# Inglourious Basterds - Shosanna and Landa (open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 24, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613 "2010-05-24T20:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/21 "2010-05-29T04:53:47Z")
> [@straight\_man](#): > > You’re misremembering that scene. The Basterds definitely do get some satisfaction — they’re all whooping it up at the end. I don’t think there’s really a contrast going on in that sense — both the protagonists and the antagonist are nasty people, but one is on the good side, and the other isn’t. Watching it again on YouTube I think the truth is somewhere in between. I think Pitt’s character and most of the Basterds are gleeful, but there’s a look on “the Bear Jew”'s face as he touches the bat to the officer’s head [and the officer doesn’t flinch] that makes you realize he does respect him. ([About :27 into this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma-2Z_aHjTo&feature=related).) Admittedly I might be reading that into it. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/22 "2010-05-29T05:19:01Z")
I agree with **Skammer** and **Bosstone**. 1.) He wanted to fuck with her. 2.) He didn’t know who she was. But he wanted to fuck with her. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/23 "2010-05-29T10:45:20Z")
I have been waffling on this. Currently I do not believe Landa knew Shosanna was specifically the girl who escaped from him in the opening scene. However, her reaction to him made him realize that he had fucked with her in the past, even if he can’t place exactly where, and he was poking to make her squirm. ---
**Author:** ![mikews99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@mikews99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikews99)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/24 "2010-05-29T21:16:07Z")
1.) She was too far away. The Luger P08 was one of the most accurate handguns of WWII, but even a marksman using a rest (not a forearm), would have trouble hitting a target more than 100m away. 2.) Landa ordering milk for Shosanna hinted that he remembered her, but the rest of the scene indicated that he really didn’t care, although he still enjoyed screwing with her. Plot-wise though, that might be a weakness since a dedicated officer would certainly not let someone with motives for revenge get anywhere near Hitler. But since we find out later that Landa pretty much had an idea what the protagonists were up to beforehand, it makes more sense for him to let her be. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/25 "2010-05-29T21:22:20Z")
Some trivia I’ll mention just because: Christoph Waltz who played Landa is the first male actor ever to win an Oscar for playing a Nazi (the first ever was Kate Winslet for _The Reader_). An irony is that in real life his son is an orthodox rabbi in Israel ([cite](http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/39722/celebrity-jews1/)). Waltz himself is not Jewish but his American ex-wife was. I wonder to what degree if any this informed his performance as “the Jew Hunter”. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/26 "2010-05-29T21:42:42Z")
Don’t know, but as long as we’re musing off-topic, I was just thinking yesterday about how it must have felt for German actors in 1940s Hollywood to be typecast as Nazis, considering many of them had left their homeland because they had ample reason to hate and/or fear the ruling party. (E.g, \*Casablanca’\*s “Major Strasser” had a Jewish wife. And one of his first leading roles was a sympathetic portrayal of a homosexual, which probably didn’t endear him to the fascists.) ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/27 "2025-05-27T16:49:21Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > Thoughts? I finally watched this movie over the holiday weekend, and the entire plot of this movie made no sense, so why should any single part of it? The movie really struck me the wrong way because they took one of the most important historical narratives in history and made a complete farce out of it. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/28 "2025-05-27T17:34:49Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > they took one of the most important historical narratives in history and made a complete farce out of it. Definitely don’t watch _Once Upon A Time In Hollywood._ While not to the level of the Holocaust and WWII, rewriting the Tate-LaBanca murders into a happy ending to me is worse, because the victims are not abstractions (or Hitler) but real people in living memory. I enjoyed the surprise ending of IB as a one-off, but refuse to think all QT movies exist in the same universe (that if you asked Vincent Vega how WWII ended, he’d say Hitler died in a fire in Paris). ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/29 "2025-05-28T04:33:50Z")
This thread reappearing led me to a theory that offering milk/creme and a pastry probably containing lard was a secret test of Jewishness. Hmmm. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/30 "2025-05-28T07:41:55Z")
I have some serious issues with this film. The first, of course, is that it has almost no action in it. You’d think that a movie about elite soldiers hunting Nazis would feature a scene or two of them actually fighting, but no: you see them talk about fighting, you see the aftermath of fighting, but actual fighting? Barely any of that here. I also don’t like how Tarantino tried to force his obsession with revenge and torture where it really isn’t appropriate. You don’t waste time intimidating and torturing a Nazi while the war is still being fought - you kill him, and then you move on to the next one. The time for revenge, if at all, is after the war’s over. But my biggest issue with the movie was Jew erasure. Shoshana was great - I have absolutely no complaints about Shoshana (although she really shouldn’t have allowed herself to be sucker shot like that in the end). No, my problem was with the so-called elite Jewish squad. A crack team of Jewish soldiers! Except… their commander isn’t Jewish. And the biggest, toughest one? Also not Jewish. And the suave, handsome spy they recruit for undercover work? You guessed it: not Jewish. It ended up being a movie about some Gentile heroes and their near-silent Jewish sidekicks. Who never shoot at anyone capable of shooting back. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/31 "2025-05-28T12:59:34Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > . And the biggest, toughest one? Also not Jewish. Donnie Donowitz? The Bear Jew? Played by Jewish actor Eli Roth? Why do you say he wasnt Jewish? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/32 "2025-05-28T13:08:14Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Donnie Donowitz? The Bear Jew? Played by Jewish actor Eli Roth? Why do you say he wasnt Jewish? No - Hugo Stiglitz, who was the toughest guy on the team, wasn’t Jewish, and actually got a backstory. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/33 "2025-05-28T13:13:23Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I also don’t like how Tarantino tried to force his obsession with revenge and torture where it really isn’t appropriate. You don’t waste time intimidating and torturing a Nazi while the war is still being fought - you kill him, and then you move on to the next one. The time for revenge, if at all, is after the war’s over. The only one they intimidated was in order to get operational information from him? And the purpose of the Basterds was more terrorism and propaganda than it was anything else so I think it’s fine anyway. Plus, you know, it’s not meant to be realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/34 "2025-05-28T13:50:58Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I also don’t like how Tarantino tried to force his obsession with revenge and torture where it really isn’t appropriate. I think it’s the other way around, actually – it’s the historical milieu that arguably isn’t appropriate, but the real core of the movie is that it’s an updated version of an Elizabethan / Jacobean revenge tragedy, which means the torture / revenge themes are integral. (Seriously, if you know the genre, Tarantino hits _every_ element, including some highly specific stuff like incorporating the performing arts into your revenge. And Shoshana has to die because revengers always die at the end, regardless of whether they absolutely _need_ to in plotting terms.) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/35 "2025-05-28T14:13:51Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I also don’t like how Tarantino tried to force his obsession with revenge and torture where it really isn’t appropriate. That’s pretty much every QT movie, starting with _Reservoir Dogs_. Sometimes it works, or at least, fits in with the movie. Other times, like IMO _Hateful 8_, the film is just an excuse to torture his _actors_ even more than the characters. But, as for IB, for not having much actual action, it has two of the most tense scenes I can remember. First the farmhouse scene had me practically sweating in my seat from the tension. And the rat cellar bar scene was very well done. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/36 "2025-05-28T14:32:15Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > But, as for IB, for not having much actual action, it has two of the most tense scenes I can remember. First the farmhouse scene had me practically sweating in my seat from the tension. And the rat cellar bar scene was very well done. I agree that they were very tense scenes. However, tension, action and violence are three different things. _IB_ has a lot of tension and a lot of violence, but very little action. Which is a shame, because _Kill Bill_ proved that Tarantino can be a very talented director of action when he wants to. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/37 "2025-05-28T14:38:13Z")
That’s actually very interesting. I’ve never heard that before. Still, we seem to agree that the milieu was a poor match for the story. There’s a war on. If you fight, you fight for victory, or you fight for justice, or you fight to save people. Revenge is a distraction. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613/38 "2025-05-28T15:06:34Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Landa tells the French farmer (I believe- it may be another character he tells) that he was an investigator, obviously of some renown, before the war. He told Lt Aldo Raine: _“I’m a detective. A damn good detective. Finding people is my specialty so naturally I worked for the Nazis finding people. And yes, some of them were Jews.”_ This gave a whiff of a hint about his background and still told nothing. Was he some kind of cop or secret agent in a past life? We’ll never know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inglourious-basterds-shosanna-and-landa-open-spoilers/540613.md?page=1)