Inglourious Basterds: “An Eye-for-an-eye” Makes the Whole World Blind
By David J. Theroux • Friday August 28, 2009 10:18 PM PDT • 18 Comments
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Inglourious Basterds and the Problem of Revenge,” Jordana Horn incisively examines the theme of Quentin Tarantino’s new, fictional, revenge film, Inglourious Basterds, in which German soldiers and others in World War II are targeted by an elite Jewish-American commando unit to be killed, scalped, tortured, beaten alive, burned alive, and cruelly disfigured. While some applaud revenge and cruelty as only fair because “the end justifies the means”:
There is a not uncommon belief that the Torah sanctions revenge. But the precept of “an eye for an eye” is usually cited incorrectly, according to Rabbi Joel Roth, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. It is actually meant to refer to monetary compensation rather than bloodletting. And Leviticus 19:18 says, “Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.”
Rabbi Roth notes that Jews are prohibited from taking “the law into your own hands as a matter of legal punishment.” The scaffolding of legality—a fair trial and conviction—is paramount under Jewish law. Eichmann was the one person to ever receive a death sentence in an Israeli court, and not without much hand-wringing from Jews world-wide.
For Tarantino however, “If you’re dealing with people like the Nazis . . . well, you either eat the wolf or the wolf eats you.”
The first problem is that most men in the German army were conscripts (i.e., slaves) and not members of the Nazi Party. In his film Tarantino cares little for this distinction as he tosses car drivers, cigarette girls, children, and common soldiers into the same collective pile of “swine” for barbaric eradication along with the mass murdering Hitler and Goebbels. The barbaric actions of the Nazis in the Holocaust and the bombing of London and other cities, the Soviet mass murders and the Gulag, and the Allies’ fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo as well as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all “justified” by such ethically challenged arguments.
In a very insightful and revealing Pajamas Media article by John Rosenthal, “Inglourious Basterds: A German Fantasy, Not a ‘Jewish’ One,” we learn that the film was curiously produced with major German government funding from the German Film Fund (attached to the German Ministry of Culture and Media), Media-Board of Berlin-Brandenburg, and the Middle German Film Fund.
Moreover, the German contribution to Inglourious Basterds appears to have been far more than just financial. Of course, there are the numerous German actors in the cast and the many technical contributions of Babelsberg Studio, where much of the film was shot. But there is even more than that. Although Tarantino himself, as befits a celebrated “auteur,” is the sole writer credited for the script, Tarantino’s German collaborators appear to have also made a very considerable contribution to the story and dialogue. A large part of the dialogue, after all, is in German. Some is also in French. The French dialogue, however, is invariably trite and almost entirely lacking in local cultural references. It could readily be the product of simple translation and appears to be just that.
The same cannot be said for the German dialogue. The German dialogue displays the linguistic robustness of the real German spoken by real German speakers. Moreover, the scenes in German abound with cultural references that only a native German or an expert in German studies would even get.
. . . .
Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is, in short, a very German film. But, it will be asked, what could possibly be German about a film that has been described as a “Jewish revenge fantasy,” in which Brad Pitt’s “Aldo Raine” and his band of Jewish “basterds” brutally kill and mutilate evil Nazis, cutting off their scalps as trophies? Hasn’t every Jew dreamt of bashing in the heads of Germans with a baseball bat à la Eli Roth’s “Sgt. Donny Donowitz”?
Well . . . no. And by the way: Who could possibly think such a thing? The answer is not hard to find. The “avenging Jew” is indeed a kind of stock character of the German political imagination. It has been at least ever since a certain Dr. Joseph Goebbels announced to the German public in 1944 that “the Jew Morgenthau”—otherwise known as the American Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau—was planning to turn Germany into “one big potato farm” in the event of an Allied victory over the German Reich.
The allusion was to the so-called Morgenthau Plan for restricting German industry following occupation. The Völkischer Beobachter (September 26, 1944) had a different name for the plan: “The Jew’s Murder Plan” [Judas Mordplan]. According to the Nazi party paper, it would cost the lives of some 40 million Germans.
But, it will be objected, the Germans who are mutilated and murdered by the Jewish-American “Basterds” are Nazis, after all. Shouldn’t we all rejoice in seeing them get their just deserts in Quentin Tarantino’s signature blood-splattering detail? Well, I suppose it can be left to everyone’s individual conscience whether they enjoy seeing anyone have his head smashed in with a baseball bat or a swastika carved on his forehead with a hunting knife. But the fact of the matter is that most of the victims of the Basterds’ brutality and sadism are precisely not Nazis. They are members of the Wehrmacht: the regular German armed forces. [emphasis added]
The point is even highlighted in the film. Thus, “Sgt. Donny Donowitz” notices a medal on the uniform of a Wehrmacht officer and asks him, “Get that for killing Jews?” “No,” the man coolly replies, “bravery.” Donowitz proceeds then to smash the officer’s head in. Many of the other Germans who are slaughtered and/or maimed by the “Basterds” are simple enlisted men. What possible satisfaction could be taken in that?
Moreover, the depiction of the German characters in the film does nothing to render such savagery any more understandable.
. . . .
The nuance of the German characters has been appreciatively noted in the German reviews of Inglourious Basterds. What has as a rule not been noted is the utter superficiality and one-dimensionality of the Jewish-American “Basterds.” Indeed, though Inglourious Basterds is ostensibly about them, they are in fact barely more than extras in the film. When they are not slicing and dicing their German victims, they are only rarely on screen and they have hardly any dialogue—especially when compared to the German-language gab fests. Only Eli Roth’s skull-crushing “Donowitz” plays a marginally more substantial role.
. . . .
There is even one major “joke” on America itself. Thus, in the film’s concluding sequence, Raine and two of his “Basterds” arrive at a Parisian cinema in order to carry out “Operation Kino.” Hitler, Goebbels, and various other Nazi dignitaries will be attending a film premiere and the plan is to use the occasion to kill them. A comic book-like special effect reveals that under their cloths the two “Basterds” are strapped with explosives à la Hamas or al-Qaeda. The “Basterds” will subsequently detach their explosives, but as far as we know they are still in the cinema when the subsequent conflagration takes place. The Jewish-American plot to bring down the Third Reich is, in effect, a suicide attack.
The cinema scene gives Tarantino a chance to send up the films made under the auspices of the Propaganda Ministry of Dr. Goebbels. But perhaps (were it but possible) Tarantino should not be so smug. His own film, after all, is based on an idea that comes from none other than . . . Dr. Goebbels—and it was made with millions of euros in support from the contemporary German “Ministry of Culture and Media” no less! But surely the hip, post-modern “auteur” could not be suspected of making propaganda. Could he?
As Horn correctly notes:
[N]one of that excuses the pleasure that the film’s characters seem to take in bloodletting. Historian and former United States Holocaust Museum Director Michael Berenbaum concludes that the issue is: “How do you combat evil without being reduced to that level?”
Exactly, because the end never justifies the means. The solution to hate is not hate, and the solution to Nazi ethics is not Nazi ethics. The solution is to respect human worth and dignity through love. As Mahatma Gandhi stated, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”, and as Jesus noted in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
And one of the best examples of this insight is how it inspired the stunning achievement under Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission he chaired in South Africa in the aftermath of Apartheid, in which hate, revenge. and bloodletting were replaced by the natural law principles of truth, justice and mercy.
HT: Paul Theroux
Tags: Civil Liberties, Entertainment, Europe, Fascism, Germany, Imperialism, Military, Natural Law, Racism, Socialism, Torture, Utilitarianism, Video, War 
“the end never justifies the means”
This is exactly backwards, of course. The means to achieving a goal are always gauged to the importance and desirability of reaching it. To suggest otherwise is just cliche mongering. Perhaps what you meant to say is that “the end does not justify any means” which is also a commonplace, yet a sensible one, at least.
Uncle Kenny | Aug 29, 2009 | Reply
Uncle Kenny,
The end never justifies the means because every means is an end in itself and subject to the same objective moral standard as any end. Each action a person takes is subject to the natural law tenets of moral ethics and to believe that one can step outside such ethics is to deny their existence and embrace both moral and epistemological relativism. One of the best books on this is C.S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man, which is also available online here. Another truly excellent book on natural law is The Natural Law, by Heinrich A. Rommen.
David Theroux | Aug 29, 2009 | Reply
I suspect you are missing the point that it is a fantasy not a documentary. When I last noticed, Hitler died in Berlin in 1945.
Al | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
Revenge has for some reason been the theme of the last three Tarantino movies (“Kill Bill” and “Deathproof” previously). I think the Rosenthal article presents a very interesting and valid criticism of the way revenge against the Nazis is presented. Still, I can’t help but think that the approach of the Basterds generally—that is, targeted attacks against Nazis, up to and including Hitler—is a more humane way to end the war than the scorched earth, bomb-entire-cities-full-of-women-and-children-into-oblivion route actually taken by the Allies. Those who “take the law into their own hands” actually create less “collateral damage” than those whose hands are the law.
Ray Mangum | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
I saw the movie and liked it, as I like most of Tarantino. It is a fairy tale without a moral argument.
I perceived no morality The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly either. But after watching it I found myself humming tunes from the soundtrack ;).
Keith | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
Al and Keith,
If a group of neo-Nazis produced a similar film of German revenge against Jewish people, I suspect you would see that the issue is not whether it is a “fantasy” or not. Indeed, the Nazis had such films! The same could be said for any hate/revenge film—merely substitute the characters for blacks and whites, Indians and Pakistianis, French and English, etc., etc. The potential conflicts are endless and so would be the pointless bloodletting.
As for most of the Eastwood “spaghetti western” films, the Man-with-No-Name (“Blondie” or Everyman) character is a morally conflicted person who is then faced with the dilemma of whether he should simply save himself or risk his own well-being (facing evil predatory characters of Death) for a calling greater than himself (i.e., agape) by asserting moral courage. He chooses to do so because he sees agape as more important than self-absorption and moral relativism. He risks all and in the end, good triumphs against evil, with no “collateral damage.” In contrast, Tarantino champions moral relativism and gratuitous cruelty and murdering as the highest calling both in the story and vicariously for the audience to “enjoy.” Heinrich Himmler would be proud.
David Theroux | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
Ray,
There is no utilitarian calculus across individuals or events in which good and bad are weighed. Each and every act one takes is measured against objective, natural law moral standards and if any innocent people are harmed than the actor is responsible for such harm. Ending such harm mans to end harmful actions and take full responsibility for past harms. The hindsight scenario of the Tarantino film neglects the fact that no one then knew what would happen and to insert an ex post facto calculus based on our knowledge today is to misconstrue the nature of actions and culpability for them. Again, the end never justifies the means.
David Theroux | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
David,
Not to belabor the point, but what, exactly, was the “calling greater than himself” that “Blondie” championed in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly? As I recall, he was out for the gold, pure and simple. (Perhaps you’re confusing the movie with another in the same genre, i.e., A Fistful of Dollars?) I repeat, there is no morality in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. There is a crook who kills other crooks, for money.
Keith | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
Keith,
Here is one analysis that discusses the reasons why “Blondie” is Good, “Tuco” is Ugly, and “Angel Eyes” is Bad, and it all has to do with the use by Angel Eyes of any means including state power in his morally depraved quest for the gold. Tuco is conflicted but as Blondie can see, Tuco is not consumed by self-absorbed evil as is the case with Angel Eyes. Blondie on the other hand along with the army captain view Angel Eyes’s behavior as well as collectivism in general as wrong and they say so, and the clear issue of the need for moral courage becomes a central theme of the film. In the end, Blondie is shown to have seen that the pursuit of his interests must be morally constrained so that others are not harmed in the process.
David Theroux | Aug 30, 2009 | Reply
The Germany of today is not, for the most part, the Germany of the Third Reich, but there is always the suspicion that it lies not too far below the surface.
The fact of German government support (via the German Film Fund) reflects a desire on the part of post-war generation and their descendants for a confrontation with their cultural past. The cinematic violence constitutes a catharsis that aims to redeem the current generation by violently repudiating any condoning of that past. Such a generational dissonance also occurs in ‘Walk on Water’, a recent Israeli film that also deals with revenge.
From a Jewish perspective, a film such as ‘Inglorious Basterds’ can be construed as fantasy of ‘fighting back’ that did not, for the most part, happen (the Bielski brothers in ‘Defiance’ notwithstanding). American Jewish participation in the US Army in World War II was as Americans; in this movie, they were motivated specifically as Jews.
As for the Morgenthau-attributed Judes Mordplan, it was implemented to a degree (because there was no desire by any of the Allies to see a strong Germany arising from the ashes of the conflagration it started), until the economic policies of Ludwig Erhard were introduced some years later (which repudiated the regulations implemented by the Allies, with Paul Samuelson one of the lead economists responsible), leading to the 1950′s Wirtschaftswunder, or Economic Miracle.
Oh, and there were some Survivor plans for mass retribution, one being a very effective poison for the water supply, that were never carried out because, as the survivors returned to the world, so they returned to the traditional Jewish ethic that rejected revenge.
One final comment. Monetary compensation as a way of fulfilling the injunction of an “Eye for an Eye” is a (much) later Rabbinic reinterpretation, so I guess it is to be expected that a Rabbi would confuse the two. Of course, those are the same Rabbis who legislated against individual revenge.
David Peters | Aug 31, 2009 | Reply
“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, ...” This simple Biblical injunction is a matter of requiring the punishment to fit the crime. In other places the Torah states that you must not favor the poor above the rich, nor the great against small. Cutting off the hand of a thief is not justified. Neither is allowing adultery to go unpunished.
Of course the primary basis for Biblical justice is restitution, something unheard of in America, where “the state” prosecutes criminals and locks them up where they CANNOT make restitution to the real victims.
Phillip Osborn | Sep 1, 2009 | Reply
Another gem Mr. Theroux!
Wes Dillard | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
The “Jew Hunter” ironically is a cosmopolitan socialite polyglot with a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle proportioned smoking pipe and the Machiavellian instinct for psychological leverage and gain seeking in all cases.
[Jew in 3rd Reich terms.]
The “Bear Jew” and his comrades are meat headed cretins, snuff-taking, backwater hillbillies and gangsters, including a mental-case, multiple murderer.
[In Third Reich Terms, each instruments of Kultur Terror meted by America: gangster, philistine, psychopath.]
The German in the film is indeed very good. The cultural references are not so difficult though: Riefenstahl, the Napoleonic Hitler portrait, linguistic niceties.
Tarantino is no “post-modernist,” with regard to film. He is classicist insofar as that is possible in that field of creative endeavor, even slavishly so—his encyclopedic knowledge of film is renowned for a reason. The roles are interestingly reversed, and the German who said, “For Bravery” and “F*ck You” with such dignity should make it clear that Tarantino has made the ultimate spoof of a hidden genre: Nazisploitation films.
The article’s intent is misplaced and so was the German Culture Ministry’s.
gustavus | Sep 2, 2009 | Reply
For Tarantino however, “If you’re dealing with people like the Nazis . . . well, you either eat the wolf or the wolf eats you.”
Sheep, as far as I know, don’t eat meat, so what kind of evil is eating the wolfs that are eating the sheep...?
Tart, the Nazis used the same rhetoric, the only difference is that they used a rat, instead of a wolf.... But whatever, say what you wish, although I might not want to hear what you have to say, I’ll never lower myself to the same level as a Nazi, or in this case Tarantino.
L.iberty | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
All of Tarantino’s are puerile, imbecilic fantasies. Only those with childlike sensibilities find them appealing.
Steve V. | Sep 3, 2009 | Reply
Of course the movie is fantasy. But that doesn’t mean that Jews don’t take revenge, decimate their enemies, or instill fear in the hearts of their foes.
During the Holocaust there were lots of Jews hunting and killing Nazi’s and their supporters.
The Beilski Brothersl killed lots of Nazi’s and saved over 1200 Jews while living in the woods as partisans.
DoubleTapper | Oct 12, 2009 | Reply
This article captures exactly what I felt after watching the film.
Ines | Jan 21, 2010 | Reply
Revenge is a good thing if the person on the receiving end really deserves it.
Just my opinion, of course. Apparently Tarantino’s, too.
Revenge Guy | Oct 21, 2010 | Reply