Die Hard and the Germans

 

Last week Alan Rickman left us – he was one of my favourite actors ever. Because yes, I’m  the kind of people who prefer a charismatic villain than the always boring good guys. That is why I loved him as a Snape in the Harry Potter films, for example or as the perverted Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd. Last Friday I watched his first debut movie, which turned out to be the first of another famous saga, Die Hard.

Die Hard is an action film and not something I would have choose to watch before, to be honest. Although I have to say that despite its many clichés, I enjoyed it, specially because in the old days the action scenes were really filmed – no computers but flesh and hard floors. For example, poor Alan Rickman was really thrown no less than 20 meters down at the end of the film – which explains why his horror face seems so believable.

I’m sure many of you are familiarised with the plot, that narrates the adventures of John McLean, a NY cop that finds himself locked up in a luxurious skycraper taken by a band of thieves. We have here a young Bruce Willis.

Does his character’s surname – McLean – suggest some Scottish heritage?

The skycraper’s owner is no other than one Mr Takagi – he has the same surname than one of Japanese teachers. When I first saw the character I thought he would be one of the evil ones. Japan was at war with US and they paid for that as in most of US’ movies Japanese guys are crazy assholes – sorry for the word. Kill Bill could be an example.

But no, in Die Hard it gets clear from the very beginning that Mr Takagi is a powerless victim. His whole story is narrated in a few lines – child of Japanese immigrants in US that made himself through scholarships in different Californian universities. So he’s more American than Japanese in the end…

Then the thieves appear. An attractive Alan Rickman followed by a tribe of –mostly– super tall, blond, long-haired men. At the beginning I thought they were Russian. In American movies the bad guys are Japanese… or Russian… or Spaniards. However, when they started speaking I discovered they were… Germans. No less.

Now, I have to thank the scripwriter of this movie, who at least took the bothers to make his characters to speak real German – which always adds some veracity to the screen. They argue with each other in this language, and it’s wonderful to hear Alan Rickman giving them orders in German with his sharp voice. I say I feel grateful because – sadly – in many US movies they don’t really care about other languages apart from English. In The Reader, an adaptation of a novel that is set in Germany, there is one scene that struck me: the main character reading from an English book. Not that German people cannot read English – not at all, I’m jealous of all my German friends for their perfect English accents – but it was obvious that in that particular story at that particular moment the chacter should have been reading a book in his mother tongue. Not mentioning US films set in Ancient Greece where you can see their old manuscripts… in English as well. It completely blows up the great lie that cinema is.

Now, I was wondering, why are the thieves/criminals/terrorists in US movies always Asian or European? Why US does not have its own thieves – as we all have? Why do they feel this urgency of ‘importing’ the bad guys into his movies?

As a curiosity, in the German version of Die Hard the thieves are not German – of course not – but members of the IRA. Don’t you think that’s wonderful? Enemies always come from far, far away, so we don’t feel specially sad when Bruce Willis breaks their necks or throws them through the window of the 38th floor.

But the best thing is that the most German person in the movie is indeed… our Bruce Willis. Born in Germany from a German mother.

That’s how he defeated the super evil Hans Gruber/Alan Rickman?

 

 

 

 

Bawn Gorno! How not knowing Italian (or any other language) can kill you.

Bridget von Hammersmark: I know this is a silly question before I ask it, but can you Americans speak any other language besides English?

I start thinking that Tarantino has something with languages. After watching Inglorious Basterds for the third time I had came with two conclusions. It’s too violent. And not being at least bilingual in a Tarantino film… is not cool.

We’re in the Second World War, in the Nazi occupation in France. You might have thought that the characters are going to die because they are trapped in a shooting or they are tortured by the Gestapo. But not. Linguistic mistakes… that’s what really kills them.

Lieutenant Archie Hicox – played by the handsome Michael Fassbender. He’s a Scottish solider and critic of German films. He speaks a wonderful German but, like most of us – second language speakers – he’s not free from the curse of accent. A Gestapo official finds him immediately suspicious because he cannot identify from which part of German Hicox’s accent comes from… Hicox’s final mistake is to mark the number in the English – and not German – way. Again, something to remember for all language students… you also need to have some basic cultural knowledge to survive in a foreign country!

Lt. Aldo Raine: Well, I speak the most Italian, so I’ll be your escort. Donowitz speaks the second most, so he’ll be your Italian cameraman. Omar speaks third most, so he’ll be Donny’s assistant.

Pfc. Omar Ulmer: I don’t speak Italian.

Lt. Aldo Raine: Like I said, third best. Just keep your fuckin’ mouth shut. In fact, why don’t you start practicing, right now!

Lieutenat Aldo Raine, Sergeant Donowitz and Private First Class Omar Ulmer blow up their covers because – despite of what they say – they cannot speak a single convincing word in Italian. One of the funniest scenes in the film is when Aldo Raine – Brad Pitt – pronounces ‘Bon Giorno‘ in the stronges American accent possible…

The Dreyffus family – French Jews – die because they cannot understand English. If they had done so, they would have listened Colonel Landa’s wicked plan and – perhaps – could have escaped before being massacred by a bunch of Nazis.

Colonel Landa – the most disgusting Nazi in the film. His wickedness lies in the fact he seems able to speak all languages –  German, English, French, Italian… and I’m sure he also speaks Spanish or Chinese but he didn’t have the chance to show it in the film. Although – no worries – he also makes mistakes from time to time.

Col. Hans Landa: [giddy] Oooh, that’s a bingo! Is that the way you say it? “That’s a bingo?”

Lt. Aldo Raine: You just say “bingo.”

Col. Hans Landa: Bingo! How fun! But, I digress. Where were we?

Sargent Wilhem. A German soldier who speaks very good English. This buys him a couple of extra life minutes and a longest scene in the flim – compared with her fellow German soldiers. But because Tarantino is the director, he also had to die in a blood explosion, of course.

Master SGT. Wilhelm: Who are you? British, American? What?

Lt. Aldo Raine: We’re American! What’re you?

Master SGT. Wilhelm: I’m a German, you idiot!

Lt. Aldo Raine: You speak English pretty good for a German.

Master SGT. Wilhelm: I agree.

Has a foreign language ever saved your life?

Words like bullets in the Wild West

Dr. King Schultz: I wish to parlez with you.

Dicky Speck: Speak English.

Dr. King Schultz: Oh, I’m sorry, please forgive me. It is a second language.

You don’t need to speak perfect English to be cool. You just need a good eye for shooting, a carriage with a giant tooth on top and of course, Tarantino must write your dialogues. Do you know who I’m talking about?

Dr Schultz is my favourite character in the 2012 Tarantino film Django Unchained. One of the main reasons for this is the astonishing performance of his actor, Cristoph Waltz, who played the SS colonel Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds – did you watch it? I will make an article about it soon. I think Tarantino fell –understandably – in love with this actor, because he always gives him the best lines in his films – I suspect he made the German character of Dr Schultz just because he wanted to film Waltz again.

Dr Schultz comes from the land of Beethoven, beer – he introduces Django to it – and The Song of Nibelungs – that partially inspired The Lord of the Rings and also resembles Django’s real life. Somehow Dr Schultz ended up in the Wild West where he makes a living as a bounty hunter. What define this character is his love for killing people – although he focus only on the bad guys – and for language. Apart from German he can he can also speak French and English –the latter better than most of the characters in the film, who are mainly slave traders. You can tell from the beginning he likes playing with words as much as with guns. For example, when Dr Schultz and Django are trapped in Daughtrey –right after Dr Schultz killed the sheriff every single living soul in this little town is pointing their guns at them – Dr Schultz’s smart speech not only saves their lives but also makes them rich.

Language is not only Dr Schultz’s way of getting what he wants. Tarantino also uses it to introduce some comedy.

Dr. King Schultz: [aiming .45-70 rifle at fleeing Ellis Brittle] You sure that’s him?

Django: Yeah.

Dr. King Schultz: Positive?

Django: I don’t know.

Dr. King Schultz: You don’t know if you’re positive?

Django: I don’t know what ‘positive’ means.

Dr. King Schultz: It means you’re sure.

Django: Yes.

Dr. King Schultz: Yes, what?

Django: Yes, I’m sure that’s Ellis Brittle.

[Schultz shoots Brittle off his horse]

Django: I’m positive he dead.

Opposite to Dr Schutlz – who kills people but has a moral we can identify with, as he is against slavery – there is Calvin Candie. He is not just bad, but completely crazy. He enjoys violence – he uses his slaves to fight as if they were dogs and if they don’t satisfy him he feeds them to the dogs themselves. In order to appear sophisticated he pretends to speak French – and makes people call him ‘Monsieur Candie’. But this is a mere facade as Candie knows as much about French as about human empathy.

Dr. King Schultz: Anything else about Mr. Candie I should know about before I meet him?

Leonide Moguy: Yes, he is a bit of a francophile. Well, what civilized people aren’t? And he prefers ‘Monsieur Candie’ to ‘Mr Candie’.

Dr. King Schultz: Si c’est cela qu’il préfère.

[Whatever he prefers]

Leonide Moguy: He doesn’t speak French. Don’t speak French to him, it’ll embarrass him.

I will add that this is one of Leonardo Di Caprio’s best roles. From the very first minute he appeared on screen I wanted to take one of Dr Schutltz’s guns and put a bullet in his head – I am normally a very pacific person who would never kill a spider, even if it is very disgusting.

Language also saves Broomhilda, Django’s lover.

Dr. King Schultz: [in disbelief] Let me get this straight: Your slave wife speaks German and her name is Broomhilda von Schaft?

Django: Yep.

Raised by a German mistress, her knowledge of this language makes her a ‘home slave’ so she doesn’t have to work in the plantation. She is kept as a rarity by her owners. In the end, this unique characteristic is what allows Dr Schultz and Django to find her. It also gives Broomhilda a perfect opportunity to speak with Dr Schultz to plan her escape without anyone else understanding. Do you see? The more languages you know in this film the more chances you have of not turning into a blood bomb – seriously, have you noticed how people seem to explode in blood every time they get shot?

Maybe when you don’t learn a language as a native you become more aware of its complexity. It happens to me in English that I usually have to think about every word I write. In the end, the editing of my texts is more exhaustive and I feel they are closer to what I initially intended to express with them. On the other hand, in Spanish I’m usually way more relaxed – speaking my mother tongue is like wearing my old trainers, it’s so comfortable that I don’t bother about how they look anymore.

So next time you’re struggling with your second language, don’t focus on the accent or the – unavoidable – grammatical mistakes. Think about Dr Schultz and how he uses words as if they were bullets. Communicating in a different language in a different country can be challenging and a bit like going around the Wild West. So you don’t want your words to be necessarly perfect but quick. That’s important to survive.

Want to learn a bit of German today? Here you get one last scene from
Django where you can learn about the meaning of Auf Wiedersehen.

Auf Wiedersehen and see you next Tuesday!