This is me updating my observations of the movie Inglorious Basterds. Specifically of Hans Landa, after rewatching again and reading the script as well. You can find the original here
And this will mostly be me writing over it so some or a lot of it will be repeated.
In the opening act, Hans is traveling through rural France searching for the Dreyfus family, who are on his list of known Jewish families in the area. When he arrives at the Lapedite (I apologize for spelling) farm, he clearly already knows that they’re hiding there, and is simply going through routine to let perrier know exactly who he is, what he’s capable of, and his chances against him. When he first arrives, he is humble as always and respectful to the family, in order for them to be put at ease. Hans makes a point of making sure only he and Perrier are in the room while they speak. This prevents interference from Perrier’s daughters, as they might interrupt Landa’s process.
Hans pretends to have only a small vocabulary of French at his disposal, however this is clearly not true. He is shown to be fluent in at least 4 languages throughout the movie, French included. He simply uses this as an excuse to prevent the Dreyfuses from understanding where the conversation is going.
As the conversation progresses, Hans asks small favors of Perrier, to make him have some sense of control. I’d also like to point out his one upsmanship that he constantly has, which first shows here. During the scene Perrier pulls out a small pipe to smoke, and Hans tells him that it’s his house and he should feel free to do whatever he wants. Later Hans asks if he could smoke his pipe as well, and pulls out a monster of a pipe, which no one would use casually. However it is worth nothing that the style of the pipe is reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, the most famous private detective ever written. Tarantino even mentions this in the script. He also mentions that at this point Perrier, or there farmer’ is very calm. “Cool as a cucumber,” are his exact words.
This is around the point that Hans has finished his questions, and is packing up to leave. As he sets his attaché down, he begins a conversation about comparing Nazis and Jews to hawks and rats respectively. He makes the connection of a hawk hunting a rat throughout the house, stating that any normal hawk would look for the rat where the hawk itself would think to hide. The only difference is that Landa himself knows how to think like a rat as well. Tarantino mentions that Perrier is becoming more and more nervous as this goes on.
Shortly after this Landa pulls the rug out from under Perrier, which leaves him completely vulnerable, and forces him to confess that he has been holding the Dreyfus family, and where they are. And if you’ve seen it you know what happens from there. As Shoshana runs away, Hans chooses not to shoot at her, knowing full well she’ll die soon enough, or he’ll find her eventually. There’s a scene cut from the movie that shows Hans and the soldiers driving away. One of the soldiers asks why he let the girl get away, and he says just this.
This scene shows the audience exactly what kind of antagonist we’ll be dealing with throughout the movie, and is brilliant work by Tarantino.
The next time we see Landa is in the restaurant scene, where Shoshana (now Emmanuelle) has been brought to discuss using her movie theater to premiere the film about Frederick Zoller, the soldier who has taken an interest in her. When Goebels greets Landa at the table, we get a fast paced drumming theme, which placed over his seemingly innocent smile makes for an amazing establishing shot. Any other circumstance and he might just be a normal person, but he’s clearly someone who should not be messed with. And after looking down at Emmanuelle it’s clear he knows exactly who she is. He looks at her, and if you look close, you can actually see him smirk just a bit. From then on, everything he does is just to toy with her. Shortly after his appearance in the scene, the table clears, but he holds Emmanuel at the table, so he may discuss in further detail with her about the theater. He asks Emmanuelle if she’s tried the restaurant’s strudel, and begins discussing the theater with her. When the waiter comes by, he orders for them both. 2 strudels, a coffee, and for Emmanuelle? A glass of milk.
He’s telling her right there that he knows. Shoshana’s family was murdered on Lapadite’s dairy farm, where instead of asking for wine, he simply asked for some of their milk. When it all arrives he controls the situation, by making her wait for the waiter to return with the cream, because it adds to the flavor I guess? Who knows? As far as I can tell for now, he doesn’t do too much more like this for the rest of the scene, however he is constantly interrupting Emmanuelle, trying to get her to lose focus and hopefully slip up. He asks about her family, and how she came to be the owner of the theater. Other than how she got the theater, he knows everything about her, and the theater itself. And like I said he is just toying with her the entire time. He gives her a cigarette, and says he wanted to ask her something else, and gives her a bit of a death glare before putting his cigarette out on the half eaten strudel and saying he can’t remember. Now this is just speculation, but I think that this was his way of hinting that he knew, and was going to ask about her religion, but that’s just me.
The next time we see Landa he is investigating the scene of the tavern shootout, where he finds Bridgette’s shoe, and the autograph for wilhelm’s son. While there however, he identifies Wicki and Hugo, the two German members of the Basterds, and their tactics. He’s studied them, and interviewed each of their survivors. Soon after he is at the premiere, and goes to speak with Bridgette as she arrives. He conducts a small interview of her and Aldo’s crew. He asks about the cast, and breaks down laughing when she tells him that it’s from mountain climbing. Either jokingly or seriously, it’s simply his way of saying that it’s the most absurd excuse that they could have come up with.
And then he asks about the Basterds, and talks to them and Bridgette, switching from speaking German to Italian back and forth masterfully. Of course he knows that they’re the Basterds, and is simply messing with them. He loves it, thinking it’s all part of the game. He then pulls Bridgette to a small office, where he strangles her and has Aldo captured. At this point he figures out what’s going on, takes Aldo’s dynamite and plants it in the VIP box with Hitler. He knows one way or another everyone there dies, and he wants to be on the winning side. So he takes Aldo and Utivich, who was captured at some other point between the vet scene and the premiere, to another building and negotiates his terms to end the war. Full control, laughing and smiling his way through.
The very last scene is where things change however. He was too sure of himself, let his guard down because he thought he had gotten away scot free, and he slipped. Aldo and Utivich bound Landa and Hermann. They killed Hermann and carved the swastica into his forehead, branding him as a Nazi forever.
The man is a crazy genius and one of my favorite Tarantino characters
Submitted July 09, 2020 at 05:02AM by Synsrighthand https://ift.tt/3egptzb