The Holocaust, Tarantino-style

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1027043.html

07/10/2008
The Holocaust, Tarantino-style: Jews scalping Nazis
By Assaf Uni
Tags: Israel News, Holocaust

BERLIN - For weeks, Germany's tabloids and culture pages have been preoccupied with Quentin Tarantino's film "Inglorious Bastards," slated to start filming next week in Germany.

While the tabloids are drooling over the movie's star, Brad Pitt, who is moving with his wife Angelina Jolie and their children to a villa close to Berlin ("The most beautiful couple in Wannsee," one headline declared), the serious media is focusing on another angle: Is Germany ready for a Tarantino-style treatment of World War II?

An early draft of the script leaked onto the Internet three months ago suggested the film would contain scenes of bloody vengeance exacted by Jews against Nazis. One campaign would be carried out by Jews in the U.S. Army intent on scalping Nazi soldiers on occupied French soil; another would be a Jewish refugee's revenge against the Nazi officer who murdered her parents.

Pitt is to play Jewish-American Lt. Aldo Raine, the leader of a revenge squad known as "The Bastards," who launch a killing spree in which they hang, torture, disembowel and scalp German soldiers and engrave Swastikas on their foreheads, according to the leaked draft.

The film is raising controversy in Germany, where the subjects of World War II and the Holocaust are usually restricted to historical discourse.

"This is pop culture meeting Nazi Germany and the Holocaust with unprecedented force," said the film critic of SuedDeutche Zeitung, Tobias Kniebe. "The effects of this collision are utterly unpredictable."

German film critics blasted last week's decision to grant the film money from the German Film Fund and another local fund, saying that Germany cannot finance a movie that uses Jewish-Nazi relations as entertainment, especially one by Tarantino.

The SuedDeutche Zeitung warned that the film may be no less explosive than the Hollywood film Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise, about German officers' abortive attempt to assassinate Hitler toward the end of WWII. The movie, filmed in Germany and scheduled to be released in spring 2009, has already drawn fire from German historians.

"All the German historians and critics who were left gasping for breath by Tom Cruise and his worthy attempts to produce a correct image of Stauffenberg will be so shocked by 'Inglorious Bastards' that they will savage it on the spot," writes Kneibe.

Tarantino's film is not supposed to mix history and fiction, but to offer the pure, hyper-violent entertainment that the American director of "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction" and "Kill Bill" is known for.

"It is sort of a spaghetti western set in World War II," Tarantino told the German News Agency DPA. "I am not going to call it this, but if it had a subtitle for it, it would be called, 'Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France.'"

Films that treat the Holocaust period as pure entertainment could be destructive, says Alexander Kluge, a noted film director and author, who has been dealing with the Holocaust and its memory for more than 50 years.

He cites Swiss-Jewish director Dany Levy's comedy "Mein Fuehrer" as a case in point. This film raised a storm in Germany two years ago, when it portrayed for the first time a neurotic, empathy-evoking Hitler. "Such films can obscure the events' true significance," says Kluge.

Tarantino's film received a 300,000 euro grant from the state of Brandenburg, because it will be filmed in Potsdam's Babelsberg studios. Founded in 1911, this is the world's oldest major film studio. Films including Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and "The Blue Angel" with Marlene Dietrich were filmed there in the 1920s and 1930s, as were numerous Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda films.

Tarantino's film is also expected to receive 20 percent of its budget from the German Film Fund because it is being filmed in Germany. It is scheduled to be released in June 2009.

Lightsabre wins the battle of movie weapons

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576154/Lightsabre-wins-the-battle-of-movie-weapons.html

Lightsabre wins the battle of movie weapons
By Sophie Borland
18/04/2008

It may look like a humble fluorescent kitchen light, but according to a new survey it is the best weapon ever featured in a film.

The lightsabre, wielded by the Jedi knight Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars saga, fought off stiff competition to win the title from other favourites including Robin Hood’s bow and arrow and the deadly bowler hat thrown at James Bond.

In second place came the 0.44 Magnum handgun from the film Dirty Harry while third was Indiana Jones’ 10ft-long bullwhip.

The survey of 2,000 film lovers, commissioned by 20th Century Fox, placed the samurai sword used in the film Kill Bill as fourth and the chainsaw from the 1974 horror the Texas Chainsaw Massacre fifth.

Since it first appeared in the first Star Wars film in 1977, the lightsabre has become one of the most famous props in film history.

According to the plot of the hugely popular science fiction films, it can only be handled by those strong enough to master its power and it is mainly used by the Jedi knights.

When activated, a beam of highly focussed energy emitting a distinctive hum is unleashed, which is so strong it can cut through most objects.

When it is deactivated, however, the lightsaber appears as a 12in long metallic handle.

Toy versions of the weapon consistently feature among the best-selling Christmas presents for children.

Top 10 Favourite Movie Weapons

1. Lightsabre (Star Wars)

2. .44 Magnum (Dirty Harry)

3. Bullwhip (Indiana Jones)

4. Samurai sword (Kill Bill)

5. Chainsaw (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

6. Golden Gun (James Bond - The Man With The Golden Gun)

7. Bow and arrow (Robin Hood)

8. Machine gun (Scarface)

9. The Death Star (Star Wars)

10. Bowler hat (James Bond - Goldfinger)