director Tarantino shows very postmodern elements in certain areas of his work which can be seen developing in parts of inglorious basterds. other pieces of tarantino's work include:
My Best Friend's Birthday
(1987)
Reservoir Dogs
(1992)
Pulp Fiction
(1994)
Four Rooms
(1995)
Jackie Brown
(1997)
Kill Bill, Vol. 1
(2003)
Kill Bill, Vol. 2
(2004)
Death Proof
(2007)
He also took part in various television directing, however his postmodern relevance is less obvious and apparent than in his film directing career. Inglorious Basterds received mainly positive reviews, such as this one by the telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/6060344/Inglourious-Basterds-review.html
This review in particular picks out elements such as the movies mixed theme which generally speaking don't seem to mesh well with each other, however Tarantino has managed to successfully blend and solder these genres together to give an overall coherent text with a postmodern tint to it. The main areas of inglourious basterds that really create this genre mix up feel certain scenes, such as the basement scene, which creates a Mexican stand off situation - not something that would normally be associated with a world war two scenario, and thus adds a homage style effect to the movie; even though it does not credit a particular text, it shows respect to other genre's of film by employing situations that often occur in these genre of films.
As shown in the two clips above, Inglourious basterds was the not the first time tarantino has constructed a scene in which a Mexican stand of style situation develops and multiple parties become involved in intense debate before taking to shooting - a natural contradiction in our perception of this film takes place when we see this scene, as even though it is perfectly possible for this situation to have arisen, we are naturally prone to associate it with stereotypical western films rather than ww2 films, and this is where cognitive dissonance can easily take away the viewers believability of the film.
This review took rather the opposite view of the film, the viewer obviously rejected the postmodern mix that Tarantino had created with the text: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19003891/Inglorious-Basterds-Movie-Review
Tarantino does have a back up which helps him in convincing the viewer to accept the combination of genres that he has to tell his ww2 story: the fact that it is entirely fictional and has no relevance to the actual outcome of the war what so ever - the film is actually opened with the line of text "once upon a time" - which instantly tells us that this is not a true story. Not to mention the fact that Hitler is killed in the end of the film inside a cinema by two groups of people who were completely unaware of each others presence, and this even further distorts the line between reality and fiction in the text, which in turn, helps us as the audience to accept the films mixed themes without rejecting it as a text.
Another view which can be taken on the text as a postmodern creation is the way in which it glorifies the American victory - even though tarrantino never mentioned this in any interview, and neither has any review i have read state this, i view the film this way myself - almost as a mockery to American film makers obsession with glorifying the USA in films with ridiculous circumstances which put the earth on it's last legs, but America comes through and saved the day. This can be seen in films such as independence day (aliens hover over an American city and their obviously highly advance technology does not allow anything to harm it, however Americans upload a virus to it from a mac (HOW!?) through a conveniently placed "USB port" in the alien spaceship), despite the absolutely ridiculous conditions under which the confrontation takes place, somehow America pulls through. Another example is the film "i am legend", which is actually based on the book by Richard Matheson. In the actual ending of i am legend, the scientist (will smiths character) finds out that he is actually the monster, not the "vampires" which are actually intelligent and non violent creatures after the infection broke out - and they are actually afraid of him, he is the subject of their stories, hence the title "i am legend". upon finding this out, Will's character returns the still living vampire to the other creatures which he had been experimenting, apologizes and they leave with their friend.
yes, that ending is completely legitimate and serious. this ending actually completes the moral of the story, without which, it has no point. but, suprise suprise, the American film actually takes a different spin on this, by deciding that yes the creatures are all insane and evil and will not let Will cure them because they are diabolical animals, not because they want their friend back. And, rather than this, Will runs out with a grenade in his hand, and blows them all to pieces, along with himself. Because, obviously, throwing the grenade outside the door and then hiding in the vault (in which there is easily enough room for all three of them) just isn't glorious and or violent enough. then to top it all off nicely, the woman and young boy take the cure will made to some sort of haven created by surviving humans and military forces where they hand over the cure, and surely enough the great USA will defeat the EVIL creatures in some sort of glorious event. This shows that even though most of the time American films obsess over themselves in the military genre, they tend to have their head up their own a** in other areas is well.
The way that this relates to inglourious basterds being a postmodern text is that i see it as having a mocking quality, almost as if Tarrantino has realised this phenomena that America generates and is going all the way back to world war 2 and creating a different ending in which Americans, almost single handedly save the day and kill Hitler as if to say, "hey look, better cover up that time where we actually were in a war, and kind of got owned before we did anything about it" - even though America defiantly had some impact on the outcome of the war, they did not gloriously feed Hitler his liver through a tube before he even declared war, as he actually did quite some damage to the world before they made a move. And to me, mixing this kind of mockery with a serious Film makes it a postmodern text as it opposes the natural reaction to receiving a text to categorizing it into a genre, as it mixes these. Not only this, but it is in it's way of mocking this American phenomena technically a kind of parody, which in turn makes it a pastiche, and in turn from that makes it postmodern.
No comments:
Post a Comment