Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds implements an extremely unique form of comic relief to the theme of the movie by bending historical content to fit his own cinematic parameters. In a way, this is the exact opposite of what Michael Haneke did in his theme, who arguably based his plot on the historical events in Parisian history and used it as his cinematic foundation. My changing historical events to his liking, Tarantino is able to morph violence and comedic grandeur into a topic that people generally view with remorse or contempt. Inglourious Basterds has a second World War setting and focuses on a handpicked squad of Jewish-American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) for the primary purpose of killing as many German soldiers as possible throughout the duration of the war. Raine and his squad commit themselves to this task in brutal fashion as sort of payback for the treatment of Jews in Europe. The squad members’ Jewish heritage provides motivational grounds for the feelings of personal vendetta. However, the way Tarantino formulates the dialogue and sets up the behaviors of specific characters makes their gruesome actions seem to have an amusing twist. This can be seen in the film when Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz (Eli Roth) beats a German soldier to death with a baseball bat. His hyped-up expressions of killing the soldier with his bat are complemented by the rest of the squad laughing and also his funny name nick name. This makes the scene to be not as serious as it would be with other cinematic situations. Another example of comic relief blended in violence in the same scene is the introducing of Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger). During this scene Stiglitz’s background is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and it has its own rock soundtrack at the beginning. This makes the scene kind have a tinge of comical amusement, despite the fact that it shows him mutilating German officers with his knife.
There are several cinematic strategies and shot types that Tarantino uses throughout the film in order to symbolize certain moments and their emotional impact to the film. He does this by implementing both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds. Important non-diegetic sounds can be heard when Shoshana (Melanie Laurent) runs for dear life after her family is murdered by Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Important diegetic sounds can be heard in the theater and café within Germany to add realty to the ambience of the environment in order to represent World War Two upper-class city life. Tarantino also uses a variety of shot angle types in order to symbolize power and other emotions within the characters. This can be seen with a low angle shot when Donnie shoots Adolf Hitler in the theater. Another important low angle shot is used when Lt. Aldo and Utivich (B.J. Novak) stand over Landa after cutting a Swastika into his forehead. In a way the angle also adds to the feeling that the comical form of vengeance that the remaining characters are looking for that has finally been delivered.
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