Spoiler Alert! If you have not seen this movie yet, you may want to refrain from reading any further. Plot elements will be revealed.
Inglourious Basterds is a Quentin Tarantino film set in Nazi-occupied France during WWII. The movie weaves together the story (one surely not found in history books) of two different schemes to assassinate top Nazi leadership. The movie is incredibly suspenseful, and, in hindsight, I realized that concepts from game theory created much of the film’s suspense. I could give a million examples of game theory from the film, but have chosen three key ideas.
1) Reputation and the Credibility of Threats
Acquiring a reputation is an effective way of making threats or promises credible. One’s reputation can influence behavior in either a repeated game with the same players, or in different games played with different players (assuming opponents are aware of your previous actions).
Reputation is used effectively by two main entities in Inglourious Basterds: 1) Colonel Hans Landa, a German SS officer known as the “Jew Hunter”, and 2) the Inglourious Basterds, a group of eight Jewish-American soldiers whose mission is to savagely kill as many Nazis as possible. In the opening scene of the movie, Landa admits “I…love my unofficial title [as the “Jew Hunter”] precisely because I’ve earned it.”
Both Landa and the Basterds go to great lengths to make their brutality known. For instance, they each use vile killing tactics, making sure there is someone present at the killings who can spread the word about what happened. The Basterds, for instance, scalp their victims, carve swastikas on their foreheads, and even have a member known as the “Bear Jew” who specializes in beating the German soldiers’ brains out with a baseball bat. The Basterds periodically leave one victim alive who can go back to the German army and add tales to the group’s folklore.
Landa and the Basterds each understand the value of their reputation. When entering a game situation with a new player, both Landa and the Basterds open the conversation by forcing their opponent to acknowledge their brutish reputation. Some version of the question “what have you heard” is used repeatedly throughout the movie.
Here are two examples of how Landa and the Basterds use reputation to influence behavior:
2) Who do you trust?
* Why in the world did Zoller trust Shosanna enough to enter the projector room? Obviously Zoller thought he was going to hook up. However, there is no way a rational person would really believe Shosanna was interested in hooking up with him. She had been completely rude to Zoller the whole movie. I assert that there was some major confirmation bias at work here. Zoller heard what he wanted to hear when Shosanna unenthusiastically invited him in the room. He never considered that he might be in danger.
* Shosanna was no less erroneous in her decision to trust in this scene. Why would she approach a moaning war hero that she had just shot? She trusted that - because Zoller was in love with her and dying - he would do her no harm. To her demise, Shosanna was guilty of the illusion of personal invulnerability.
* Lastly, I think both Shosanna and Zoller were guilty of bringing an implicit theory into their decisions to trust. Both were extremely attractive individuals. I think the bias here was that attractive people are automatically more trustworthy. Zoller throughout the movie – and Shosanna at the very end – automatically granted trust based on looks alone.
3) Changing the Game
A key theme of the Strategic Decision Analysis class has been to identify games and their features, and then, if possible, look for ways to change the game to your advantage.
In the closing scenes of the movie, Landa appears to have come out on top. He has given up the Nazis and made a deal with the Americans (a deal that includes a Congressional Medal of Honor and property on Nantucket Island).
However, as Lt. Raine (Brad Pitt) is dropping Landa off at the American lines, he suddenly finds a way to change the game. Raine knows he will probably be reprimanded fiercely if he kills Landa. However, he also can’t stand the idea of a Nazi like Landa living a plush life on Nantucket Island, with no one knowing the heinous crimes that Landa has committed.
Therefore, Raine decides to change the game by carving a swastika in Landa’s forehead. That way, even if Landa takes off his uniform, he will still be identifiable as a Nazi for the rest of his life. Raine has abided by all the rules of the game, but still managed to change it to his advantage. Bravo.
Inglourious Basterds is a Quentin Tarantino film set in Nazi-occupied France during WWII. The movie weaves together the story (one surely not found in history books) of two different schemes to assassinate top Nazi leadership. The movie is incredibly suspenseful, and, in hindsight, I realized that concepts from game theory created much of the film’s suspense. I could give a million examples of game theory from the film, but have chosen three key ideas.
1) Reputation and the Credibility of Threats
Acquiring a reputation is an effective way of making threats or promises credible. One’s reputation can influence behavior in either a repeated game with the same players, or in different games played with different players (assuming opponents are aware of your previous actions).
Reputation is used effectively by two main entities in Inglourious Basterds: 1) Colonel Hans Landa, a German SS officer known as the “Jew Hunter”, and 2) the Inglourious Basterds, a group of eight Jewish-American soldiers whose mission is to savagely kill as many Nazis as possible. In the opening scene of the movie, Landa admits “I…love my unofficial title [as the “Jew Hunter”] precisely because I’ve earned it.”
Both Landa and the Basterds go to great lengths to make their brutality known. For instance, they each use vile killing tactics, making sure there is someone present at the killings who can spread the word about what happened. The Basterds, for instance, scalp their victims, carve swastikas on their foreheads, and even have a member known as the “Bear Jew” who specializes in beating the German soldiers’ brains out with a baseball bat. The Basterds periodically leave one victim alive who can go back to the German army and add tales to the group’s folklore.
Landa and the Basterds each understand the value of their reputation. When entering a game situation with a new player, both Landa and the Basterds open the conversation by forcing their opponent to acknowledge their brutish reputation. Some version of the question “what have you heard” is used repeatedly throughout the movie.
Here are two examples of how Landa and the Basterds use reputation to influence behavior:
* Landa: In the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds, Landa interrogates Perrier LaPadite, a French dairy farmer who Landa believes is hiding a Jewish family in his home. LaPadite – who is indeed harboring a Jewish family of five – has previously had his home searched by the SS and was not found out. However, the “Jew Hunter” uses his reputation to convince LaPadite that he will be successful in finding the Jewish family, where the other search party was unsuccessful. Landa assures LaPadite that if he points out the family’s hiding place to Landa, then the SS will leave the LaPadite family alone. Otherwise, if LaPadite does not reveal the hiding space and Landa still finds the family, then LaPadite’s daughters will be harmed. Essentially, Landa uses his reputation so that LaPadite assigns a probability of 100% that Landa will find the family. Thus, LaPadite is forced to reveal the Jewish family in order to protect his own family.
* Basterds: In Chapter Two of the film, we see Lt. Raine (Brad Pitt) of the Basterds interrogate two captured members of the German army to try to obtain information about the whereabouts of other German forces. Although he acknowledges his knowledge of the Basterds reputation for violence, the first German soldier refuses to reveal information that would put German lives in danger. He subsequently gets his brains beat in with a baseball bat by the “Bear Jew.” The first German soldier obviously valued the good of the German army over his own life. The second captured German soldier, after hearing the Basterds reputation AND seeing the fate of the first soldier, quickly reveals the army’s whereabouts upon his interrogation. By acting quickly and violently with the first solder – and thus authenticating their violent reputation – the Basterds were able to influence the second soldier’s behavior.
2) Who do you trust?
In his article “Rethinking Trust,” Roderick M. Kramer asserts that humans are social beings who are inherentl
y wired to trust others. Kramer identifies some of the elements involved in the psychology of our decision making to trust. For example, confirmation bias is the tendency to skew our judgment to see what we want to see. Implicit theories involve how we use stereotypes to relate observable cues to underlying psychological traits. Lastly, the illusion of personal invulnerability demonstrates how – even if we acknowledge that certain risks exist – we believe that we are unlikely to experience misfortune.
The element of trust is exploited in Chapter 5 of Inglourious Basterds, “Revenge of the Giant Face.” The plot by Shosanna Dreyfus to burn down the Nazi-filled theater is well under way. Shosanna is busy carrying out her plan when she is interrupted by Frederick Zoller (a German war-hero who is smitten with Shosanna but who has repeatedly been rejected by the girl). Shosanna tries to shoo Zoller away; however, he gets angry, refuses to leave, and forcefully tells Shosanna to stop disrespecting him. Shosanna, realizing he won’t leave, exploits his infatuation with her. She tells Zoller to come into the room and lock the door, vaguely hinting that they will subsequently hook up. As he comes in, Shosanna shoots Zoller for dead with her hidden pistol. Shosanna then apparently starts to feel pity, and approaches the dying Zoller. Zoller turns over and – much to her surprise – shoots Shosanna dead with his dying breaths.
Some thoughts about trust in this brutal scene:
y wired to trust others. Kramer identifies some of the elements involved in the psychology of our decision making to trust. For example, confirmation bias is the tendency to skew our judgment to see what we want to see. Implicit theories involve how we use stereotypes to relate observable cues to underlying psychological traits. Lastly, the illusion of personal invulnerability demonstrates how – even if we acknowledge that certain risks exist – we believe that we are unlikely to experience misfortune.The element of trust is exploited in Chapter 5 of Inglourious Basterds, “Revenge of the Giant Face.” The plot by Shosanna Dreyfus to burn down the Nazi-filled theater is well under way. Shosanna is busy carrying out her plan when she is interrupted by Frederick Zoller (a German war-hero who is smitten with Shosanna but who has repeatedly been rejected by the girl). Shosanna tries to shoo Zoller away; however, he gets angry, refuses to leave, and forcefully tells Shosanna to stop disrespecting him. Shosanna, realizing he won’t leave, exploits his infatuation with her. She tells Zoller to come into the room and lock the door, vaguely hinting that they will subsequently hook up. As he comes in, Shosanna shoots Zoller for dead with her hidden pistol. Shosanna then apparently starts to feel pity, and approaches the dying Zoller. Zoller turns over and – much to her surprise – shoots Shosanna dead with his dying breaths.
Some thoughts about trust in this brutal scene:
* Why in the world did Zoller trust Shosanna enough to enter the projector room? Obviously Zoller thought he was going to hook up. However, there is no way a rational person would really believe Shosanna was interested in hooking up with him. She had been completely rude to Zoller the whole movie. I assert that there was some major confirmation bias at work here. Zoller heard what he wanted to hear when Shosanna unenthusiastically invited him in the room. He never considered that he might be in danger.
* Shosanna was no less erroneous in her decision to trust in this scene. Why would she approach a moaning war hero that she had just shot? She trusted that - because Zoller was in love with her and dying - he would do her no harm. To her demise, Shosanna was guilty of the illusion of personal invulnerability.
* Lastly, I think both Shosanna and Zoller were guilty of bringing an implicit theory into their decisions to trust. Both were extremely attractive individuals. I think the bias here was that attractive people are automatically more trustworthy. Zoller throughout the movie – and Shosanna at the very end – automatically granted trust based on looks alone.
All in all, Tarantino brillently exploits the psychology of trust in this violent scene.
3) Changing the Game
A key theme of the Strategic Decision Analysis class has been to identify games and their features, and then, if possible, look for ways to change the game to your advantage.
In the closing scenes of the movie, Landa appears to have come out on top. He has given up the Nazis and made a deal with the Americans (a deal that includes a Congressional Medal of Honor and property on Nantucket Island).
However, as Lt. Raine (Brad Pitt) is dropping Landa off at the American lines, he suddenly finds a way to change the game. Raine knows he will probably be reprimanded fiercely if he kills Landa. However, he also can’t stand the idea of a Nazi like Landa living a plush life on Nantucket Island, with no one knowing the heinous crimes that Landa has committed.
Therefore, Raine decides to change the game by carving a swastika in Landa’s forehead. That way, even if Landa takes off his uniform, he will still be identifiable as a Nazi for the rest of his life. Raine has abided by all the rules of the game, but still managed to change it to his advantage. Bravo.
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