Inglorious Basterds Essay

Inglorious Basterds Essay

In this particular scene of "Inglorious Basterds" which has conflict with two characters one a woman all in red and the other a man who is a nazi, there is a lot of different angles, shots, sounds, lighting and editing. In particular one part of editing I noticed through this scene was parallel editing at the start of the scene going from the nazi to the woman dressed in red. I think this editing happened to represent their inevitability during the scene to eventually meet so that they are perhaps involved in a two shot. The woman perhaps is wearing red to represent the danger or conflict that is to come between these characters whilst watching the scene. A shot that I noticed during the scene was an over shoulder shot which kept a recurring simple cut back and forth between these two characters and from when the nazi was looking towards her, the camera was at a high angle, whereas when the scene cut back to her it was a shot from a low angle which I think may have been used to represent the fact of making him look superior or perhaps even to have a high status as it makes it look as if he is looking down on her so therefore she is looking up at him which could also represent the conflict between them as they do not have a normal angle straight on at each other.

Sounds was another thing that I thought was very interesting in the scene especially diegetic sounds that appeared to be in the movie, from non diegetic sounds that created tension and conflict between the scene. However the extreme close up of the bell that eventually rang which could have represented a siren or an alert to the danger that was about to happen between the woman in the red dress and the nazi, also as she was watching the movie as she thought she had killed the nazi there was another diegetic sound of the movie reel as clicking as the movie was about to end which could represent/reveal the end of her life. Not just the movie which is why I thought the sounds were effective in this scene as the diegetic sound of a bell alerted which signalled danger the diegetic sound of the movie reel showed the danger was about to end and the conflict as she was about to die.

Another cut I noticed in specific about this movie other than the parallel editing between the two characters as they was both in the movie room when there was a point of view shot from either of the two characters there was an eye line match cut which met each others characters eyes when they was about to say something to each other or to show the conflict between each of them which I think could have shown the conflict between them that it had to constantly cut between each of them to show the anger and aggression between them. Another thing that I noticed during this scene was the rule of thirds at some point during the scene when they are talking to each other, the woman in red is on the left of the screen and the nazi character is on the right of the screen which I think could represent that there is so much conflict between these two characters that there has to be a certain degree of space between these characters at all times.

A focus within the scene that I noticed was on the movie that the woman in red was watching a movie which consistently came up in the scene which I thought kind of foreshadowed and also was kind of ironic to what was happening in the particular scene. I thought this was ironic and foreshadowed the scene because the movie that the woman in red was watching was based on war and people dying. This could have been to represent the conflict between the two characters in the scene and the irony of them both dying at the end of the scene, also from a point of view shot of her watching the movie, as the scene started it was a close up and from each cut from her to the room she was in then back to the movie, her point of view of the movie got further away from a close up to a long shot which I think could suggest her distance falling from her life and her going from a fantasy world of conflict and death of the movie to the reality of death, conflict and war between the nazi and the woman in the red dress, which is what i saw that was ironic and clever about the portrayal of the movie.

Another shot that I noticed during this scene of "Inglorious Basterds" was an overshot at the very end of the scene and still even though they have both died there is still a gap between the two characters and this could show the conflict is that much it even goes through death. The reason I think there is an overshot after both of these characters have died is because it shows focus between the two characters and their contrasting sides of conflict, also because it represents that death was above all and at the end of all the conflict neither of them was a victor, so death was the only true winner throughout this scene of "Inglorious Basterds".