cult films

by nicolas guerin
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france 1914. a moment of humanity that made history.

in 1914, world war i, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. however on christmas eve, numerous sections of the western front called an informal, and unauthorized, truce where the various front-line soldiers of the conflict peacefully met each other in no man’s land to share a precious pause in the carnage with a fleeting brotherhood. this film dramatizes one such section as the french, scottish and german sides partake in the unique event, even though they are aware that their superiors will not tolerate its occurrence.

dir.: christian carion
christmas / war / french / scottish / german
2005

diane kruger as anna sörensen
benno fürmann as nikolaus sprink
guillaume canet as audebert
daniel brühl as horstmayer
dany boon as ponchel
gary lewis as palmer

some facts:

- this film is dedicated to the soldiers who fraternized on christmas 1914 in several places on the front.
- the film was originally supposed to be rated r. however, after film critic roger ebert criticized the rating, the mpaa officially changed the rating to pg-13.
- when lieutenant audebert (guillaume canet) compliments horstmayer (daniel brühl) on his french, horstmayer replies, “no honor in that; your wife is not german.” at the time, guillaume canet was married to german actress diane kruger, who also starred in the film. 

+: imdb (joyeux nouel, aka happy christmas)

(via baubauhaus)

in nazi occupied france during world war ii, a group of jewish-american soldiers known as “the basterds” are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the third reich by scalping and brutally killing nazis.

dir.: quentin tarantino
thriller / war
2009

facts:
- quentin tarantino worked on the script for almost a decade.
- quentin tarantino intended for this to be as much a war film as a spaghetti western, and considered titling the movie “once upon a time in nazi-occupied france”. he gave that title instead to the first chapter of the film. 
- leonardo dicaprio was the first choice for col. hans landa, but quentin tarantino then decided that a german speaking actor should play the part.
- the name of til schweiger’s character, sgt. hugo stiglitz, is a homage to the mexican b-movie actor hugo stiglitz.
- on german advertisement materials, all swastikas were removed or covered up as it was unclear to the distributor if they violated german law (which prohibits the exhibition of nazi symbols except for purposes such as historical accuracy).
- when asked about the misspelled title, quentin tarantino gave the following answer: “here’s the thing. i’m never going to explain that. you do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the piss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place.”
- eli roth and omar doom were nearly incinerated filming the fire sequence in the theater. during tests the flame temperatures reached 400 degrees centigrade, and during the take the set burned out of control and the temperature of the ceiling above them reached 1,200 degrees centigrade (2,000 degrees fahrenheit.) quentin tarantino was seated on a crane operating the camera in a fireproof suit, and none of them wanted to back down and ruin the shot. fire marshalls said that another fifteen seconds of filming and the steel structure would have collapsed, incinerating the actors. roth and doom were treated for minor burns.
- the pipe col. landa smokes at the lapadite farm is a calabash meerschaum, a.k.a. the sherlock holmes pipe.
- one of the jewish names carved on the bear jew’s bat is anne frank.
- roughly only 30% of the film is in spoken english, the language which dominates the film is either french or german, with a little italian. chapter three of the film ‘german night in paris’ is completely devoid of any english. this is highly unusual for a hollywood production.
- christoph waltz’s character speaks the most different languages in the movie out of anyone else in the cast, he speaks fluent english, french and german; and he learned a little bit of italian specially for this movie.