Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is the screenplay for the revenge war film of the same name. Moviegoers love Tarantino's films for a multitude of reasons or they hate them for a multitude of reasons, but the screenplay provides a whole new insight into the filmmaker and his work.

Author David L. Robbins says in the forward, "The script remembers, too, the classic propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl and Joseph Goebbels. It glimpses the faces of Hitler and Churchill and the interior of a wartime movie house in Paris, and zooms in on the horrors of close combat, the mania of vendetta. . . . Inglourious Basterds does not indulge in lampoonery or mere cobbling. It is reverently authentic as a war story, working the same tense, edge-of-the-seat magic as the best of the genre, book or movie. At the same time, it's Tarantino, its own thing."

There are two main story lines in the film and the script -- one deals with the death and ultimate revenge plot of Shosanna Dreyfus and the other follows the basterds through Germany as they take on the Nazis and bumble around during secret missions to win the war. In typical Tarantino fashion, the script bounces from each group and several moments in time, quilting together the larger arc of the story and conclusion of the war.

The script includes little tidbits about the characters that are never seen or talked about on screen. Readers will be amazed by the depth of detail Tarantino provides in stage direction, the description of the scene, and explanation.

"Lt. Aldo [played by Brad Pitt:] has one defining physical characteristic, a ROPE BURN around his neck -- as if, once upon a time, he survived a LYNCHING." (Page 19)

"WE SEE all the pagentry below. Tons of SPECTATORS. Tons of guests dressed in Nazi uniforms, tuxedoes, and female finery, walking up the long red carpet (with a big swastika in the middle, naturally) leading into Shosanna's cinema. The German brass band omm-pa-pa-ing away. German radio and film crews covering the event for the fatherland back home. And, of course, MANY GERMAN SOLDIERS providing security for this joyous Germanic occasion." (Page 125)

Although the script does not depict the true conclusion of World War II, Tarantino illuminates the horrors of war and creates an atmosphere of the ridiculous in its revenge themes. Watching the film is fast-paced, hilarious at moments, and gruesome, but reading the script plunges readers into their own personal version of the events and enables them to sink their teeth into Tarantino's witty and poignant dialogue. The basterds' dialogue drips with disdain and self-righteousness, while Col. Hans Landa, or the Jew Hunter, uses language to demonstrate his superiority, even though his outward actions border on comedic.

Lt. Aldo: Well, Werner, if you heard of us, you probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business. We in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is boomin'. (Page 28)

FEMALE SGT. BEETHOVEN and STIGLITZ bring their guns toward each other and FIRE. They BOTH TAKE and GIVE each other so many BULLETS it's almost romantic when they collapse DEAD on the floor. (Page 108)

Overall, Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino is an excellent specimen of a screenplay from its detailed stage direction and description to its witty and insightful dialogue, it will capture readers imaginations just as the film did on screen. There are portions of the script that did not make it onto the big screen, but that's to be expected with any film; there also are scenes in the movie that are not in the script. The beauty of a screenplay is that it is not a stationary work of art, but one that evolves from page to screen under the guidance of its maker. ( )

Wow! Where do I begin? Tarantino does not let us down in this World War II Nazi-infested tale of survival and gruesome murders (ahh, the irony). The screenplay parallels two different stories. The first being with Shosanna Dreyfuss. She's a jewish girl hiding from the Nazi's under the floorboards of a German Farmhouse. Her family gets machine-gunned by Colonel Landa's minions in front her. She is the only survivor. Her mission in life stays the same: survival but with a twist -- get revenge. The second story to parallel Shosanna's is about the Inglourious Basterds led by Lieutenant Aldo Raine. The basterds mission is to kill all Nazi's, torture them like they've tortured all the Jews, and scalp them. Their stories meet up when all the prominent Nazi's converge in the same cinema. Shosanna and the Basterds are simultaneously planning their revenge in the same location, at the same time, though neither knows about the other. Will they both execute their plans effectively? Or will they die trying?
The story is definitely Tarantino-esque will all the mayhem and witty dialogue. If I would post all the lines that I liked the most, I'd be here a while, and you'd be reading the entire screenplay! I'll just post a little dialogue between Lt. Aldo Raine and the Basterds that happened in the beginning of chapter 2 and sums up the Basterd's mission:

Lt. Aldo Raine: My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I need me eight soldiers. Eight Jewish-American soldiers. Now, y'all might of heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doing one thing and one thing only... killing Nazis. Members of nationalist socialist party conquered Europe through murder, torture, intimation, and terror. And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half Sicily and then jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why every son of a bitch we find wearin' a Nazi uniform, they're gonna die. We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies their brothers we leave behind us and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, the Germans will talk about us and the Germans will fear us. And when the Germans close their eyes at night and their subconscious tortures them for the evil they've done, it will be with thoughts of us that it tortures them with. Sound good?
The Basterds: YES, SIR!
Lt. Aldo Raine: That's what I like to hear. But I got a word of warning to all would-be warriors. When you join my command, you take on a debit. A debit you owe me personally. Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps. And all y'all will git me one hundred Nazi scalps, taken from the heads of one hundred dead Nazis. Or you will die tryin'.

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A French farmer is hiding a Jewish family from the Nazis on his farm during World War II. When Nazi soldiers search his farm and promise he and his family won’t be punished, he reveals the hiding place of the Jewish family. Sixteen year old Shoshanna manages to escape, flee to Paris and make a new life for herself, vowing revenge against the Nazis.

A team of top-notch, Jewish-American soldiers is put together by Lt. Aldo Raine during World War II. Disguised as civilians, they are dropped into German occupied France with the mission of sabotaging the Nazis. They are fulfilling the mission well by killing German soldiers, but always leaving one alive to tell the tales of the terror they’ve implemented. The Germans begin to call this team of American soldiers “Basterds.”

One fateful night, the Basterds’ plans and Shoshana’s plans converge for a surprise ending!

Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino is the first screenplay I’ve ever read. I have to admit that it bugged me that both words in the title are misspelled and it was never explained why. I expected it to read like a play, and for the most part, it does. I was surprised at the descriptiveness of some of the stage (screen?) directions, for example:

"Hans LUNGES forward, putting his strong mitts around Bridget von Hammersmark’s lily-white, delicate neck. and with all the violence of a lion in mid-pounce, SQUEEZES with all his MIGHT."

I’ve never seen a Quentin Tarantino movie, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The story is unique and violent, and I’ll be interested to see how it translates to the screen, although I’m sure I’ll be closing my eyes a lot. (For some reason, I can read violence, but I can’t stand to watch it.) I’ve already seen one scene from the movie that has a different setting than the screenplay does. The ending totally shocked me! The story is not based on fact and is not historically accurate. ( )