Archive for category Film

Inglourious Basterds (or film qua film)

Have to say that Tarantino’s newest flick is a romp through post-war Italian, French, German, American cinema. Callouts to the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone (including font treatment in opening credits and the splash of introduction for character Hugo Stiglitz), the BRD Trilogy of Fassbinder (Shosanna in shadow is haunted by the shots of Maria Braun), not to mention the 1978 movie of the same name by Italian director Castellari. Nods to The Searchers, Good Bad & Ugly, Clouzot, Goddard, Metropolis (big face in last chapter). Wickedly entertaining & morally problematic. Because Tarantino also renders a strange fantasy dimension where the Nazis are comically close to topple by less than a dozen saboteurs, where revenge strategies and dehumanizing violence can be used effectively against a precarious paper regime.

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The Earrings of Madame de . . .

Max Ophuls adaptation of Louise de Vilmorin’s novel.

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Alphaville

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