I'm alone in the living room on an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon in New England. The Jets/Colts game is on, but I have it muted. It's hard to write when someone else is speaking English. It's a bummer that the Patriots were knocked out of the playoffs in the opening round.
The purpose of this entry is to discuss Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds. I was bored and felt like watching a movie so I rented it from iTunes. Let me just say that it was very entertaining. I was expecting it to be really gory, but fortunately it wasn't too bad. Basically, it's about a small group of Jewish American soldiers who kill Nazi soldiers during World War II. Most of the plot takes place in France and the climax takes place in a Parisian movie theater. The opening scene of the film has some of the best dialogue I've ever heard.
The acting was brilliant. Brad Pitt was humorously rugged, even with a deep Southern United States accent, but the actor who stole the show was Christoph Waltz, who plays a Nazi security officer, who has been assigned the nickname "Jew Hunter." This was the first time I've seen Waltz in anything and he was simply fantastic. He was evil, yet cunning and ruthless, but in the end he cared more about living comfortably in Nantucket than dying for the Third Reich. Don't worry, though, he gets what's coming to him, which leads me to my third point.
The plot caused me to feel sweet vindication for the fictionalized death of Adolph Hitler and other influential members of the Nazi party at the hands of vengeful Jews, but I felt somewhat disturbed at how happy I felt at their death. It is not a human being's job to kill those we don't like, even if they are war criminals. I believe that only God should have the power to take away a life. Sometimes I struggle with this belief when it is someone evil like Adolph Hitler or a senior SS Officer like Waltz's Colonel Landa.
Sorry if this post lacked direction or clarity, but I wanted to share what was on my mind.
Work for Heaven: all the rest is nothing!
5 years ago
I know what you mean, and I partly agree.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I was watching TV and I channel surfed to a chase scene in a movie. The characters were on motorcycles inside a large building, and the good guy was shooting and killing the bad guys who were chasing him. And suddenly it hit me that I shouldn't be so happy at seeing these killings.
Granted, irl, a good guy has a right of self-defense against bad guys. And in the case of Hitler, I think I'd accept an argument that tyrannicide would have been justified, even good. But I think it does us no good as individuals or as a society to see killing bad guys as a great thing rather than an unfortunate last resort.