Basterd cool
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009
This has washed up online – it’s an unused poster design for Inglourious Basterds – Tarantino’s latest offering. Emma and I made it out on Sunday night and watched it at the Rio. First time we’ve been to the cinema for a while. We loved it.
I don’t have time to go into detail about why I think the movie’s so damn clever. I think I just felt a kinship with some of the themes kicking around in amongst the tangle of blood, celluloid and swastikas; the idea of cinema as a weapon; the nature of the Jewish cultural counter-offensive following WWII; and Hitler’s burgeoning status as the second best comic book villain of all time.
In each of his movies – but never moreso than here – Tarantino envisages scenarios and situations fluctuating from the hyper-real to the downright absurd, yet pens dialogue, builds character and orchestrates atmosphere capable of rationalising even the most ridiculous situations – such that we still believe in what we’re seeing, such that we still care about the outcome.
This allows him to go anywhere he likes as a story-teller, knowing his bewildering natural ability as a writer of dialogue is going to get him out of jail every time.
I suspect the reason this particular poster died is because it’s just too damn on-the-money.
It’s like a super-charged cover for Commando magazine, drawing upon the best traditions of illustration and poster design associated with the great Boy’s Own war stories of the fifties and early sixties.
After the difficulties faced by Tarantino’s Death Proof, and the correspondingly Grindhouse marketing campaign that went with it, I imagine the Weinsteins were a little reticent about taking this much license. And fair play to them, I loved the print campaign they ran with for this movie, it was superior at a number of levels.
It just wasn’t quite as basterd cool as this one.
