Intertextual references in Inglourious Basterds.

The beginning of the first chapter exterior shots are similar to The Sound of Music.

The title of the first Chapter points out the main reference of Sergio Leone's 1968 western, Once Upon a Time in the West in the first scene as it is titled Once Upon a Time, in Nazi-occupied France. The interior of the house was designed to look similar to the town setting in Once Upon a Time in the West. The western reference is also backed up with the soundtrack by Ennion Morriconne who composed the music for a lot of Sergio Leone's films. There is a bricolage with Beethoven's  Fur Elise mixed with spaghetti western music to turn it from calm classical music into something that is sinister and builds the tension signifying on coming action. The plot is also similar because in both films a family is massacred in this scene.

Colonel Landa is seen smoking a calabash pipe which is typically used in portrayals of Sherlock Holmes (possible a reference to the fact that Landa's character has solved the case of the hiding family and is a "detective" for the Nazis) either way it looks out of place in this period of history. 

The second chapter, Inglourious Basterds references the 1960s American war film, The Dirty Dozen both in the plot and the scenary. 

It is also similar in plot with recruits being given a mission to assassinate Nazis. In Inglourious Basterds Jewish soldiers are being recruited rather than convicted murderers like in The Dirty Dozen. The setting for the introduction of the assassins is in a similar looking courtyard.

The simulacrum and hyper-reality of the group is represented in the fake sounding Tennessee accent of Brad Pitt and the extreme characters with excessive violence from the Basterds and the angry, sulky character representing Hitler. The characters are exaggerated to make it obvious to the audience that it is not a true representation of what happened. Most period drama films will try to be as historically accurate as possible ensuring that everything from uniform, props, cars and location are close to the correct date and context that the film is set because they want the audience to be convinced that it is a real portrayal of events especially if they state that it is based on true events. Tarantino however does everything to ignore this typical convention, made obvious to the audience that it is fictional by stating the different Chapters at the start of every scene. 

Throughout the film the majority of the time the characters' speak their native language. This might be to point out the ridiculousness of typical "realistic" war films which often have German soldiers of all ranks speaking fluent English with a heavy accent throughout the film saying the odd phrases in German (Valkyrie for example which is entirely German characters speaking English for the whole) However it could be an attempt to portray some realism in the hyper-real story. Large blockbusters are not expected it be in any other language than English because it requires more attention from the audience - reading the subtitles and watching the action - which some people don't like doing which is why foreign language films have a smaller audience. Inglourious Basterds though is not totally in one language so can not be classed as a foreign language film. The first scene where Colonel Landa and Monsieur LaPedite switch from French to English contradicts the realism of having the characters' speak their own language as it doesn't flow which points out the audience the ridiculousness of typical war films that are entirely in English.  

In the 3rd scene there is a self-referencing aspect where the action cuts to a voice-over explaining the character of Hugo Stiglitz. The font is a Tarantino style drop shadow in yellow and black like other of his works e.g. Jackie Brown title. The voice-over is explained by Samuel L Jackson who starred in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. This is an example of hyper-reality within the film because the narrator who has nothing to do with the action is explaining more about the story - like in a book where the author sets the scene, introduces the characters then develops the action. As well as being self-referencing it is another example of how Tarantino is aware that is not "real" and is letting the audience know.

Another self-referencing aspect is the way Tarantino uses his trademark camera angles in the movie - the point of view shot looking up at the victim's attackers which is used in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill and Deathproof. 

A strong theme throughout the film is cinema, Tarantino uses eclecticism by referencing different genres of film. After referencing spaghetti westerns in the first scenes, he makes reference to German cinema both from the Weimar era and Third Reich in the rest of the film. In Chapter 3, he references the famous Austrian filmmaker, Georg Pabst, by showing the title of his film "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" on the front of the cinema. Both in French and in German. Which is also referenced later with the cover story for Bridget's broken leg. Aldo Raine says "He's gonna wrap it up in a cast, and you gotta good how I broke my leg mountain climbing story. That's German, ain't it? Y'all like climbing mountains."

Third Reich propaganda films are referenced through Frederick's storyline who has starred in a film "Nation's Pride" a film made by Goebbels, propaganda minister during the Nazi regime. Although there was no actual film made at the time called Nation's Pride it is similar to Third Reich films which focused on how the Nazis were winning the war. Tarantino also made a 6 minute film called "Nation's Pride" that can be seen on in full DVD extras and is premiered in Shoshanna's cinema in the last chapter. It was made to look like a Nazi propaganda film which is another example of creating hyper-reality.


Georg Pabst is again referenced in the scene where Lt Hicox is briefed with Operation Kino. The Lt. was a film critic before the war having written books on Germany cinema of the 20's and Georg Pabst. Bridget Von Hammersmark was a German film star of the 30s and is a character in Operation Kino as a spy. There is a reference to G.W. Pabst again in the card game at the pub as she is seen with his name on her card. Also the cover story of Hicox's bad German accent is linked to Pabst's film Piz Palu as he says that he is from a German-speaking area of Switzerland and that some of his family was in the film.


In the final chapter where Shoshanna stands at the window before the premier there is a poster in the background for the film "Fraulein Doktor" starring Bridget Von Hammersmarck. 

There is a Cinderella reference, as Colonel Landa finds out that she was at the tavern because she left her shoe which he then identifies as hers by making her try it on. Twisting the romantic take from the fairytale into a sinister way of discovering her identity.

There is a huge level of detail and interlinking the same references in the various scenes which aren't necessarily picked up on the first time around. This level of detail of references to old filmmakers and film stars suggests Tarantino wants to appeal to a more niche audience of film buffs as well as a mainstream audience. The majority might not recognise specific references to certain filmmakers and films however could easily identify German cinema and references to Nazi propaganda that is more universally known. This is an example of flattening high and low culture by bringing in niche references along with pop culture such as spaghetti Westerns and his own work. Tarantino does this to create his own version of history, changing the end of the war by having Hitler and the rest of the high command killed in a cinema. As he is a director and big film buff interested in a wide range of film genres, he creates a film inspired film with a plot based around a film premier. The final action scene is set in a cinema where the audience are trapped and killed. This might be another hint at the hyper-reality of films in general - the audience "experience" films in the cinema but they do not actually experience the action which they do in at the end of this film - where the screen is set on fire and theatre blown up burning down the cinema. Tarantino also rejects typical conventions and expectations in the narrative by having Shoshanna and Frederick die by each other's hand, which is unexpected as Shoshanna is seen as the main heroine of the story. This is an example of Lyotard's micro-narrative theory which says narratives can be unpredictable and go anyway.

The film ends with another "boot" shot from Landa's point of view with Raine's last line "This might just be my masterpiece" a self-satisfied line which makes it clear that Tarantino is pleased with the film which took about 10 years to develop.


Some critics hate Tarantino's style of self-referencing and niche references because it requires the audience to know the references in order to understand it, also Tarantino's style of self-referencing throughout his work could link to Jameson's criticism of postmodernism being trapped in circular references. Some critics also didn't like the structure of the film which cuts from scenes, making flashbacks within flash-forwards, and although cut into Chapters, does not link together till the end. An example of how he ignores boundaries of past and present and a linear narrative structure. Other's who feel the need to have and keep to genre structure argued that the mashing together of genres and styles was not successful. Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian in this review complained that scenes were over-stretched, and that it "failed as a conventional war film, as genre spoof, as trash and as pulp... and can not be classed as kosher revenge porn because it's not seriousness enough. David Cox calls it "a comedy but not one that provokes many laughs."

Sonority of Inglourious Basterds soundtrack.

Sonority is destroyed in the soundtrack as it takes clips from a variety of sources:

• Spaghetti western sound clips - The Green Leaves of Summer from The Alamo & 
• Classical music clips from Beethoven's Fur Elise
• David Bowie

From 1973 action film, White Lightning



David Bowie Cat People (Putting out Fire)


From 1973 Italian film Revolver




Tiger Tank originally from Kelly's Heroes a 1970 American war film


Originally from 1968 American war film, Dark of the Sun



Ich Wollt Ich Waer Ein Huhn a 1936 German film



The main film theme incorporates the spaghetti western style of music played in the credits.

Media Language.

Medium has its own language - they use familiar codes and conventions

Denotation - literal meaning, the signifier
Connotation - infered meaning, the signified

Barthes argud that in film connotation can be analytically distinguished from denotation
Fiske "denotation is what is filmed, connotation is how it is filmed"
Charles Sanders Pierce - "we only think in signs" Signs only represents anything when society attributes meaning to them.
Micro-Elements
How they have created meaning to inform us about genre, narrative, representations/ideology, targeting of audiences
Hall - there is a preferred meaning that the film makers want the audience to decode.
Seminotic Terminology
Mise-en-scene creates the diegetic world:

• Location
• Character
• Cinemography
• Layout/ Page Design

Camerawork:

• Shot types
• Camera composition
• Camera movement
• Camera angles

Continuity:

• Establishing/re-establishing shot
• Transitions
• 180 degree tule
• Action match
• Cross-cutting
• Cutaway
• Insert shots
• Shot-reverse shot structures
• Eyeline match

Non-continuity:

• Montage sequence
• Flash back/forward
• Ellipsis
• Graphic match

3 types of signs:

• Icon/iconic - it looks like what it is
• Index/indexical - infered sign
• Symbol/symoblic - signifier doesn't resemble the signified - arbitary or convential

Stuart Hall - texts can be encoded by producers and meaning is decoded by the audience

Edited Summer Camp and Queen essay.

Summer Camp and Queen can be seen as postmodern because they fit into several of the criteria that make them postmodern. They reject the idea of categorised genres, and take influence from the past and present to create something new.

Postmodernism originated from a rejection of modernism which is always looking for new ways to improve, looking to the future and forget the mistakes of the past. In terms of music it allows unpopular genres and the past generations music to be changed and introduced and made popular in current music. This can be done through remixes where a certain sound is taken and changed or simply through bricolage sampling which often gives the sample a new meaning when put into a different context. Brian Eno’s theory on the “Death of Uncool” suggests that blurring the boundaries between genres means that no one listens to one type of music similarly artists do not fit into one genre. The remix culture of today’s music has lead to mixing of genres, sampling and creating several versions of the same song. However there is a fine line between being postmodern by taking previous music to create something new and just copying another artists’ work. An example of this difference would be Weezer and Led Zeppelin. Weezer use sampling in their song The Greatest Man That Ever Lived as a pastiche to the music that is sampled which is seen as postmodern because they do not try to cover up the sources of their sample. Whereas Led Zeppelin took lyrics and musical styles and passed them off as their own, by not crediting their source or changing the copy enough it is not seen as a postmodern cover but as a rip off of other artists’ work for their own ends.

Summer Camp are a current band who are relatively unknown and are not likely to appeal to a large audience because they can be seen as quite niche in their approach to their music. They have a hyper-real approach to their music, for example their website and blog are set in the fictitious town Condale which the band say is the setting for their songs and music videos. The idea being the audience is brought into a different alternative reality to listen to the music which is backed up by the fake nostalgia created by the band through the use of old photographs. The structure of their website with the short samples of songs playing on loops and repeating footage almost makes the audience feel trapped in this hyper real world without much understanding of why or what purpose there is to it. This relates to Kramer’s theory of a postmodern artist impressing meaning onto its audience and leaving it open interpretation. They also create a hyper reality by not showing the audience what they actually look like on their album artwork. Although this would be acceptable to an audience who are familiar with alter-egos and stage names in pop culture, for example David Bowie who took on the persona of Ziggy Stardust and changed his image, it does not quite work for Summer Camp as the audience are left wandering why they don’t chose to make themselves identifiable. This effects their impact on the audience, if they made it clearer to the audience who they were and what they were trying to achieve it would allow the audience to interact and enjoy the music without negative opinions on the point of Condale. In terms of using bricolage and changing the meaning of something, Summer Camp use all found footage in their music videos Ghost Train and Round The Moon, which was uncopyrighted footage from a Swedish film “En Karlekshistoria”. They changed the context of the footage and made it fit with the rest of their concept of two people from the 80’s. This is an example of simulacrum because they are almost suggesting that the characters are them as children, however the footage is not “real” in the sense that it is a film narrative rather than home-footage. A large majority of the audience would not know where the footage was from, which leaves them confused when watching the video. The heavy influence from the 80’s shows that they do not respect boundaries of the past and present, which is also seen as postmodern. Also they attempt to make what was cool for a teenager in the 80’s appeal to a modern audience through the feeling of nostalgia. Despite Eno’s “Death of Uncool” theory, Summer Camp are unlikely to appeal to a wider audience than they already have because there is not obvious point to the self-referencing nostalgia which would not appeal to a younger audience who have not grown up in the 80’s and might miss the references. Their attempt to make something that was cool in the 80’s cool now can be seen as quite niche which means it appeals to an audience who specifically like artists who are not seen as mainstream cool. A niche audience will like them because they are influenced by the “uncool” 80’s both in their music and artistic concept, and because they reference fairly unknown subject, “En Karlekshistoria” for example. Katy Perry made reference to the “uncool” of the 80’s in her music video Last Friday Night with bright neon clothing and disco style karaoke, she managed to make it cool because it was portrayed in the style of a modern music video and has the star image behind it to anchor it, without Katy Perry’s star image it might just be labelled as cheesy. Even though Summer Camp are postmodern in their approach it does not make them successful as they are not able to pull it off in a way that would appeal to a larger audience. The 80’s content and unfamiliar references are seen as too niche and would put people off especially when the hyper-real town and image of the band confuses and alienates the audience. Their approach is too different from “normal” structure of bands and artists that the nostalgia that they try to create seems pointless. Frederic Jameson’s criticism of post-modernists self-reference has no purpose and in the context of Summer Camp I agree with him.

Queen are a rock band that had their high point the 70’s and 80’s and can be seen as postmodern because they rejected sonority, now being labelled as glam rock they helped to create a new direction for rock, incorporating opera and theatrics into the shape of a traditional rock band. The rejection of sonority is seen as a positive aspect of postmodernism in music because it allows diversity and can make an artist appeal to a wider audience if it is done in the right way. For example Queen in their early albums took opera, which can be seen as quite elitist and inaccessible to a mass audience, and made it massively popular by mixing it with hard rock which was very big in 70’s. This links to Kirby Ferguson’s theory that everything is a remix because they took influence from British operatic style, influenced by the likes of Gilbert and Sullivan and Noel Coward’s satires, which doesn’t make it original but by putting it with rock they created their own original sound. By putting Victorian opera, which would be seen as very archaic, into the 70’s rock scene it shows they rejected the boundaries of past and present and of elitist and popularist values that in Kramer’s theory make a band postmodern. I think Queen are more successful in this aspect than Summer Camp, as the blurring of boundaries of past and present make more sense. To addition, they ignore structural unity by changing and adapting their sound from album to album which in time contradicts their initial ideology which Kramer also states is postmodern. For example on several of their early albums; Queen, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, they explicitly state they did not use synthesizers not wanting to be mistaken as a soft disco band. They go back on this later in their discography when they use synths in their music which is heavily used in Hot Space. However this contradiction may not have been intended to make an ironic statement but to keep up to date with the movement of the music industry at the time. They changed styles and used a wide range of influences with the singles Another One Bites The Dust and Under Pressure with David Bowie being funk inspired with a heavy bass beat, which sounds very different to Crazy Little Thing Called Love which is almost a homage to 50’s rock n’ roll. Like Summer Camp, for some of their music videos they take found footage and put it into a new context. For example Radio Ga Ga uses scenes from the sci-fi film Metropolis and mix it with footage from previous Queen videos. As a lot of their later work was sci-fi inspired this explains why they used the footage, by referencing Metropolis and their previous work they can be called postmodern as they are making intertextual references to pop culture which includes themselves as they had become quite popular at this point. They also use intertextual references in their I Want To Break Free music video which begins with a parody of Coronation Street with the band dressed as housewives. To some extent Queen can be called postmodern because they used a wide range of genres in their music including genres that can be seen as elitist like opera and unfamiliar to the UK mainstream audience at the time like funk. They also used intertextual references in their work and rejected structural unity within songs and albums.

I think that postmodernism in music is unlikely to disappear in the near future because it is a very easy way of producing music, in the sense that sampling, remixing, covering and mashing up songs is quicker and simpler than creating a whole album from scratch. Some believe this will lead to prosumer dominance in music where people like DJ Audacity, who is a 16 year old boy who takes current songs and mixes them together on his laptop. He has received become very popular and millions of views on YouTube. Although this is an example of someone who does not need the technology and label behind him, mash-ups like this are unlikely to dominate because audiences want the band/ artist star image to go with it. However through Brian Eno’s Death of Uncool, nothing can be classed as uncool because everything is a mixture of genres, through mash-ups, sampling and remixing. Frederic Jameson’s criticises postmodernism and says that it just traps the media in endless circular references, in terms of music, there is a concern the use of sampling and covers will wear away the quality and validity of bands. For example 5ive’s cover of We Will Rock You takes a very popular song, tries to make it fit in 00’s music by incorporating hip-hop and rap but fail in making it good as it feels too much like a rip off rather than a fresh take on the song. 

In conclusion, Summer Camp and Queen can be called postmodern as they reject modernist rules for structure and genres, by taking sounds from the past and putting it into the present. They both also use found footage in their work which gives the footage a new meaning in a different context. Summer Camp can be seen as postmodern in the way they interact with their audience through the use of hyper reality. However, I think their emphasis on the hyper-real world of Condale is what prevents them from being more successful because they are too detachment from a real “normal” band structure that the audience do not understand who and what the band are about. There rejection of a band image status has a negative effect on their approach because audiences are used to an image of “real” people to go with the music. This is why Queen are more successful in incorporating postmodern aspects in their work because they follow structure enough for the audience to understand and stay interested as they changed and incorporated different genres. Both can be used as examples of postmodernism in music as sampling in their work shows the state of modern day music industry where a majority of music and influence has been borrowed from a previous artist.

Simulacrum - Advertising.

Simulacrum is a copy of a copy without an original

Nikon, Emirates and Smirnoff adverts
These 3 adverts try to sell a product by selling a romanticised experience through music that the product can give you, specifically. They try to create an authentic experience however they are only simulacrums - fake experiences that are had by fake people as the characters are portrayed by actors. They are staged to look authentic but are not authentic however the audience are not always able to identify them as false.

The Ikea lamp ad is postmodern because it is cynical of the fake romantisiced experience that other adverts use to sell the product, it sets up a situation that makes the audience sorry for the lamp then points out its silly to be connected to a product which they then want to by. However as its advertsing the audience will then go and buy the new lamp anyway.

What is modernism & postmodernism.

Modernism was a cultural movement that has now changed and separated into different areas; literature, architecture, art, music or applied arts. Modernists identified a crisis in economics, politics, society and culture. They believed that not one could answer questions. This was caused by industrialistation (Fordism) which forces humans to abide to "clock time". This led to alienation, the further we get away from our essential nature, the more alienated we are from ourselves and each other (Marx)

Some modernist rebelled against tradition and questioned why it had to be the same, why we couldn't progress.

19th Century Romanticism art emphasied on the emotional, individual subjective experience. The onlooker would be emotionally manipulated by what they saw.

From this came Realsim which focused on the objective truth. Reality was portrayed and was more dominant over subjective impression. The onlooker would have a balanced opinion with no personal attachment being expressed by the artist.

Moral Crisis
At the end of the 19th Century under the influence Darwinism, Marxism and Fordism, some artists & writers began to respond differently to modernity. After WWI people started to question truth and objectivity - due to the production on machines and men to fight under orders.

Modernity is always a response to modernity which is constant - everything is being updated and "improved".

Postmodernism can be seen as a rejection of modernism or a return to earlier forms. Some people stopped believing in anything - religion, truth of politics etc.

Is it a retro fad or just a bit of fun?
I don't think postmodernism will wear out because if it is done right it can be very successful, clever, fun and more interesting to the audience who are used to being a passive mass rather than individual interaction. Play is something that society says you should grow out off by the time you become an adult however most people will want a destraction from everyday life - postmodernism allows the audience to interact and become active in the music video, art, film etc which is becoming more and more available through things like iPads & Smart Phone apps.

Simulacrum is a copy of a copy without an original it is the ulitmate captailist artefact which is completely divorced from nature and reality.

Zane Lowe - Insider Tour Mix

An example of destroying sonority by sampling and mashing together a wide variety of music genres:

• Drum & Bass
• The Beatles
• Chase & Status
• Nero
• Labyrinth
• Kanye West
• Rage Against the Machine
• A quote from the film Blades of Glory
• Benny Benassi
• Sex Pistols
• Swedish House Mafia