Inglorious Basterds and Miracle at St Anna.

Inglorious Basterds:

Key Cast: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Michael Fassbender.
Director: Quentin Tarantino.
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Genre: War Drama
Themes: Violence, death, revenge.
Release: August 2009
Budget: $75,000,000

Miracle at St.Anna

Key Cast:Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller

Director: Spike Lee

Writer: James McBride

Genre: War Drama

Themes: Violence, Survival, revenge.

Release: September 2008

Budget: $45,000,000

Key Scenes:

In Inglorious Basterds the opening scene is important. the opening scene introduces the character, Hans Landa. This is important as it shows the intentions of the character. Hans goes into a house where he suspects a Jewish family is hiding and he is right. He manages to get the information out of the home owner and then finds where he is hiding the family. Brutally, he orders them to be shot through the floor boards but only one escapes. This is an important scene as it shows to the audience that when they see his character later on in the film they know it is not going to be good. Straight away the film starts with a brutal killing which means the audience knows what to expect from the rest of the film.

In Miracle at St.Anna the opening is also very important to the plot of the film. the scene shows a man working behind a counter when he is approached by a man. He then pulls out a gun and shots him blank in the chest, killing him. This is an important scene because the audience is un aware of what happened in order to make him kill a seemingly innocent man. This sets up the rest of the film as the audience wants to find out why he killed him. The opening scene grabs the audiences attention.

Micro-features:

An important micro-feature in both Inglorious Basterds and Miracle at St.Anna is cinematography. In both of the films they use close ups to show the gory details in the film. For example in at the end of Inglorious Basterds, they show close ups of the soldiers getting scalped and at they end they show Hans getting the nazi symbol engraved into his head. In Miracle at St.Anna, towards the end of the film, they show close ups of the people that have been shot and killed. They show close ups of people getting shot and falling to the ground. The close up in the films are used to show the brutality and violence within the war. By using close ups the audience really feel as if they are there with the characters and experiencing everything that is going on.

Mise-en-scene is also important in both of the films. In Inglorious Basterds the film is set in France. The film focuses on the war from behind the scenes. For example instead of the the actual fighting in the war, it focused on all the secret missions to bring down Hitler. This mise-en-scene is important because it shows in the film that people still continued to try and carry a normal life, for example going to the cinema or a restaurant, even when they know that there are soldiers walking around town killing people. The film is not set in a war zone but it shows that it doesn't mean that no one is getting killed. The mise-en-scene shows the different side to the war.

In Miracle at St.Anna the location of the film is set right in the middle of a war zone. Mise-en-scene is important in this film because it shows what condition the soldiers had to face. Although the film is not always shown to be in the middle of a war zone (location: a small town), the soldiers were still in danger because they were near/in enemy lines. The mise-en-scene showed that the soldiers were not safe any where they went.

Both of the films opening scenes start of aggressive or unpredictable meaning that it attracts the audience. By starting the film with a big statement, for example a murder, sets up the whole film as the audience want to find out why this is happening. Both of the films opening scenes are pretty similar as they start of with an aggressive murder and the films have a strong theme of violence because they are war films. The differences in the two films are that one shows it from the perspective of soldiers in the war zone and the other shows soldiers trying to bring down Hitler directly. The films are very similar as they are both shown through the soldiers and that they don't have a main protagonist but instead multiple protagonists.