Nature of Evil in Inglourious Basterds

Last year, Christoph Waltz stood out in Inglourious Basterds because he was allowed to roam the film as an encompassing portrait of evil. There were no elaborate plot constructions to explain his nature and there was not an attempt by the film to marginalize him to his most despicable actions. In many films about evil characters, the film excuses his limitations as a three dimension character by relegating them to little detail. Mainly, their importance is highlighted by the reactions they cause in others.

But like Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s List, Christoph Waltz is allowed the screen time to get comfortable with his character. The audience gets to know his personal hangs up before they see his villainy. The similarity between Waltz and Fiennes is not in just their historical occupancy nor is it in their casual portrait. The come together for both characters is how their underpinnings are illuminated. At the heart of their evil is emotional contradictions that they cannot ration with or fully understand. With Waltz, his deviousness is underscored by a blind nationalism that he ignores even when he is betraying his country and Fiennes reveals his nature by his desperate desire to fit in with the lights of Oskar Schindler’s crowd when his rank as a commandeering German soldier should make him feel superior.

For what it is worth, I thought Christoph Waltz did a fine job in his acting. His mannerisms are fully unsettling to see, but the ultimate problem with his character is that his nature is an after thought consideration. The film doesn’t draw you into to consider the degrees of his psychology until after the movie when you are rehashing the scenes in your head. Chronologically, Waltz betrays his country and acts happy to do so because it means the guarantee of his life. The intended contradiction is that two scenes before, he is interrogating Diane Kruger’s character (a German actress in on the plot) and he needlessly kills her when he could have revealed his intentions to betray Germany there. He waits until he meets the captured Americans to do so.

Why would he wait? He had perfect security with Kruger in a private room to open up. She could have contacted the higher ups in the United States army as well. I think the reason he waits mirrors a previous scene. When Pitt’s character is in a beer hall negotiating for the release of Kruger’s character from a German officer after a gun fight, the German officer makes sure to guarantee his life if he lets her go and asks Pitt to consider the fact he has a family. All things go well until the German soldier gets upset over Kruger being a traitor and he insults her and she kills him. It’s an unexplainable contradiction for the soldier because he was willing to make a temporary pact with the enemy to guarantee his life and yet he’s insulted when he sees another German national betraying the country. In some respects, he is going against his allegiance as well. Christoph Waltz’s character kills Kruger with the likely knowledge he is going to betray his country but his nationalism gets the best of him even though killing an operative for the Allies could complicate his standing with them.

It is the inner turmoil in Col. Hans Landa but the film has an odd way of rolling out the information. The placement of the beer hall scene is fine and perfectly simple in alluding to what will happen later, but when Landa revels himself to the American soldiers, he does so to our surprise. Somehow, the film should have made his thinking known before Kruger was murdered. Then the audience could have wondered why he was killing her since it is illogical. I guess the argument against my position could be that I eventually came to these conclusions so what’s the problem? The problem is that I am the only person I know who did. Films don’t need to tell you everything, but they do need to adequately build up the right questions for your consideration. Inglourious Basterds missed its chance.

As far as masterful characters of evil go, Neil LaBute made two classics with In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors. The first is an unsettling portrait of corporate greed and competition while the second one is commentary on masculinity in today’s relationship world of grown men and women. Both films feature one character who seem to epitomize homegrown versions of evil in today’s society. No excuses are made for the characters, but a few scenes are invitations into relevant questions about their life. Jason Patric had one of the most chilling scenes in any movies in the last twenty years here when he is asked what his best lay was: