Hasitha Fernando looks at the story behind Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds fifteen years on from its release…
Whatever your opinion may be of Inglourious Basterds there’s no denying that the effort helmed by Quentin Tarantino was an entertaining, blood-soaked World War II romp featuring a memorable villain courtesy of Christoph Waltz. As the flick celebrates its 15th anniversary we take a look at what happened behind-the-scenes and then some.
Quentin Tarantino struggled with the ending of the script
Over the course of ten films Quentin Tarantino has gone on to become something of a Hollywood legend with his efforts being adored by avid fans as well as bona fide critics. When it came to crafting the script of Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino spent over a decade trying to fine tune the story since the narrative kept on growing and expanding. And in spite of churning out some truly fantastic scripts in the past the filmmaker was convinced that his recent effort contained some of the best writing he’s ever done.
The early premise of Inglourious Basterds was described by Tarantino as his “bunch-of-guys-on-a-mission” film and his tribute to World War II actioners like The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone. Over the years, Tarantino kept on revisiting his script, constantly revising the story and adding details, however, he struggled with an appropriate ending for the screenplay. Because of this he went on to direct the two-part Kill Bill movies until he could come up with a suitable ending for the script. At one point, Tarantino even considered making a mini-series out of the script since it was too lengthy for a feature film. But using his screenplay for Pulp Fiction as a guide the director trimmed the excess fat of the script to develop a more feature length appropriate version.
No explanation was given for the title’s unusual spelling
Since its release the unusual spelling of the movie’s title has always caught the attention of people. Inspired by the English language title of director Enzo G. Castellari’s 1978 war drama The Inglorious Bastards, Tarantino gave his own unique spin to it by spelling it as “Inglourious Basterds”. And so far, no explanation has been offered by the enigmatic auteur as to why he opted to spell the title in that manner. During an interview on The Late Show with David Letterman on this subject Tarantino gave the following response: “Here’s the thing. I’m never going to explain that. You do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the piss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place.”
Michael Caine was a huge fan of Colonel Hans Landa
Christoph Waltz hails from a family with heavy theatrical lineage and as a result the actor ventured first into a career on stage before shifting focus to the small screen and eventually feature films. Waltz received his first big break when Tarantino cast him to portray the sophisticated, multi-lingual Nazi villain Colonel Hans Landa and boy did he deliver or what. The filmmaker even considered abandoning the project since they were unable to find the right actor to play Landa because for the longest time. The layered villainy and emotional complexities of the character proved to be a stumbling block when casting commenced but things eventually fell into place after Waltz’s successful audition. Both Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender agreed that the relatively unknown actor nailed the audition and immediately cast Waltz in the now iconic role.
Waltz’s dexterity with multiple languages also aided his role as Landa had been written by Tarantino as someone who was fluent in many languages. In the movie the antagonist spoke four languages – English, French, German and Italian. The performance dished out by Waltz won unanimous praise upon its release but one actor in particular was very impressed by what he saw and that was none other than Sir Michael Caine. During an interview conducted in 2009 the Hollywood veteran revealed that Waltz’s performance was “the best performance of a villain I’ve seen in years.” Caine even accurately predicated that Waltz would win Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony. Another interesting detail with regard to this role was that Leonardo DiCaprio was the performer eyed by Tarantino at the very outset of the movie’s development.
Brad Pitt & Quentin Tarantino finally got to collaborate
Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino had wanted to work together for a number of years, but both creatives were waiting for the right project to collaborate on. Luckily for the duo, Inglourious Basterds proved to be that movie. When Tarantino was at the halfway point of writing his script, he sensed that Pitt would be a strong possibility for the role of Lieutenant Aldo Raine. And by the time the filmmaker was done with the script he knew that Pitt was the perfect match and got in touch with Pitt’s agent to inquire about his availability. This also marked the first time Pitt made a film as a lead actor for The Weinstein Company or its prior iteration, Miramax. But this had everything to do with wanting to work with Tarantino and nothing to do with the studio’s disgraced head – Harvey Weinstein. Pitt had even physically threatened Weinstein previously after learning of the producer’s unwanted sexual harassment of his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow.
Michael Fassbender was the perfect undercover agent even in real life
The meteoric rise of Michael Fassbender in the ranks of Hollywood is undeniable. Making his feature film debut in Zack Snyder’s 300 the talented Irish actor has gone on to wrack up multiple awards and accolades over an eighteen year period including nominations for two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He’s one of those actors who possesses the uncanny knack of standing out even if the role is a supporting one. For such is the case here, where Fassbender delivers a small, albeit memorable turn as Lieutenant Archie Hilcox. But many would be unaware of how layered with irony Fassbender’s performance was. The actor was born in Germany to German and Irish parents and raised in Ireland. He currently resides in London with fluency in German as his first language, Gaelic as his second and English as his third, and a mastery of English accents and dialects. In the movie he plays an Englishman fluent in German who goes undercover as a German but has difficulties in hiding his British accent.
Adam Sandler was approached to play Sgt. Donny Donowitz
Eli Roth has earned a name amongst horror aficionados for his ultra-violent splatter films like Cabin Fever, Hostel and The Green Inferno. But on occasion the horror writer/director has been known to take on acting roles in movies and Inglourious Basterds is one such example. However, before Roth came onboard to play Sergeant Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz it was Adam Sandler who was approached for the role. Due to scheduling conflicts Sandler declined and Roth nabbed the role of the baseball bat wieldin’ Nazi hater. As per Tarantino’s request Roth was asked to channel actor Tony Curtis for his portrayal of Donowitz. In the context of Tarantino’s own “Realer than Real Universe” this mercurial character is also the supposed father of Lee Donowitz, who plays a film producer in the movie True Romance.
The story was inspired by a secret true-to-life mission carried out in WWII
Although the story concocted by Tarantino is a fictitious one it was partly inspired by a secret, true-to-life mission carried out by the Office of Strategic Services or the O.S.S during World War II codenamed “Operation Greenup”. The mission concerned three O.S.S agents, Jewish-born refugees Frederick Mayer and Hans Wijnberg and ex-Wermacht officer and deserter Franz Weber, who parachuted into Austria in 1945 and for several months gathered intel on Nazi activities in preparation to assist with liberation. After the war, Mayer and Wijnberg returned to America and reunited in 2012 for the History Channel documentary The Real Inglourious Basterds.
The cast received training in handling German weaponry
Befitting their status as a group of clandestine operatives in occupied enemy territory none of the weaponry used by the Basterds are American made. This was because the Basterds had to pretty much make do with what they had access to, which were guns and armaments seized from Nazis they’ve killed in battle. Since the entire lead cast had to be proficient in handling World War II German weaponry for the film they all underwent a rigorous training in handling German weapons from a company based in Berlin that specialized in technical presentation of German military hardware.
The film has a strange connection to a character featured in Kill Bill
Coming up with a satisfactory ending for Inglourious Basterds was a particular pebble in Tarantino’s shoe and to remedy this issue the filmmaker moved on to different projects by directing the two-part Kill Bill films. However, what many do not know is that many of The Bride’s attributes in Kill Bill were based on Shosanna Dreyfus’ character who was originally envisioned as an assassin killing the Germans who’ve wronged her family. Shosanna’s character was later tweaked into the iteration that we see in the film.
Box-office success, rave reviews and awards glory
Made on a production budget of $70 million Inglourious Basterds went on to make a more than respectable $321.5 million at the worldwide box office. It remained Tarantino’s highest grossing effort until Django Unchained dethroned the film in 2012 by making $426 million at the box office. High-praise was showered on the movie at the time of its release and as of writing 89% of the 332 critics have given Inglourious Basterds a positive rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes. Acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a four-star review, writing that “Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is a big, bold, audacious war movie that will annoy some, startle others and demonstrate once again that he’s the real thing, a director of quixotic delights.” Critic James Berardinelli also gave the film his first four-star review of 2009, stating, “With Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino has made his best movie since Pulp Fiction”, and that it was “one hell of an enjoyable ride”.
Although the movie ended up in multiple critics’ end-of-the-year top ten lists the effort did have its detractors, however, there was one aspect that received unanimous praise across the board and that was Christoph Waltz. After nabbing the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival, Waltz swept the Best Supporting Actor category in the award ceremonies that followed by bagging the Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Oscar Award in the aforementioned category and cementing his status as one of our generation’s finest actors.
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Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
