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The Rewatchables ·

Inglourious Basterds

year 2009decade 00sdirector Quentin Tarantinogenre Drama
host Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennesseyhost Mallory Rubin
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 28:23

The opening dairy farm sequence with Hans Landa

This is called one of the hardest picks the show has had: the movie is essentially five 20-to-30-minute scenes and holds three of a host's favorite scenes of the century. The nominees read out are the La Louisiane tavern with Fassbender, Kruger and Hellstrom; Landa at the dairy farm, the opening 20 minutes; Hickox meeting Fennec (as transcribed) and Churchill; Shoshana's strudel lunch with Goebbels and Landa, specifically her stifled cry when Landa leaves; and the Cat People scene of her putting on the makeup and the dress. Little Aldo is on the list, though his speech could be.

The introduction of the Bear Jew has to be on the list: Aldo's conversation with the German soldier, the bat knocking in the tunnel, the needle drop as Donnie Donowitz emerges, and the high laughter at the Boston accent, which is Eli Roth doing a Ted Williams impression; the hosts chant the Teddy ballgame and Lansdowne Street lines.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:24:07

"Well, if this is it, old boy, I hope you don't mind if I go out speaking the kings"

Quotes are hard here for the same reason as scenes: the scenes are 20 minutes long and the quotes a paragraph long, people speaking pages of novelesque dialogue; one host grabbed few Landa lines because they are in German, while another has mostly Hans lines, having written the subtitles down in English rather than grabbing them off the internet, earning a 'Thanks, Dad'.

The film

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Directed by Quentin Tarantino · Drama

153 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Brad Pitt Lieutenant Aldo Raine , nicknamed "Aldo the Apache" due to his guerilla tactics and trademark of scalping Germans he defeats, is the battle-hardened commanding officer of the Basterds. Raine is a coal miner and bootlegger from the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee , : 499 where he fought against the Ku Klux Klan . He survived a lynching and is a descendant of Jim Bridger and the Bridger family . He was a member of the Devil's Brigade where he was trained in guerrilla warfare .
Mélanie Laurent Shosanna Dreyfus , a 23-year-old : 90, 186 French Jewish cinema owner whose family was murdered by Landa's men when she was 20 years old. Shosanna manages to escape due to luck and Landa's decision to not pursue her. : 90–91 Most of The Bride 's attributes in Tarantino's Kill Bill come from Tarantino's original development of Shosanna for Inglourious Basterds , on which he started to work before Kill Bill . Originally Shosanna, whom Tarantino described as a Jewish Joan of Arc , was an assassin who had a list of Germans she would cross off as she killed them. However, Tarantino instead switched her character attributes over to The Bride, later redeveloping Shosanna into the version who appears in the film. : 22:00–24:00
Christoph Waltz Standartenführer Hans Landa , an eloquent, cultured, multilingual but deeply ruthless Austrian SS officer who becomes an enemy of both Shosanna and the Basterds.
Eli Roth Sergeant Donny Donowitz , also known as "The Bear Jew", a brooding member and second in command of the Basterds who executes Germans with his baseball bat. In Tarantino's screenplay Donowitz is likened to Joshua : 167 and his bat to the sword of Gideon . : 170 Roth channeled actor Tony Curtis for his portrayal per Tarantino's direction. Donny is the father of Tarantino-created film producer Lee Donowitz ( Saul Rubinek ) who appeared in True Romance (1993). Adam Sandler was originally given the part but had to turn down the role due to scheduling issues with Judd Apatow 's Funny People (2009).
Michael Fassbender Lieutenant Archie Hicox, a British commando and former film critic who assists the Basterds on their mission in France. Hicox was patterned after actor George Sanders . Simon Pegg was originally given the part but had to turn down the role due to scheduling issues with Steven Spielberg 's The Adventures of Tintin (2011).
Diane Kruger Bridget von Hammersmark, a German film star turned spy for the United Kingdom . Tarantino based Hammersmark on Hungarian actress Ilona Massey . For her portrayal of the character Kruger was inspired by German actress Hildegard Knef .
Daniel Brühl Fredrick Zoller, a German army sniper whose story is made into a propaganda film . Tarantino created Zoller as a Nazi version of Audie Murphy . : 11:00–13:00
Til Schweiger Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz, a former German army soldier who murdered numerous Gestapo officers and is recruited by the Basterds.
B. J. Novak Smithson "Little Man" Utivich, a short and slightly built member of the Basterds unit.
Gedeon Burkhard Corporal Wilhelm Wicki, the Austrian -born, deadpan-humored translator of the Basterds unit.
Jacky Ido Marcel, Shosanna's lover and the projectionist at the cinema
Omar Doom Omar Ulmer, a member of the Basterds unit
Samm Levine Hirschberg, a member of the Basterds unit
August Diehl Sturmbannführer Dieter Hellstrom, an intelligent German officer who is suspicious of Hicox.
Denis Ménochet Perrier LaPadite, a French farmer sheltering the Dreyfus family.
Sylvester Groth Joseph Goebbels
Martin Wuttke Adolf Hitler
Mike Myers General Ed Fenech, Hicox's superior officer.
Julie Dreyfus Francesca Mondino, Goebbels' French translator.
Richard Sammel Sergeant Rachtman
Alexander Fehling Master Sergeant Wilhelm
Rod Taylor Winston Churchill , who assists Fenech in briefing Hicox. This was Taylor's final film appearance before his death in 2015.
Sönke Möhring Private Butz
Paul Rust Andy Kagan, a member of the Basterds unit
Michael Bacall Michael Zimmerman, a member of the Basterds unit
Carlos Fidel Simon Sakowitz, a member of the Basterds unit
Ken Duken " Mata Hari " soldier
Christian Berkel Proprietor Eric
Léa Seydoux Charlotte LaPadite
Tina Rodriguez Julie LaPadite
Lena Friedrich Suzanne LaPadite
Jana Pallaske Babette
Rainer Bock General Schonherr, a member of the Oberkommando des Heeres
Michael Scheel General Frank, a member of the Oberkommando des Heeres
Hilmar Eichhorn Emil Jannings
Patrick Elias Jakob Dreyfus
Eva Löbau Miriam Dreyfus
Salvadore Brandt Bob Dreyfus
Jasper Linnewedel Amos Dreyfus
Volker Zack Michalowski " Edgar Wallace " soldier

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

16:03

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:03Read transcript
  • Among the negative critics, Daniel Mendelsohn in Newsweek and David Denby in The New Yorker were harsh, but Roger Ebert loved the film and gave it four stars.
  • The 88% Rotten Tomatoes score is called both low for how good the movie is and not indicative of how passionately some people dislike it.
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58:24

Casting What-Ifs

Leonardo DiCaprio was to play Hans Landa; Michael Fassbender auditioned for Landa; Simon Pegg chose Tintin over Hicko...

Leonardo DiCaprio was to play Hans Landa; Michael Fassbender auditioned for Landa; Simon Pegg chose Tintin over Hickox; Adam Sandler was rumored for the Bear Jew; Nastassja Kinski turned down Bridget von Hammersmark; Tarantino nearly passed on Melanie Laurent as too famous; Brad Pitt accepted Aldo over rose at Chateau Miraval; an early iteration rumored Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:58:24Read transcript
  • Leonardo DiCaprio was supposed to play Hans Landa, which would have meant doing the movie in English since he could not have learned German and French in time, though the joke is that a guy who slept in a carved-out bear might have taught himself.
  • Michael Fassbender tried out for Landa a couple of times and was heartbroken, then got the call that he had Hickox at the expense of Simon Pegg, who chose Tintin instead, a sliding-doors moment the hosts call very tough since they love Pegg.
  • Adam Sandler was rumored to play the Bear Jew and would have nailed the Teddy Williams thing; Nastasha Kinski (as transcribed) was initially going to play Bridget but turned it down, so Kruger got the role, and Kinski, 10 or 15 years older, would have been more a Marlene Dietrich aging starlet; Kruger is so good in the movie.
  • This is a generation of actors who grew up on Tarantino: Fassbender and friends put on a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in Dublin, and Simon Pegg sat alone in a hotel room anguished over choosing between Spielberg's obvious blockbuster and Tarantino's World War II movie.
  • Tarantino struggled over casting Melanie Laurent because he thought she was too famous and wanted to discover someone new; she insisted she was not famous and convinced him.
  • Tarantino met Pitt at Chateau Miraval, where Pitt lived with Angelina Jolie, and they discussed Aldo over a night and five bottles of the estate's own Pink Floyd rose before he accepted, so the rose was a critical factor.
  • This was the first time Tarantino worked with an in-his-prime movie star rather than rediscovering an underappreciated asset, and everything since, Django, Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has used stars in their sweet spot, so it may have been more of a risk for Tarantino than for Pitt; complicating things, the Weinstein Company produced and distributed the film, and Pitt, who had refused to work with Weinstein for years over Gwyneth Paltrow, did so because he wanted to work with Tarantino.
  • Possibly half-assed research rather than a casting what-if: an early iteration when Tarantino first conceived the project was rumored to include Sylvester Stallone as Aldo, Bruce Willis as Donnie Donowitz and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hugo Stiglitz, which would make sense for a late-90s script.
  • Earlier, during the tavern discussion, Fassbender is said to have tried out for Landa five times, and a host wants to discuss in Casting What-Ifs how both careers would have gone with him as Landa.
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1:04:46

Half-Assed Internet Research

Hellstrom's King Kong theory is Tarantino's own from Fresh Air; the opening title card is Tarantino's handwriting; th...

Hellstrom's King Kong theory is Tarantino's own from Fresh Air; the opening title card is Tarantino's handwriting; the screenplay sets Aldo's briefing in England and explains his neck scar as a survived lynching; Donny Donowitz is the father of True Romance's Lee Donowitz and Aldo is suggested as Floyd's great-grandfather; Eli Roth directed Nation's Pride; the marquee film is Clouzot's Le Corbeau; Zoller is based on Audie Murphy; Goebbels's Lilian Harvey tantrum reflects her 1939 flight from Germany; Landa's rat speech draws on The Eternal Jew; von Hammersmark is based partly on Zarah Leander; Tarantino said discovering Waltz gave him his movie; Hickox quotes Cole Porter and Villon

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 01:04:46Read transcript
  • Hellstrom's King Kong theory is Tarantino's own from his Terry Gross interview, and the opening title card is in Tarantino's handwriting; the screenplay reveals that the 'I want my scalps' briefing takes place in England and that the ligature marks on Aldo's neck come from a survived lynching, a common punishment in the 20s and 30s, which also references Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
  • Lee Donowitz and Donnie Donowitz are related, and Aldo is assumed or suggested to be the great-grandfather of Floyd from True Romance; Eli Roth, the horror director of Hostel, directed Nation's Pride, the film within the film.
  • The movie Shoshana takes down off the marquee is Henri-Georges Clouseau's (as transcribed) Le Corbeau, a famous 40s French film with hidden anti-Nazi messages; the Audie Murphy basis for Zoller is a clever subversion of the American ideal of heroism applied to a German soldier.
  • Goebbels throws a tantrum at Francesca's mention of Lillian Harvey because Harvey fled Nazi Germany in 1939 after helping the Jewish choreographer Jens Keith escape to Switzerland; Landa's rats speech to the farmer is influenced by The Eternal Jew, an SS propaganda film made in Poland that depicted Jews as disease-spreading rats; Hammersmark is based somewhat on Zara Leander (as transcribed), a Swedish actress said to have been a Russian spy; this is less half-assed research than World War II history.
  • Tarantino has said that discovering Waltz gave him his movie, since he had come to fear the role was literally unplayable, and he was resistant to Leo speaking English with a German accent for two and a half hours.
  • Hickox is literate and literary: 'Paris when it sizzles' is a lyric from a Cole Porter song, and 'like the snows of yesteryear' comes from a Villon poem (attributed in the episode to Jacques Villon), heady stuff for a Tarantino movie that still feels true to the character.
  • Earlier, during the tavern discussion, a host borrows a piece of half-assed research: the King Kong scene is Tarantino's theory from Fresh Air, and his Top Gun theory would have been anachronistic.
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1:14:54

Picking Nits

Operation Kino is not a subtle code name; Nazi security at the premiere is lax with a mountain of nitrate film and vi...

Operation Kino is not a subtle code name; Nazi security at the premiere is lax with a mountain of nitrate film and visible dynamite; Hickox calls Pabst German when he is Austrian; Wilhelm's table cannot hear the switch to English; Bridget leaves her shoe and a signed napkin behind; the developer is threatened on top of flammable film; the 'Hans out of a million' line; Hitler fetching his own gum; Shoshana's filmed message is in English

In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 01:14:54Read transcript
  • One host has no nits; another opens with a big one: Kino is the German word for movie theater, so Operation Kino is not a subtle code name for a mission anyone overhearing could figure out; OPSEC for the Nazis is not high order, with everybody important put in a theater the size of the Bowery Ballroom guarded by little more than Wanda, where any Italian filmmaker can walk in off the street.
  • Rewatching, a host was briefly confused about why Landa let the two Italians into the theater, having forgotten that he purposefully allows them to bring the dynamite in to take care of the Nazi command; the nit is that his decision is already made, though his following through on killing Bridget in the interrogation delays the realization until his exchange with Aldo.
  • What about everybody else in the security unit: there is a mountain-sized pile of flammable film and literal dynamite around people's legs, visible to the naked eye on the stairs, which prompts a John Hamm (as transcribed) joke and a reprimand for having dick on the brain.
  • Two explanations offered: it is the end of the war and the Nazis have checked out, their famous rigor fallen away, or the movie is bad; the hosts take the first, since you cannot get 90 minutes into a rewatch and decide the movie is bad because the Germans lacked security.
  • Hickox is said to have been writing a book on G.W. Pabst, whom he calls German, but Pabst is Austrian, just like Hitler, and he still got the cosign from Fennec (as transcribed) and Churchill despite the error; when fact checkers at the Ringer make mistakes, the response is 'there's the door' and a photo of John Hamm (as transcribed) to go.
  • Wilhelm's table at the Maximilian birthday celebration cannot hear the next table and is not suspicious at the switch to English, even though the scene's tension rests on the others in the room being mortal peril; the party freely conducts a sensitive conversation and the neighbors hear none of it, and things go awry only because Hellstrom enters after they yell at Wilhelm and because of the strange accent; Wilhelm's drunkenness is perfect, like hitting peach schnapps at a high school party.
  • Without wanting to be insensitive about being shot in the leg, a host objects that Bridget, in agony and terror, leaves behind not only her high-fashion footwear but a napkin bearing her kiss and signature; the defenses are that this is just movies, she is not a trained agent who knows how to clean a scene, and Aldo needed to get out of Dodge rather than sweep the room.
  • The Landa-as-Sherlock-Holmes affectation of pipe, hat and uniform is loved, but is it Sherlock Holmes if her name is literally on the napkin; maybe he is not as smart as he thinks, and the modern version is sending a tweet instead of a DM, like the Ray Allen tweet he said was hacked; she should have signed BVH; Landa's clout score and self-edited wiki page are joked about.
  • The nitrate film is extremely flammable, yet Shoshana and Marcel throw the developer onto what is basically a bomb to convince him and threaten to put an axe in his skull; the 'Hans out of a million' line (as transcribed) does not make sense; and a host cannot shake Hitler having to get up in the middle of the movie to get his own gum when nobody will fetch it for him.
  • Teased by name that the Hitler gum complaint will be the social pull-quote for the episode, the host answers that this is a category of the podcast and she is taking the mission seriously. — Mallory Rubin
  • It is odd that Shoshana's message in the film is in English given how little of the movie is; it is a filmic flourish and an obvious homage to The Wizard of Oz, her face created in light through the smoke, and English makes the movie's most critical sentiment easiest for the intended audience, with the victory over Germany seen as the victory of the English-speaking West; whether it also says Americans are the best filmmakers is doubted, since Tarantino might favor the Italians or the Japanese, and the movie is about how we define ourselves.
  • Earlier, during internet research, a host saves one item for picking nits while another admits to having no nits to pick at all.
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1:33:09

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Does Landa recognize Shoshana at the strudel lunch? Is he already plotting against the Nazi high command when he lets...

Does Landa recognize Shoshana at the strudel lunch? Is he already plotting against the Nazi high command when he lets her go? How did Shoshana come to own the cinema? Why does she stay in France instead of leaving Europe?

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:33:09Read transcript
  • The most persistent question: when Landa has strudel with Shoshana and forgets the last thing he was going to say, are we meant to feel he recognizes her or senses he has met her before; the milk order is read as the tell, and the 'au revoir' at the farm as a sign he does not care whether he catches her because he always has her in his talons.
  • Does he fail to catch her because he is already orchestrating his own scheme to kill the Nazi high command at the premiere, ten steps ahead; it is hard to apply historical precedent to an alternate history, but he does raise not wanting to face a Jewish tribunal, many Nazis fled to South America, and a Jordan Peele show about that is coming to Amazon; the 'one more thing' moment may just keep her in an eternal state of fear.
  • How did Shoshana come to own the cinema within four years while assuming the identity of Emmanuel; she may be telling the truth about an aunt and uncle who left it to her, and reportedly Maggie Chung (as transcribed) was cast as the aunt and shot flashback sequences that were cut, as were Cloris Leachman's scenes, with Isabelle Hubert (as transcribed) the first choice for Madame Mimou (as transcribed) before scheduling conflicts.
  • Documentation of who owned what was harder then; if the theater really came from her family, why would she think it safe to stay somewhere connected to her, when the safest thing would be to leave Europe; the answer offered is that, like Landa plotting against the Germans, she is plotting too, not hiding but changing the marquee letters and living daily life under a different identity.
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