Mason Schultz Essays - Entertainment, English-language Films

Mason Schultz Dr. Muak ENG 223 31 October 2017 Inglourious Rhetoric Inglourious Basterds is arguably one of the brashest and most daring American war films in history. As a film, Inglourious Basterds is divided into five chapters, each rich in the use of rhetorical devices. Chapter two, however, is the focus of this analysis. Chapter two, entitled "Inglourious Basterds", is where we are first introduced to Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Raine is a proud Tennessean, a former moonshiner, and commanding officer of the Jewish-American military unit known as the "Basterds." Lieutenant Raine delivers an emotion-wrenching speech in order to motivate his special team, a collection of Jewish-American soldiers with a particular vengeance against the Nazis. Set between 1941 and 1944, the film Inglourious Basterds rewrites the history of WWII to incorporate Jewish revenge against the Nazis. The Basterds, comprised mainly of Jews, are placed in a reverse role of history in order to embody a vengeance not traditionally shown. They have been given the opportunity to ter rorize the Nazi Army with brutal murder and post-mortem rituals such as scalping. The audience for Lieutenant Raine's speech is easily comprehendible. At the time of Lieutenant Raine's speech, the Nazi were rounding up all people of Jewish decent and forcing them into concentration camps, or simply executing them. When Lieutenant Raine assembles the team of Jewish American soldiers, he was giving them a chance at retribution and a chance to fight back. The fact that his audience is made up of soldiers with Jewish Heritage makes the receptivity of his speech even more effective. Kairos is the use of particular moments to evoke the necessity for action. Lieutenant Raine's speech capture's in words what is most immediately appropriate for his particular audience to hear. By using the events of World War II, such as the Holocaust, Lieutenant Raine is able to make his speech seem timely and necessary. Within his speech, he also speaks about the exigency (urgency) of this mission, Raine says, "Now, y'all might've heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we 'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only... killin' Nazis." By saying this, Lieutenant Raine creates a sense of urgency within his soldiers. Stating that they will be deployed immediately adds a level of confidence to his speech as well as describes to his soldiers the importance of this mission. Lt Raine gives his soldiers (The Basterds) a speech, which at first glance, appears to be a conventional "let's do this" speech. However, after analysis, intriguing parallels to the scene prior surface. He tells his men that they will be hunting and killing Nazis. This is fueled by the scenes first presupposition, Nazis are bad. Raine takes this presupposition a little further: he justifies that it is okay to kill Nazis because "A Nazi ain't got no humanity." When he says they're going to kill "anyone wearing a Nazi uniform," Raine successfully reduces the Nazis to a symbol, just as Landa reduced the Jews to symbols in the previous scene. The difference between Raine and Landa is you know where you stand with Raine. He may come across as a bloodthirsty savage, but his is steadfast in his stance against the Nazis. The second presupposition active is Raine's speech is the shared belief that they are terrorists. In his speech, Raine compares the Basterds to "Bushwhackers." Today, a " bushwhacker" could be any kind of surprise attacker. However, to Raine, coming from rural Tennessee in 1944, the term would have had a very specific meaning. Bushwhackers, in the Civil War, were small bands of civilians who would skulk through the night, kill people, and steal property. All of this was done outside of any military jurisdiction for the purpose of dismantling the enemy. They, in practice, became terrorists. Raine plans to kill Nazi soldiers, behind enemy lines, in the most ferocious way possible, so as to frighten and terrorize them. "Sound good?" he swaggers to his men, who all respond in the affirmative. This enthymematic reasoning, present in Lt Raine's speech, is used to support his position and