For some reason, Inglourious Basterds (2009) won one Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Christoph Waltz). It was nominated for seven more: Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing, Best Writing-Original Screenplay, Best Achievement in Cinematography, Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing, and Best Achievement in Sound Editing. Even more surprising, it won a total of 133 awards from 2009-2012. This movie is directed by the infamous Quentin Tarantino; this movie has all the workings and misogyny of a Tarantino movie. He watched old WWII movies such as Hangmen Also Die! and O.S.S. before writing his own in preparation for writing the film. He explains that the war movies he took inspiration from were thrilling, exciting, and had a lot of comedy in them, which inspired the scenes of situational irony in Inglourious Basterds. Now, I'm not sure if I correctly sent the message that I do not like Tarantino. However, I will admit that his storytelling skills are unique. Regardless, his blatant violence and abuse of women characters while simultaneously sexualizing them as objects in his films are vile. Also, in case you didn't know, he literally strangled Krueger in this movie to "aid with realism." I cannot be the only person who sees this as a red flag. The film placed 85th on the IMDb Top 250.
The film consists of Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Mélanie Laurent, and August Diehl. It also featured the narration from Samuel L. Jackson. Although the film is predominantly set in France, the bulk of filming was shot in Germany. Also, a fun fact, Germany banned the movie because of its gross historical inaccuracies, so don't go into the movie thinking it's an actual war film. The movie is set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, following a plan to assassinate the Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers, the Basterds. It just so happens that their plan coincides with a theater owner's vengeful plans for the same. Since I wasn't particularly invested nor engaged with the movie, I decided to take a different approach to this post. In this essay, I'll be explaining the phenomenon and popularity of revenge cinema.
Revenge stories have always been popular. They satisfy our sense of primal justice in the larger picture: you messed with me, so I mess with you. We have wanted to live out the fantasy of revenge at some point in time. So when it comes to the big screen, there's a certain catharsis to be had in seeing characters do that. This is a relatively recent shift in cinema. If a character took justice into their own hands in classical theater, they would also feel the blow of vengeance by those they had wronged. Violence beget violence, death sprung from death, and the message was that you can't take justice into your own hands. However, more recently, we started to see "positive" revenge films, movies like Taken or John Wick, where their revenge is justified from the parental perspective. This phenomenon dates back to the ancient times in classical Greek and Elizabethan revenge plays, in which a man's density was not supposed to be in his own hands; justice was the province of gods and kings.
In modern Western societies, we live with the assumption that we have a say in what's fair and right. This worldview sparked the creation of positive revenge movies. However, one must also see the opposition. If a crazy bad person kills, then that's evil, but if a noble, comforting character kills—well, that should be all right, then. Right? That's essentially the narrative that we're being told. Take the first season of Arrow, for example. He kills everyone on the list his father gives him without hesitation. Yet he's dubbed as a hero vigilante. How is he any different from the ones he killed? You can't defend his actions by saying that he saved so many lives by killing one because Arrow goes off and kills more people!
Tarantino is playing a bold game with the horrors of the Holocaust by allowing "heroes" who were almost entirely Jewish to have their revenge on the Nazi leadership. Simultaneously, he writes Shosanna's character as the mastermind behind the murder of the Nazi leaders. After her family is shot before her as a child, she runs away. She assumes a new identity as a cinema owner. She is later harassed by the irritating Zoller, and her cinema is named the place of his movie premiere. She plans to burn down the cinema to avenge her family and millions of other families. As Tarantino said himself, Inglourious Basterds is his masterpiece. However, it's not only his masterpiece; it's his mission statement about the power of movies.
If you ever felt the urge to right an injustice done to you but realize that the system is rigged, you would get why revenge movies are so satisfactory. Personally, I am a sucker for revenge. I believe that if someone profoundly hurts you, there is no problem with seeking revenge. Of course, to a reasonable extent. I'm not saying to murder a classmate because they took a pen of yours and didn't return it. More often than not, the justice system works against us and does not provide the closure we need to live on with our lives. If you're willing to live with the consequences of your own revenge, then go right ahead.
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