Once Upon A Time in Nazi-Occupied France:

Mise-en-Scene in Inglourious Basterds

“As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are” -Quentin Tarantino (www.goodreads.com, Quentin Tarantino Quotes).

That is exactly what he did in the film, Inglourious Basterds. Set in France during World War II, which is being occupied by Nazis, the film tells the story of a Jewish-American group of soldiers assassinating as many Nazis as they possibly can. At the head of the “Basterds” is Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who has even earned himself the nickname the “Apache” due to his fondness of scalping German soldiers. Dubbed the “Inglourious Basterds”, the German-American militant group becomes infamous within the Nazi military arena for not only notoriously, and brutally, murdering said Nazis, but for permanently engraving the Nazi Swastika with a knife on the forehead of any Nazi soldier they allow to live. The film is unique in the way that the “Basterds” cross paths with the main antagonistic character, Nazi Colonel Hans Landa. Serving as an officer in the SS, Landa has earned himself quite a reputation among the people of Europe, including the Jews. In the opening scene, Colonel Landa arrives at Perrier LaPadite’s dairy farm in search of the Jewish Dreyfus family. In a search that proves fortuitous for the German soldiers, the entire Dreyfus family was exterminated save for one member — the adolescent daughter, Shosanna. Shosanna later comes to own, with the help of her fabricated French paperwork and documentation, a French cinema; this cinema is later chosen as the location for the premiere of a Nazi military propaganda film, coincidentally. Tarantino uses various aspects of mise-en-scene to develop the characters, and scenes, in Inglourious Basterds throughout the film. The arrangement of everything that appears in the camera frames — actors, lighting, decor, props, costume — is referred to as mise-en-scene. But more specifically, for this film, we are most concerned with Tarantino’s use of food and drink as substantial props to build up suspense in a handful of high-stakes scenes.

The opening scene in the film is rather lengthy, around fifteen minutes long. The length of the scene itself permits a window through which to analyze it; for Tarantino to spend such a significant portion of screen time on this scene, it must be rather significant itself. The scene brings many important factors to light — the characterization of Colonel Hans Landa himself, and the glass of milk. It is important to first understand Landa as a theatrical character first, before evaluating the connotation of the glass of milk. Upon his arrival in the farm house, Landa portrays himself as a simple-minded bureaucrat, pulling out his paper and pen and leading Perrier LaPadite to believe the visit is merely a formality. At this point, it is clear to the audience the authority the Colonel has. We can see the fear in LaPadite’s eyes, as well as his daughters’, and we can practically feel the tension in their body language. As if sensing the authority of the Colonel weren’t enough, we can also gather this information from his obvious Nazi uniform. What’s more interesting, is after Hans Landa has proposed himself as a bureaucrat he pulls out a pipe. The pipe also is an element of mise-en-scene to be noted; the Colonel’s pipe is larger than LaPadite’s. While this can be categorized as an underlying sexual reference, it can also be understood as one more assertion of power by Landa over LaPadite. Landa continues to profess his dominance over LaPadite throughout the scene. The presence of the pipe can also be described as a reference to Sherlock Holmes; the Colonel is carrying out his visit in such a way that it could be deemed an investigation. He could be alluding to the fact that he is all-knowing, and anything he may not know right now, he will eventually. As the scene draws to a close, however, it becomes apparent that the Colonel’s visit is nowhere near an investigation at all. Landa came to the dairy farm in search of the Dreyfus family, and it is proven by the end of the scene that Hans Landa knew the family was there. He knew where the family was hiding. With his authority, he could’ve ordered Perrier LaPadite and his daughters to exit the house, and handled the Jews in a much more timely manner. But, as it is important for Colonel Landa’s character throughout the film, he chose to spend more than fifteen minutes stripping Perrier LaPadite of any dignity he might have had, and causing him a great deal of stress and fear in the process.

Landa’s continuous proclamation of power in the opening scene is what makes the food and drink here so imperative to the film as a whole. LaPadite offers the Colonel some wine upon his arrival, but the Colonel refuses. As part of his refusal, he requests a glass of milk. The fact that Landa refuses wine for milk could have several explanations. My personal favorite comes from Roland Barthes’ essay, “Wine and Milk”, in which he writes, “Some American films, in which the hero, strong and uncompromising, did not shrink from having a glass of milk before drawing his avenging colt…” While us fellow Americans, and I’m sure a large majority of the rest of the world, can argue against Landa being a hero, to the Nazis he was a hero. He is obviously strong and uncompromising, as explained in the previous analysis. Barthes later claims that milk is, “cosmetic, it joins, covers, restores….. its purity, associated with the innocence of he child, is a token of strength… calm, white, lucid, the equal of reality.” Once again, while we could argue against the validity of these statements in reference to Landa, for the Nazis, this description fits him perfectly. To us, he is the opposite of pure for his relentless hunt and decimation of Jews and Jewish families. To the Nazi soldiers and officers, it is for the same reasons that they view him as pure. He is pure for unwavering from his duty to his country, and always completing his job to the best of his abilities. And so, the notorious glass of milk is introduced into the film. It could represent the Colonel’s purity as a Nazi soldier, or it could represent Perrier LaPadie’s purity for trying to help the Dreyfus family… or it could represent the purity of the Dreyfus family themselves, being so ruthlessly hunted by the Germans without reason.

In chapter three of the movie, Colonel Hans Landa and Shosanna Dreyfus meet once more — but this time, at the Chez Maurice in 1944. Landa asks to speak to the young girl privately, but ensures it is of no consequence and only a part of his job to discuss security matters with her for the Nazi movie premiere. After all, he is in charge of security for the event and Shosanna does own the cinema in with the premier is to take place. Landa carries himself much like how he did in the first scene of the movie, where he confronts Shosanna for the first time; he proclaims his power over Shosanna, takes control of the situation, and manipulates the conversation where he wants it to go. The conversation is entirely in the Colonel’s favor. Because the nature of the conversation never really includes discussing any security measures, it instead is comprised of Landa interrogating the girl about her cinema and family history, this scene leaves the audience all asking the same question — could Colonel Landa know that this young cinema owner, Emmanuella Mimiux, is actually Shosanna Dreyfus, a member of the Dreyfus family that he murdered three years prior?

Carrying out this interrogation much like the one three years ago in Perrier LaPadite’s farm house, the Colonel takes charge of the situation. He speaks to the waiter and orders for himself, and then for Shosanna as well. Ironically, he orders them both a strudel and a glass of milk for Shosanna. A glass of milk. The glass of milk has made its return in the movie. When the waiter arrives with the strudels, Landa guides Shosanna’s actions like a puppet; he motions to her to “wait for the cream.” Then after the waiter has put cream on both of their strudels, he tells Shosanna, “after you.” He is, once again, proclaiming his role as the dominant character in the scene. He can see the fear and unease that Shosanna is experiencing, and in an almost antagonistic way, he tells her there is no reason for her to feel intimidated. It’s quite like he’s mocking the girl, as he’s causing the audience to question how much of her true identity he knows. Another red flag in this scene is the food and drink — the milk, and the cream on the strudel. He could be ordering milk for Shosanna to allude to her purity, if she were actually an innocent French girl that inherited a French cinema. However, the milk could have simply been ordered as a nice complementary beverage to the strudel. The cream on the strudel is also important because whipped cream is not kosher. Although it is likely that Shosanna’s family were secular Jews, this notion to ensure she had cream on her strudel could have been a test for Shosanna. Landa could have been testing to see if she would eat the cream, and believably enjoy it. It is impossible for us to know for sure without knowing the type of Judaism the Dreyfus family practiced.

It is most likely that the presence of these dairy products can be accredited to Landa alluding to the fact that Shosanna is the daughter of a dairy farmer. He could have also ordered milk for her because that is what he had for himself on the day of her family’s massacre. While the intensity of this scene has the audience questioning just how much Landa knows, how he exits the scene could be used as evidence to prove that the Colonel, in fact, did not know Emmanuelle’s true identity. As he leaves the table to exit the scene, he squashes his cigarette in the strudel. While the camera focuses on the strudel with the ashes and cigarette butt, the audience is given time to assume that maybe the strudel and cream were of no consequence to him. He could have given Shosanna a hard time in this scene because of his blatantly destructive personality, which he shows with the minuscule destruction of his unfinished pastry. This last gesture by Landa could be illustrating his frustration with Shosanna’s fluid answers to his questions. He expected her to crack under the pressure, but she emerged victorious, causing the Colonel much frustration. The intensity and suspense of this scene is all released at the close of the scene; after Landa has left, and Shosanna breaks down into tears.

A little over an hour into the film, Lieutenant Raine and his fellow Basterds venture into a basement pub, planning to meet with the movie star who is to be their ticket into the exclusive Nazi film premiere. Disguised as Nazi soldiers, tension in the scene is heightened by the presence of actual Nazi soldiers. Belligerent and celebrating, there is one Nazi soldier in particular badgering the famous actress, Bridget von Hammersmark. The scene takes a turn for the worst when a British spy, also disguised as a Nazi soldier, outs himself when ordering a drink. Food and especially drink, in this case, is monumentally important. The spy blows his cover when ordering “three whiskeys” — because he counts three on his fingers, incorrectly. His mistake was in holding up three fingers; he held up his index, middle, and ring finger. He held up his fingers as any normal British man would, which would have been fine, except for the fact that German men, as well as most Western Europeans, do not count on their fingers the same way. If a German man were to count to three on his hand, he would hold up his thumb, then index and middle fingers. From this point, the spy knew his cover was blown. This moment is the climax frame of the entire scene, leading to the shootout that will take place in the pub. For this scene the food and drink itself was not of as much importance as the small factors surrounding the food and drink. Such as, how the drink was ordered. The presence of alcohol in this scene, however, does seem rooted in German culture; Germans have a reputation for their fondness of the brewery and all alcohol in general. This is seemingly more true for soldiers especially, of course the soldiers would want to celebrate the birth of a fellow soldier’s baby with a few rounds in a local pub. The presence of alcohol also heightens the suspense in the scene because alcohol is infamous for causing an abrupt turn of events, all over the world. From the very beginning of the scene the audience had no idea what to expect as the outcome, but it certainly was not that everyone shown would be dead within minutes, save for two people. From the beginning of the scene, the audience could have assumed that alcohol would play a part in the scene unraveling, but it is highly unlikely that anyone could have suspected the act of ordering whiskey alone could have been the cause of a brawl-turned-massacre. Ironic.

Given the setting of the film, Nazi-occupied France during World War II, it was obviously a struggle for Tarantino to manage the linguistics of Inglourious Basterds. With much of the dialogue being spoken in German, and occasionally French, subtitles were required for a large portion of the movie. With Tarantino being a cinematic genius, he let food and drink in the movie fill in gray areas where language could not. Because of the language barrier in Inglourious Basterds, food and drink became the object of social manipulation within the film.

Oakley Gibson

Sources

“Quentin Tarantino Quotes.” Quentin Tarantino Quotes (Author of Pulp Fiction. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Apr. 2016.

Barthes, Roland, and Annette Lavers. Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972. Print.

Inglourious Basterds. By Quentin Tarantino. Universal, 2009.