This article contains spoilers!
As part of my screenwriting course I had to take part in a group presentation using screenwriting texts to analyse a film. Here is a theory I proposed during the presentation -
“Every villain is the hero of their own story.”
Landa is the HERO of Inglourious Basterds.
Consider the following:
1. Hans Landa appears in more chapters than any other character (4 out of 5) He also appears in the first and last scene, easily making him the closest thing the film has to a protagonist.
2. He lets Shosanna go. This is what Blake Snyder would call his “save the cat” moment. A man as notorious for hunting people down as Landa could easily have tracked her down by car. He chose to let her go.
3. Tarantino does not like to moralise his characters. His heroes aren’t necessarily ‘good guys.’ Vogler when analysing Pulp fiction calls Vince, Jules and Butch the heroes.
4. Vogler states that “Heroes are all ego… the personal identity that thinks its separate from the group.” This fits in perfectly with how Landa describes himself to Aldo Raine.
5. The hero is incomplete not perfect. It is only by going through a journey that they better themselves. Although he is clever, Landa lacks humility until the very end when scarred by Aldo.
6. Heroes get rewards at the end of their journey. Landa gets US citizenship, a house on Nantucket Island and a medal of honour.
7. The heroes desire pushes the story forward. If Landa had not wanted the Basterds to succeed he could have easily foiled their plan.
8. He kills Hitler! Yes that’s right. Although Donowitz guns Hitler down and Shosanna sets fire to the cinema, Landa had it in his power to save Hitler. He doesn’t. He even puts a bundle of dynamite in Hitler’s booth just to make sure Hitler dies.
9. Heroes are generous. Landa ask for medals for everyone involved in Operation Kino he also bargains for the freedom of a German radio operator.
10. Far from being heroes the Basterds are in fact villains! They revel in the violence they inflict and make no distinction between card carrying Nazi members and the conscripted German soldiers . In his great speech Aldo even says that “We will be cruel to the Germans.” Not the Nazis but the Germans.
11. Nearly all the German soldiers are humanised in some way. Wilhelm has a wife and baby, Zoller feels guilt thinking about the men he’s killed and a German officer refuses to save himself by putting German lives at risk. In stark contrast the Basterds don’t mention any loved ones, scalp and mutilate their victims and never show remorse.
