Tarantino’s Two Apaches

Tarantino’s superb Inglourious Basterds mentions Apaches not once but twice…. Brad Pitt’s Southern hero Lt Aldo Raine, specialist in interesting ways of killing Nazis, is called “Aldo the Apache”.

Another Apache is “Winnetou”, whose name turns up on the forehead of a German soldier when they’re playing the cards-on-foreheads guess-the-identity game in the restaurant scene with Germans and disguised Brits. We are told “Winnetou” was an Apache, but the reference is obscure – unless you’re a bad film aficionado, as QT is, of course.

Here, M. Apache knows only what Wiki knows. Winnetou was the hero of a series of late nineteenth-century novels by Karl May, who died in 1912. Winnetou is a Mescalero Apache, allegedly, but the values are Christian, not Native American – Winnetou dies a convert.

There were a dozen awful films in the 1960s, starring Pierre Brice, a French Baron, as the hero. YouTube shows the acting as wooden, the shots conventional, the “evocative” music enthused over in the comments by sentimental contemporary Germans. It’s the kind of thing QT would know about, thought it’s surprising that – even with his eclectic interests – he should like such deadly stuff. Perhaps he doesn’t.

The 1944 restaurant scene refers to the novels, which remain popular today – Karl May is one of the best-selling German authors ever, unbelievably – but presumably QT would first have reached Winnetou the Apache through the films, and reached back to the stories.

The key irony is that the values of the Karl May novels were Christian and humanitarian. Wait until you see the end of the restaurant scene stand-off – straight out of Reservoir Dogs, with added testosterone. Or deleted testosterone, if you prefer.

Evan Davis, egotist

Evan Davis ran into trouble with Peter Mandelson on the Today programme on Wednesday morning (12 August), as M. Apache predicted he soon might do. Clever but arrogant Evan fired up every time PM tried to criticise opposition policies Evan seems to want a complete ban on cross-party criticism of any kind.

This led to Mandelson trying to explain to him that voters make a choice between parties, and that criticism is legitimate. “Politics is about a choice…”. Yes, Evan, and it’s called democracy.

PM tried three times to explain what the Chancellor had said in his budget speech about the longer-term future, but this was swamped by Evan’s interruptions. “If you stop interrupting me…” PM said, in reasonable tones that made Evan seem excitable.

Then Evan got incomprehensible. He told PM and us that the economy has a structural deficit of 6% of national income. Fair enough. Immediately after that he said that new debt meant there had to be a tightening “of point eight per cent of GDP”. From 6% to .8 per cent in a few seconds was a bit too much, even for M. Apache’s usually agile intelligence. What on earth was he talking about? There was more, and it went on for a while. Then PM came in with a slyly timed “Have you finished?” And proceeded to answer the question.

PM’s most telling point came earlier. We pointed out a few weeks ago (see June 25 below) that Evan’s reflexive tendencies – he comments on the answers he gets – would get him into trouble, and this time they duly did. PM was able, quite reasonably, to say: “You’re not interviewing yourself, you’re interviewing me”.

It was a killer point for anyone who has listened to Evan’s methods this year. For Evan Davis, the important person in the studio is Evan Davis. The real PM, or this PM, are adjuncts to his big knowledge of economics –in excess this time – and his big ego.

Come on, Evan: calm down, stop being full of yourself, and think of your audience.

Apache films prove M. Apache right all along….

Down at the Café Coup de Poing, M. Apache was flicking through that great newspaper Le Monde when he came across an article about a filmmaker called Bruno Petit, who has escaped from working on the Bourse to make a series of tv films called “Scalp”. These are proving very popular, since they satirise the illegal goings-on at…the Bourse.

Funny thing though: M. Bruno P. – no, not that Brüno, stupid – has called his company 7e Apache Films, which pleases M. Apache greatly.

Even better, he meets his friends at a restaurant called Le Coup de Feu, in the Bastille area.

(For a waiter, a “coup de feu” is a moment of sudden activity, after standing around a lot.)

Better still, Bruno Petit is described as having “également un autre visage, celui de quelqu’un d’agressif”. His aggressive other side extends to his being “carnassier”.

M. Apache looks forward to a little carnivorous eating alongside M. Petit at the Coup de feu someday soon!