Inglorious Basterds Movie Review

In the movie Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino makes use of lighting and shadows to suggest towards some characters real intentions. By casting shadows in different ways on the characters’ faces, he can connote certain hidden aspects of the character’s backstory. For example, shadowing the eyes.

Tarantino uses lighting to hide the eyes of Hans Landa(Christoph Waltz) in the opening scene at the dairy farm. By shadowing his eyes, Landa seems mysterious and dangerous. When you consider the lighting compared between the characters of Landa and the dairy farmer, you can tell that the light is focused on the dairy farmer’s forehead, allowing easy viewing of the sweat on his forehead. However, the shadows deepen the lines on Landa’s face, adding intrigue and danger. This is one of the many ways that Tarantino uses lighting and shadows to accentuate gut feelings in the viewer.

The second shadowing technique in the movie is during the lunch scene, in which Shoshanna( Melanie Laurent) meets with Goebbels(Sylvester Groth), the Nazi propanganda master. After the lunch is finished, Landa, who shows up halfway through the scene, questions Shoshanna about her theater. The actions that he takes in this scene suggest that he knows Shoshanna is a jew. Tarantino accentuates this by casting half her face in shadow, showing that she has two faces. One face, the German acceptable Parisian, and the other, Shoshanna, the Jewish runaway who hate the Germans. By showing half her face in the light, he invites the audience to wonder about the hidden side of her. This is a technique used by Tarantino to add duplicity.

The final shadowing technique used by Tarantino is this movie was backlighting. He used this technique in the bar scene in which the British Lieutenant Archie Hicox(Michael Fassbender) is meeting Bridget Von Hammersmark(Diane Kruger), the German mole. By backlighting the characters, he creates a grim scene in which the characters talk to each other in partial darkness. By shadowing them, he adds to the suspense of the scene. 

Tarantino is a master of using shadows in his work. Whether he hides eyes, splits faces, or connotes secrecy while making the scene visible, he always finds a way to express feelings with darkness. Sometimes this darkness is necessary, especially in a war movie such as Inglourious Basterds. If a lighter tone were used, the whole feel of the movie would change. Au Revoir Shoshanna!