As an auteur filmmaker with cult status, Quentin Tarantino can afford to make any film as he pleases. This also includes the masterpiece Inglourious Basterds, in which he rewrites the history of the Second World War. Only for the finale did he have to accept a scene that he would have preferred not to include. However, it has its place and Tarantino saw no other way.
The finale of Inglourious Basterds brings the storylines together in the cinema
In the film’s grand finale, the bigwigs of the Nazi regime gather in the cinema to watch the propaganda film Pride of the Nation. The cinema owner Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent) has already made preparations to set the cinema on fire and kill everyone present. At the same time, the Basterds around Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) takes a stand and shoots those present while the hall is already in flames.
This brings together the most important storylines of the film in a grand finale and the film can then end. As poetic and grandiose as the finale is, there is one element that really bothers Tarantino about it: the fire.
In a 2009 interview with Filmmaker Magazine, the director talked about how he finds fire scenes quite boring. According to him, apart from one good scene in the film Gösta Berling’s saga, there are no good fire scenes. From his point of view, however, this was necessary for Inglourious Basterds.
Here’s what we’re trying to do. A cinema audience will watch a cinema audience during a fire. This should be as traumatic as watching a movie about a plane crash on a plane.
The finale apparently wasn’t quite as traumatizing as Tarantino imagined. But despite all this, he is a director who can put his own ego aside to serve the work of art he creates.