Inglourious Basterds

Question: Why does Hugo Stiglitz kill the German officers in the first place? The film mentions his enlistment, but how is this related to his killings?

Answer: Based on his willingness to join the Basterds, we can assume he killed them because he didn't believe in what the Nazis were doing.

There is a cut of him being whipped during the bar scene. I think he was taking revenge for harsh and perhaps undeserved punishment.

No, the whipping is how it feels in his mind sitting next to that SS officer and having to pretend to like him and be a Nazi. He's ready to snap.

lionhead

Question: Does Emmanuelle Mimieux know of the Bastard's plan to blow up the cinema and do the Bastards know that Emmanuelle Mimieux is going to burn it down, or are the plans not connected at all?

Answer: They're unconnected. As happens often in Tarantino's films, their storylines are completely separate until they intersect at that point.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: In the scenes leading up to the shoot-out in the bar, the German Major says that the Captain just gave himself away. I am assuming that he is referring to the fact that the Captain held up three fingers when asking for only three glasses. I don't see how this is a give-away. Can someone please explain?

scrappy1982

Chosen answer: It is explained shortly afterwards that a real German would hold up his thumb, index and middle fingers to indicate three. Since, the major already suspects the Captain of being a spy, holding up his index, middle and ring fingers to indicate three confirms this.

Xofer

Question: Brad Pitt's character, Aldo Raine, has a scar on his neck, which is very visible in the first scene where he's talking to the Basterds. He says later in the movie that he was a bootlegger in his home state of Tennessee. Is the scar from a failed attempt to execute him by hanging?

Answer: According to the IMDb trivia on the film, yes.

Captain Defenestrator

Question: How is Hugo Stiglitz not recognised in the coffee scene? Earlier in the movie, a soldier tells Aldo Raine that "everybody in the German Army knows Hugo Stiglitz." So how come the SS officer or even the other German soldiers do not recognise him?

touliou

Chosen answer: Everyone in the German army knows who Stiglitz is, that doesn't mean they all know what he looks like and can identify him on sight.

Question: What is the name of the card game that Von Hammersmark and the German soldiers were playing?

Answer: It's not really a card game per se (like Poker or Hearts). It's just a regular game that can be played with cards or any blank piece of paper. I've played it before and we just called it "The Name Game".

CCARNI

Question: Wouldn't it have made more sense in having Hickox and the two German Basterds pose as a camera man and his assistants instead of wearing Nazi officer uniforms when they met Bridget in the bar? I would think that an officer would draw more attention than civilians. Civilians wouldn't have been that strange a sight in a bar in France, would it? And if they were asked any questions about their purpose for being in France, Hickox could have been more convincing since he was the film buff. The other two could have played along as Hickox did most of the talking anyway, or am I missing something?

Answer: The Basterds did not know anything about Hammersmark's plan to smuggle them in as camera crew. They did not speak to her before (this is the first time they see her). It is also mentioned later that the German speaking Basterds are known to slip into German uniforms, so I guess they had some of those lying around, as opposed to normal camera-crew outfits (they are soldiers in enemy territory after all).

Question: After touring the cinema, why does Goebbels become so angry when someone mentions Lillian Harvey. Who is she?

Answer: Lilian Harvey was a British-born actress who made her career in Germany. While under Nazi scrutiny for having too many friends in the Jewish community, she'd helped a Jewish friend escape the country before escaping herself and performing for Allied troops. So yeah, Goebbels hated her. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilian_Harvey)

Captain Defenestrator

Answer: Though not explicitly stated in the movie, it is strongly implied in the film that he is not. He mentions that he is part Apache and that he was born and raised in Maynardville, Tennessee. He tells his troops that he was a direct descendant of Jim Bridger the mountain man, suggesting he is the hillbilly type (there were not many Jewish hillbillies). He was in charge of leading the actual Jewish-American soldiers (with the exception of Hugo Stiglitz, who was not Jewish) into enemy territory. In all likelihood, Raine received/asked for command of the Basterds purely so he could have a crack at the Nazis.

Answer: Because she was a loose end who could have conceivably undermined his carefully-constructed lie that he was working for the Allies all along.

Answer: I always took it he admired her so much and maybe even pursued a relationship with her that never came to pass. Her lying to him was a personal betrayal that drove him to strangle her. Crime of passion. Just always has been my theory.

Question: How did Landa know that Shoshanna's family were hiding under the floor in the beginning?

Answer: Several thing need to be taken into account. He explains he can think like people who are desperate and would do anything to avoid capture, it is logical for him they would resort to hiding under the floor. He is looking for this family specifically, meaning he knows they are hiding, probably the last Jewish family in the region. Thirdly, this is probably the last farm he checks, having looked underneath the floors of any other farm in the region, he knew this was the only place they could be. It's also possible he noticed small things that told him that this farmer was hiding people, having experience with this sort of situation.

lionhead

Question: Hitler refers to Bear Jew as a "Golem." What is that?

Answer: In Hebrew folklore, a Golem is an anthropomorphic creature made from the earth (stone, mud, clay, etc.) that can be brought to life by writing a specific word on its body or on paper and feeding the paper to it. It is then bound to obey the will of its creator. Golems are completely unintelligent, but unwaveringly obedient. Traditionally, they are very large and very strong; most likely because they were to have been used to perform tasks of brute strength that a human could not have accomplished. The specific word is pronounced "Emet," translating to "truth." If you remove the first letter from the word on the golem it becomes "met," which translates to "death."

Phixius

Question: Is the German way of showing three fingers (thumb,index and middle fingers) created/made up for the movie or do Germans really do that?

Answer: They really do that. It's also the American Sign Language sign for "3" while three upraised fingers (index, middle, ring) is "W".

Phixius

Question: Is it ever implied what happened to the other Basterds? Obviously, Hugo and Wilhelm die in the Mexican standoff. Donnie and Omar die in the explosion. Aldo and Utivitch are seen at the end. But what of the missing Basterds?

Answer: The implication is only Aldo and Utivitch survived.

GalahadFairlight

Answer: Hirschberg and one of the other unnamed Basterds were visible in the vet clinic when Bridget von Hammersmark was getting her leg attended to. Since the Basterds' next mission involved infiltrating the Nazi film premiere, some members may have been instructed to remain elsewhere so as not to risk arousing suspicion.

Phaneron

Question: All through the movie where the subtitles appear, the translation changes from scene to scene. In the movie "Oui" is sometimes translated as "Yes"; sometimes as "Oui". Same thing goes for other French words that switch translation with either the same French word or English. What's up with that?

CCARNI

Chosen answer: This is done as an inside joke. Oui is well known as yes, so no need for translation.

Question: When the dynamite goes off in the theatre, destroying it, there is a shot of a woman being blown out of the top window of the building screaming for a brief moment. Who was that woman and how did she get there? It couldn't have been Shosanna as she was very dead from being shot before that moment. And it wasn't the translator for Goebbels either for the same reason. Most everybody else was in the theater room or the balcony's themselves. So who was that woman?

Quantom X

Answer: I'm not entirely sure it's a woman. I slowed the scene down and the person looks like they are wearing a tuxedo. So probably a man with a high-pitched voice/scream. My best guess is that it is one of the attendees who may have excused themselves from the auditorium before all the doors were locked, and once the fire and massacre started, they were running through the corridor unable to escape and were eventually thrown out of the window by the explosion.

Phaneron

Question: Why does Landa allow Shosanna to go free at the beginning instead of shooting her and killing her?

Answer: Because he's arrogant, and it's all a game to him. He figures he'll get another shot at capturing her, so he decides to let her go (maybe also out of recognition of her bravery), to continue the chase another time. Why not? She's one fugitive on the run, and he has time and the entire apparatus of the German state at his disposal.

Answer: It could be a compassionate act, though leaving her alive as the lone survivor after seeing her family killed is also cruel and inflicts life-long emotional pain. He may have also have had moral issues about killing a defenseless woman, even a Jewish one, or considered her too insignificant to bother with.

raywest

Question: Why do the German officers in the pub salute a Captain and LT but don't salute a Major when he walks in?

Answer: I agree with the previous answer, and another possibility is that since the Major was already in the pub, they might have already saluted him when he (or they) arrived.

I agree with this, and to expand on that a little more, I was under the impression that they came to the pub together. I could be wrong, but I believe it gets mentioned that the major let Wilhelm and the rest of the soldiers have the night off to celebrate the birth of his son. He sits alone so as not to fraternize with the soldiers.

jshy7979

Answer: I can't say specifically for the WW2 German Army but usually in any group of soldiers the one with the highest rank will be expected to pay correct compliments to a commissioned officer (of a higher rank than themself). They do this by calling the group to attention and greeting the officer individually. These soldiers have saluted the junior officers but they would then expect the Captain to formally greet a Major.

Factual error: When the real German soldiers are playing 20 questions in the bar, one of the cards shows the name of Genghis Khan. This is an English-language word; as Germans, they would have written Dschingis Khan instead. As the whole scene deals with exposing the British/American spies and subtle differences in their language or behaviour, this is especially unfavorable here.

wirthi

More mistakes in Inglourious Basterds

Lt. Aldo Raine: You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Nazi business. Business is a-boomin'.

More quotes from Inglourious Basterds
More trivia for Inglourious Basterds

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