Hans Landa | |
---|---|
Inglourious Basterds character | |
First appearance | Inglourious Basterds (2009) |
Created by | Quentin Tarantino |
Portrayed by | Christoph Waltz |
In-universe information | |
Nickname | The Jew Hunter (German; Der Judenjäger) |
Title | Standartenführer |
Occupation | Sicherheitsdienst member |
Affiliation | Austrian Nazi Party |
Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
Standartenführer Hans Landa is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds . He is portrayed by Austrian actor Christoph Waltz. [1] For his performance, Waltz received widespread acclaim and won numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.
Standartenführer (SS Colonel) Hans Landa is an Austrian SS officer assigned to the Sicherheitsdienst . He is nicknamed "the Jew Hunter" for his uncanny ability to locate Jews hiding throughout Occupied France. Egotistical and ambitious, Landa takes a great deal of pride in his fearsome reputation, lauding his nickname of "the Jew Hunter" and using it to compare himself to his boss Reinhard Heydrich, whom he describes as disliking the nickname the people of Prague bestowed upon him ("The Hangman"). [2] True to his reputation and nickname, he recognizes Shosanna living an undercover life as a cinema owner four years later, but spares her life again. [3]
When the tide of the war turns against the Nazis, he scoffs at it, alluding that his job is to find and capture people and the fact that they are Jews is of no consequence to him. [4] Besides speaking German, he is also fluent in at least French, English, and Italian. [5] Landa is intelligent, opportunistic, arrogant, ruthless, and relentless; but can also be circumspect, polite, and charming. [6] However, by the end of the film, he unreservedly switches sides to assist the Basterds in assassinating Hitler and a number of Nazi Party elite inside a movie theater. In return for his role in the plot, Landa demands full immunity for his war crimes and various other rewards and compensations. The surviving Basterds let him live, but carve a swastika into his forehead to ensure everyone will always know he was a Nazi.
In 2019, Tarantino appeared on the podcast Happy Sad Confused, where he discussed Landa's fate after the events of the film. Tarantino stated that Landa is recognized as a hero in the US and history books for his involvement in ending WWII and helping to kill Hitler, and that he subsequently settles on Nantucket Island, where he is roped in to solve a series of murders as an amateur master detective. [7]
Landa is based on Alois Brunner. [8] [9] Quentin Tarantino has said that Landa might be the greatest character he has ever written. He originally wanted Leonardo DiCaprio for the part. [10] Tarantino then decided to have the character played by a German actor. [11] The role ultimately went to the Austrian Christoph Waltz, who, according to Tarantino, "gave me my movie back", as he felt the movie could not be made without Landa as a character, but feared the part was "unplayable". [12]
When Waltz auditioned for the role, he had no prior correspondence with Tarantino or producer Lawrence Bender, and believed that the character of Hans Landa was being used during the audition process to cast other roles. Waltz stated that he was most impressed with the dialogue and the depth of the character. [13] [14]
Waltz has described Landa's character as one who has an understanding of how the world works, stating that the swastika means nothing to him. He adds that he is not driven by ideology, and that if anyone were to call Landa a Nazi, he would clarify that he was not, stating that just because he wears a Nazi uniform does not mean that he believes in the Nazi ideology. In describing the ending between the Basterds and Landa, he describes him as "realistic to the point of being inhuman", adding that he understands that the world is not just one thing at a time, and even though these things may contradict each other, they do not necessarily have to. [13]
...a character unlike any Nazi — indeed, anyone at all — I’ve seen in a movie: evil, sardonic, ironic, mannered, absurd.
Waltz received widespread critical acclaim for his role as Landa, and won the Best Actor Award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for his performance. Due to his role as Hans Landa, Waltz has received many offers from directors to play roles in their films, enough for him to describe the situation as "wild". [13]
Film editor Hunter Stephenson commented that international viewers, Americans more so, would be surprised by Waltz's talent in this role, adding that he tipped Waltz to be nominated an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. [13] Waltz was awarded several accolades for his performance, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Screen Actors Guild Award in the same category in January 2010. He also won the BAFTA [16] and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, becoming the first actor to win an Oscar for a performance in a Quentin Tarantino film.
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American filmmaker. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue often with profanity, and references to popular culture.
Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two converging plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's leadership at a Paris cinema—one through a British operation largely carried out by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt), and another by French Jewish cinema proprietor Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent) who seeks to avenge her murdered family. Both are faced against Hans Landa (Waltz), an SS colonel with a fearsome reputation for hunting Jews.
Christoph Waltz is an Austrian and German actor. Primarily active in the United States, he gained international recognition for his portrayal of villainous and supporting roles in English-language films. His accolades include two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Mélanie Laurent is a French actress and filmmaker. The recipient of two César Awards and a Lumières Award, she is an accomplished actress in the French film industry. Internationally, Laurent is best known for her roles in Inglourious Basterds (2009), Now You See Me (2013), Operation Finale (2018) and 6 Underground (2019).
Alexander Fehling is a German film and stage actor. He is best known for portraying Master Sgt. Wilhelm in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino World War II film Inglourious Basterds and Jonas Hollander in the Showtime original series Homeland as the boyfriend of Claire Danes's character Carrie Mathison.
Denis Ménochet is a French actor. Ménochet is known to international audiences for his role as Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer interrogated by the Nazis for harboring Jews in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. In 2023, he won the Goya Award for Best Actor for The Beasts. His performances in Custody, By the Grace of God and Peter von Kant, each saw him receive nominations for the César Award for Best Actor.
Omar Doom is an American actor, musician, and artist. Doom is best known to film audiences for his role as Private First Class Omar Ulmer in the 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, directed by Quentin Tarantino. His current musical project is an electronic / techno / EDM endeavor called STRAIGHT RAZOR.
The 8th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards were given on December 7, 2009.
The 13th Toronto Film Critics Association Awards, honoring the best in film for 2009, were given on December 16, 2009.
The 5th Austin Film Critics Association Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking for 2009, were announced on December 15, 2009.
The 75th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2009, were announced on 14 December 2009 and presented on 11 January 2010.
The 14th San Diego Film Critics Society Awards were announced on December 15, 2009.
The 6th St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards were announced on 15 December and awarded on December 21, 2009.
The 9th New York Film Critics Online Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2009, were given on 13 December 2009.
The 13th Online Film Critics Society Awards, honoring the best in film for 2009, were announced on 5 January 2010.
The winners of the 10th Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2009, were announced on January 11, 2010.
The 22nd Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, given by the CFCA on December 21, 2009, honored the best in film for 2009.
Quentin Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer who has directed ten films. He first began his career in the 1980s by directing and writing Love Birds In Bondage and writing, directing and starring in the black-and-white My Best Friend's Birthday, an amateur short film which was never officially released. He impersonated musician Elvis Presley in a small role in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1988), and briefly appeared in Eddie Presley (1992). As an independent filmmaker, he directed, wrote, and appeared in the violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992), which tells the story of six strangers brought together for a jewelry heist. Proving to be Tarantino's breakthrough film, it was named the greatest independent film of all time by Empire. Tarantino's screenplay for Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) was nominated for a Saturn Award. Also in 1993, he served as an executive producer for Killing Zoe and wrote two other films.
Django Unchained is a 2012 American revisionist Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson in supporting roles.
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