Inglourious Basterds

***Inglourious Basterds*** is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Til Schweiger, and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells the fictional alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's political leadership, one planned by Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent), a young French Jewish cinema proprietor, and the other by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt). Christoph Waltz co-stars as Hans Landa, an SS colonel tracking down Raine's group and who has a connection to Shosanna's past. The film's title was inspired by Italian director Enzo G. Castellari's macaroni combat film, *The Inglorious Bastards* (1978).

Tarantino wrote the script in 1998 but struggled with the ending and chose to hold off filming and instead direct the two-part film *Kill Bill*. After directing *Death Proof* in 2007 (as part of the double feature *Grindhouse*), Tarantino returned to work on *Inglourious Basterds*. A co-production of the United States and Germany, the film began principal photography in October 2008 and was filmed in Germany and France with a $70 million production budget. *Inglourious Basterds* premiered on May 20, 2009, at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. It was widely released in theaters in the United States and Europe in August 2009 by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures.

The film was commercially successful, grossing over $321 million in theaters worldwide, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing film at that point, and second-highest to date, after *Django Unchained* (2012). It received multiple awards and nominations, among them eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. For his role as Landa, Waltz won the Cannes Film Festival's Best Actor Award, as well as the BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

## Plot

In 1941, SS colonel Hans Landa interrogates French dairy farmer Perrier La Padite as to the whereabouts of the last unaccounted-for Jewish family in the area. In exchange for the Germans agreeing to leave his family alone for the rest of the war, La Padite reveals that the Dreyfus family is hidden under the floor. Landa orders SS soldiers to shoot through the floorboards. The family is killed except for Shosanna, a young woman who escapes.

Four years later, Lieutenant Aldo Raine of the First Special Service Force recruits Jewish-American soldiers to the Basterds, who spread fear among the German soldiers by killing and scalping them. The Basterds also recruit Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz, a German soldier who murdered thirteen Gestapo officers. Adolf Hitler interviews a German soldier, Private Butz, the only survivor of a Basterd attack on his squad. Raine carved the Nazi swastika into Butz's forehead with a knife so he could never hide that he served in the German Heer.

Shosanna is operating a cinema in Paris under an assumed name. She meets Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper who killed 250 soldiers in a single battle; Zoller is to star in a Nazi propaganda film, *Stolz der Nation* (*Nation's Pride*). Infatuated with Shosanna, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere of the film at her cinema. Shosanna plots with her projectionist and lover, Marcel, to kill the Nazi leaders attending the premiere by setting the cinema ablaze.

Unknown to Shosanna, British Army Lieutenant Archie Hicox is working with the Basterds to plan an attack on the same premiere. Hicox goes to a tavern with Hugo Stiglitz and Basterd Wilhelm Wicki to meet an undercover agent, the German film star Bridget von Hammersmark. Hicox draws the attention of Wehrmacht Sergeant Wilhelm then Gestapo Major Dieter Hellstrom with his uncommon accent. Hicox eventually gives himself away by ordering three drinks and gesturing "three" with his hand (with thumb and pinky finger down); Hellstrom knows that Germans gesture "three" with the thumb and first two fingers extended. Discovered, Stiglitz and the Basterds open fire, killing everyone in the tavern except Sergeant Wilhelm and a wounded Hammersmark. Raine arrives and negotiates with Sergeant Wilhelm for Hammersmark's release, but she shoots Wilhelm when he lowers his guard. Raine tortures Hammersmark and learns that Hitler himself will be attending the film premiere and decides to continue the mission. Later, Landa investigates the aftermath at the tavern and finds one of Hammersmark's shoes and a napkin with her signature.

At the premiere, two of the Basterds, Donny Donowitz and Omar Ulmer, join Raine in posing as Italians, hoping to fool the Germans unfamiliar with the language. However, Landa, who speaks fluent Italian, converses briefly with the Basterds before sending Donowitz and Ulmer to their seats. He takes Hammersmark to a private room, verifies that the shoe from the tavern fits her, then strangles her to death. Raine and another of his men, Smithson "The Little Man" Utivich, are taken prisoner, but Landa has Raine contact his superior with the OSS and cuts a deal: he will allow the mission to proceed in exchange for immunity and rewards.

During the screening, Zoller slips away to the projection room to see Shosanna. After she rejects his advances, he becomes aggressive. She pretends to acquiesce, then pulls a pistol from her bag and shoots him. Zoller, mortally wounded, raises his pistol and shoots her before they both die. As *Stolz der Nation* reaches its climax, spliced-in footage of Shosanna tells the audience that they are about to be killed by a Jew. Marcel, having locked the doors of the cinema, ignites a pile of flammable nitrate film behind the screen as Shosanna's image laughs. Ulmer and Donowitz break into the box containing Hitler and Goebbels, killing them, then fire their submachine guns into the crowd until the bombs go off, killing everyone in the theater. Landa and his radio operator drive Raine and Utivich into Allied territory, where they surrender. Raine shoots the radio operator and carves a swastika into Landa's forehead.

## Cast

* Brad Pitt as First Lieutenant Aldo "The Apache]]" Raine
* Mélanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus / Emmanuelle Mimieux
* Christoph Waltz as SS Colonel Hans Landa
* Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark
* Michael Fassbender as Lieutenant Archie Hicox
* Eli Roth as Staff Sergeant Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz
* Daniel Brühl as Private First Class Fredrick Zoller
* Til Schweiger as Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz
* Gedeon Burkhard as Corporal Wilhelm Wicki
* Jacky Ido as Marcel
* B. J. Novak as Private First Class Smithson "The Little Man" Utivich
* Omar Doom as Private First Class Omar Ulmer
* August Diehl as Major Dieter Hellstrom
* Denis Ménochet as Perrier LaPadite
* Sylvester Groth as Joseph Goebbels
* Martin Wuttke as Adolf Hitler
* Mike Myers as General Ed Fenech
* Julie Dreyfus as Francesca Mondino
* Richard Sammel as Sergeant Werner Rachtman
* Alexander Fehling as Staff Sergeant Wilhelm
* Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill
* Sönke Möhring as Private Butz
* Samm Levine as Private First Class Hirschberg
* Paul Rust as Private First Class Andy Kagan
* Michael Bacall as Private First Class Michael Zimmerman
* Christian Berkel as Proprietor Eric
* Léa Seydoux as Charlotte LaPadite
* Rainer Bock as General Schonherr
* Bo Svenson as an American Colonel in *Nation's Pride*
* Enzo G. Castellari as Nazi General at film premiere
* Samuel L. Jackson (*uncredited*) as the narrator
* Harvey Keitel (*uncredited*) as the voice of the OSS Commander
* Bela B. (*uncredited*) as an usher
* Quentin Tarantino as scalped Nazi