Loved it (actually can’t think of a single thing that bugged me about it on more than a very minor level), loved the suspense in most of the dialog-heavy scenes, and, like others here, I was mentally exhausted after seeing it. Didn’t subject myself to GI Joe afterwards, but…
Put me in the camp that believes Landa knew who Emmanuelle really was, and I also believe the inconsistencies with the subtitles were created intentionally. The buddy that I saw it with thought it was way too talkative (don’t know what else he expected from a Quentin Tarantino movie), but I’m with some others here who thought that this was some of his best dialog yet. Mike Myers wasn’t annoying, Christoph Waltz was amazing, and the whole thing was beautifully shot and, despite wearing me out so badly, didn’t feel like it was as long as it was.
ETA: Looking back at my post, it seems I have nothing original to add to this discussion :smack: so I’ll just ask this: is there any particular reason almost everyone in this thread has referred to the movie not as “IB” but as “IG,” or is that just a bunch of unusual typos?
(I am trying to find a clip of “Shoshanna putting on her war paint” scene to show The Wife. She didn’t want to see the film, but I thought that was a brilliant piece of filmmaking. I suppose I’ll have ti wait until it comes out on DVD.)
I just saw it. Mostly great, but with a few missteps. Didn’t like the Mike Myers cameo, probably because I don’t like his other character with an English accent.
Really? I thought Zoller was a complete prick; an eager apprentice to some seriously evil dudes, and simultaneously wearing his wounded soul on his sleeve to suck up whatever sympathy he could get.
I think it’s a brain fart. People are shortening In-Glorious. e Re: Shoshanna and Zoller – she obviously disliked Zoller and loved the machinist at the cinema.
I just saw the film last night, and I agree that there is no way Shoshanna and Zoller would have worked out under any circumstances. She never displayed anything but contempt for him, and he was a textbook entitled thinks-stalking-is-the-way-to-a-woman’s-heart creep. The scene in the projection room showed how he really thought about her, from “I’ve come to annoy you, and the expression on your face proves that it’s working!” (yeah, so LEAVE) to “Think about everything I’ve done for you!” (that she didn’t ask for, need or want, as far as he knew) to “I’m a war hero, I’m not the kind of man you say no to!”
He didn’t actually care about her desires or comfort at all, he just wanted to feel like he was in a chivalrous courtship, which didn’t include actually listening to or respecting the woman involved.
I thought it was an interesting contrast with the ambiguity he clearly felt over his role as “war hero” – he could stand back and realise that the film cliche of the mass-killing German soldier was a false ideal, but couldn’t do the same thing for his feeling of entitlement in his “romantic” pursuit of Shoshanna.
I was half expecting him to say "but I’m such a nice guy … "
Actually, if I have any beef about that role, it is that they made it so very clear, at the end, he was a total ass. It would have been more effective IMO to make him a more sympathetic character so that Shoshanna’s killing of him would be the greater dilemma.
He was already an ass. SecondJudith has it right. That pestering-the-girl-until she-relents thing is done all the time in romantic comedies, and so we’re used to it. This was no romantic comedy. Every time they met it was an intrusion into her life. She flat-out told him to go away. He was a total ass long before the scene in the projection room.
I didn’t buy that he really felt any ambiguity over being a war hero, either; I think he was willing to fake it just long enough to get into her pants.
I was agreeing with SecondJudith, not disagreeing.
I agree he was a total ass. However, in the end scene they made it clear he was not only an ass, but a dangerous one. I also agree that in the end he’s shown to have no “ambiguity” about being a war hero - since he basically demands to be treated with entitlement because he’s a war hero.
Prior to that, they could have gone in the direction of ‘he’s clueless and an annoying jerk, but sorta sympathetic’. In the end, any hint of ambiguity on the latter score is swept aside, and he’s shown to be no different from any other Nazi.
I thought (just personal opinion) that it would have made better drama to have S. shoot the guy even though he’s sorta sympathetic, rather than (as it were) having him demomstrate his underlying nastiness and then have S. shoot him.
Which is i would think hardly a “romantic comedy” ending (though if it happened in rom-coms, I’d be more likely to watch 'em ).
I don’t know, I thought Zoller was pretty clearly a total ass from the beginning. The point the film was making was that that kind of attitude toward romantic relationships is a dangerous one. There was total consistency in his character. In every scene, Shoshanna told him to go away, and in every scene, he decided that his interest in her was more important than her wants or comfort. He “demonstrated his underlying nastiness” about two minutes in.
I think it would have been less interesting to see “entitled persistent pest turns out to be sympathetic and maybe worthy of redemption,” which is where that kind of character goes in most other films.
I’m pretty harsh on self-entitled “nice guys”, but even I don’t assume that they are, as it where, worthy of being shot.
I agree that his character was consistent; I disagree that one could predict where that character was going to go from the very first. I thought Tarantino’s point was to use the standard Rom-Com set-up, only to subvert it. He subverted it by, instead of the guy redeeming himself and the woman relenting & showing interest (which truth to tell I was afraid was where he was going at one point), but by showing him at the end to be cold-bloodedly a Nazi type.
I simply thought it would have been more interesting to subvert the rom-com convention by showing him to be a somewhat sympathetic character - only to have S. shoot him anyway.
It may be that it’s jarring to look away from a scene and leave it for a moment to have to read the subtitles. It does make it a different movie experience.
I loved every single scene in the movie, but I still haven’t decided what I think about the film as a whole. I should see it again.
My favorite was the tavern scene - as far as I was concerned, it could have gone on forever. It contained my favorite moment in the movie: knowing the jig is up, with a single drag on his cigarette Archie transforms himself from a proper German to a British officer facing death with panache.
“There’s a special rung in hell reserved for people who waste good scotch. And seeing as I might be rapping on the door momentarily… I must say, damned good stuff, sir.”
Sorry for resurrecting a sorta-Zombie here, but I just saw the movie last night so I can finally participate in this discussion!
What’s this “showing him at the end” stuff? Zoller was always a cold-blooded Nazi. He was never anything else, and the film never took any great pains to show us that he was anything else. I think the scene where he moves from “charming” to “dangerous” is my favorite for precisely that reason. Despite the fact that he was cute and had a nice smile, he was always dangerous to her. He put her life in danger again and again and again, and nothing she said could make him stop. His constant unwanted attention essentially victimized her and put her life in danger until he finally did kill her. At 300, his body count might not have been as high as Landa’s, but he was Landa’s double in every significant way. Somebody who could be charming, when necessary, but was always represented in the film as a cold-blooded killer who could end Shoshana’s entire existence, and who, it turns out, would be willing to do just that to get his way.
QT subverted the Rom-Com genre from the very beginning by having the guy be completely and utterly irredeemable. Sure, the heroes are often assholes and jerks in Rom-coms, but they’re not cold blooded killers who can sit in a bird’s nest for three days, methodically picking off soldier after soldier and then effectively do it again for the glory of the Fatherland.
Exactly. Lando was a hunter. Jews just happened to be a prey the Nazis gave him an opportunity to hunt. In ten years he’ll be working for Mossad and hunting down Nazis.
It may be that it’s jarring to look away from a scene and leave it for a moment to have to read the subtitles. It does make it a different movie experience.