Ambivalence and the Spectatorship of Violence: Viewing Inglourious Basterds

Abstract

This chapter investigates a particular aspect of the emergent discipline of cultural legal studies by engaging with a range of issues concerning spectatorship and the formation of the subject positions in the film Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino (Universal Pictures, 2009). Drawing on recent scholarship regarding crime, law, and the visual, it examines the spectatorial possibilities fostered by the ambiguous and unconventional representations of World War II contained in the film. It reads the film as an ‘encountered sign,’ asking ‘How does the image of violence work in Inglourious Basterds?’ and ‘How do we watch it?’ in order to open up the affective and ethical dimensions of the spectator’s relation to these ambiguous images. In carrying out an analysis of both the critical discourse on the film and the film itself, the chapter addresses the form of the representation of violence in the film, tracing its iterations of notions such as victim, perpetrator, crime, legitimacy, and justice in the context of World War II. The argument demonstrates the resulting complexities of subjecthood and spectatorship when a film offers its viewer only ambivalence towards the violence on the screen.