Stolz der Nation (in English Nation's Pride) is a film-in-film in Inglourious Basterds. The film tells the tale of sniper Frederick Zoller, who is seen as a hero by the Nazi administration.
Plot[]
A young German soldier is holding off a large battalion of Allied soldiers from a church tower in a fortified city in Sicily. He manages to kill 250 enemy soldiers, before they give up on the city.
Trivia[]
- The mock up posters for the propaganda film "Stolz der Nation" are historically accurate including a German censor approval stamp and they are rendered in the style of the actual film posters of that era, according to the book 'Film Posters of the Third Reich'.
- In the film, Nation's Pride was directed by Alois von Eichberg, who is played by director Eli Roth. However, he only appears in the behind the scenes sketch.
- Set in "Sicily", Nation's Pride was shot on Untermarkt and Obermarkt in the old town of Görlitz, about 64 km N-E of Bad Schandau, on the border with Poland.[1][2]
- Similarity between the movie and the movie-within-the-movie: Both have foreign language dialogs displayed as translated subtitles. In case of the movie-within-the-movie (Nation's Pride), this is seen when Pvt Fredrick Zoller's character speaks in English (subtitles displayed in German on the Cinema's screen) just before Shosanna Dreyfus overrides the movie with her message.
- The scenes where an "American" soldier is shot in the eye and screams and the baby carriage in the middle of a firefight, are homages to Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin.
- In one scene, a swastika made "accidentally" by American bullet fire appears briefly on the tower.
- Zoller also carves a swastika on the floor with his knife.
- Just like in the case of the main film, there are two versions of Nation's Pride, one with hardcoded subtitles, and another without subtitles.
- Although in Inglourious Basterds the film is described as requiring at least four reels, which would imply a running time of at least 44-48 minutes, the film is actually 6 minutes and 11 seconds long, 4 minutes and 56 seconds without the opening credits.
- When the German soldiers are watching the film, "Nation's Pride" in the cinema, a Wilhelm scream can be heard within the film as a sound effect. This sound effect wasn't recorded and used until the 1953 film, "The Charge at Feather River" which was released 9 years after the 'release' of "Nation's Pride", meaning it would have not existed yet.
Notable quotes[]
- Over zeh wall!
- Death count: 47 [Aargh!] 48
- Za tower! Za tower!
- Mio bambino, mio bambino!
- Du feiges Amerikaner Schwein... dafür wirst du zahlen! (You cowardly American pig... you're gonna pay for this!)
- Colonel, I implore you, we must destroy that tower!
- Sarge, that tower is one of the oldest and most treasured of all the historically important structures still standing in Italy. And I'm not gonna be the son of a bitch responsible for... turning 1000 years... of history into DUST! The tower STANDS!
- Hello! Hitler? I want to surrender!
- Who wants to send a message to Germany?
Behind the scenes[]
Eli Roth directed the film-within-the-film, "Nation's Pride". Quentin Tarantino asked Roth to direct the short, and Roth requested his brother Gabriel Roth join him to direct behind a second camera, which Tarantino agreed to. In two days the brothers got 130 camera setups, and Tarantino was so pleased he gave Roth a third day that he was originally planning to shoot with actor Daniel Brühl. Roth got 50 more setups the third day, much to Tarantino's delight. The total running time of the short is 5:30, and was always intended to feel like pieces of a longer film, not a coherent short.