Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, Inglourious Basterds, was informed in part by taking part in a seder at Philip Roth’s house. The Passover seder is a religious practice of remembrance commanded by none other than God in the Bible to commemorate God’s liberating the Hebrew people from Egypt in order that they could be free to be servants of God. With violence, liberated from violence.
In Inglourious Basterds, the extraordinary violence that characterizes Tarantino’s filmic art takes on a new meaning in the context of a real, historical moment — the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor, and Nobel prize-winning writer, has championed the importance of remembering — of remembering in order to prevent horrific crimes such as genocide from happening again.
Elie Wiesel and Quentin Tarantino on the Holocaust. In the same context? Discuss. What does remembering violence require? And to what end?
