1st "Inglourious Basterds" Trailer Lacks Tarantino's Trademark Zaniness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sQhTVz5IjQ

Quentin Tarantino’s long-delayed Inglourious Basterds is finally on its way to theaters, with the first trailer released this past February. The trailer is a cold dish except for Brad Pitt’s country-fried accent that has him pronouncing the word “Nazi” in a funny way. This trailer’s lack of Tarantino’s trademark zaniness puts the viewer in mind of Stanley Kubrick’s steely Vietnam drama, Full Metal Jacket.

There are various images that suggest that Basterds is a cold, menacing film, which I doubt it is based on the second trailer. There's an image of a crying girl covered in dirt running presumably for her life--this definitely screams Holocaust. There's nothing lighthearted about that. As the camera pans horizontally going down the line of the Basterds unit, the Full Metal Jacket comparison is stark. The soldiers' faces are deathly white and their faces stern. All of these images make Basterds seem like a war film played pretty reservedly without of Tarantino's idiosyncracies. Thank God the second trailer proves that false.

Sadistic revenge is the consistent thread between all of Tarantino’s films and once again revenge looks to be what drives Inglourious Basterds. The film is the story of an 8-man unit of Jewish men led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt) named the “Basterds." I doubt that Raine is supposed to be Jewish, but I don't know for sure. I think the soldiers that he leads are supposed to be Jewish. Who knows how Raine became involved in leading the men. During World War II in Nazi-occupied France, the Basterds go on a mission to kill all the Nazis in the most gruesome ways leaving them “disemboweled, dismembered and disfigured." The Basterds plan to give the Nazis their comeuppance. Tarantino himself said that Basterds is his very own spaghetti western using World War II as the canvas to splatter his brand of bloody violence upon, which he makes clear and literal by flashing the film's taglines against splatters of blood.

Pitt plays the role of Lieutenant Aldo Raine who’s supposed to be a Hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee. Pitt is beyond convincing as Aldo Raine because Pitt has the seemingly clueless look in his eyes that suggests a simpleton. Despite seeming ignorant, Pitt plays Aldo Raine in a way that conveys to the audience that Aldo Raine uses a seeming lack of self-awareness as a way to deal with the darkness of life. Raine’s charming frankness never alienates his army of “Basterds,” which seems to be what makes Raine an effective leader. He’s nothing like the surly Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket.

Pitt is well-suited for comedic roles because the wry, flatness of his voice sounds almost childlike, resulting in a charming simplicity and directness. Pitt has always had boyish good looks With the close mustache and neat haircut, Pitt is a dead ringer for Clark Gable. Amazingly, at 46 years old, Pitt looks the same as he did in his pinup days, except with some gray around his temples and more lived-in skin. Pitt ages the best out of any movie star that I can remember. There’s a noticeably scar around Pitt’s neck that insiders say is an allusion to Aldo Raine’s past where he escaped a lynching, presumably somewhere in the South.

It’s more than a coincidence that Eli Roth plays a major role in the first trailer for Inglourious Basterds (and is supposed to play a major role in the actual film) because Roth is the torture-porn auteur behind films, Hostel and the 2002 Cabin Fever remake. Roth and Tarantino are soul-mates for the sole reason that they share a love of creating films full of artful violence. As Pitt’s Aldo Raine says, “The German will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our boot heels, and the edge of our knives,” a demonic smile creeps onto Roth’s face juxtaposed by a blast of chainsaw-like heavy metal music. From the way Roth smiles, it’s easy to imagine Tarantino giving the same smile, as Tarantino wrote Roth’s character Donnie Donowitz as his alter ego.

The trailer ends with the title’s logo reading “Inglourious Basterds” with a Swastika smack-dab in the middle of the logo. That’s another thing to note is Swastikas have a strong presence in this trailer, not just as armbands and flags, but carved with knives on the foreheads of Nazis.