When "Shameless Bastard" was launched ten years ago, it was enthusiastically sought after by professional movie fans and was regarded as Quentin Tarantino's best film after "Pulp Fiction". This is the only time Tarantino has unreservedly put his interest in a World War II B-level film on the screen so far. Of course, he also poured tons of plasma, gun battles flying across bullets, and flaming festive fireworks. Flame, enjoyable and earn enough attention, so that the film rushed to the peak of professional career in commercial.
In addition to compliments, what many people have not noticed is that "Shameless Bastard" also embodies some of Quentin's ambitions in creative methodology. Unlike the previous "Falling Water Dog", "Pulp Fiction", "King Kong Isn't Bad" and "Kill Bill", he abandoned the classic three-act loop closed structure of Hollywood movies in the drama (even for "Pulp Fiction", it is also A form in which the structure of a three-act play is disrupted and combined), and the film presents the characteristics of fragmented multi-threaded flow. The beginning, development, climax and end of the plot are no longer as clear and clear, and between different events and scenes. It also no longer has a compact and rigorous logical connection. Characters often appear suddenly to occupy a dominant position and then suddenly disappear. Everything is in a contingency and collage-like combination. In the mainstream Hollywood movie circle of the 21st World, we hardly see American filmmakers who write scripts in this way. And "Shameless Bastard", as Quentin's substantive turning work, is not only full of entertaining and exciting attempts, but also exposed some of his weaknesses that he has not fully considered.
1
Quentin Tarantino is a typical fan-type director. The movie-watching career that started as a teenager has cultivated some fixed interest orientations for him, which are all reflected in his own films: fan movies, gangsters, B-level movies, Shaw Brothers style martial arts/kung fu movies, and World War II. The theme of the war film ("Shameless Bastard" title is "steal" from the Italian World War II film of the same name). But there is only one point of interest that goes deep into his bones. Before "Inglourious Basterds", he has been hiding in his own works. This is a Western movie. It sounds weird. "Shameless Bastard" is Quentin's first work in which the spirit of westerns has penetrated into the substantive structure of his work.
Traditional World War II films have several different modes: One is a large-scale war film, which focuses on large-scale battlefield battle scenes and strategic contests between the enemy and ourselves ("The Longest Day", "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!" ); The second is a thriller or spy film packaged in a World War II shell ("Night Train to Munich" and "Five Finger Spy Network"); "Escape to Athena" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai"); finally, a small team especially beloved by the directors of the B-level film broke into the "troubleshooting" film behind the enemy ("Blood Stained Snow Mountain Fort" and "Strategic Battle"). The reason why Quentin "stolen" the title of the Italian "Macaroni WWII" film of the same name in 1978 is probably because the 2009 film also took the same direction as the original film: a team of American soldiers went deep into the French German occupation. Area to perform tasks. But unlike the 1978 version of "Inglourious Basterds" and other "squad"-style World War II movies, how Quentin composed the squads, what was the purpose of the battle, how they penetrated behind enemy lines to perform missions, etc. These usual B-level movies The details of the process that he took the trouble to elaborate on were all covered in one stroke. What he was really interested in was portraying a series of mysterious contests between the enemy and ourselves on the basis of such plots.
Unlike war movies, where bullets are piled up on the screen at every turn, the boats explode, and many American Westerns are "saving bullets like gold," and even the protagonist’s pistol seldom pulls out the holster. Its charm is not It comes from the pleasure of shooting at each other in the rain of bullets, but from the confrontational tension that rises between the characters before the decisive battle begins. The genre "new westerns" that gradually evolved in Hollywood after the 1950s paid special attention to the depiction of confrontation scenes. Whether it was in the vast plains and wilderness or in the noisy taverns in small towns, western film directors would spend their time patiently. A lot of pen and ink is used to create, accumulate and render the tension that is gradually rising in the confrontation. It releases to the audience a potential crisis tension effect that is very rare in other types of movies, and allows it to slowly diffuse in the scene, until it finally sets off the inevitable tension and detonates the final duel. In the films of Italian western film director Leone, such a sense of scene design and scheduling can be seen everywhere. The scenes where the characters actually draw their guns and shoot at each other may only have a few frames, but the layout and contrast of the atmosphere allows the final brief conflict to be reached in an instant. The peak of psychological tension.
And what we have repeatedly experienced in "Shameless Bastard" is the high-pressure confrontation under such tension.
2
In "Inglourious Basterds", the most adrenal hormone secretion is the tavern encounter and decisive battle. Three Allied soldiers dressed as German officers were supposed to meet with female spies in an underground tavern, but they encountered a group of drunk German soldiers.
This single-scene indoor play lasted 25 minutes, accounting for almost one-fifth of the overall length. Quentin gave full play to his talents in single-game writing, and arranged four gradual and climactic episodes of accent recognition, card games, gesture exposure and the final melee. In the first three fragments, the lines laid out in large sections have stepped up the exposure crisis faced by the three Allied soldiers step by step. As the audience, we seem to have witnessed the gallows rope shrinking and tightening on everyone’s necks. This psychological warfare of spying and anti-spying has stretched the atmosphere of suspense to the extreme. Arrange four different groups of characters (Allied soldiers, German soldiers, SS officers and German actresses) to appear in a closed tavern and build a complex contradictory hedging relationship between them. Its setting and atmosphere are in It is more like a confrontation and killing in a western-style town tavern.
In "Inglourious Basterds", the tension that only existed in Westerns in the past can be seen everywhere. From the beginning of the dialogue between the SS Colonel Randa and the French farmer in the farmhouse, to the Jewish girl and Randa in Paris. Investigations and counter-investigations in restaurants, to actress Van Hemus Mark’s spy’s true face revealed by Randa in the cinema office, Quentin almost always wrote the script according to the same program—using the atmosphere in the scene The dark flame was lit to scorching heat, and then the volcanic eruption was ignited with the violence of erupting blood. In the past war films, we rarely saw such a technique; but in the western films that flooded the screen in the 50s and 70s, it was the basic "meal condiment" that can be seen everywhere.
Not only is the tension-filled atmosphere shaping us back to the American West from occupied France in essence, Quentin also inserted a lot of western intentional elements in the film. For example, in the opening of the film, an isolated farmhouse and the configuration of the working farmer and three daughters in the vast fields remind us of the common prairie huts in the American West; while Colonel Landa and his men ride the road from the winding mountain in a convertible. Far and near, it is almost a replica of the thief robber prancing horse and whip appearing on the horizon in the western film; the US Army Lieutenant Aldo not only claims to have the blood of the Indian tribe Apache, but also allows his men to scalp their opponents with hunting knives. The typical Indian custom of tattooing on the forehead-they are not so much a group of American soldiers deep behind enemy lines, they are more like Indian tribal warriors wandering in the west aiming at hunting white people; and driving in the burning and collapsing buildings Gun shooting is also a common ending in Western movies, not to mention the cunning and changeable middleman personality of Colonel Randa in the film (which rarely appears in the Nazi officers in the movie), and the exaggerated Midwestern accent of Lieutenant Aldo. . Compared with the film’s fascination complex in content, the fun of fabricating history, and the joking portrayal of the Nazis, "Shameless Bastard" is closer to the spiritual core of a new western on the Hollywood screen of the 1970s.
3
Quentin's fusion of World War II movies and Westerns is a bold and interesting attempt, but because it is novel, there are bound to be some "cracks" that are difficult to bridge.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Italy had a boom in filming "Macaroni Westerns" (this can be seen in Quentin's new film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood"). Italian directors and producers hire American actors to shoot Hollywood-style westerns in Europe. In the final film, we will see a group of American western cowboys who speak Italian, chasing each other on horseback in the Gobi Desert. (Many "Macaroni Westerns" will be shot in Spain, where part of the terrain looks exactly like the western United States).
What’s interesting is that Italian filmmakers rarely try to really move the characters, plot structure, and background of Western films to Europe, but instead, they try their best to imitate the human geography of Western films and try to convince audiences that this is happening in the United States. The story of the west. French film critic André Bazin once commented on Western films as follows: He believes that this is a film genre unique to the American geography, and its important part is its vast landscape and the characters living in it in a special way. . The emergence of this type is closely linked to the unique moral and ethical values shown in the history of the western United States and its pioneering territories, and there is no breeding ground for all of these in Europe. This is the rule that the creators of macaroni westerns know well-even if the actors speak Italian, the cowboys in the plot must be the endless Gobi and wilderness of the Midwest, otherwise the film is credible. The foundation will collapse suddenly.
As an avid fan of macaroni and westerns, Quentin has actually taken a step that his predecessors have not dared to move: he has taken away the text, geography, and historical and cultural background of the entire western film, and compared its individual characteristics. Put it into the Second World War that took place in Europe. The final effect of the film is surprisingly interesting, but it also inevitably caused a considerable degree of dissatisfaction.
It is first reflected in the details of the plot logic: For example, in the western movie, a group of Indian tribal warriors appeared in the mountains and ambushed white cowboys aimlessly. But the American Jewish squad led by Captain Aldo had the same The method of attacking and killing German soldiers in the occupied area is extremely reckless and aimless, almost unconvincing; it is very common for a child chased and killed in a western movie to come incognito in a strange town and grow up in a strange town. The plot, but after escaping from the clutches of the Nazis, the Jewish girl Susanna actually came to Paris where the German army gathered and swaggered to accept a movie theater as the boss. Obviously Quentin had forgotten the strict ID card and household registration management system in the Nazi-occupied area; in a desert town The hostile cowboys in the inn were able to kill each other after they were able to ride on a starry night and gallop away unobstructed. However, after the bullets were blasted in the quiet tavern in the center of the enemy-occupied area, the U.S. soldiers not only had time and survivors. Bargaining can also calmly retreat, which is obviously Quentin "underestimated" the response ability of the Gestapo and the gendarmerie. The settings of these plot details are obviously derived from the Western film model. They are logically and understandably in the original genre, but when they move to the occupied area of France, they immediately become a scripted bug.
The impact of the western style treatment on "Inglourious Basterds" does not stop at the details. As Bazin summed up, the special geographical environment of the western United States combined with the history of American development has shaped the unique narrative structure and personalities of Western films. In particular, the new westerns that appeared in the 1960s often have a slow rhythm and a fragmented development of the story structure. The connection between the various segments in the narrative process is relatively weak, but the special tension generated by the film’s geographic environment and this The unique personality of the characters spawned unifies the plot fragments that occurred in front of this background into a mental whole.
"Inglourious Basterds" inherited the characteristics of the new western to a large extent. Its five chapters are basically independent of each other, with only weak details related-for example, the first chapter is between Colonel Randa and the French farmer. After a long dialogue full of wit, the real clue left is only Susanna’s accidental escape; after the wonderful confrontation in the tavern, the British lieutenant, the central character of this chapter, simply died (it’s hard to see how he developed the overall plot. What specific impact), and the only coherent clue left by the entire chapter for the subsequent plot is that Aldor decided to replace the British lieutenant to the premiere to assassinate Hitler.
Between the brilliant chapters, the film lacks the necessary "glue" to integrate it. On the other hand, New Westerns, in the background of the vast Gobi plains, on horsebacks galloping across the sky, guided by the spirit of the "American Dream" that the audience can experience without much explanation, those chapters that seem to be floating are automatically It is embedded in the whole of the western United States, which cannot be borrowed from "Shameless Bastard" with the same structural characteristics.
Finally, and most importantly, in "Inglourious Basterds", except for Christopher Waltz, who made the SS Colonel Randa come to life because of his excellent personal performance skills, all other characters (including Brad Pitt) The American lieutenant Aldo) is "sinked" in the fragmented plot. Perhaps in the micro-fragments they contributed to the film’s psychological tension with their superb acting skills, but their roles did not really leave a unique imprint of personality. The unique "lone wolf" environment and survival rules of Western movies allow actors (such as Clint Eastwood) to create distinctive characters with extremely simple gestures and expressions, but they switch to the context of World War II movies. , All the heroism of heroism and righteousness must give way to the military duel between the pros and cons. It requires a coherent and logical text to highlight the personality of the characters. This is also impossible in "Shameless Bastard". The "soft underbelly" of avoidance.
4
With the help of "Shameless Bastard", Quentin actually made a bold attempt at type mixing. There is no need to say more about the wonderfulness of this, but he neglected to consider the "rejection" between different types (Westerns and World War II), which led to the film showing a trend of overall fracture and hollowness.
In Quentin’s subsequent films such as "The Rescue of Jiang Ge" or "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", he still insisted on the tendency of fragmented narrative, but he also realized that he needed an implicit chain to connect all the fragments into a whole. This chain must be a social and cultural background that matches the form and content of the fragment.
After "Inglourious Basterds", every film of Quentin also has a strong western color. Even in the film "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", which narrates the operation of the film industry, a large number of western film fragments appearing in the form of play are interspersed. These fragments have not derailed from the whole film. I am afraid there is only one reason. They are all subtly integrated with the unique "American Dream Spirit" of the United States at the level of cultural consciousness. And this is precisely the level where "Shameless Bastard" cannot be used effectively because of the content setting.
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