The Playlist author[s] have come up with some reasonably on-target casting suggestions for Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglorious Bastards. Except for one that’s sounding less and less right plus one flat-out wrongo. They also contain one amazing suggestion, which is Werner Herzog playing Adolf Hitler. A master stroke, genius, stuff of instant legend…especially if Herzog plays Hitler with his own voice and manner and doesn’t try to be Bruno Ganz in Downfall.

Potentially the most audacious casting all of the 21st Century.

As I wrote a few days ago, I’m starting to think that Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine is a mistake. As a sage HE reader-whose-name-I’ve-forgotten pointed out, Pitt needs to play Landa, the German Colonel “Jew Hunter.” Aldo has a strong presence in the first act, but then becomes a secondary character, and Landa is the best part in the script, hands down. How hard will it be to learn to say 40 or 50 lines in convincing German? Even if Pitt can’t do it well enough to fool German-speaking natives, who cares? This is a “movie” that cares nothing for genuine realism.
The others with comments:
3. Marion Cotillard as Shosanna Dreyfus / HE comment: perfect. 4. Isaach De Bankole as Marcel, the black projectionist / HE comment: Samuel L. Jackson instread. 5. Michael Madsen as Sgt. Donny Donowitz, a.k.a. “The Bear Jew” / HE comment: Perfect casting if this was 1987, but Madsen will be 50 in September, and he’s had some very strange facial work done besides. I like Madsen as much as the next guy, but the Jews in the platoon have to at least be in their 30s…no? 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Alexandra Maria Lara as Bridget Von Hammersmark, John Hawkes as Pvt. Hirschberg, August Diehl as Frederick Zoller, Catherine Deneuve as Madame Mirieux, Tim Roth as Lt. Archie Hicox, Julie Delpy or Audrey Tatou as Francesca/ HE comment: all fine.