Quentin Tarantino will forever go down in history as one of the most brilliant creative minds to ever exist. Some of his most famous brainchildren include Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs. All of these are movies that not only marked their respective generations, they also played an enormous part reshaping the art of film-making as we know it. Tarantino’s movies are beloved to this day, by young and old people alike. Now regarded as true classics, this man’s art is remarkable and unparalleled.
One of his best movies if the masterpiece Inglourious Basterds. In true Tarantino fashion, it gave audiences the chance to relive the world of a Germany occupied France during World War II. It also gave us some of the most enticing dialogues and phenomenal characters in the history of cinema. Among them, Hans Landa stands out. It’s not a coincidence that Tarantino singled him out as the best character he’s ever written - Landa is evil to the core, but he is also a genius, and the kind of villain we hate, but the sort of character we admire. Phenomenally portrayed by season actor Christoph Waltz, it made the movie something it couldn’t be without him. In light of this, let’s explore Tarantino’s mind-blowing dialogue with Landa’s top 10 menacing quotes.
“Au revoir, Shoshanna!”
Once Landa is finished slaughtering Shoshanna’s entire family, he realizes she somehow managed to escape. He makes one final attempt at ending her life, but she is simply too far for him to be able to shoot her down. Years later, we find Shoshanna again, living a new life, under a new name, still haunted by the horror she endured.
Hans Landa being the threatening force that he is, he screams his goodbyes to Shoshanna. Even though we’re still at the very beginning of the movie, we’ve already realized Landa’s menacing nature. His “au revoir” isn’t s simple farewell, and it’s laced with the venomous promise that he will find her someday, and finished what he started.
“A detective. A damn good detective. Finding people is my specialty so naturally, I work for the Nazis finding people.”
Once Landa is put face to face with Brad Pitt’s character, Aldo “The Apache” Raine, the latter calls him by his nickname. Landa is very aptly named as “the Jew hunter,” due to his efforts of hunting down Jewish people who were running and hiding away from the Nazis’ rule. Of course, as we all know, finding them isn’t all he did.
Landa seems almost offended by this, and tells Aldo he’s a detective, and that because he’s such a good one, he’s employed by the greatest power in the world. This could be comedic if it weren’t so sad. Hans makes it sound almost like a noble profession when in reality, he dedicates his life to slaughtering innocent people and being part of a regime that’s killed millions.
“I mean, you’re a little fellow, but not circus-midget little, as your reputation would suggest.”
Inglourious Basterds is pretty strong on nicknames, that much we’ve established. It adds to the whole war/secret plans/secret societies environment. It also paves the way for some very ironic comments on the part of Hans Landa, especially when he meets Aldo and Smithson Utivich, one of the members of the Basterds.
Even though Utivich was unaware of this, the Germans’ nickname for him is “the little man.” He’s a little overthrown by this because let’s face it, it’s not exactly badass. It’s just plain hilarious, and Landa knows this, wasting no time in taking a jab at Utivich with this quote. Hans is the sort of people who’s an expert in insulting others under the false pretense of a compliment - and this is a perfect example.
“Gorla… lomi? Say it for me once please?”
The entire world - and especially Italy - cringed all the way to the depths of Hell when Brad Pitt’s Aldo tried to speak Italian in front of Hans Landa who is a linguistic genius. One of the strongest traits of Waltz’s character is, undoubtedly, his ability to switch from one language to the other like it’s nothing and speak it as though he was born doing it.
This is the moment we know Landa is completely on to Bridget and the Basterds. Once again, he managed to turn the situation humorous by repeatedly asking Aldo to say his name. We know, they know, everyone knows that Aldo isn’t an Italian at this point. But leave it to Hans to twist the knife as deep as he can before he makes his final move - you can almost hear the threat every time he repeats the request.
“I love rumors! Facts can be so misleading, where rumors, true or false, are often revealing.”
Landa’s first appearance onscreen probably gave us the greatest amount of menacing quotes we could hope for. The entire interaction, up until the moment he says goodbye to Shoshanna, paints a perfect picture of who Hans Landa is, and what we should be expecting from him throughout the movie.
When he’s asking Monsieur LaPadite what he knows about the Jewish family that he is harboring (which Landa obviously knows about), LaPadite tells him he’s only heard rumors. Hans immediately answers with this quote, and from the way he says it, and from the look in his eye (major kudos to Christoph Waltz on his performance) we automatically know something very sinister is going on, and it will not end well. Our instincts were 100% correct.
“So, gentlemen, let’s discuss the prospect of ending the war tonight.”
Hans may be working for the Nazis, but this man is nothing if not a self-serving, selfish, evil human being who will shift his loyalties according to what is most convenient for him at the time. Once he becomes aware of what’s about to go down in the movie theatre, and he realizes there’s not much he can do about it, he sets a plan in motion.
Faced with Aldo, he promptly lets him know that he has no intention of letting the four main members of the Nazi government die. However, he is very aware that it will happen regardless but positions himself as though he has options, so that, in the end, a sweet deal can be made with the Allies. He very nonchalantly opens a bottle of champagne and suggests to Aldo and Utivich that they discuss the possibility of ending World War II.
“I did have something else I wanted to ask you, but right now, for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is. Oh, well, must not have been important. Till tonight.”
It was a heart-wrenching moment for all of us when Shoshanna was faced once again with the man that was responsible for the brutal slaughtering of her entire family years ago. The same man who so ominously told her goodbye, and that she hoped she would never have to see again.
Throughout the whole movie, we are questioning whether or not Hans knew who she was. Sometimes it was obvious, but other times we were not so sure. However, this was the moment that seemed to end all doubts on the matter, and it ended with Shoshanna in tears of emotion. Hans words are usually laced with a threat, and this one is perhaps the biggest concealed threat of them all - I know who you are, it’s almost what it feels like he’s saying.
“Could you please reach into the right pocket of my coat and give me what you find in there?”
A German actress working for British intelligence during the Second World War? Yes, we were all here for it. This partnership gave us some amazing showdowns between all of our favorite characters, and, of course, Bridget had to eventually meet her demise because, well, this is a Tarantino movie. When it comes to the death toll, Game of Thrones doesn’t even come close.
After the ugly shooting in the small town in France, only a handful of the good guys survive, including Bridget. However, she loses a shoe in the process, a shoe that Landa happens to find. Being the cunning, intelligent man that he is, he puts two and two together and knows she’s working for the enemy. When he kindly asks her to reach into his pocket, we all know what’s coming - and it sends shivers down our spine. All because of a shoe.
“Monsieur LaPadite, to both your family and your cows I say: Bravo.”
It’s hard to forget the moments that precede the shooting of Monsieur LaPadite’s floor. Tarantino does a beautiful job with the threatening soundtrack, that increases in intensity as Hans Landa begins speaking in French once again, leading the entire Jewish family that is hiding under the floor to think the danger is past, and everything will be okay.
Up until this point, they had been chatting in English, a language the family doesn’t understand. As such, they don’t understand when LaPadite confesses everything to Landa in tears. Hans promptly gets up and returns to French, and, while seemingly saying his goodbyes to the owner of the house, gives orders for the family to be shoot. It was an incredibly executed scene, and the way everything transpired - the deception, the music, the acting - made it even better.
“If one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with a beast, it would be that of the rat.”
As we mentioned before, the movie doesn’t give us any room whatsoever to doubt the nature of Landa’s character. As much as he states otherwise towards the end, Hans is a hateful creature, who works for a hateful regime. He’s done despicable things in the name of the Nazis, and he doesn’t lose a minute of sleep over any of them.
So it’s clear from the very beginning what his opinions on Jewish people are. While he compares Germans to hawks, he compares Jews to rats, in one of the most disturbing pieces of dialogue in the entire film. And for a movie like Inglourious Basterds, a Tarantino movie, that’s saying quite a lot.
