...and I mean *everybody*...
Jonathan Rosenbaum posted a rather damning blog entry on his website regarding QT's "IB" that was subsequently picked up and scoffed at by a smattering of online critics. Rosenbaum responded to the hubbub over his equating "IB" with Holocaust denial in a postscript, reprinted here:
Since many people have been asking me to elaborate on why I think "Inglourious Basterds" is akin to Holocaust denial, I’ll try to explain what I mean as succinctly as possible, by paraphrasing Roland Barthes: anything that makes Fascism unreal is wrong. (He was speaking about Pasolini’s "Salo," but I think one can also say that anything that makes Nazism unreal is wrong.) For me, "Inglourious Basterds" makes the Holocaust harder, not easier to grasp as a historical reality. Insofar as it becomes a movie convention — by which I mean a reality derived only from other movies — it loses its historical reality.
First, let me address another issue, namely that Rosenbaum has also challenged the blogosphere to cogently argue in Tarantino's defense -- what, precisely, is this film contributing to our culture? Does the director have mature assertions to make regarding WWII, or Jewish identity, or the "Final Solution"? Does it even have much to say about film?
My sense is that the answers to all three questions respectively are "nothing," "no," and "no". The first two should be obvious enough, with Tarantino's trash-fixation; for all the intellectualizing about "wish" or "fantasy" fulfillment the movie can hardly be viewed as historical scholarship in any sense of the phrase (not that it aspires to, and not that this should be considered a shortcoming). The last rejection is likely to incite debate, but too often Tarantino seems to be alluding and emulating without care or purpose; his enthusiasm for arcane genre is inspiring, but what of this leaks into his directorial voice feels like the irritating echolalia of a kid who just saw "La Jetée" or "Duck, You Sucker" for the first time and won't shut up about it (the opening credit sequence to "Jackie Brown" with its eye-rollingly smug "Graduate" visual quote comes to mind). If only the retro-Universal logo at the start of "IB" signified something beyond a callow desire to mimic such arbitrary and facile ornamentation (he doesn't just want to make a film *inspired* by Spaghetti Westerns or Kung Fu...he wants to force his audience into a masturbatory time machine so he can participate in these modes quite literally, even as he mashes up disparate genres with filmic ADD).
But, that's not what we're here to discuss. Can the film be justly called "Holocaust denial"? Insofar as Rosenbaum qualifies the term to describe an object that wedges a distance of understanding between the viewer and the event, I would have to admit that yes, it can and does. The question that remains, however, is whether or not this precludes the film's candidacy for success or excellency or aesthetic merit, as Rosenbaum suggests.
The notion of filmic -- or perhaps better put, narrative -- morality is a difficult one to discuss, even more so today where it seems as though the most widely praised filmmakers are cynics, inventing microcosms that suggest more hope for the nefarious (or at least ethically ambiguous) than for the innocent or steadfastly compassionate, which have come to be depicted as sharply naive. We've gone beyond simply cheering the bad guy in his tainted struggle, knowing that he'd either get his or be redeemed in the end. The casting of the chief antagonist of "Chinatown" turned out to be remarkably prescient, as it's now the director/writer who's often the "villain," being cheered on for his/her sadism without -- and this is a key departure -- any notable repercussions in the text of the film (how can there be?). This has also been followed by, to my thinking, a shift in film criticism, away from discussion of characters and themes and more to aesthetic subtexts and subtle relationships between form and content; it's not that we're no longer talking about what films seem to be saying, it's simply that they seem to be speaking to us in tongues half the time.
The point being, can a film be "wrong," to use Barthes' terminology -- morally unjustifiable -- and still be a good movie? My elementary argument in this late hour would be something along the lines of "why not?". And I'm not referring to the easy divide 
between a film's visceral detail and its "story" (ie, the way that a depicted killing can be ethically dubious but rendered beautifully through mise-en-scene, cinematography, etc), but rather to the difference between the nature of expression (cinematic eloquence, perhaps?) and the nature of what is being expressed. This is a much more complex dichotomy to read into "IB," particularly because even if read as Holocaust revisionism it seems to be cutting corners in all sorts of places -- it only achieves truly mind-bending bowdlerization in the fiery finale, content instead to use the threat of Holocaust throughout as a tension-increasing agent (and it is used, I must say, remarkably -- Tarantino had my attention, at least, for the entire duration of his flick).
Those who are dismissing and/or embracing this as a propaganda film akin to Riefenstahl's are on the right track. The ending is a grand set-piece of wish-fulfillment, to be sure, but not for Jews -- for young cinephiles who not only wish that actual wars could resolve themselves climactically like the conflicts in pictures, but films about actual wars as well. When I exited the theater after seeing "IB," my first reaction was directed squarely at the denouement: Hadn't Tarantino just re-organized WWII the way that the Revolutionary War and the 100 Years War have been in the past, inventing a kind of tall tale? Is gunning down Hitler in a burning theater any more a sin than conjuring a fraudulent romance between Pocahontas and John Smith (I'm looking at you, Terence Malick!)? The answer depends, of course, on whether or not we have a social commitment to uphold the veracity of certain events above others (we do), and whether or not that responsibility implicates artists (I'm not so sure that it does, though clichés like "dramatic license" are sticking in my throat).
Tarantino's meta-stance may occlude a few less-perspicacious detractors, because he can always claim he's revising Holocaust literature rather than the real thing, and the film itself illustrates this protectively (it's a grand, day-old stew of tropes and simulacrums). But ultimately the tenor of the movie's reception is reliant on an audience's thirst for disengagement -- which is why some critics and bloggers are claiming that older viewers just "aren't getting it". You've got to be hip to not only what Tarantino does but also ne'er-do-well's like Lars Von Trier (he also gets a thrashing on Rosenbaum's blog, by the way), whose films are often so unnecessarily menacing and discomfiting they seem like endurance tests. I've written about the so-called "point" of "Dogville" before -- it has something to say about primitive psychology and the need for feudal protection, I think -- but even if my interpretation were deemed valid and somewhat authoritative I'm not sure I'd agree with it as functional commentary. And yet the film is disturbingly poetic, and probably one of only a few masterpieces from the 00s. Why?
Because, like "IB" (not a masterpiece, but still very good), it epitomizes what (at least some) people who are in-tune to the culture of today expect to reap from it; not the seeds of change any more, or any comforting observations about cosmic equilibrium, but masochistic mirror-manifestations of the self-referential and tangential nightmares we've become (to be slightly alarmist). One gets the distinct impression that Von Trier (certainly) and Tarantino (maybe) are mocking us from the projection booth ("Young Americans"?), making the on-screen explorations of their barbed idolatry even more potent. We don't even write books or make films about events or socio-political concepts anymore; in spite of their protean content, they're mostly about other, older books and films (or in the case of "Dogville," experimental Teutonic dramas). What's even more disturbing is that books about books and films about films -- even as they tackle their true subjects ever-so-superficially -- are often intensely satisfying and emotionally resonant.
I often doubt my generation's ability to properly fathom crises like the Holocaust -- but Tarantino seems to be saying that we don't really have to. Wasn't the Holocaust just a movie, anyway? An excruciatingly palpable, mass-murdering movie?
Friday, August 28, 2009
Since everyone else seems to be talking about it...
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24 comments:
Couldn't have said it better myself, Jon.
As one of the "smattering of online critics" you refer to, I just wanted to point out that I wasn't "scoffing" at Mr. Rosenbaum's opinions as much as I was at the lack of access over at his site to a forum where one could debate some of these opinions. To his credit, he did respond to myself, and others, regarding some of this kerfuffle.
Despite my strong disagreement with him (I am firmly in your camp when it comes to IB), I do believe the various dissenting views of this film and of QT himself all have some validity. I would never want to be perceived as someone trying to quash dissent the way that some online critics did last year in re: The Dark Knight.
I very much appreciate Joseph "Jon" Lanthier’s post-—especially his observation that “ultimately the tenor of the movie's reception is reliant on an audience's thirst for disengagement”. I also very much appreciate him bringing up Malick’s The New World along with Inglourious Basterds.
While speaking on the phone last night to one of my best friends, a Cuban American who's the same age as me, he mentioned having recently heard a BBC interview with Tarantino on NPR. When it was pointed out to Tarantino that the whole notion of Native Americans scalping their victims is a pernicious piece of movie mythology (it appears that this practice was carried out, albeit infrequently, by white settlers against Native Americans), Tarantino replied that he knew all that but that what really mattered to him was the movie myth, not the actual historical facts of the scalping that took place. This raises the possibility--if my friend’s paraphrase of the interview is correct--that Tarantino, in order to contribute what he and/or some of his fans believe is some form of moral lucidity about the victimization of Jews in World War 2 (or at least about some of our attitudes towards that victimization), is quite happy to perpetuate a disgusting stereotype foisted on the same group of people that white American settlers in North and South America came very close to exterminating.
To give some sense of proportion here, let me cite the passage from Tzvetan Todorov that I quote in my short book about Jarmusch’s Dead Man: “In 1500 the world population is approximately 400 million, of whom 80 million inhabit the Americas. By the middle of the sixteenth century, out of these 80 million, there remain ten. Or limiting ourselves to Mexico: on the eve of its conquest, its population is about 25 million; in 1600, it is one million. If the word genocide has ever been applied to a situation with some accuracy, this is here the case. It constitutes a record not only in relative terms (a destruction in the order of 90 percent or more), but also in absolute terms, since we are speaking of a population diminution estimated at 70 million human lives. None of the great massacres of the twentieth century can be compared to this hecatomb.”
Lanthier rightly raises the issue of “whether or not we have a social commitment to uphold the veracity of certain events above others (we do), and whether or not that responsibility implicates artists (I'm not so sure that it does, though clichés like "dramatic license" are sticking in my throat).” For me, the answer to this question always has to be in relation to specific cases. Does the moral/ethical or aesthetic or philosophical enlightenment made possible by the artist justify the distortions he or she makes in the historical record? Theoretically, I think one could reply that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.
So, from this point of view, one of the issues raised by the function of scalping in Inglourious Basterds is whether or not, in the interest of movie kicks, we mind it much if the memory and legacy of approximately 70 million human lives are distorted and unjustly insulted for the sake of what purports to be our own enlightenment about the more recent victimization of a smaller number of Holocaust victims.
I think raising this question is ultimately more important than resolving it--particularly if an audience's "thirst for disengagement" is also at issue.
As one of the "smattering of online critics" you refer to, I just wanted to point out that I wasn't "scoffing" at Mr. Rosenbaum's opinions as much as I was at the lack of access over at his site to a forum where one could debate some of these opinions.
Good point, Tony, and I didn't feel you were "quashing dissent" -- "scoff" was probably the wrong verb there, but the post indeed came off as "strong disagreement," to say the very least.
Mr. Rosenbaum himself makes another round of impeccable points, but I'd hardly expect anything less. One thing I would like to say: hopefully it came across in my piece above that I was essentially *agreeing* with Mr. Rosenbaum's "IB" assertions, but that for me the sense of shirked, or skewed, moral duty made the narrative an intriguing ethical challenge (but then, my thirst for disengagement is rather unquenchable these days).
Tarantino's subsequent comments also bear out the theory that he seems to be confusing general ethics with a kind of "film" ethics, where respecting victims is far less important that proving how much you might know about Czech New Wave or Giallo (interestingly, this notion of "movie myth" doesn't even seem to be considered in terms of the final product, ie whether or not it adds anything to the experience of the film, it's merely a question of paying homage for its own sake, which might be the most damnable thing here). It also seems to have taken the ironic observation of "Liberty Valence" rather seriously; Tarantino has not only printed legend above fact, but has in his own way deemed it more significant (as though "film" reality IS the only reality).
Rosenbaum puts it best here:
So, from this point of view, one of the issues raised by the function of scalping in Inglourious Basterds is whether or not, in the interest of movie kicks, we mind it much if the memory and legacy of approximately 70 million human lives are distorted and unjustly insulted for the sake of what purports to be our own enlightenment about the more recent victimization of a smaller number of Holocaust victims.
I think raising this question is ultimately more important than resolving it...
I'm not even so sure it's purporting to be "our own enlightenment" about the Holocaust -- Tarantino's just tossing in as many motifs of brutality as he can. It's just that any film about the Holocaust automatically becomes a film about coping (or not) with the historicity of the Holocaust. And yes, it does wind up making "genocide" look somewhat cool by association, which seems to be the ever-final frontier of "ballsy" bad taste (which is often misread as philosophical complexity, too, unfortunately).
I also agree that raising the question is more important than answering it: or most important of all may be the fact that it was raised in the first place. Tarantino represents the most insidiously insular kind of filmmaker, and since his films are so entertaining on their own terms they almost take on the hazardous aura of good propaganda -- fun to watch (especially fun to disengage with), but potentially devastating, too.
Tarantino's subsequent comments also bear out the theory that he seems to be confusing general ethics with a kind of "film" ethics, where respecting victims is far less important that proving how much you might know about Czech New Wave or Giallo (interestingly, this notion of "movie myth" doesn't even seem to be considered in terms of the final product, ie whether or not it adds anything to the experience of the film, it's merely a question of paying homage for its own sake, which might be the most damnable thing here).
I think that Tarantino "the self-promoter" always makes his best effort to sabotage Tarantino "the artist." So I generally don't give any validity to his comments (the same way I ignore Spike Lee when he's out doing the promo rounds), which I think are calculated to stir up controversy like a modern day Barnum would do. This seems evident in his boneheaded response to 9/11 from Rolling Stone which Rosenbaum quoted at his site.
Looking strictly at the text, it seems that Basterds uses our movie-geek love for film references to draw us into the trap of applauding the violence, before turning on us in the climactic theater scene, where we are meant to experience the horror of burning humans in a locked room despite the fact that they are Nazis. The fact that they were moments ago disgustingly cheering on Zoller's savagery in Nation's Pride is critical in indicting us, the viewers, for our inability to avoid getting swept up in the frenzy inspired by QT's own propaganda.
It's just that any film about the Holocaust automatically becomes a film about coping (or not) with the historicity of the Holocaust.
Again, looking strictly at the text, and not any baggage that we bring to it, the film is NOT about the Holocaust, which is why I have a problem with this reasoning. There is only one scene in which the spectre of the Holocaust is invoked, and that is the theater scene I referred to above.
This may go to the point Rosenbaum made in the postscript at his site yesterday, "... by paraphrasing Roland Barthes: anything that makes Fascism unreal is wrong. (He was speaking about Pasolini’s Salo, but I think one can also say that anything that makes Nazism unreal is wrong.) For me, Inglourious Basterds makes the Holocaust harder, not easier to grasp as a historical reality."
However, as an outsider, it made me understand how simple it was for Germans to get caught up in the fervor of the time. And it made me realize that even the words, "I was just following orders..." or any other excuses are not suitable justifications for the tragedy that occurred.
Thanks for your excellent points, Tony. I of course respect your views a great deal.
I think that Tarantino "the self-promoter" always makes his best effort to sabotage Tarantino "the artist."
Ha!
Looking strictly at the text, it seems that Basterds uses our movie-geek love for film references to draw us into the trap of applauding the violence, before turning on us in the climactic theater scene, where we are meant to experience the horror of burning humans in a locked room despite the fact that they are Nazis.
I read this scene slightly differently -- after all, we never REALLY get the complete horror of the "burning humans"; much more emphasis is put on the machine gun fury of the two Basterds plugging Germans full of holes even as both they and their targets get burnt to a crisp. It's an unnecessarily cavalier kind of cowboyism that both taints and makes positively thrilling the invocation of death camp furnaces.
Again, looking strictly at the text, and not any baggage that we bring to it, the film is NOT about the Holocaust, which is why I have a problem with this reasoning.
I both agree and disagree. As I said in the original post, "...even if read as Holocaust revisionism it seems to be cutting corners in all sorts of places -- it only achieves truly mind-bending bowdlerization in the fiery finale, content instead to use the threat of Holocaust throughout as a tension-increasing agent." Regardless of whether or not the Holocaust itself is shown or alluded to, it's impossible to make a film about Nazi-occupied France with Jew-hunters and Jew-bears that ISN'T in some way about the Holocaust (yes, the Holocaust and WWII are just "settings," but that's also part of the problem). If Tarantino had perhaps been more direct in acknowledging or leveraging that elephant in the room the film might have been more honorable, if not quite as fun.
All of which for some reason makes me want to again reiterate that I both liked the movie a great deal AND found it indefensible, if that makes any sort of sense.
@Joseph's ...I both liked the movie a great deal AND found it indefensible...
This is exactly how I felt about District 9.
Nice piece, Lanthier. But I have to take umbrage with your last sentence. I know you're being rhetorical, but if you really want an answer to your question, you should ask someone who survived the concentration camps whether or not the Holocaust was just a movie. My grandmother's name is Shirley Wishnitski. Her phone number is 805 373 1791. She was born in Poland. Her entire family was murdered at Auschwitz. She survived. I have listened to her talk about the Holocaust for the last 37 years of my life, and not once has she ever referred to what happened as being just like a movie, either literally or figuratively. I know you're trying to make some kind of point about the thin membrane that divides life from movies, especially over the last, say, 80 to 100 years, because, after all, pace Don Delillo, the entire 20th Century is on film, but the Holocaust, as an event, lies just somewhere outside of filmic representation.
These are really interesting discussions, but I think they're unfortunately reading too much into QT's own intents and abilities, and approaching the problems in a way that's not getting at the solution.
The guy's talents as a filmmaker are in his editing -- particularly in the creation of suspense -- and his ability to make filmgoers feel the pressure of going along with horror for the sake of being cool.
The latter is such a post modern approach that (to me) it precludes modern discussion about the morality of his topics. For example, I found Pulp Fiction, morally reprehensible pretty much all the way through, but when the guy wants to make grindhouse cinema parallel with classic film, it seems to call for rhetorical trickery beyond "it's wrong to laugh at shooting an innocent person and identifying with drug dealers and here's why".
His fan base and associated teeny boppers want to laugh things off in a slick way. I think there needs to be an equally slick rebuttle, and that's what I'm afraid I'm not seeing here.
Coupla responses...
@ Deirdre: That, if anything else, makes me want to check out District 9...
@ Anonymous: I understand and applaud your umbrage, and I am certain that what your grandmother endured was in no way fiction. I also agree with this: "but the Holocaust, as an event, lies just somewhere outside of filmic representation." This is mirrored quite startlingly in "IB". But the last line of my post was actually a twisted reference to the Tarantino quote about 9/11 (from Rosenbaum's blog), where he claims that the WTC attacks didn't phase him because he'd already seen the same thing in a movie. There was more to my finale than JUST that, of course, but I was trying to communicate the impossibility of fictional representation of certain events, rather than the inverse.
@ Erik H: I must say I agree with you. But re: QT's intents and abilities, I'm not so sure that was my goal. I'm concerned with what's on the screen, or -- in this case -- what isn't and should be. The filmic allusions and meta-literary posturing have more or less direct correlations in "IB" itself.
it seems to call for rhetorical trickery beyond "it's wrong to laugh at shooting an innocent person and identifying with drug dealers and here's why".
If that's what you got from my above piece, than I probably need to further hone my critical chops. I was chasing a far more intricate rebuttal, if not necessarily a slick one: which should at least be evident from my comment quote reading "I both liked the movie a great deal AND found it indefensible, if that makes any sort of sense."
Jon - apologies for my shorthand - To rephrase, I liked your approach and found it fairly convincing for what you set out to do. All credit given, I have unfortunately yet to find anyone who can match QT's ability to simply rally the troops.
Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote: "When it was pointed out to Tarantino that the whole notion of Native Americans scalping their victims is a pernicious piece of movie mythology (it appears that this practice was carried out, albeit infrequently, by white settlers against Native Americans), Tarantino replied that he knew all that but that what really mattered to him was the movie myth, not the actual historical facts of the scalping that took place. This raises the possibility--if my friend’s paraphrase of the interview is correct--that Tarantino, in order to contribute what he and/or some of his fans believe is some form of moral lucidity about the victimization of Jews in World War 2 (or at least about some of our attitudes towards that victimization), is quite happy to perpetuate a disgusting stereotype foisted on the same group of people that white American settlers in North and South America came very close to exterminating."
I have no quarrel with this comment, but I want to call attention to an ironic approach to the scalping issue in the film itself. Aldo Raine is nicknamed "the Apache" and tries to "earn" the label by collecting scalps. For the Germans, as touched on briefly in the tavern scene (and in reality including Adolf Hitler), the Apaches embodied by Karl May's Winnetou character epitomize the heroic noble savage. The irony, for what it's worth, is that the American Basterds are in Europe perpetuating a stereotype that many Germans, arch stereotypers otherwise, may well reject.
The truth is that Tarantino doesn’t make films, he knows cinema and adores movies. The rest is merely window dressing. To be a fan of his work is simply a means of acquiring an attitude; appreciating ‘Pulp Fiction’ instantly makes one hip, cool and beatnik. Yet could one say the same about Godard and the 60s? I think a difference remains; Godard films were in the often repeated words of Truffaut able to say something about cinema and something about life. Unfortunately, Tarantino’s films struggle to say something, anything about life; he seems more interested in the fabric of cinema, deconstructing the film making process through a litany of obvious self reflexive devices and gushingly name checking film canons of personal favourites. Does a film like IB really warrant so much debate and free promotion when other film makers on the margins are struggling to get their films seen and distributed? Rosenbaum is correct when he says that Hollywood limits what films we see - the parameters for consumption are narrow.
Samuel Wilson beat me to it on the scalping issue. Insulting as the scalping may be - to Indians, Jews, or whomever - it's significant that the character who instigates it, Aldo "the Apache", is an ignorant white hick.
Aldo claims to have "a little Indian" in him, a genetic fib echoed by many American white people who, like Aldo, know as little about real life Indian culture as they do Italian grammar or silent German cinema. Post-genocidal guilt, miscegenation, and self-deception have left American whites feeling entitled to say whatever they want about the indigenous peoples, having convinced themselves that, by now, it's really their culture, too.
What's even more ridiculous about Aldo is that, not only does he derive all his knowledge of his alleged Indian ancestors from racist American films, but he assumes that the Germans have, as well. Scalping German soldiers is Aldo's attempt to send the Germans into a race panic the way Americans would react to similar tactics, but the Germans are, tellingly, only offended by the fact that the Basterds - with the exception of Aldo himself - are Jews. No doubt Aldo is completely unaware of Karl May's character of Winnetou, and the fondness Germans at the time had for the character. Tarantino, however, is aware of it, and of the fact that the German perception of the Apaches is just as skewed and false as Aldo's, both being derived from popular fiction produced by white racists.
The real life Apache tribes, as should be common knowledge at this point, weren't as savage as so many westerns have portrayed them, but it would also be dangerously revisionist to say that atrocities were not committed by American Indians against white settlers. The reason for it, however, as Rosenbaum pointed out, is that they were being targeted for nothing less than genocide, and one can hardly imagine a stronger case of do or die. Inglourious Basterds, in keeping with Tarantino's "western in World War II" premise, equates the Apaches in the American West to Jews in occupied France: desperate, hunted, and hated people who resort to positively medieval behavior to escape extermination.
One of the side effects of cinematic demonization of an ethnic group - Apaches in American westerns or Jews in Nazi propaganda films, for instance - is that, in stirring up the desired animosity for that group, a mythological mystique is stirred up, too. The Nazis, unimpressed by Aldo's Apache tactics, are, nonetheless, shaken to the core by the idea of a group of murderous Jews stalking the country side, the most apt example being the strange belief that Sgt. Donowitz - the "Bear Jew" - is actually a vengeful golem. The Americans and Germans alike are intoxicated by their own brands of movie myth, and much of their barbarity - like Tarantino's barbarity as a filmmaker - is the result of watching too many movies that repeat the same lies.
Not that any of this necessarily reflects profound historical understanding. If the film's final spoken line is any indication, then Aldo is, at least in part, a caricature of Tarantino himself: violent, embarrassed by his own whiteness, uninterested in anything outside what he's learned from movies, and, despite putting on airs of higher thought, nothing more than a dumb jerk from Tennessee, aware of his own idiocy but unwilling to let it stop him. If nothing else, such self-parody alone should qualify Tarantino as something above the obliviously stupid cinematic Sarah Palin that Rosenbaum labels him.
Postscript: A fact I forgot to mention in my last post is that Tarantino is, in fact, part Cherokee Indian. That fellow Tennesseean Aldo Raine's dubious mixed heritage is treated by Tarantino as, at best, irrelevant is further evidence of Tarantino's awareness of how and why Americans feel the way they do about Indians, and what role movies play in that deception.
Who says Native Americans didn't scalp?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalping
Who says no one takes Wikipedia seriously anymore?
Well, if you don't like Wikipedia, how about an expert on American Indian history?
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1977/3/1977_3_96.shtml
I guess it's possible that this guy Axtell is falsifying the historical records he cites just for the sake of "re-establishing the dominant" or some such. Possible, but not likely.
Now, maybe there are other anthropologists out there who will swear up and down that Axtell got it wrong. That's a fair objection, but an article like Mr. Rosenbaum's, which takes Tarantino to task for historical distortion, could be fairly accused of distortion as well to the extent that he claims that "Europeans invented scalping" is a verdict with which every reputable expert agrees.
Maybe you can accuse Tarantino of not providing an intruding commentator to correct Aldo Raines' mistake, like the guy in ROCKY HORROR: "It's a little known fact that scalping wasn't practiced by the Apaches with whom Aldo claims kinship--"
But really.
Gene, it's a fair point, and I'm glad you're making it properly -- if nothing else, it seems like the reality of scalping is far more complex than both the myth and the revisionist assumption.
And my apologies for any snideness (not sure if the last comment was from you or someone else), but making an argument by leaving anonymous links to wikipedia articles is...well, need I finish?
Thanks for the courteous reply, and no, I wasn't the anonymous guy. (I'm too busy trying to flog my own blog to enjoy the liberty of anonymity!!)
Great comments, BTW. I am the son of a Holocaust survivor, but this of itself does not make my opinion more worthy. Although thoughts of the holocaust are never far away, I find it hard to get worked up over IG as a revisionist film. I mean... he kills Hitler for Chrissake! That's its whole point! A PC film like "Schindler's List" is a more dangerous film than IG on this account. The real Oskar Schindler is more complex than the "character" dreamt up by Spielberg and his team. THAT film would have been better had it explored Schindler's position a bit more. its portrayal of jews as needing a Savior, especially one who sleeps with his female workers...now THAT is a dicey subject that Spielberg barely touched upon. Even Polanski found the irony in "The Pianist" tough to portray - a serviceable film that resorted to cheap tactics. Unfortunate, since Polanski experienced the Holocaust firsthand. Classical music-loving or "sensitive" Nazis seem to be the latest manifestation. Look at "Black Book". The SS officer collects stamps..."he can't be all bad". It seems that Sensitive-Nazi is replacing Hooker-With-A-Heart-Of-Gold as the next movie fashion. Jokes aside, the Holocaust is too difficult to tackle in all its complexity. Its barbarism too horrible to explicitly portray without becoming a Takash Miike affair, and any political-lessons are similarly murky. Aside from the dull lesson that "genocide is WRONG" - what else can be said? The best Holocaust films are those which narrowly restrict their focus. "Europa, Europa", or even "Das Boot" demonstrate my point (although the latter is not strictly a Holocaust film, and deliberately avoids its political setting - somewhat like M*A*S*H did in its attempt to suplant Vietnam for Korea). Putting these hairy issues aside, lets critique this film for what it aspires to be - a QT exploitation experience.
When I first saw its trailer, I cringed a small bit. The image of Pitt trying so hard to master his southern accent, along with the underhand pitch of trivia - Aldo "Rayne" - QT was once-again trying to hard, while playing to the most pedestrian of cinephiles. I similarly winced at Commander Cody in Ep. 3 of Star Wars. This is the sort of "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" I find annoying. Come to think of it, my own reference using Python is similarly guilty. Regardless.... i find it hard to get worked up over IG, because the film is simply, a bit...dumb.
Part 2-
For me, QT movies are ALWAYS a bit of a disappointment. Oliver Stone seems like a wise and mature older man, whereas QT is a comparatively an obnoxious child who suffers from ADD. Come to think of it, that description is no metaphor. Now I'm all about letting art stand on it's own merits. (couldn't listen to Wagner otherwise) but QT seems to have never left his video-clerk roots behind. Fun to talk to - but with nothing insightful to say about anything real. That could be forgiven if IG was more successful at portraying...dare I say it....true Pulp Fiction. IG doesn't really achieve it's intended goal. I wanted to like the film's crassness... watching greasy Hitler getting pumped full of lead!!! What could be cooler!??!! But I didn't really dig that scene like I'd hoped. I wanted to wallow in it, but I couldn't. Like a colossal banana split you might get at your local Dairy Queen, you want to like it...but its nothing but cheap ice cream and becomes boring half way through. I simply don't consider Tarantino's filmaking abilities up to the task. And besides - the 70's are gone. You can't remake 50's sci-fi either. I'm sorry that you try, QT. I can appreciate your love for exploitation. But that time is past. IG would benefit from looking cheaper, but it also suffers from not being polished either (with its somewhat cramped sets and colorfully saturated production design). Why couldn't IG had been more campy? With more humor like "Ah REEVE ur DUR CHEE". Brad Pitt seemed to be having a good deal of fun, and his Shatner-esque approach was infectious. But film-wise, I'd have enjoyed something akin to "Mad Max". Instead, we're treated to long closeups of the beautiful Shoshana.....looking like an Arquette sister playing thrift store dress-up for her next retro party. Also, I kept waiting for the term "Jewess" to pop up an any second. Aside from my discomfort and anxiety, I wasn't moved (even though I was repetitively told, in cinematic terms. that I should be). Also, I found the Bowie music (was it from The Hunger, or Cat People?) to be an embarrasment.
I've never forgiven Pulp Fiction for ripping off the similarly-structured Repo Man. But I wished for more from IG. A yelling, greasy comic-book Hitler with his Hong Kong Phooey laugh was a nice try. But an even slimier and schlockier film would've been better. Its paint-by-numbers, forced empathy for the Jewish Shoshana character, admixed with a typically American revenge fantasy was a total bore. More action would have actually benefitted this film. A group of jewish Rambos who never do much but stand around, with one "Jew-Bear" simply clubbing an unarmed man - how is THAT supposed to be satisfying? Even sons-of-Holocaust-survivors like myself need something more than THAT. Still, IG seems to have appealed to many,MANY moviegoers. I don't know if this is due to hype, or what exactly. I felt similar towards "The Dark Knight" - a film that for all of the adulation bestowed on it... I found to be quite long.
Part 3 -
I think that QT imagines revenge fantasies dominate Jewish thinking. An expected outcome for someone suckled-until-early-adulthood on the Death Wish movies. To his mind, the "aggression" that he probably sees Israel a manifestation of, is a natural outcome of persecution. Why not? Just like the character of Aldo Rayne, he's got a "little Injun in him". QT thinks scalping is a cool device, and admiringly notes this when referencing his own Indian-blood. QT must see this movie as some sort of gift to America's jews (the are SO popular these days...what with Kaballah and all those empowering Apatow films) and possibly his immediate boss. Even his biggest admirers admit QT is the master of calculation. QT is gonna make the American chosen-people more badass than ANY of those Entebbe-raiding Sabras in Israel! On top of that...he's not gonna apologize like Spielberg did in Munich, that self-hater! QT even puts down Leni Reifenstahl!! It's about time a cinephile told that bitch where to get off, right? Well, although I am quite sick of the Leni-lovers, I don't think QT's dislike is sincere. After all....what video clerk ever had something bad to say about "Triumph Des Willens".
Re: scalping-- on closer examination of Rosenbaum's site I see that he has an entry devoted to the subject but that comments are "off."
Glad I got my shots in over here.
One of the least justified complaints about Tarantino is that he "suffers from ADD." Any director as fond of long takes as Tarantino - and who can put something on the screen as attenuatedly long as the cellar scene, and who can carry it off! - should not be accused of ADD.
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