Favorite screenplays: Bambi part 2
Spring turns to summer, and Bambi’s mother takes him to The Meadow. On the way, the still-tiny Bambi informs his mother that they "are not the only deer in the forest." So the first section of Bambi is about Bambi meeting other animals, but the second section is about Bambi meeting his peers — other deer. It’s about how Bambi begins to learn his place in society.
Favorite screenplays: Bambi part 1
We start in a forest. And not just any forest. A dark, gorgeous, ancient-growth, primeval forest. This forest, we can see, has been around forever, untouched. The untouched quality is important: this is not the realm of civilization, this is the realm of nature.
Favorite screenplays: Bambi
I shouldn’t even be talking about Bambi here.
Check this out: Bambi is 70 minutes long, has only one clearly-defined act break, and has a protagonist who is not only passive, but who wants nothing definable or concrete. It has no visible antagonist and absolutely, positively, not the slightest rumor of a plot. It breaks every rule regarding what a compelling cinematic narrative is supposed to be.
Tarantino on Maddow
For those who enjoyed my Inglourious Basterds analysis, you may also enjoy seeing Tarantino interviewed by Rachel Maddow.
Inglourious Basterds part 5
At the top of Act V of Inglourious Basterds, Shoshanna broods in her red dress and puts on her war paint — her makeup — in order to do battle with the Nazis and (as far as she knows) single-handedly win WWII. As she broods, we are treated to a quick flashback to her and Marcel, her boyfriend/projectionist, making a short movie in the projection-booth stairwell and taking it to the chemist to get it developed. Unfortunately, the movie is set in Nazi-occupied France, which means that Shoshanna and Marcel have to pin the chemist to a table and threaten him and his family with an axe just to get a roll of film developed — CVS’s one-hour photo services are, apparently, far in the distant future.
Inglourious Basterds part 4
Okay. So, we’ve got this movie, Inglourious Basterds. Twenty minutes into it, it starts over. Twenty minutes after that, it starts over again. Now, incredibly, at one hour and four minutes, it starts over for the fourth time, with a whole new protagonist, who won’t live through the act, and introduces yet another major character. I can’t think of another movie that’s ever done this. Even 2001 eventually settles on a main character and follows his story to conclusion. High and Low switches protagonists for an hour before coming back to its original protagonist, but Basterds has, so far, boasted three completely separate protagonists and is now introducing a fourth. And it fully expects us to be invested in this brand new character.
Inglourious Basterds part 3
Thirty-eight minutes into Inglourious Basterds, something very strange happens — the movie starts over, for the third time.
Inglourious Basterds part 2
Lt Raine is huntin’ Nazzis. Hitler is, predictably, upset.
Something kind of unusual happens about 20 minutes into Inglourious Basterds: the movie starts. You can feel it as you’re watching it, after the slow-burn suspense of "Chapter 1," here’s a scene you recognize and understand: a tough, take-charge army officer barks out the details of a secret mission to a cadre of elite soldiers. Hooray, the viewer thinks, now I’m oriented, now I know where I am, this is going to be a "men on a mission" movie, like The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare. The first scene was just a long setup for the Col Landa character, now we’re going to meet the dog-faced American soldiers who are going to kick Landa’s ass.
Inglourious Basterds part 1
LaPadite vs Landa in an epic pipe-off.
For a minute or so, it looks like the protagonist of Inglourious Basterds is going to be Perrier LaPadite, a humble French dairy farmer just trying to eke his way through World War II in the French countryside with his daughters. Into LaPadite’s island of relative calm comes Col Hans Landa. The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds is over 15 minutes long, which is extraordinary in and of itself. 15 minutes is a huge amount of screen time to spend on a scene, especially an opening scene, especially a two-handed opening scene where one of the characters will never be seen again. That’s just the beginning of the daring and audacity of Quentin Tarantino’s screenplay.