Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tarantino Making World War II Drama Next


From cinemablend, Quentin Tarantino has never really been afraid to push boundaries. and seems to take a perverse kind of pleasure in destroying all kinds of sacred calves. So what would you expect of a Tarantino World War II movie? A solemn meditation on sacrifice and honor, or a shoot 'em up bloodfest with the title Inglorious Bastards.

Well, at least one part of that description will be true. Thanks to some intrepid French skills, the folks at JoBlo learned from one of Tarantino's interviews at Cannes that he hopes to bring his next movie to the festival in 2009. He tells the interviewer, “The next movie I'm doing is my World War II movie. I just finished up the first draft and if all goes well, I will be here, in Cannes, in 2009 with Inglorious Bastards.” What more appropriate news on Memorial Day than a movie that calls our World War II veterans by such a delightful epithet?

Seriously, though, it makes me a little queasy to think of Quentin Tarantino making a World War II movie. I know we've seen countless dramas glorifying the sacrifices made by soldiers during that time, but are we really ready to see a movie about them called Inglorious Bastards? And even if the title is referring to the bad guys, do we really expect Tarantino to handle the subject with somber respect? The movie may turn out to be worth watching, but Tarantino might need to watch out for veteran's groups who will make a big stink about the King of Violence taking his shot at the Greatest Generation.

6 comments:

Landshark said...

What a weirdly lame post from cinemablend. He's worried that a war movie won't treat war with the "somber respect" it deserves? What a tool. It's like Vonnegut and Heller never existed.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I'm a little worried about the hat Quentin's sporting. What the hell is that?

Octopunk said...

I'm with Landshark, and to a lesser extent, with JSP.

It honks me off when someone thinks a film about a particular subject or historical era can only be depicted in a certain way. I'll agree that certain subjects require a fair amount of respect if they're gonna work (Uwe Boll's 9/11-lampooning Postal comes to mind as a negative example), but to say ALL WWII movies need to be somber and respectful is freaking ridiculous.

I once heard a critique of Forrest Gump that ran along the same lines: that depicting that era in American history with any amount of humor was wrong and shouldn't be done. Fortunately for fans of that movie, the critique didn't come from the Boss of All Things.

Landshark said...

Weird critique of Gump. Life is Beautiful is probably the best example: a holocaust farce? That pissed some people off. Spielberg also got slammed for some of his choices in Schindler's (the fabricated breakdown scene at the end, for one).

Octopunk said...

Yes, with Schindler you have something not really available in the Gump critique, a specific group of victims. In the same vein, I wouldn't want to see a farce about the Watts riots.

Of course, anyone is free to dislike a movie for any reason they want, it just seems silly to me to expect only one approach to such broad subject matter. The cinemablend guy is probably the worst, though, since he's reacting only to the title. I'm sure there are veterans who think a rough, gritty approach to WWII would be perfect.

Just...I hope QT isn't in the movie.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

...and if he is, I really hope he ditches the hat.

Malevolent

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