Comments on: Inglourious Basterds.

By: Jack Ferguson

Jack Ferguson — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:54:04 +0000

Hope this review didn’t come across as too wordy and referencing too many old movies-it was written for Scottish Socialist Voice, and it isn’t in a very Leftfield-y style.

I don’t want to say the specific scenes in the film because it would add more spoilers to an already spoilery review, but I just think he consistently shows the torture and murder of women, especially counterposed to things like makeup, fancy clothes etc. Have you seen From Dusk Til Dawn? QT co-stars in and wrote that I think. And whatever spin you put on it the Kill Bill films are a large part about hurting women.

I think QT is a great artist who also clearly has some serious issues with women, which he tries to defend himself against by making strong female protagonists. It doesn’t change the fact that depicting this stuff on screen is a large part of his body of work.

By: Andy Bowden

Andy Bowden — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:11:06 +0000

I think Stuntman Mike was glamorised though – he had the cool lines, the car, etc. The setup may have been him as a serial killer but he was still obviously meant to be a cool QT character, and I think a lot of young men seeing it would have identified him as the hero of the film instead of the women at the end.

By: Neil Bennet

Neil Bennet — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:01:40 +0000

I don’t understand the suggestion that Death Proof “glamourise[d] women being killed by a sadist”. You did watch it to the end, right? At no stage was the killer a particularly sympathetic character, and the second half of the film is much more to do with the young women who eventually catch and beat up the guy at the end (i.e. they were the “heroes” of the film, to the extent that it had or needed any). I don’t think it was a very good film, and I enjoyed Planet Terror a lot more, but I still don’t understand why it should be singled out as anathema by feminist groups.

By: Andy Bowden

Andy Bowden — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:17:55 +0000

Good review Jack.

I thought Basterds was really good, I was quite worried going to see it because it’s got some fair amount of (totally unjustified) flak which I don’t think would occur if it wasn’t a Tarantino film.

That said I can see where the critics are coming from while disagreeing with them – a lot of the dialogue scenes go on for a while (and are all in subtitles) and aren’t as sharp as Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.

But they can also be very tense – the opening scene with the SS Colonel and the farmer is brilliant. There is also a lot of tension in the Tavern scene, though I can see how folk would get bored with the card game they are playing.

Where did you think Quentins misogyny issues came up though? Talk to us later if it’d spoil the plot etc but I think it’s quite weird that in some films like Deathproof he can glamourise women being killed by a sadist, and in films like Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds he has strong female leads.