You are sheltering enemies of the state, are you not? Yes. You're sheltering them underneath your floorboards, aren't you? Yes. Point out to me the areas where they're hiding. This is the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds and it is, well, relatively terrifying. What starts out as a sunny day on a French dairy farm, quickly devolves into a paranoia drenched life or death interrogation. Culminating with the brutal murder of a hidden Jewish family. Tarantino is a master of using intriguing and almost musical dialogue to drive tension. This works in part because Tarantino is a perfectionist. Brad Pitt went as far to say, after filming Inglourious Basterds, that Tarantino's set places him as God, and there is no blasphemy. Perfectionism can be a blessing and a curse when it comes to filmmaking, for sure. Sometimes perfectionism can lead to a film's budget ballooning from delays and reshoots, but on the other hand, a director who believes in his project and his writing so much as to settle for nothing less than his vision, can result in pretty amazing pieces of cinema, and that's kind of what we're looking at here. The sixth film in Tarantino canon was almost scrapped entirely for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons was that the script had leaked online a few years prior to release, but another huge reason was that Tarantino was having trouble finding an actor who could deliver the performance necessary to make Hans Landa work. For a while, it was actually Leonardo DiCaprio, who was in line to play the film's primary antagonist. For all intents and purposes, DiCaprio would have probably been relatively fine. He's fluent in German and could certainly, deliver a powerful performance, but Tarantino is again, a perfectionist. The performance was going to be absolutely perfect or the film wasn't going to happen at all. Tarantino has even gone on record as to say that he thought that the character might be unplayable. A day before he was about to scrap the project entirely, he met Christoph Waltz and was gobsmacked with the perfection and ease with which he approached the character.

He was actually instructed to hold back his performance during rehearsals. Tarantino didn't want the cast to know how good he actually was. So he instructed Waltz to give everyone a six instead of a 10 during that process. Waltz was told that if he felt actors begin to get competitive with him, that he was too loose. And in turn, the only actor who actually got to see a full blown, full effort performance during pre-production was the Denis Menochet, who played Perrier LaPadite, in the film's opening sequence. The decision to hold Walts back was made so that the actors would have a more authentic reaction to this, well, one of a kind performance. This scene in general, is incredibly well-written. It tells a complete story that can almost act as a standalone short film in 19 minutes. It opens on LaPadite chopping firewood on top of a hill. There is this rhythmic quality to which these chops take place. Each one of these axe chops are about one second apart. This is important because it sets a cadence. We begin this scene with the sound of what is essentially a ticking clock, as the camera pans to a small fleet of German troops approaching this farm. When Hans arrives, we know there is trouble afoot. His uniform alone, could tell you that, but the competence with which he enters the room, gives us the feeling of a python entering a hamster cage. The contrasting stature of these actors tells you all you need to know immediately. Despite the fact, that this farmer could undoubtedly kill Hans very easily by hand if he so desired. Hans still sort of floats through the room as if he owns the place. While everyone else around him is trying to contain sheer and utter terror. It's all subtle and all, oh, so intimidating. Now Waltz himself, could write a book on how to be threatening and charming at the same time, and Hans seems as cordial and polite as any houseguest could possibly be, but it's the lack of warmth and pleasantries shown against this sort of overt politeness that really send a threatening message to the viewer.

And this is again done, not through Waltz alone, but also through the writing. He pauses a little longer than usual. He holds eye contact for just a second too long, and Tarantino directs a performance that has that cadence we already discussed. And adversely, the LaPadite family can't and doesn't look at Hans for more than a brief moment. One of the first things Hans does upon entering the home is request a glass of milk. It's not an unusual request, after all, this is a dairy farm, but by doing this, Hans puts himself in this position of status. He's letting the family know that they are there to serve him in this moment. After excusing the family and reaffirming a spirit of trust by bringing up the fact that he left his soldiers outside, Hans and Perrier can finally get down to brass tax. We, at this point, have no idea what exactly is going on. We just know that this family is likely in danger. That's usually the case when you have a period piece set in World War II and Germans are involved. But Perrier is particularly on edge about something that we haven't quite been able to comprehend yet. The request to switch to the English language might come off as a pandering to an American audience, and by all means, it may very well be. However, Tarantino spins this later on in a somewhat brilliant way, but we'll get to that in just a moment. Hans quickly asserts his dominance over the entire situation by forcing Perrier to acknowledge that he knows who Hans is by reputation alone. Please tell me what you've heard. I've heard that the Furher has put you in charge of running out the Jews left in France. There's a signal of submission to his authority. And again, it is done through this wolf in sheep's clothing, utterly disarming niceness. Once the power dynamic has been established, Perrier quickly shifts to more of a bartering phase and out of nervousness, goes for his pipe to calm his nerves.

After some likely reassurances that this is just a doubling of efforts in the spirit of thoroughness, Hans brings up one specific Jewish family that has been left unaccounted for while very carefully making Perrier explain in detail, what he remembers about the missing family. Names, ages, descriptions, we think he's just getting information, but Hans is really interrogating Perrier. Perrier is giving away everything he knows, as the camera slowly pans around the table. Tarantino's way of telling us that literally and figuratively, the tables have in fact turned. We get the full picture as the camera pans down under the floorboards, and we see the aforementioned Jewish family huddled in a crawlspace, hiding their breathing, so as not to give away their secret. They are almost being crushed by the weight of what is transpiring above them. This is an eye opening moment for the viewer, as we now understand that an entire family's life is at stake, and the stakes of the situation, in general, are much graver than we initially anticipated. So after they wrap up the details, Hans asks for one final glass of milk, making Perrier serve it to him is, again, just another psychological twist of the knife before making his final power play by forcing Perrier to call him by his nickname. Yeah, they call you the Jew Hunter. Precisely. From this point on, Hans plays out his winning hand one card at a time. He loves his moniker because he earned that moniker. Hans asks if you might be able to smoke his pipe and boom. Almost comical, as well, like a Looney Tunes gag, a way for Hans to insult Perrier before going in for the kill and a message to Perrier that the game is over. Hans drops all the pleasantries and tells Perrier that he knows everything. The jig is up. Facial expressions shift into something more monstrous and Hans tells Perrier that he not only knows that he is hiding Jews in his home, but that they are under the floorboards exactly where we've seen them before.

This is where Tarantino stroke of brilliance with the languages comes into play. From a filmmaking standpoint, switching to English for the scene would likely ease producers concerns of an American movie going audiences ability to understand the film without being confused. But within the structure of this scene, Hans, knowing that the family was under the floorboard from the moment he walked into the room, we now know he switched to English so that they couldn't understand what was happening when Perrier was forced to give them up. Hans resumes his ruse and the family is murdered in the dirt they were hiding in. Shosanna running away is the final image we have in the scene, and Hans allows her to live. His final words feel like they are left unfinished. Aur Revoir, Shosanna! As if he was going to add, until we meet again. He doesn't care if she lives or dies because he views her as lesser, as a rodent, nothing more, nothing less. It just so happens though, that this moment gives this rodent the resolve to lock every high ranking German official in a crowded theater and burn them alive later in the film. This 19-minute opening scene of Inglourious Basterds is a masterpiece of not only storytelling and writing, but also, acting. It should come as no surprise that Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for his performance in the film because he was able to capture a variety of different emotions, attitudes, and really, personalities in ways that turn a human being, who by all accounts in real life is very nice, into something much more sinister and inhuman. This may not be a case of casting the right actor in the right role, it may very well be a case of casting the only actor who could conceivably play this role, with any level of believability. The scene being a testament to how keeping that perfection in your sights without compromise can yield amazing results. Well, guys.

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