Ideally, a viewer should be able to identify the work of a particular auteur from any one scene that the auteur has directed. In reality, it’s not always possible to do so, even in the work of filmmakers with highly idiosyncratic styles. But in the case of Quentin Tarantino, it would probably be more difficult not to recognize his scenes. Some of them have propagated so far through popular culture that they have a life apart from the films themselves: the dance in Pulp Fiction, say, or more recently, the opening of Inglourious Basterds, a picture that, to video essayists looking to explicate Tarantino’s distinctive genius, offers a particular abundance of material.
In the new video above, YouTuber Lancelloti selects a different scene from Inglourious Basterds to declare a “modern masterpiece” in itself. It takes place in a basement tavern in Nazi-occupied northern France, where three of the titular black-ops “Basterds,” disguised as German officers, meet Bridget von Hammersmark, a German movie star turned undercover Allied agent.
As one might expect, the tension starts high, gets higher, and eventually explodes in a chaotic bloodbath: not an easy sequence to pull off effectively, but one that Tarantino and his collaborators arrange with consummate skill, using a host of techniques not necessarily visible on the first viewing — or even the first few viewings.
Lancelloti highlights how the scene gradually reveals its tight space and the many figures who occupy it; uses dialogue to reflect core themes of identity and nationality; creates sympathy even for villain-coded German soldiers; keeps shifting the balance of power; injects unpredictability into the action; foreshadows the ways in which events will eventually go wrong; and hints in many ways at the presence of the character who will light up the tinder box. Of course, no director could make all this happen single-handedly, and few directors would be conscious of all these elements at work in the first place. But given all we’ve learned about Tarantino over the years, he’s surely one of them.
Related Content:
A Deep Study of the Opening Scene of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds
An Analysis of Quentin Tarantino’s Films Narrated (Mostly) by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino’s Copycat Cinema: How the Postmodern Filmmaker Perfected the Art of the Steal
How Quentin Tarantino Remixes History: A Brief Study of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Quentin Tarantino’s World War II Reading List
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
