Commonalities: Shutter Island and The Haunting

Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010), before being toppled by Alice in Wonderland,  had been the number one movie at the box office for two weeks running, but when I saw it I couldn't help but be reminded of another, better horror film, The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963). The Haunting, based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House, is the story of Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), a distant young woman who comes to Hill House for an experiment in psychic and spectral investigation led by Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson). Shutter Island concerns two federal marshals, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo, investigating the disappearance of a psychiatric patient incarcerated for murdering her three children. Of course, if you've seen the film by now you know that's not what Scorsese's film is really about. You probably shouldn't read this entry any further if you haven't seen either film, as I'm about to spoil them for you rather completely. 

Besides the narrative similarities of the two films, something else jogged my memory about the Scorsese/Wise connection: this article from last year in which Scorsese lists his personal top 11 scariest horror films. Guess which film made number one. 

What I want to do in this article is not to propose a one-to-one relation between Shutter Island and The Haunting, for in many ways, they are very different films. I do, however, want to explore their similarities on a continuum of film history. Scorsese has spoken at length about The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, 1948), and IMDb cites the spiral staircase scene in that film as an influence on Shutter Island. What I find interesting, however, is that Shutter Island shares more with the spiral staircase scene in The Haunting than the one in The Red Shoes, despite the fact that IMDb does not list a connection between The Red Shoes and The Haunting, nor a connection between The Haunting and Shutter Island. The content on IMDb is user-generated, so of course there is a margin for error. Perhaps Scorsese's championing of Powell and Pressburger's film trumps the cinematic quotation of Wise's sequence in the minds of the public. That is exactly why I'd like to make the case for the Haunting/Shutter Island connection rather than the Red Shoes/Shutter Island connection. 

Eleanor Lance runs up the spiral staircase in The Haunting.

Teddy Daniels runs up the spiral staircase in Shutter Island.

The most important connective thread between Scorsese's film and Wise's is that both belong to the horror genre. The Red Shoes does not. Although both The Haunting and Shutter Island were adapted from novels, there is a clear sense of cinematic quotation in Scorsese's film that trumps its novelistic underpinnings. Scorsese draws from sources like Alfred Hitchcock, his own remake of Cape Fear, as well as images from the historical collective consciousness like the liberation of concentration camps during WWII. The most striking similarities between Shutter Island and The Haunting lie in the treatment of their main characters, the subjective distortion of physical space, the isolated locales of both films, and the themes of psychosis and the protagonists' total break from reality in the climax of each picture. 

Character and Setting

In both films, Eleanor and Teddy are seemingly drawn to Hill House and Ashecliffe Hospital for reasons neither character is able to acknowledge at the beginning of their films. Although Eleanor agrees to the study conducted by Dr. Markway, she fails to admit to herself it is because of the trauma of her mother's recent death. She is a skeptic in paranormal phenomenon even though she is a victim of the title haunting herself. The film is not a psychologically drama like Shutter Island, but it is clear that Eleanor's interior psychological break, her rejection of reality, is what propels the narrative. Dr. Markway's choice of Hill House as their research center is meant to draw Eleanor out from herself using the psychic energy of the ancient manse where many have died mysteriously, driven mad by their demons.

Wise repeats shots of Hill House from various angles to emphasize the mansion as a living entity "looking" at and overseeing all the characters. 

 

Teddy Daniels is even more shut off from himself than Eleanor Lance. The film begins as Teddy and his new partner Chuck land on Shutter Island, the isolated rock on which the mental hospital stands. It becomes clear that Teddy has an ulterior motive for gaining access to Ashecliffe beyond locating escaped prisoner Rachel Solando. Like Eleanor, Teddy refuses to confide in anyone at the beginning, eventually confessing to Teddy that he is actually looking for an inmate named Andrew Laeddus, the man he believes started the house fire that killed his wife and daughter. Like Hill House, Ashecliffe itself is an imposing, physical presence in Shutter Island. Its uninhabitable terrain and rocky cliffs mirror Teddy's unstable mindset. In the middle of a film, Teddy and Chuck are trapped by a hurricane, another signal of the subjective view of the film. The island becomes Teddy's mindscape, a constantly storming, muddled milieu, alternatively violent and oppressive but also very visually beautiful.

 

Scorsese foregrounds the rocky island terrain that fences in Ashecliffe and all its inhabitants. The island is inescapable and as the story progresses, Shutter Island's isolation comes to represent Teddy Daniels' inaccessible psyche. 

Distortion of Visual Space

In addition to the exteriors of Hill House and Shutter Island/Ashecliffe, both films manipulate and distort physical space to represent the warped perception of its protagonists. In The Haunting, the distortion is brought about by the ghosts that haunt the mansion. Eleanor is not the only member of the party who experiences the spectral disruptions. In contrast, Teddy Daniels is the only person on Shutter Island who experiences the intense waking nightmares that characterize his mental illness. 

Robert Wise approaches the haunting special effects with psychological and physical realism, that is he does not differentiate visually the scenes where paranormal phenomena is at work from the scenes of Eleanor's paranoia. The result in the viewer is a lack of comprehension and a confusing between what is real and what is imagined. At the conclusion of the film, Eleanor's voice over, which has guided us throughout the film, has become more frenzied and more interior; we are a party to her madness. 

Scorsese achieves this result through different means. Unlike Wise, the film from the get-go is a subjective view of events from Teddy Daniels' point of view. His POV shots establish the physical space as he encounters the different housing facilities of Ashecliffe, its inmates, and the mysterious isolated lighthouse which will play a crucial part in the film's climax. Because Teddy is the protagonist and we are seeing the "real" locations of Shutter Island through his eyes, the viewer inherently trusts his nightmares, as well. Unlike Eleanor's paranoia, Scorsese clearly marks Teddy's nightmares as distinct from his experiences on the island. He achieves this affect through the use of a bright, DayGlo color scheme and the manipulation of impossible spaces. During Teddy's nightmares, spatial relations between characters are obstructed as Scorsese plays with the rules of film editing and continuity. 

In one scene, for example, Teddy is walking in a "real" location (the psychiatrist's office) but the audience is signaled to its unreality because the smoke from his cigarette is reversed. 

In another recurring setting, Teddy speaks with his deceased wife Dolores (Michelle Williams). Dolores is constantly backlit, creating a halo of sorts around her head. In addition, the scene is marked by falling ash, signaling the confusion of physical space between Teddy and Dolores' house pre- and post-fire. 

The fish-eye lense distorts and bends and canted angles produce an unsettled effect.

Wise achieves a sense of madness chiefly through canted angles and distorted fish-eye lenses which bend the film frame. Scorsese is working with subtler effects because, unlike Eleanor's madness in The Haunting, Teddy's psychological disturbances are not immediately apparent to the viewer. Indeed, the central mystery in Shutter Island is whether Teddy is being manipulated by the hospital's staff through mind control or if his own mind is unbalanced. 

Spiral Staircase in Context

To return to one of my original points, in order to understand why Shutter Island owes more to The Haunting than The Red Shoes comes down to context. In The Haunting, Eleanor climbs the spiral staircase to kill herself because she knows for her to find peace is to die. 

To Eleanor the staircase represents a catharsis, and climbing it will offer her the first bit of clarity she has had the entire film. Wise shoots the sequence by cutting between shots of Eleanor's face and her feet, as the mobile camera follows her ascent. The other people in the house, especially Dr. Markway, try to prevent her from committing suicide, offering other ways to treat her paranoia. Just when it seems Eleanor can be cured, there is a shock which sends her past the point of return and ultimately costs her her life.

In Shutter Island, the circumstances are remarkably similar. Teddy has finally decided to investigate the lighthouse, the place where he thinks psychological and military experiences are being performed on patients. Armed, he storms the staircase. Scorsese shoots the sequence similarly to Wise, alternating between shots of Teddy's face and his feet, creating a sense of anticipation in the viewer. To heighten this tension to the breaking point, the first room Teddy bursts into is empty. The second he approaches more slowly and there he discovers the hospital psychiatric (Ben Kingsley) and his missing "partner" Chuck, who reveals himself to be Teddy's attending doctor at Ashecliffe. Teddy is really Andrew Laeddus and has been a patient on the island for two years. The events of the film have been a role play exercise which his doctors hope would jog his memory and lead to a break through. The psychiatrist explains that Teddy was a U.S. Marshall but his wife Dolores was depressed and drowned his three children. Teddy killed Dolores and has been a patient at Ashecliffe ever since. He made up Chuck, Rachel Solando and almost everything in the film to cope with his insane grief. Like Eleanor in The Haunting, Teddy finds some explanation at the top of the staircase, just not the one he wanted. Like Eleanor, Teddy yields to the doctor's care, and like Eleanor, he relapses, rejecting the voice of authority and following the voices in his head. In both films, Eleanor's death and Teddy's implied death (he is sentenced to a lobotomy), are mercy killings. Eleanor recognized correctly that she would never be free of her haunting while she was alive. Although it can be argued that the house causes her car to crash, it is equally plausible that Eleanor allowed it to happen. In a similar way, it is ambiguous whether Teddy has actually relapsed or whether he chose to enact his delusion because he knew he would be lobotomized, thus ending his torment. 

Each film has a bleak ending that results in the death of their protagonists.  But however dark the subject matter, there is a catharsis for the audience that comes from knowing that they are no longer suffering.

 

Film and the Theatrical in 'Inglourious Basterds': Part 5

In the previous four entries in this series, I've attempted to break down Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds by chapters, each chapter a new scene in the grand theatrical performance that is this film. In doing so, I've highlighted the theatricality of many scenes and sequences, the themes of film history colliding and co-mingling with historical reality, the importance of cinema as identity for many characters and the combination of two meanings of the word "theater" (a place for drama and a setting for battle) typifying the essential nature of the film.

The fifth and final chapter, 'Revenge of the Giant Face' is the most cinematographically complex chapter in the film, utilizing extensive parallel editing to convey the convergence of all the film's major characters. The storylines that merge are: 1) Shosanna's and her boyfriend and projectionist Marcel's (Jacky Ido) preparations to screen Nation's Pride and blow up Le Gamaar with the Nazi high command inside; 2) Frederick Zoller attending the premiere as Goebbels' special guest, with Hitler also in attendance and Landa acting as security chief; 3) three members of the Basterds Aldo Raine, Donny Donowitz, and Omar Ulmer accompanying Allied spy Bridget von Hammersmark disguised as an Italian stuntman and Italian cameramen, respectively.

The resistance is weaponized.

The chapter opens with a scene cut like a music video as Shosanna prepares for the premiere in her quarters above the theater. The scene is a transformation, Shosanna arming herself with makeup, with a veil, with the props and costumes of an actress to play a part--to set the stage. Shosanna marks herself a warrior with rouge that obviously connotes an actress’ backstage preparation while the placement of the makeup calls to mind Aldo’s Apache resistence.

Shosanna’s preparation sequence collapses two meanings of theater. Firstly, the theatrical experience, as she is preparing to play a role, a subterfuge, on the surface entertaining a theater-full of her enemies while playing host to their whims. Secondly, this first surface meaning is infused with the “theater of battle” mentality that was previously province of the Basterds. In this final chapter, the two connotations are embodied in the figure of Shosanna Dreyfus and the physical extension of her character, her theater Le Gamaar.

Melanie Laurent as Shosanna Dreyfus as Emmanuelle Mimieux...

and Rosel Zech as Sybille Schmitz as Veronika Voss

Shosanna is dressed similarly to Veronika Voss, the fading film star in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss. The fictional Voss is based on real-life '20s-'30s German actress Sybille Schmitz, whose fall from the spotlight and suicide from sleeping pills was mirrored in Fassbinder's film. The intertextuality of Shosanna's costume accentuates the theme of cinema as identity, as well as providing in-text clues to her fate. Although von Hammersmark is the official ingenue actress in the IB-universe, Shosanna puts on as much of a command performance as she does, and like Voss/Schmitz, commits a suicide of sorts. Unlike a flame-out actress, however, Shosanna's act is more akin to a warrior's suicide mission, like a Kamikaze taking the enemy down in flames with her. When Marcel sees Shosanna after her transformation, he spins her around and coos, “Oh la la, Danielle Darrieux.” This is another references to film history, to French film star Danielle Darrieux (who is still alive at 92) and was the height of glamour and sophistication during the 1940s.

After Shosanna’s preparations for the premiere, the film shifts its focus to von Hammersmark and the Basterds, who, because of the disaster at La Louisianne the previous night, have had to replace Lt. Hicox and the two German-speaking members of the Basterds with Lt. Raine, The Bear Jew and Pvt. Ulmer now disguised as members of an Italian film crew. The problem is that von Hammersmark was wounded the shoot-out and is now sporting a cumbersome leg cast and Aldo, Donowitz and Ulmer’s Italian is less than stellar (and in Ulmer’s cast, non-existent).

These hurdles could have been surpassed, however, if it was not for Landa, always the bloodhound, having investigated the crime scene at La Louisianne, knows von Hammersmark is a spy. He corners the party in the lobby and launches into another piece of investigatory theater, much to the alarm of the Basterds’ and to von Hammersmark’s peril. The multi-lingual Landa spouts off Italian, running circles around the confused imposters. It’s a scene of uncomfortable comedic effect, so over-the-top and ridiculous it’s hard not to laugh at Raine’s hillbilly Italian, even though the audience is simultaneously aware Landa has ensnared our heroes completely.

Like other characters in Inglourious Basterds, Raine, Donowitz and Ulmer find their aliases in the annals of film history. Aldo Raine introduces himself to Landa as Enzo Gorlomi, the birth name of Enzo G. Castellari, the Italian director of The Inglorious Bastards, the 1978 war film from which Inglourious Basterds takes its name. Sgt. Donowitz takes his alias from Antonio Margheriti, an Italian director and one of Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth’s favorites. Margheriti himself cameos in the film as one of the Nazis at the Nation’s Pride premiere. Omar Ulmer’s false identity is as Dominick Decocco, a name that doesn’t occur in film history, although that may not be necessary as he is already named for Austrian expat and film noir director Edgar G. Ulmer.

Landa quickly dispatches of von Hammersmark having produced the shoe she misplaced at La Louisianne. Landa is quickly gaining ground on the Basterds, eliminating one chess piece afteranother. After Bridget, Landa orders Raine brought to him, although by this time, Donowitz and Ulmer have safely reached their seats in the theater with dynamite strapped to their legs. Landa's capture of Aldo Raine brings certain themes full-circle. Landa re-instates his love of play-acting and games, after he has hooded Aldo, taunts him saying, "Caught you flinching!" Once Landa transports Aldo and another Basterd, Pfc. Smithson Utivich (BJ Novak), he and Landa exchange aliases. Having never met face to face before, the two men only know of each other through the circulated gossip of the front. Each man is more a character, or caricature of their roles and they greet each other as such:

"So you're Aldo the Apache."/"So you're The Jew Hunter."

Landa toying with his prey.

In contrast to the first scene with M. LaPadite, Landa reacts unfavorably to his unofficial nickname. Of course this reaction is as unauthentic as the one earlier. Each is a calculated response to appeal to the interrogated subject. It is in Landa's best interest to humanize himself in front of Aldo and Utivich so that they will be more amenable to his proposed detente. Landa soliloquies:

-"I'm a detective. A damn good detective. Finding people is my specialty, so naturally I work for the Nazis finding people and yes, some of them were Jews, but Jew Hunter? Hmph! Just a name that stuck."

Here is the return of Landa's conception of his own identity, a Nazi Sherlock Holmes. Whether or not he truly believes what he says, or that he values his investigation and interrogation skills as much as he professes, we have no real way of knowing. It is certainly clear that Col. Hans Landa is a master manipulator, a man who would be equally comfortable on the stage as on the battlefield. Landa proposes an end to the war. If he is absolved of all the sins he committed as a Nazi, he will not stop the bombs from blowing up Le Gamaar, and WWII will end that night. Raine is sufficiently suspicious, asking incredulously, "That's a pretty exciting story. What's next? Eliza on the Ice?" This is another film reference, to a Mighty Mouse cartoon in which the tiny hero saves Eliza, the slave protagonist of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Ultimately, Raine acquiesces, speaking over the radio to his OSS commander. However, no one at the theater is aware of the deal. Shosanna and the Basterds' original plans are already well underway.

Meanwhile, back at Le Gamaar...

In a perverse twist of irony, Shosanna's identity is brought closer to Zoller's as they both become united by film, literally glued together during the Shosanna's editing process, as demonstrated by the still above. At the same time, they are equally divided by the film's exhibition. As Shosanna watches Nation's Pride, its sadistic violence serves only to strengthen her resolve and confirm in the audience's mind the righteousness of her, and the Basterds', act of terrorism. As she watches, Shosanna becomes more comfortable with her initial assumption that Frederick was just a uniform.

Counteractively, as Zoller watches Nation's Pride, he grows more and more discomfited by the glorified images of slaughter and the raucous cheers and applause of the Nazi crowd. Zoller excuses himself from the screening and visits Shosanna in her projection room. Curiously, while rejecting his current on-screen identity, Zoller has already acceded to his post-war identity as a film star, stating:

-"For the other films I do, I intend to endure evenings like tonight, in the proper spirit. However the fact remains this film is based on my military exploits. And in this case, my exploits consisted of me killing many men. Consequently, the part of the film that's playing now...I don't like watching this part."

Although this speech endures and humanizes Zoller slightly to the audience, Shosanna is unmoved. She still does not grant him entry to the projection room. Enraged, Zoller pushes his way in.

Zoller has begun to buy into his own legend. He is a powerful and masculine figure on screen...

...so he must be in real life, as well.

Shosanna is able to distract Frederick enough to grab the gun in her purse. She shoots him point blank. Believing Zoller dead, Shosanna continues projecting the feature, waiting for the intercut footage and the signal for Marcel to ignite the flammable nitrate film behind the screen.

Tarantino juxtaposes images like these above to heighten the tension in preparing for the climax, as well as to emphasize the dual nature of violence in Inglourious Basterds. One is the traditional violence of mechanized warfare (slightly untraditional for enlisted men--as Aldo notes earlier in the picture, his is an Apache resistance utilizing what Landa later calls terrorist acts), manifested by the Basterds' self-immolating explosives. The other is the film as weapon, the flammable nitrate film that represents Shosanna's self-sacrifice. She is willing to destroy her cinematic identity as theater proprietor Mimieux to bring down the Nazi high command (although in an ironic twist, not Landa, the man directly responsible for the murder of her family).

Tarantino intercuts the drama of Shosanna and Zoller with shots of the Nazis enjoying the film. This puts us, the audience, is an uncomfortable viewing position. Much as Tarantino challenged the viewer in the second chapter, daring us to laugh and cheer as The Bear Jew beat a Nazi to death with a baseball bat, in this sequence, he is daring us not to enjoy the exaggerated patriotism of Nation's Pride. There is a disquieting replication of audiences, as the Nazis mirror our position as a theater (or home-viewing audience).

Shots of Hitler laughing tears of joy as Frederick Zoller recreates sniping dozens of American troops hard to watch--harder still because of the previous hyperbolic representation of Hitler as a buffoon and tyrant. Are we laughing at Hitler laughing at us? This sequence represents a unique and purposefully undefined position of spectatorship for the audience enjoying Inglourious Basterds. Further complicating this position is the fact that when Hitler congratulates Goebbels on Nation's Pride, it represents another set of character that are brought together by film or theater in IB. Even those characters the audience is meant, or perhaps not meant, to hate, share a common bond with our heroes and Basterds who define themselves in filmic language and through play-acting.

Meanwhile, back in the projection booth...

Zoller groans. Shosanna feels a pang of regret. Perhaps she shouldn't have shot this Nazi? After all, he does love Max Linder...Of course, because Shosanna's is a sacrifice and they both would have died anyway, and because theirs is a thinly-veiled Romeo & Juliet story, she approaches him. But because this is a Quentin Tarantino film, not a Shakespeare tragedy, Zoller shoots her. They both die. But not before Shosanna changes reels and signals via pre-recorded film:

"Marcel, burn it down."/"Oui, Shosanna."

Thus begins the gruesome, fiery and controversial ending to Inglourious Basterds. Everyone in Le Gamaar is burned to death, although Hitler gets his face rather graciously machine-gunned off by Donowitz and Ulmer before the dynamite on their legs adds to the pyre. The destruction of theater-as-church (remember Goebbels comment that Shoshanna's theater has a church-like reverence rarely seen) consumes Nazi and Jew alike. The grand finale brings the house down, literally of course. Theater and film are ultimately the great leveler, and as Tarantino argues, as powerful a weapon as any BAR, Mauser or explosive.

-----

Some brief conclusions: After tracking the themes of film and theatricality in Inglourious Basterds, it's clear there is evidence for the conclusion that the film is steeped in film history. This is apparent when you consider how many characters are named for film stars and directors, how many characters have connections to film and theater, either in their true identities or as adopted aliases. I've tried to prove that Tarantino effectively blends the theater of war with the conventional theater of plays and drama. Christoph Waltz's Col. Hans Landa is the central character in the film, the character around which the narrative universe revolves. We can extrapolate his attitude towards the theatricality of interrogation and the performance-based nature of the character to define the film as a whole. The net effect of all these factors is a rejection of historical reality in favor of a meta-reality, that is the reality of film and film history. Thus, it is a mistake to view Inglourious Basterds as a WII film, or perhaps as merely a WWII film, for historical accuracy is not its province. Its true nature is the emotional reality of theater-going, the collective ecstasy of living through the figures on screen, a companion of the celluloid characters as much as with the man or woman in the seat next to you.

Film and the Theatrical in 'Inglourious Basterds': Part 4

Chapter four, 'Operation Kino' continues the fusion of film and theater in Inglourious Basterds. Kino is the German word for cinema, more evidence to suggest the mixing of theater as a place for performance and theater as a place for battle. The operation in question is launched by English officers Ed Fenech (Mike Myers), named for French actress Edwige Fenech and Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender). Both men are played as slightly exaggerated caricatures of WWII-era British officers, all "Jolly good" and stiff upper lip and that.

The hyperreal performances of Myers and Fassbender are unnerving at first, but gradually come to make sense in the pantheon of IB play-acting. As discussed previously, almost every character is during some sort of performance, from Aldo Raine's speech-giving theatrics to Col. Landa's interrogation-as-performance piece to Shosanna pretending to be Emmanuelle Mimieux to Pvt. Zoller's uncomfortable transition from young soldier to Goebbels' golden boy and Nazi matinee idol.

In another layer of film reference, Hicox is a film critic, writing pieces for a magazine called Films and Filmmakers and publishing two books: Art of the Eyes, the Heart and the Mind: A Study of German Cinema in the '20s and Twenty-Four Frame da Vinci, "a subtextual film criticism study of the work of German director GW Pabst." He was chosen for Operation Kino, in fact, because of these credentials, another example of the marriage between film and war in Inglourious Basterds. The OSS has gotten wind of the move from the Ritz to Le Gamaar for the Nation's Pride premiere (although they are unaware of Shosanna's simultaneous assassination plot) and assigned Hicox to meet up with the Basterds who will assist him in accompanying their double agent. That double agent is German film ingenue Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). Like Zoller, von Hammersmark is another amalgamation of political and cinema history, based on Hungarian actress Ilona Massey and UFA star Zarah Leander who was rumored to be a Soviet spy during the war.

During this briefing with Fenech, Hicox compares Minister of Propaganda Goebbels with Hollywood mega-producer (some might say tyrant) David O. Selznick, whose total control over films alienated Alfred Hitchcock among other directors but did lead to massive successes like Gone With The Wind. The irony of the comparison comes from the fact Goebbels, who in addition to running the German film industry, was one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, would probably react none too kindly to being compared to the Jewish Selznick (however accurate the comparison may be).

However, the bulk of this chapter takes place during Hicox's rendezvous in the tavern La Louisiane. The scene gathers our principals: Hicox, von Hammersmark, Aldo Raine, Major Hellstrom, and the two German-speaking members of the Basterds Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger) and Wilhelm Wicki (Gedeon Burkhard). Wicki is named for two German directors, GW (Wilhelm) Pabst and Bernhard Wicki. Stiglitz is named for Mexican film star Hugo Stiglitz. The Basterds and von Hammersmark are meeting there to discuss the fact that Hitler to attending the Nation's Pride premiere and to prepare for their undercover attendance of said premier. However, they did not anticipate the tavern would be crawling with Nazis, due to the unfortunately coincidence of several servicemen celebrating the birth of one of their friends' new son.

Figuring prominently in the scene is a card game where the characters wear a playing card with the name of a real or fictional famous person and try to guess who they're wearing by asking the other players. The game is thematically significant because it emphasizes the theme of aliases (characters named for figures in film history, characters saddled with dual identities), doubling, spying, and play-acting infused in Inglourious Basterds.

Von Hammersmark is consistently interrupted by the reveling Germans, unable to share the information of Hitler's attendance. Unbeknownst to them, Hellstrom has heard Hicox admonish the soldiers and noted his strangely accented German. Hicox invents a cover story culled from film culture. His accent, he explains, hails from the base of the moutain Piz Palu, the setting of the Pabst-directed, Riefenstahl-starring film that was earlier playing at Shosanna's theater. Hicox's knowledge of German film history informs his duplicitous identity and aids in his skill as a soldier.

It is Hellstrom who manipulates the scene, much as Landa might. He suggests the five of them play the card game, further postponing their meeting. Hellstrom utilizes the game as an interrogation technique, testing the patience of the spys and hoping for a mistake. This elaborate construction of a theatrical scenario pays off for the SS Major. In fact, it is his insufficient knowledge of German culture, not film culture, that betrays Hicox and his friends. While ordering more drinks, Hicox mis-signals the English three, not the German three, which Hellstrom immediately identifies.

From that point on, the performative aspects of the Basterds' identities are stretched to the breaking point. Stiglitz has clearly had enough of the masquerade; sitting next to Hellstrom has agitated him beyond reason and triggered flashbacks to the torture he endured at the hands of Nazi officers. He wants nothing more than to hack Hellstrom to death right then and there. Hellstrom and Hicox are engaged in an exaggerated theater of manners, each knowing the jig is essentially up. Von Hammersmark is trying desperately to charm the Major into believing he has imagined the whole encounter.

It is Hellstrom again who signals the cessation of theatrics:

The game-playing is at an end and the failure of theater signals the necessity of violence.

The ensuing massacre leaves everyone in La Louisianne, the French barman and his daughter, the celebrating German officers, Hellstrom, and the Basterds, dead. Only von Hammersmark survives to tell Aldo the tale. Their backup plan takes center stage in the next and final chapter, where the Basterds' fondness for bloodshed finally come together with Shosanna's thirst for revenge.