Au revoir, Shoshanna

December 21, 2021 3:49 PM

A detailed breakdown of the camera angles and compositions used in the 134 shots and 47 setups which comprise the harrowing first scene from Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, by YouTuber emotiondesigner, aka Markus Madlangbayan (@emotiondesigner).

Madlangbayan has only posted two such videos to his channel, the other being What is Cinema Language?

posted by Rumple (13 comments total)

This is an great breakdown of an amazing scene. I think IB is Tarantino's best film, and he was at the top of his game.

The key to tension is portraying people being polite and civil to each other while one or both of them are simultaneously trying to bring the other down. And it's brilliantly captured in this scene, not to mention later scene in the German bar.
posted by zardoz at 4:19 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

I always thought that Tarantino was, at least in part, referencing Lee Van Cleef's opening scene from 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly'. (Not the first shot in the film, but Van Cleef's first.) Surprised that wasn't mentioned.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:22 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic, thanks for sharing! Always great to see an art form broken down into detail, but in ways that is understandable.

For those interested, another channel that may be of interest is one that explores the art of editing in film.
posted by greenhornet at 4:50 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I sort of knew all this, but it was interesting to watch it being broken down so thoughtfully.

I'm a writer, and technically don't even need so much as a pencil and a bit of birch bark to write on, as I have sometimes written and refined pieces out loud while on long, solo car rides. I do love revision, as it's often where something really comes together, but I've also written things more off-the-cuff, like blog posts, and been quite happy with them.

When I think about the effort and time that goes into setting up film shots, and re-setting for more takes, I know that I would never have the patience or care for details to do it. Sometimes in a movie or TV show, there's a single short scene in a particular setting—one conversation on the platform at a train station, or something as brief as a few seconds of a character washing their face in a restroom that will never be seen again, and I think, "In my movie, that scene would never exist, because I'd be thinking, it would be good to have that scene, but sooo much work to make it happen." I have a lot of respect for film-makers, who work hard in a way that is simply not within my capacity.
posted by Well I never at 6:12 PM on December 21, 2021 [3 favorites]

Saw IB in the theatre back in the day and was in knots the entire time.
The first movie where I literally screamed out loud in the theatre in shock terror and surprise (the final scene in the projection room). I haven’t seen a lot of Tarantino just the hits but this one is his best work by far. Thanks for posting. I learned about movie making too.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 6:45 PM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I haven’t seen a lot of Tarantino just the hits but this one is his best work by far.

No, that's Jackie Brown.
posted by hippybear at 7:17 PM on December 21, 2021 [11 favorites]

This breakdown shows just how much care went into an absolutely memorable and striking scene. Framing, framing, framing. Not a single shot is wasted. There are some movies that do a flawless job of introducing the villain. It’s hard to think of one that does it better than IB. Christoph Waltz just played the part of Landa so amazingly and he deserved the Oscar he won for the role. But this shows how great care was taken not to waste the performance he gave.
posted by azpenguin at 8:19 PM on December 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is a very interesting breakdown.

It did make me wonder, though, how the scene would have played without the "reveal".

What if we had never actually seen the family below the floorboards until we see Shoshanna running away?

I think that might have made it all the more dramatic.
posted by chavenet at 2:11 AM on December 22, 2021

What if we had never actually seen the family below the floorboards until we see Shoshanna running away?

More dramatic, well, maybe. But that’s not so much what this scene is about. It’s about the tension. Once you see the family under the boards, you realize how much trouble everyone is in. You hope that Landa is going to not find them and leave the family in peace. And you know that he probably will kill them anyway. But there’s that little hope he won’t.
posted by azpenguin at 6:02 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

My point was more that even without seeing them we would know they are there. The tension would be there, it might be more intense.

The "drop through the floor" shot seems particularly contrived; the eye peering through the floorboards means Landa might spot them as well.
posted by chavenet at 6:47 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

The eyes peering through reminds you they're people, not just a plot device. If the point of this video is that Tarantino's / the camera's shifting perspective is doing the job of putting the viewer into each person's position, then that shot is crucial. It should be jarring. It should telegraph just how precarious their position was.
posted by Mchelly at 7:06 AM on December 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Then again, that's as far as I got in watching the video before I had to turn it off. I watched the film once when it came out, and even though this video was exactly the sort of thing I love, I still wasn't ready to go through that scene again. The wrongness of those eyes looking up just hurts so much.
posted by Mchelly at 7:09 AM on December 22, 2021

I agree this is a great scene (and so is the scene in the German pub) and this breakdown goes a long way to explain why but the whole film feels like a collection of excellent scenes that doesn't coalesce into a cohesive whole. I feel the same about Hateful Eight and to an extent Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. They're made for this kind analysis.
posted by slimepuppy at 8:17 AM on December 22, 2021 [4 favorites]