It’s funny–the memories I have of Inglorious Basterds don’t align much with what it turns out, upon investigation, I wrote about it. My memory of it was that it made a cartoon of Nazism, which discomfited me. I also remember arguing with my friend Harold about that; he enjoyed the catharsis of the comic revenge fantasy, and believed, if I recall correctly, that I was being a sanctimonious spoilsport and prig.

This is basically the same movie as Inglorious Basterds, except this time the comic revenge fantasy is directed at slavery instead of the Final Solution. Again we find Tarantino making extensive reference to B-movie history, ginning up auteur-esque gestures (e.g. a lengthy scene where Django’s mentor explains the difference between playing a character and being a self), completely failing to demonstrate a capacity to edit himself (this thing could have been cut by a third), and running through probably a hundred barrels of stage blood.

I tend when watching violent movies not to really see the blood. I don’t like blood, for one thing, and for another its appearance in a film is usually just a kind of notation, signifying that violence has occurred. Do you notice whether it’s a puddle the size of a pancake or a puddle the size of a manhole? I don’t — who cares? But you can’t miss Tarantino’s blood any more than you could fail to notice the lights on the Sunset Strip. It doesn’t trickle or ooze, it explodes in Hawaiian-Punch-colored geysers. Look on the poster — it’s everywhere!

Despite its striving after effects and affect, and its predictably cartoonish, weirdly pornographic vision of slavery, I enjoyed this. Harold was right; there’s some shameful but deep atavistic pleasure in seeing the hero tortured and knowing the torturer, within the hour, is going to meet an elaborately painful end.