The Lost Art of Inglourious Basterds

February 19, 2010 3:36 PM

The Lost Art of Inglourious Basterds [via OMG Posters!]

Art by David Choe, Sam Flores, Estevan Oriol, Grotesk, Jeremy Fish, Patrick Martinez, Alex Pardee, Dora Drimalas, Munk One, N8 Van Dyke, Rene Almanza, Morning Breath and Skinner Davis

Previously.

posted by brundlefly (32 comments total)

Some really cool stuff there. Love this one for the subtlety, and this one for the not-so-much subtlety.
posted by yiftach at 3:43 PM on February 19, 2010

These are great!
posted by defenestration at 3:45 PM on February 19, 2010

Love this one. Nice find, thanks.
posted by doctor_negative at 3:46 PM on February 19, 2010

Raiders of the lost art.
posted by Elmore at 3:56 PM on February 19, 2010

I love OMG posters. This series isn't great, comparatively, but it's a great site.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:13 PM on February 19, 2010

I liked this one
posted by The Whelk at 4:14 PM on February 19, 2010

Jinx doctor_negative
posted by The Whelk at 4:14 PM on February 19, 2010

Propaganda never looked so chic, darlings...
posted by Alexandra Kitty at 4:15 PM on February 19, 2010

These are pretty crazy. Man, how I loved that movie, and in fact I thought the only thing getting in the way of it being a masterpiece was the Basterds themselves. Go figure.
posted by ORthey at 4:15 PM on February 19, 2010

Kinda spiffy, but most seem like pop or gory takes on the movie, which it was neither. But now I know of OMG Posters, which bodes ill for my idle hours.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:40 PM on February 19, 2010

Kinda spiffy, but most seem like pop or gory takes on the movie, which it was neither.

The movie wasn't Gorey per. se. but it was definitely violent, in fact it was really a sort of celebration of violence within a framework where violence is considered good. So I think the bloody posters capture the mood of the film, even if there wasn't too much blood in the movie itself. Certainly, people got killed.
posted by delmoi at 4:52 PM on February 19, 2010

Self-promotion, promotion of art, and charity? Looks like a lose-win-win!

Did anyone really think any of these were evocative of the tone of the movie though?
posted by Red Loop at 4:53 PM on February 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

I applaud the resourcefulness and creativity of those few artists who managed not to use a spatter effect.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:12 PM on February 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

Did anyone really think any of these were evocative of the tone of the movie though?

I agree with you except with this one, which I think works quite well with the movie. Totally subjective, of course.
posted by coolguymichael at 5:25 PM on February 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

I agree with you except with this one, which I think works quite well with the movie.

That stood out from the rest by far to me as well. The others are quite good, but that one says so much with so little. It's like a Hemmingway sentence, almost.
posted by chambers at 6:06 PM on February 19, 2010

If the posters were more evocative of the movie, wouldn't they be filled with hours and hours of words?

I liked the "Hitler as shooting range target" one the best.
posted by Turkey Glue at 6:22 PM on February 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

The winning entry might be ok without the drop shadow on the wings. I can't tell.

Some of my favorites: disturbing scrunchie, first line, jezebel's favorite, shoes, only good lollipop one, and paint-by-numbers.

As you might guess from my user name, I'm a huge Nabokov fan. Love this post.
posted by Dolores Haze at 6:25 PM on February 19, 2010

Ugh, totally posted this to the wrong thread. Sorry.
posted by Dolores Haze at 6:26 PM on February 19, 2010

These are great. But man, everyone wants to be Ralph Steadman these days.
posted by lumpenprole at 6:32 PM on February 19, 2010

I'm thinking a lot of the people who made these posters watched a different movie than I did - particularly the one of the anthropomorphic eagle slashing a Nazi-uniformed reptile creature's throat. There were no heroes in that movie. Every single character was completely despicable in one way or another, even if (like the French Jewish cinema owner lady) they had a good reason for turning out that way. It is emphatically NOT a rah-rah type movie, unless you are seriously fucked up. I mean, just because they're Nazis doesn't make it a heroic act to torture them to death. It even pretty much threw out conventional storytelling - you have a hero, a major change or event occurs in their lives, they react to that event and learn something/change in some way themselves. You can apply that model to almost every story ever told (Joseph Campbell blah blah blah). Inglourious Basterds had what I guess you could call protagonists and antagonists in the loosest sense, but it was really a bunch of people doing horrible things to each other tied together in a loose narrative. That said, I liked the film and I thought it was ballsy to make a film like that, but these posters tell me that a lot of people got the wrong idea.
posted by DecemberBoy at 7:13 PM on February 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

A lot of those have a much more serious tone than the film itself. I think these ones fit well and are clever.

grotesk-new.jpg
morning-breath1.jpg
posted by colinshark at 7:14 PM on February 19, 2010

I like the "framework where violence is considered good" take - I think I agree that's what it was saying as well. Sort of like the first half of A Clockwork Orange.
posted by DecemberBoy at 7:20 PM on February 19, 2010

I'm just going to keep my big goddamn trap shut on this subject this time.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:53 PM on February 19, 2010 [3 favorites]

These are pretty disappointing. It seems that very little thought went into them, with the exception of the one with the saluting hand being slashed. Most of the others are just empty style, saying nothing, and derivative of that Ralph Steadman style. I wouldn't pay money for any of them.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:27 PM on February 19, 2010

It is emphatically NOT a rah-rah type movie, unless you are seriously fucked up.

True, but you really see how Sam Fuller influenced him in that movie. Fuller really tried to show the lack of any civilized morality when you looked close enough and any broadly perceived 'moral' war in his films (cf. The Steel Helmet). Fuller's freedom to show the level of violence considered 'normal' in film these days was severely hampered. He wanted you to see that side of war. He wanted you to be disgusted by it, but was not 'allowed' to show something that visually horrifying to people, so he found other means. Tarantino wanted to take that a step further, and ended up with a film that is much more a litmus test of the self than a blood/torture/violence fest.

It is a rah-rah movie, for the dark, vengeful side of us. And when you can see that side of you come out, and notice it, not in a fight for your life, but in a theater, and recoil from it, and realize it's there, you can at least begin to know a little more about yourself. To have a movie do that is an very unusual thing.
posted by chambers at 10:41 PM on February 19, 2010

He wanted you to see that side of war. He wanted you to be disgusted by it, but was not 'allowed' to show something that visually horrifying to people, so he found other means.

In his WW2 film The Big Red One he has Luke Skywalker fire bullets at an unarmed German, after he witnesses the horrors of a concentration camp. Except that the point-of-view positions him, if I remember rightly, where he is facing he audience while he fires his rifle. A pretty damning indictment of his audience, if there is one to be had in film.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 PM on February 19, 2010

I'm just going to keep my big goddamn trap shut on this subject this time.

So close.
posted by adamdschneider at 11:57 PM on February 19, 2010

Needs more Daniel Brühl.
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 6:06 AM on February 20, 2010

Astro Zombie, I'd like to hear your thoughts on Inglorious Basterds.

Please do open up your trap again; at the least, your comment implies that you did indeed do so at some point and it didn't go down too well.

Link?
posted by vostok at 8:27 AM on February 20, 2010

It is a rah-rah movie, for the dark, vengeful side of us. And when you can see that side of you come out, and notice it, not in a fight for your life, but in a theater, and recoil from it, and realize it's there, you can at least begin to know a little more about yourself.

I didn't have this reaction at all. In fact, the people I was watching it with were getting irritated me because I kept saying things like "who is this for?" and "God, is anyone in this film not a piece of shit?"
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:27 AM on February 20, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not to say I'm somehow a saint or something and have no dark vengeful side, but this movie didn't tickle it. It just kind of left me drained.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:29 AM on February 20, 2010

It is emphatically NOT a rah-rah type movie, unless you are seriously fucked up.

I think the movie is set up so that your first instinct is to cheer at the end, then realize that you're in the same position as the theater attendees in the movie.
posted by Hubajube at 12:26 PM on February 20, 2010