Who are today's gatekeepers of history?
Holocaust: 1. great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire 2. the genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II. 3. a massive slaughter.
It's difficult to imagine how anyone could find anything humorous about the Holocaust of World War II. It was the systematic murder of 6 million European Jews and several million more "undesirables and dissidents," as Germany's Nazi regime defined those who did not meet their standard of worthy to live.
It turns out that it is no longer difficult for others to imagine it. If you didn't know that Quentin Tarantino's latest movie, Inglourious Basterds, is a story about Jewish soldiers avenging the genocide of millions of Jews by the German army during World War II, you may think the movie is a comedy when reading some of its reviews:
Jake Hamilton, CBS TV: Brad Pitt is viciously fun.
J. Hoberman of the Village Voice: Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun.
Lou Lumenick, New York Post : The most fun you'll have at the movies this summer.
Probably the only people who can find humor in the subject of mass murder are those who have never lived through it. Obviously, Quentin Tarantino, who began his producing/directing career as a video store clerk, is one of them. His macabre take on violence is itself the answer to many questions.
"Basically the violence that I like makes me laugh. In a particularly savage scene where a character takes another character that I don't particularly like and bashes his head into the table five times, that totally cracks me up," Tarantino said in a recent interview.
It's disturbing to think that any sane person watching the brutal scene where a German soldier is clubbed to death by an avenging Jew would find this scene so funny that he "cracked up."
The more serious question is, who are the gatekeepers of history in the post modern world? How we answer this question will be a major factor in determining the future of our nation because history is the road map of the future. That future can never be adequately safeguarded without a clear, accurate record of the past to guide us.
No one with a modicum of training or sophistication would ever accuse Quentin Tarantino of being an historian. Unfortunately, that does not mean that his film, Inglourious Basterds, will not be seen by some as an historical account of Jewish resistance fighters during World War II...
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It's difficult to imagine how anyone could find anything humorous about the Holocaust of World War II. It was the systematic murder of 6 million European Jews and several million more "undesirables and dissidents," as Germany's Nazi regime defined those who did not meet their standard of worthy to live.
It turns out that it is no longer difficult for others to imagine it. If you didn't know that Quentin Tarantino's latest movie, Inglourious Basterds, is a story about Jewish soldiers avenging the genocide of millions of Jews by the German army during World War II, you may think the movie is a comedy when reading some of its reviews:
Jake Hamilton, CBS TV: Brad Pitt is viciously fun.
J. Hoberman of the Village Voice: Energetic, inventive, swaggering fun.
Lou Lumenick, New York Post : The most fun you'll have at the movies this summer.
Probably the only people who can find humor in the subject of mass murder are those who have never lived through it. Obviously, Quentin Tarantino, who began his producing/directing career as a video store clerk, is one of them. His macabre take on violence is itself the answer to many questions.
"Basically the violence that I like makes me laugh. In a particularly savage scene where a character takes another character that I don't particularly like and bashes his head into the table five times, that totally cracks me up," Tarantino said in a recent interview.
It's disturbing to think that any sane person watching the brutal scene where a German soldier is clubbed to death by an avenging Jew would find this scene so funny that he "cracked up."
The more serious question is, who are the gatekeepers of history in the post modern world? How we answer this question will be a major factor in determining the future of our nation because history is the road map of the future. That future can never be adequately safeguarded without a clear, accurate record of the past to guide us.
No one with a modicum of training or sophistication would ever accuse Quentin Tarantino of being an historian. Unfortunately, that does not mean that his film, Inglourious Basterds, will not be seen by some as an historical account of Jewish resistance fighters during World War II...