/django-unchained-reviewed-tarantinos-crap-masterpiece.html>.
Django Unchained. By Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Jamie Foxx and
Christoph Waltz. Anchor Bay Entertainment, 2013. DVD.
Inglourious
Basterds. Dir. Quentin
Tarantino. Perf. Brad Pitt. Universal Studios, 2009. DVD.
Mendelsohn, Daniel. "Tarantino Rewrites the
Holocaust." Newsweek. N.p., 13 Aug. 2009. Web. 8 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.newsweek.com/tarantino-rewrites-holocaust-79003>.
Rainer, Peter. "Review: 'Inglourious
Basterds'" The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science
Monitor, 21 Aug. 2009. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Movies/2009/0821/p17s02-almo.html>.
