Quentin Taratino gives Commentary on the Inglourious Basterds Trailer

by Joey Paur

Hey Gang! Here is a little trailer breakdown of Quentin Tarantino's 'Inglourious Basterds' with commentary from Tarantino himself thanks to empire. I thought this trailer was just awesome and I am looking forward to finally getting to see this movie. The deal was sealed when I read the script, but the trailer got me even more excited! So here we go!


Quentin talks about the title of the film and when asked why the extra u was added in Inglorious he say's:

"I can't tell you!" says Tarantino mysteriously. "But the 'Basterds'? That's just the way you say it: Basterds."




The first shot in the trailer is from Chapter Two of the story as is most of the trailer. The entire film consists of 5 chapters. This is the very beginning of that chapter 2, in which Sgt Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is assembling a crew of violent Nazi hunters to instill fear into the Third Reich. These are the actual Basterds that you will see in the movie. There were rumors going around that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, might play a role but:

"I never threw any of those names around, alright!!" protests Tarantino.




I am not a big fan of Eli Roth as a director, and I wasn't sure if he would fit this role but it looks like he will do just fine, even though I imagined his characters a little bit bigger.

"There was always Donnie, and there was always Aldo," he says. "But after that, I had to come up with some more characters. After Donnie and Aldo, I wrote those characters and then I auditioned for them."




And here is the man himself! Brad Pitt playing Aldo the Apache. He fits this role perfectly.

"He's wonderful," Tarantino enthuses. "We've wanted to work together for a long time and this was just the right one, completely. I didn't really consider anybody else."




Heres a couple more Basterds, Private Hirschberg (Samm Levine) and Private Zimmerman (Michael Bacall), are revealed in the line-up. Looks can be deceiving, because these guys are hardcore violent Basterds!Other basterds include Sgt Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), a German renegade who defected after killing 13 Gestapo officers.



This is from 'Chapter Three: German Night In Paris'. The black-and-white footage is from a film-within-the-film called Nation's Pride, a propaganda film being made by Joseph Goebbels, starring Frederik Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), a famous German sniper.

"He's a little bit based on Audie Murphy [an American GI who became a Western star after a biopic was made of his wartime heroism]. And just like Audie Murphy, he's about to become a movie star."




This scene is from 'Chapter One: Once Upon A Time In Nazi-Occupied France'. A formidable Nazi, Col Landa, aka the Jew Hunter (Christoph Waltz), is tracking down the whereabouts of the missing Dreyfus family, who he thinks are being hidden in this rural farmhouse.

"Each chapter in this movie has a vaguely different look, and a different feel, and the tone is different in all of them," says Tarantino. "The opening chapter truly feels like a spaghetti western, but with World War Two iconography."




This is Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), daughter of the Dreyfus family, a Jewish girl who escapes the SS and flees to Paris. FYI Shosanna is the lead character in the film and not Aldo Raine.

"Shosanna was always a main character," says Tarantino. "One of the biggest changes in my conception of it from way back when until now - in fact, hands down the biggest thing - is that, in the original version of this script, Shosanna was more of a kind of movie character. She was badass. But the thing about that was, I did that with The Bride in Kill Bill. So I started making her more like a real girl in this situation."




The Basterds will be the Nazi's worst nightmare. They will not only steal military insignia as trophies, they also scalp their victims.

"The Basterds are acting like the Apaches in a no-win situation," says Tarantino. "That's what they're trying to do: they're trying to win a psychological guerilla war against the Nazis."




This is Private Butz wearing "a little somethin' you can't take off", courtesy of Aldo Raine. In this scene, Butz is telling an irate Adolf Hitler about his lucky escape from the Basterds.



This is from the epic La Louisiane bar scene, in which British soldier Lieutenant Archie Hickox (Michael Fassbender) goes to meet his contact, double-agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), while the Basterds stand guard. The scene is going to be awesome!

"The La Louisiane scene is like a reduced Reservoir Dogs," says QT, "but with Nazis and in German. It's a 23-minute scene, and instead of that warehouse they're in a little basement bar."




Kruger's Von Hammersmark is a big star in Germany.

"I like the idea that it's the power of cinema that fights the Nazis," says Tarantino. "But not just as a metaphor - as a literal reality."




This is another scene from the La Louisiane bar basement scene.

"La Louisiane is a huuuuge deal, I think the biggest deal I've ever done, in any of my movies. I always said that once we'd done the La Louisiane, then... everything else won't exactly be easy, but it will appear easy after La Louisiane. And we'll be able to do a great climax because we've done the La Louisiane."




Donny Donowitz A.K.A the Jew Bear may actually be the fiercest of the Basterds - says Aldo: "Watchin' Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to goin' to the movies." Tarantino then gets me excited by saying:

"If you think the script's violent," he grins, "then you'll think the movie's violent."




Here is a scene where the Basterds ambush a Nazi patrol.

"I wanted to stay away from all the silly war-movie cliches that I never bought into," says Tarantino. "Y'know, they have to take out a guard, so they very lightly strangle him and that takes care of that. They kill a German soldier and all of a sudden, not only is there no blood on their uniform or even a bullethole, it miraculously fits them when they put it on! All that kind of stuff."




Regarding Brad Pitt:

"When he's on set, he's Aldo," he says. "He doesn't really break character. When you talk to him about other stuff, he talks in Aldo's voice. And because I created the character, it's great to have the guy around all the time."




This is the moment that Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke), leader of the Nazi Party finds out about the bloody antics of the basterds.

"I always knew I would have Hitler in it," says Tarantino. "I always knew Hitler would be a character. That was one of the first things I wrote. The Hitler stuff I wrote a long, long, long time ago. But I enjoyed writing Hitler. It was a lot of fun."
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