Why are the Nazis always so likable and fascinating compared to the main characters?
For instance, Tarantino made the wrong movie with Inglorious Basterds. Why couldn't we watch the hi-jinks of Christoph Waltz for 2 hours rather than vicarious Jewish revenge?
Tarantino did this weird thing where we weren't supposed to root for Nazi killing, which is why he included that propaganda film of allied soldiers getting sniped from the tower and was like 'This is what it would look like on the other end'. Also it was the power of cinema as well, a message he was sending. That just because you see something and be entranced by it, it isn't real but it is powerful.
But then we root for the GIs when they blast Hitler in the face, because Tarantino just loves ultra violence too much. So its kind of a small little message, like, I don't know if he thinks we shouldn't root for it, but realize there are other people who root for the death of GIs? Its kind of muddy. But the power of cinema message is strongly there.
So I'm kinda not sure. I mean he was clearly in love with Waltz's character, which is why he didn't kill him in the end. But its just a little thing.
Nazis, if they aren't a cartoon, are humans that have found a way to do something that most of us would find terrible (industrialized murder), and that is a complex and fascinating journey. Mentally, emotionally, and socially. When done correctly, its far more nuanced and intriguing than the usual one-note 'must kill bad mans' that a bland hero can produce. In fact, to even get your audience to listen long enough to get the above points, you have to make the Nazi pretty affable, otherwise folks just tune them out.
That seems to be likely why.
The main problem is that the audience doesn't know the division from Nazi Party members, who comprised the Gestapo and the SS vs. the General German Army. Its very, exceedingly difficult to humanize members of the Nazi party. 'Operation Valkyrie' wasn't carried out by SS officers, but by the German Army, who were fed up with Hitler's shit. So you CAN humanize the German army. Its exceedingly more difficult to attempt to humanize the Gestapo and the SS. The German Army can easily be sympathized with, they were dragged into a war they didn't want to fight. Fuck, even Rommel wasn't in the SS.
To be clear, there were plenty of people forced to be in the party. But Nazi doesn't equal SS or Gestapo. I don't really think you could humanize them properly. You can humanize the hell out of the German army. Its not like the Final Solution was publicly broadcasted. We still don't know how much the ordinary German or even Nazi outside of the SS knew about it. I'm sure there were rumors, but rumors probably ran rampant during those days. In the information age, we can easily have hindsight. Did some know? Absolutely. Why didn't they do anything? Well, the Nazis would probably fucking murder you and your entire family. I mean, people underestimate how brutal that regime was and the fear it instilled in people. That's another thing that gets me. What's the average person going to do? What CAN they do with secret police being everywhere, infiltrating complex and simple resistance groups? What can a German Army Officer do, who is outranked by the SS? Who is just as likely to end up in a mass grave if he tries something? These aren't questions we think about. And if you could or wanted organize something, who could you trust? Who was an informant or not? There's no cellphones, phone lines are easily tapped, if you have one. We just don't think about these questions. Why didn't the German citizens do anything? Because they couldn't. There was no effective way to organize, like in other countries where language and accent allowed for a distinction (not for an informant, but it was easier). In Germany, there's no such distinction. So who can you trust with this? Who would believe you? After all, you're not seeing the camps, you're not seeing pictures. You're hearing second, third or fourth hand accounts.
There's just a lot to unpack in this moralistic question, for which we don't ask. Because we have the hindsight. Its the same thing: Why don't people rise up against fascist or communist dictators? Because they root out and kill you if you do. Now just imagine you're a Nazi, you've got proof and you want to bring it to the German people. How in the ever living fuck do you do that without getting shot in the face? There's no photocopier. 'Why you in the dark room so much Hanz? Why are you making 50,000 copies of photos of our death camps?' *BANG* Is the result. I mean, its an interesting question to ask. How do you end up resisting this if you're a Nazi without being brutally tortured and murdered? Its even fucking worse if you're deep in the party. That's a den of fucking snakes. So how does your average Nazi do something? I just don't think they could, even if they wanted to. You need to mass disseminate what is probably state secrets, which is treason, so you'll be shot. You'll have to deliver them OUT of the camp and TO Berlin. You have to hope they're not intercepted on the way. Then what the fuck do you do? How many could you possibly make as proof before you're found out? 100 copies? 200? You going to fucking go to the press, which is directly controlled by the government? What's the guarantee ANYTHING gets done and people rise up? None. You can't make a video, nobody has a fucking projector. So this is the question I pose to 'PUNCHING NAZIS' people who think they are 'heroes':
If you're in the Nazi party, realize there is a machine of death going on all around you, how do you get people to do something about it without you or your family getting executed? And the answer is not 'something'. People don't risk their lives over 'something'. You are risking treason, torture and execution. So, what do you do?
And that's really why its hard to make a good 'sympathy' Nazi movie. I mean you could present it as the man slowly going insane as he's trapped in this bottle of death and despair, and he can't get it out to anybody, and even if he could, he wouldn't know how to get anyone to do anything about it. It'd be a miserable movie, because it'd probably end with the guy fucking shooting himself.
For the record, a GOOD Nazi hunting movie is Anthropoid. Its a plot by the British, Czech government in exile and the Czech resistance to kill the 3rd highest ranking Nazi. He was close to Adolf Hitler, assisted in his rise to power and was in charge of the final solution. It goes through the intricacies of how to assassinate someone (but not the moral qualms, lets be honest, anyone would put a bullet in this faggot. There's very little moral about it). What is moral is the consequences of such an action. The families of your compatriots you put in danger. The innocent lives you jeopardize when the Nazi's get riled up. Hell, the innocent lives you jeopardize when you try to pull the assassination. The abject fear of it all. It deals with not the moral act of killing him (because there's no argument, I mean the fucking guy was known as the Butcher of Prague), it deals with the consequences of such an action.
There's no torturing for information like some shitty 24 parody, its information gathering, infiltration, observation. You know, the real shit? Not 'tie octogenarian to chair and torture until he answers your questions'. I swear that's 90% of the Nazi killing in this fucking show.
You can do it pulpy, you can do it serious, you can do it based on real life, but you can't fucking do all 3 at the same time.
