Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Synopsis

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a plan to assassinate Nazi leaders by a group of Jewish U.S. soldiers coincides with a theatre owner (Mélanie Laurent)'s vengeful plans for the same.

Male Deaths

• Christian Berkel [Proprietor Eric]
• Salvadore Brandt [Bob Dreyfus]
• Daniel Bruhl [Frederick Zoller]
• Gedeon Burkhard [Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki]
• Enzo G. Castellari [Enzo G. Castellari]
• August Diehl [Major Hellstrom]
• Omar Doom [Pfc. Omar Ulmer]
• Ken Duken [German Soldier 'Mata Hari']
• Hilmar Eichhorn [Emil Jannings]
• Patrick Elias [Jakob Dreyfus]
• Michael Fassbender [Lt. Archie Hicox]
• Alexander Fehling [Master Sgt. Wilhelm 'Pola Negri']
• Bela B. Felsenheimer [Nazi Usher #2]
• Sylvester Groth [Joseph Goebbels]
• Sebastian Hulk [Hellstrom's Driver/Nazi Usher #1]
• Jackie Ido [Marcel]
• Jasper Linnewedel [Amos Dreyfus]
• Denis Menochet [Perrier LaPadite] (possibly)
• Volker Michalowski [German Soldier 'Edgar Wallace']
• Greg Nicotero [Gestapo Major]
• Eli Roth [Sgt. Donny Donowitz]
• Richard Sammel [Sgt. Rachtman]
• Til Schweiger [Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz]
• Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey [German Soldier 'Winnetou']
• Bo Svenson [American Colonel] (film-within-film)
• Quentin Tarantino [First Scalped Nazi/American Soldier in 'Pride of Nation']
• Martin Wuttke [Adolf Hitler]

Female Deaths

• Julie Dreyfus [Francesca Mondino]
• Lena Friedrich [Suzanne LaPadite] (possibly)
• Petra Hartung [German Female Soldier 'Beethoven']
• Diane Kruger [Bridget von Hammersmark]
• Melanie Laurent [Shosanna]
• Eva Lobau [Miriam Dreyfus]
• Tina Rodriguez [Julie LaPadite] (possibly)
• Lea Seydoux [Charlotte LaPadite] (possibly)

Gallery

Salvadore Brandt/Patrick Elias/ Jasper Linnewedel/Eva Lobau

Greg Nicotero

Quentin Tarantino

Richard Sammel

August Diehl

Michael Fassbender

Christian Berkel

Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey

Gedeon Burkhard

Ken Duken

Volker Michalowski/Petra Hartung

Alexander Fehling

Til Schweiger

Diane Kruger

Daniel Brühl

Mélanie Laurent

Sebastian Hulk

Jacky Ido

Sylvester Groth/Martin Wuttke

Julie Dreyfus

Omar Doom/Eli Roth/Enzo G. Castellari/Hilmar Eichhorn

Trivia

1. Quentin Tarantino was considering abandoning the film while the casting searched for someone to play Colonel Hans Landa took place, fearing he'd written a role that was unplayable. After Christoph Waltz auditioned, however, both Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender agreed they had found the perfect actor for the role.
2. The only movie Brad Pitt made as a leading actor for The Weinstein Company or its previous iteration, Miramax. He has said it had everything to do with wanting to work with Quentin Tarantino and nothing to do with Harvey Weinstein. His animosity for Weinstein stems from an incident in the 90s where Pitt physically threatened the producer upon learning of Weinstein's unwanted sexual harassment of his then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow.
3. Quentin Tarantino worked on the script for almost a decade.
4. Roughly only thirty percent of the film is spoken in English, the language which dominates the film is either French or German, with a little Italian. This is highly unusual for a Hollywood production.
5. At the end of each take, actors would face the camera and say "Hello Sally", referring to Sally Menke, the film's editor. This practice has occurred since Quentin Tarantino's previous movies (such as Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Death Proof (2007)). Inglourious Basterds was the last film by Tarantino to be edited by Menke, whose work was honored in 2010 with her final Academy Award nomination for Best Editing, prior to her death later that year.
6. This is the first Quentin Tarantino film to win an Oscar for acting: Christoph Waltz for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Waltz won another Oscar for Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012).
7. In a round table discussion with Brad Pitt and Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino said that Til Schweiger had previously refused to put on a Nazi uniform for a film role, largely due to being born and raised in Germany and his very real hatred of anything Nazi related. When Schweiger was told he'd brutally kill a Nazi in every scene he wore the uniform, he happily agreed to play the part of "Hugo Stiglitz".
8. Ironically, because Diane Kruger's best known performances were in English-speaking films, Quentin Tarantino thought she was an American, and doubted whether she could master the German dialogue and accent. Upon audition, she quickly proved to him that she was a native-speaking German.
9. To prepare for her role, Mélanie Laurent worked as a film projectionist for a few weeks at New Beverly Cinema, projecting mostly cartoons and trailers before shows. The real test set by Quentin Tarantino was for her to screen Reservoir Dogs (1992).
10. Michael Fassbender's performance as Lieutenant Archie Hilcox is layered with irony. Fassbender was born in Germany to German and Irish parents, and raised in Ireland. He now resides in London with fluency in German as his first language, Gaelige as his second and English as his third, and a mastery of English accents and dialects. Here he plays an Englishman who goes undercover as a German, and who can speak German fluently, but has difficulty hiding his accent.
11. Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) speaks the most languages in the movie: Four (English, French, German, and Italian).
12. Christoph Waltz dubbed his own performance in the German version.
13. One of the Jewish names carved on The Bear Jew's (Eli Roth's) bat is Anne Frank.
14. For his performance in this film, Christoph Waltz became one of seven performers to win an Oscar playing a character that mostly spoke in a foreign language (German, French, and Italian). The others are Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Roberto Benigni, Benicio Del Toro, Marion Cotillard, and Youn Yuh-Jung.