It took Quentin ten years to write this story.
The huge amount of movie watching has cultivated an appetite to eat a hundred food, and he likes to do various types of experiments. Kung fu movies, zombie movies, western movies, and B-rated movies all break the fixed routine, making you exclaim that xxx can still be like this (splashing plasma). As the biggest fancier in the film industry, he wants to try a war movie. War movies are also divided into many sub-types, grand war scenes, secret missions, the lone star...In short, in 1998, he had the embryonic form of the shameless bastard story, parallel history, and shredded devils, but he didn't know how to deal with the ending. Throw the story aside and ran to shoot and kill Bill in two parts.
With a flick of the finger, it was 2009, rich and free, the ending was figured out, and the movie finally had a show. However, in the process of casting, there was no suitable person who could speak English, German and French to play the role of Colonel Landa. Quentin once desperately thought that he wanted to publish the script and got rid of his heart. Thanks to the language genius of Christoph Waltz, we can see Quentin's screenwriter + director, the version of "Inglourious Basterds" in front of us.
The script was finally published. This is such a personal story, based entirely on the tribute of a fan to the art of film, and it is easy to go astray by a strong personal sentiment to a dead end and unable to resonate with the audience. It's like you are a writer, want to write Mary Su to make yourself cool, travel to ancient times and let eighteen elder brothers surround you, each of them has long legs and has a deep affection for you. Such a story can be sold, because there may be ten million people who can substitute for this kind of fantasy. However, you want to write a story and create a virtual hero character who was filmed by Goebbels. The premiere brought together all the Nazi leaders. All the members were destroyed and bombed by the Salvation Corps attracted by a female movie theater owner and a female movie star. It is the theater, and the film burned. A movie ended World War II. Both the metaphor and the ontology preached the power of the movie: can such a fancier confession be appreciated by the general public.
Unless you are a super master of storytelling. And this is Quentin's most famous talent.
One of the success factors of the story is the creation of an ultra-micro universe that can be remembered by the mind of an author (that is, the mind of an audience). At the Cannes press conference, someone asked Quentin: Why was he interested in the subject of World War II? The term World War II is too broad. "Letters from Iwo Jima" tells the story of the Pacific battlefield during the strategic counter-offensive from the Japanese perspective, "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily" tells the story of the islanders from the Italians to the end of the war from the Italian perspective, and "Simulation Game" from the British perspective. Set in an English estate, "Sindra's List" is set in Germany from a Jewish perspective. Among all possible choices, Quentin puts the story in "Once upon a time, in France occupied by the Nazis ." Quentin liked this setting so much and wanted to change the name of the movie to it (in the end, he kept the name borrowed from the Italian war movie in 1978, plus deliberately mistaken spelling). Most of the scenes in the film took place in France in the 1940s, except for the offices of the British and German heads. French farm-Paris cinema-northern tavern, very compact geographically. The unfolding of the story only revolves around the core of bombing the cinema. The main characters can be directly related to it, and the functions of each person are very clear. The story universe has shrunk from almost the entire map of the world to a small circle in France; from the overall battle of tens of thousands of casualties to the crossfire of more than twenty people. After a break, the story is two strands: 1. Shosanna's revenge line 2. The unscrupulous army's rear line. The two wires were screwed together in the final chapter.
Chapter 1: Once upon a time, in France occupied by the Nazis
During the daytime, the cow farm is outside. The farmer cuts the tree stump and the woman hangs the clothes. The picturesque part of the film almost makes people think that Quentin is going to make a normal war film uncharacteristically (laughs). But immediately, the SS rolled over on a motorcycle, breaking the calm of the ranch. Quentin used his usual black humor to knock on the dark cloud topped demon, and matched the most lyrical chord to Alice (The Verdict [Dopo la Condanna]). The most brutal scene, coupled with romantic embellishments, is extremely ironic. From the very beginning, in the disturbing dissonance, the suspense of arresting people was created.
"Script Classroom" gives a detailed breakdown of how Quentin uses suspense in this scene. The farm scene is as long as 17 pages in the script. As usual, one page per minute is exactly 17 minutes in the movie. In a movie that cherishes seconds, it is very generous to dare to spend 17 minutes on large dialogues. But you are not bored for a second. You know there is a bomb buried under the table, quietly puffing up curiosity to see how it explodes.
It was 1941, and France was occupied by the Nazis for a whole year. The farmers have hidden Jews under the floor for a year. "However, at a glance, you can't tell whether he has been cutting tree stumps for a whole year, or it has just started today." He seems to be performing. If he is performing, a year's time is enough trance and exhaustion. , Reaching the border of collapse.
The peasant pretended to be calm and asked the woman to take a pot of water. Don't panic, but he was so panic that he wiped off the sweat and washed his face. The front was soaked. The next indoor play will usher in its absolute protagonist. Colonel Landa, who was smiling, came and took the initiative to shake hands with the farmer. Speaking fluent French, it is polite to ask for permission to enter the house. His politeness is definitely not a cliché. As the master of power, he asks in a humble tone, but gives orders in a different way. His humility is full of aggressiveness. Asking for a glass of milk, but the person who grabbed the hostess did not let go, and after a flick, did not let go. This untimely move made those few seconds take quite a long time.
The 17-minute literary play (mostly) was supported one after another by one by one disturbingly. It also gave the soul of the show, Colonel Landa, a stage to shine. He is an absolute bad person, but with the smile of a good person. An intruder with a smiling face broke expectations and is more disturbing than a brutal intruder. It also gives the villain great personal charm. Just like Gustavo in "Breaking Bad". Not only are these classic villains not hideous, they are gentle and weird. The good guys are high, and the bad guys hurt the black. That's a model play. The good guys are not so decent, the bad guys are lovely, and they can only rival if they meet each other. Nothing is known.
In the beginning, Landa was just a routine, investigating Dreyfus's account. The camera moved under the floor, eyes opened in the cracks in the floor. Living people are hiding underneath. The farmer knew that he was pretending to be stupid, pretending not to remember the specific age. Suspense was buried: How well did he act? Suspense Two followed closely: Does the colonel know it well?
The colonel's smiling interrogation will be repeated in the next few scenes. It will not fail every time. How much does he know about you? He will watch you play, he will play with you, and he will quietly watch you pretend to be force. The audience's hanging hearts flew up, and the sweaty palms of the hands were squeezed. Just like "The Gentleman's Detective", Ren Saburo Guhata, he had sufficient information and the right to speak every time, and smiled and forced the suspect to a corner to confess his guilt. This strategy is still cruel to criminals and even more cruel to innocent farmers.
When the routine is over, the colonel is about to get up and go. Before leaving, ask for another glass of milk last. In "Deep Boudoir Suspicious Cloud", the hostess suspects that her husband will poison her to kill her. Just as the husband slowly walked up the stairs with the milk on the tray, Hitchcock put a light bulb in the milk to make the milk the focus of attention. When Colonel Landa grabbed the mistress's hand for milk for the first time, Quentin also gave him enough time to drink the whole glass of milk and let the milk become the focus. Asking for milk for the second time prolonged the suspense (the milk will be watched again in the third act), and the Plague God who was about to send it out, he asked for milk and stopped leaving, and sat down and talked about life with the peasants.
The colonel asked: Do you know my nickname? The farmer said he knew that you were a Jewish hunter. This skillfully introduces the characters through the mouth of others, rather than passively self-statement. The nickname discussion will reverberate in the final scene. At this time the colonel wanted to speak his theory of eagle and rat. Germans are like eagles, cunning and fierce. The Jews are like rats, and they don't hesitate to sacrifice everything that ordinary people can't have in order to survive.
There is a dialogue in the script, which is omitted from the movie, and can be used as a basis for this interrogation. Colonel: "Are you close to the Dreyfus family?" Farmer: "We are in the same community and in the same business. We can't say that we are friends, but we can only say that we are friends in the community. We have common interests." It can be seen that the farmers took in the Jewish family. , Just out of basic human sympathy, rather than personal identification with them. Through the analogy with mice, this psychology was further exploited by the colonel. He extended: "Did you find yourself in the center of the whirlpool in this war? It should have been with you, your family, and Your cow has nothing to do with it? But you are here." Speaking of the peasant's heart. Since being searched nine months ago, the farmers have been in a difficult situation. Hidden 5 people under the floor, like a high-hanging sword, may fall from time to time. The colonel said: "Dare to ask. What is your first priority in this war. Is it to fight to the death with the Germans in France until the last breath? Do you do your best to harass the invading army? To protect the poor and helpless war victims? Or in this year of bloody calamity, your first priority is to protect the beautiful family members that make up your family?"
The answer is hidden in the question itself. The farmer said: "It's to protect my family." Just like in "The Devil Is Coming" (the title of the film is surprisingly consistent with this scene), there are limits to the universal conscience of ordinary people or patriotic blood. of. The biggest demand is still to preserve one's own family. The colonel grasped this pain point and pointedly pointed out that the peasants' behavior of harbouring the enemy was completely different from his own intention to protect his family. At the same time throw a huge bait: if you confess, you will get what you want most. Not only will you not be guilty, but you will be rewarded, and you will never be harassed by the SS. The psychological defense of the peasants collapsed. Confessed to the hiding place of the Jewish family.
The colonel pretended to be unfamiliar with French, and the above discussion was conducted in English. It was possible to stabilize the Jewish family who did not speak English. But then we know that his French is poetic and fluent. Using English is a calculation that I thought of from the beginning. The colonel's victory was under precise control from beginning to end. The subject of interrogation is just a puppet playing with him. The Gestapo in the third act interrogates Hicox, who is not familiar with German, and can be used as a clone of the colonel. After all, he is too similar to the colonel. In the Italian scene in Act 5, the colonel relentlessly used his own language advantage to make the soldiers who do not speak Italian come to a public sentence. Thousands of his wise men must have made a mistake until the last scene is revealed. Before that, they were invincible.
Then, holding his breath, watched the German use a machine gun to sweep the floor into a sieve. The same machine gun fire, killing Jewish civilians, is so different from the sudden Nazis at the end of the play. In shock and heartbreak, Shosanna escaped from the farm.
The colonel's pistol was pointed at Shosanna's back. Click. He did not shoot. In his explanation to the soldiers, he said: It is not harmful to the country. Just a fifteen-year-old girl. She may starve to death, be exhausted, be reported, or corpse in the wilderness. Or, she can survive, escape to life, escape to the United States, move to New York, and elect the President of the United States. This dialogue was deleted in the movie. When Quentin was conceived, he thought much more complete than what the film presents. The author is always responsible for the rationality of the story. However, in order to remove redundancy, the scene needs to be cut off to make it compact. The extra part of the script is equivalent to making notes on the margin of the PPT.
Act Four: Operation Keno
Another favorite scene in the whole film. In the end, you can take out and savor whoever is pointed at or destroyed by each gun. It's too long to write here. Continue when you have time.
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