95. In The Air Tonight &...

Lyrics

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord?
Oh Lord

Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I've seen your face before my friend
But I don't know if you know who I am

Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been
It's all been a pack of lies

And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord, oh Lord

Well, I remember, I remember, don't worry
How could I ever forget?
It's the first time, the last time
We ever met

But I know the reason why you keep your silence
No, you don't fool me
Well, the hurt doesn't show, but the pain still grows
It's no stranger to you and me

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord

I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord, oh Lord

I can feel it in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord
Well, I've been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh Lord

I used to now Phil Collins as the singer of pleasant sugar-sweet, slightly schmaltzy love songs. So I was enormously surprised, when I learned he made songs like In The Air Tonight and Mama. I was also quite happy, as these two songs are amazing. I thinks it's not unreasonable to call Mama the best pop/rock song ever made. In The Air Tonight has also a pretty great video, that consists substantially of a large floating head against a blank background talking about revenge. A similar scene is very pivotal in one of my favorite movies ever made. 

The Movie: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)

A long time ago I posted on this blog my college essay on the Volkertafel. In that essay I quoted Dutch scholar Joep Leerssen as follows: "We have come to think of nation-states as an ideal systematic taxonomy of Europe where the French live in France and speak the French language, and the Germans live in Germany and speak the German language and each country has its own French or German cuisine,fashions, national anthem and lifestyle. But this simplistic ideal-type of the nation-state is ultimately the inheritance of the encyclopedic and Enlightenment-anthropological systematization of stereotypes, hearsay and cross-cultural caricatures".  In College this was without a doubt my favorite topic, and if possible one I very much would like to pursue in my professional life. How are nations represented in modern (popular) culture, both by other nations, and by itself. How are narratives used to create and sustain nations?  And, quite simply, what is a nation? 

I am a fan of Quentin Tarantino for many of the usually cited reasons. But what makes him truly great to me is the fact that he is one of the only popular directors who seems to be truly concerned with these questions, and who often tackles them head on in his films. He finds the differences between nations fascinating and the problems, and absurdities, that arise from them. This is visible for example in one of his most famous scenes, the Royale with Cheese discussion in Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction is also interesting in this regard, because it shows very well that Tarantino is interested in the ideas of space and place in general, in how people want to give meaning to the places that surround them, and how they form an identity in relationship with them. The brilliantly designed Jackrabbit Slim's bar is a really great example of this. I may discuss this further in a later post, or not because it may be too academic for this blog. But if you are in a really academic mood you could also connect the aliases of the characters in Reservoir Dogs to these ideas. 

Tarantino also seems to understand that nations are cultural, social, constructs, that are often treated as natural phenomena whose, norms, values and traditions are, and must be, set in stone. He has fun with, and criticizes these ideas, especially in his last two movies, but also in Kill Bill. His interest in nations is also the main reason why I like Django Unchained quite a lot, and also why it's not one of his best movies. He is so interested in these ideas in Django Unchained that he sometimes presents them in a very disjointed way, while at the same time letting the plot escape a bit from him, and turning the characters a bit too much in personified concepts. He does not fall into any of these traps in Inglourious Basterds. This is pretty much a perfect film. And Tarantino is absolutely right about it. It is his masterpiece. 

First off all, Inglouirous Basterds is an exceptionally well made film. Tarantino has never shown as much patience and control as here. It's quite amazing of how few actual scenes the movie exists. Before the final chapter, the movie is basically centered around three long scenes in which Tarantino slowly builds and releases tension. The opening scene has been celebrated by even those who hated the movie, and justly so. It's perfectly paced and acted. Tarantino knows exactly when and where to move the camera, when and where to cut  (obviously his deceased editor Sally Menke deserves much credit for that too), and all the dialogue is perfect. He shows there that he really can write dialogue that has his trademark absurdity, but at the same time is serious and intelligent. Waltz' lines about the animal characteristics of the Jews and the Germans can only be written by someone who is not only aware of the ideas expressed in the above mentioned quote by Leerssen, but also very much aware of the implications of it. These lines should not be forgotten in the next chapter, when Brad Pitt gives the speech to his Basterds about how the 'Nazi's ain't got no humanity'. They are animals in other words. That's when the movies subversive genius comes to light for the first time. We see, as we will see constantly trough the movie, that the Americans (and the British and the French) use much of the same narratives to present themselves and the enemy, as the Nazi's do. 

The most subversive example of this may come in the tavern scene, which I love even more than the opening scene, when trough the thinking of the German soldier, Tarantino shows that the American negro and King Kong have not been portrayed all that differently in American culture, and that in fact Americans have sometimes treated blacks very similarly to how Germans treated Jews during the World War. All of this does not mean that Tarantino is not on the side of the allies. He absolutely is, and rightfully so of course. Tarantino is absolutely overjoyed that he gets to kill Hitler, and that the audience gets to delight in it. He understands why that is so cathartic. But at the same time he wants us to think about the implications of this. Are Germans laughing at the deaths of Americans and Jews, and Americans laughing at the death of Germans, because of the same nationalistic tendencies? And what are the moral implications of this? All of these ideas come together in the final chapter, especially when Eli Roth is killing all the people in the theater. The way he is positioned (up high, shooting at the people down below) he very much resembles the way Daniel Bruhl is positioned in Nation's Pride, the German propaganda movie, Hitler and Goebbels enjoy so much. 

It's also quite wonderful how much Tarantino goads the audience into having much the same reaction his movie as Hitler and Goebbels have to their Nazi-propaganda movie.  First of all, based on the trailer, I thought this movie would suck. In the trailer we are basically only shown most of the Nazi's deaths that happen in Inglourious Basterds. The movie is explicitly marketed as a movie that you should if you only want to see dead Nazi's. This is absolutely not the kind of movie. Nation's Pride is that kind of movie, only it is a Nazi killing people, and it are the Nazi's enjoying it, and laughing their asses of. And we really can't help laughing when Hitler is killed. Much of the fifth chapter is basically a slapstick comedy, especially the parts involving Eli Roth and his partner in crime. In this regard the final line of the movie is a sick joke. Tarantino, by way of Brad Pitt, proclaims this to be his masterpiece, just like Hitler mentioned to a gushing Goebbels that Nation's Pride was his masterpiece.

What makes this movie truly great though is its use of Shosanna, and her lover. She is first of all a great character, acted wonderfully by Melanie Laurent. She deserved an Oscar just as much as Waltz. I once saw her performance described as 'she acts as if she is not aware that she is in a Tarantino movie' and that's absolutely true. She is also the true hero of the story; without her the Basterds would not nearly have as much success. The Basterds are really a bunch of bumbling idiots, who only succeed because of some dumb luck and Hans Landa's opportunism. Without them, the film would have had much the same outcome. In that regard they are pretty irrelevant to the plot. But they are at the right place at the right time, and in the end the history books will say that they and Landa were the heroes who ended the war. Shosanna will be merely a footnote at best. She will have died in the fire, no one knowing her part of the story. Throughout the film Tarantino wants to remind us that we have to be cautious of the narratives we are being told, or shown. They do not align with the world as it was/is, yet are extremely powerful. At times Tarantino literalizes this a bit too much, such as when Shosanna shoots the real, vile Zoller, only to look at Nation's Pride and see him suffering. She sympathizes, lets her guard down, and is then shot by Zoller. But he also shows this in more subtle ways. It's quite funny how nobody in the movie really lives up to his/her reputation/narrative.

I can say much, much more about this movie, such as how nobody seems to be able to pass for a nationality they are not, and the role national language plays in it. Or about how Tarantino subverts the male gaze here. (I've written an essay about that). I may address all this in a later post. Let me conclude by saying that I think this is one of the most important historic movies I've seen. It doesn't give a factual representation of World War 2 of course, but it does something more extraordinary. It wants us to think about how history is presented to us, and how we should look at it. It shows how stories/narratives shape our view of it, and that we therefore should look critically at them.