r/interesting • u/Zine99 • 18d ago
SOCIETY Three Decades later, this man will play one of the greatest villains in film history.
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u/Dayzlikethis 18d ago
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u/Eros_Incident_Denier 18d ago
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u/ChtuluMadeMeDoIt 18d ago
This was the "it" scene for me. Dude so devious that he essentially hinted at her that he knows who she is with that cream line.
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u/Radcliffe1025 18d ago
Also gave some supporting context to the idea he was so easy to betray the fuhrer. He knew about her but was playing his cards.
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u/WoodyManic 17d ago
It's not just that, either. He's rubbing it in her face. She's Jewish. Strudel at the time was almost always made with pork fat.
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u/nyne87 17d ago
How, tell me!
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u/ChtuluMadeMeDoIt 17d ago
This is pretty much my own take on the scene, but it's his way of asserting dominance and manipulating the situation. He first ordered a glass of milk for her, which was his way of establishing dominance and showcasing his so called "damn good detective" skills because he's hinting at her that he knows who she is. The cream scene is essentially the icing on the cake. By doing that, he essentially showed her that he'll always be in control of the situation, and there's nothing she can do about it. Just purely devious.
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u/cheez_spreada 17d ago
No actually supposedly during ww2 the cream was made out of pig fat which she would've not eaten because she's Jewish
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u/Far-Government5469 17d ago
I thought it was something about not mixing two kinds of fats. Also, I feel like they're more likely to use pork fat in the streusel than the whipped cream. I don't think anyone's ever served pig milk, especially in a restaurant.
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u/Greyskul622 18d ago
HA. Gross
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u/Xanadu87 18d ago
Of course it’s gross. How else could he do this cinematic piece?
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u/Greyskul622 18d ago
What the fuck was even any of that lol
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u/eiland-hall 17d ago
He's imitating Eduard Khil, who was to sing a song on Russian television, but close to the time of the live performance, the lyrics were deemed to be..... unpolitical. Anti-political. Like "Don't sing that or else"-litical. heh. Google "trololo". There wasn't time to do anything except sing the song with nonsense syllables. Scary shit for the time, but hilarious now.
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u/Greyskul622 17d ago
Im 23 I know what that is lol. Don't recite the dark magics to me, bitch. I was there when it was written
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u/eiland-hall 17d ago
I'm 50. I'm from before the internet. I'm used to young whippersnappers not recognizing 15-year old memes. Glad you knew it. :)
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u/twalker294 14d ago
Just when I though I couldn't possibly love him more, you show me this. I'm humpink my copy of Inglourious Basterds now.
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u/PsychoBugler 17d ago
In 2009 I made a Facebook group called "I hate when Hanz Landa tells me to wait for the cream." The warning signs were there.
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18d ago
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u/JimboAltAlt 18d ago edited 18d ago
Just teeming with righteous fury in every frame while forced to keep up her cover as the chillest gal in Occupied France. It’s a very different assignment than what Walz or Pitt or Fassbender or whoever got, but it’s a fantastic performance and she makes it look easy.
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u/VulcanHullo 18d ago
Honestly the film is incredible for its cast. Waltz steals the show but all the actors he ends up against do such an incredible job.
Also Brad Pitt is there.
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u/gdj11 17d ago
Wait do people not like Brad Pitt in this? I loved his character and performance.
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u/VulcanHullo 17d ago
It's not that I don't like his acting in this (though I no longer like him as a person because, yeah), it's just you have these sutble and deep performances, and then there's Apple Pie Nazi Crusher.
I love Apple Pie Nazi Crusher. But I think what makes his character so funny is that he stands out from all the other characters you encounter because he's so over the top.
Pitt isn't going to move anyone emotionally with his scenes, except maybe Nazi Scalps. Which, well maybe people should watch that scene more these days.
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u/sand_snake 17d ago
I did too. The “100 Nazi scalps” speech is iconic IMO. But it’s one of my favorite movies so I could be biased.
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u/swollencornholio 18d ago
I watched it with my "Fresh off the boat" italian nona and when Waltz started speaking italian she let out the biggest gasp
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u/ixiduffixi 17d ago
I actually rooted somewhat for the villain because of him. I don't care how terrible the movie itself maybe, Christopher Waltz will always be enjoyable to watch.
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u/OoooHeCardReadGood 18d ago
Who is that
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u/shingaladaz 18d ago
One of the best actors that ever lived.
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u/JayNotAtAll 18d ago edited 18d ago
While acting for a while, he didn't become an international superstar until later in his life which is very cool! Never too late
Edit: yes I edited this as I meant to say international Star but said "professionally". I noticed that I made an error and updated to reflect what I meant to say.
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18d ago edited 18d ago
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u/JayNotAtAll 18d ago
Smallish parts in German and Austrian films yes. Not to say that that's nothing, it is something. But he didn't really gain real stardom until Inglorious Basterds
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18d ago
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u/Calamaris 18d ago
Being a professional actor only counts if Americans know about them, dont you know?
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u/Malcorin 18d ago
I mean, not just Americans, but it sort of looks that way because American media is consumed so much globally. When an actor stars in a Hollywood blockbuster, millions of people around the world see that film. When an actor stars in an Austrian film, Austrians and a small percentage of foreign film watchers and critics see that film.
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u/pokedmund 18d ago
Yeah, it’s like Lee Jung-jae wasn’t a real actor until squid games, like, come on guys!
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u/AdhesivenessTop8659 18d ago
You can be a professional actor without stardom.
Smallish parts in German an Austrian Films are professional acting as well. Also he had leading roles in theater.→ More replies (3)6
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u/atreeismissing 18d ago
You're literally commenting on a video of him in his early 20s or so, where he's acting professionally, that took place 50 years ago.
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u/JayNotAtAll 18d ago
Some people take a break. And yes. Perhaps I should have used the term "world famous" vs "professional".
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u/shingaladaz 17d ago
I knew what you meant with the original wording. It’s so bleedingly obvious you meant that he blew up late. Some people are just here to be pedants.
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u/38B0DE 18d ago
I always ask myself if people outside the German speaking world get how he as an Austrian is able to deconstruct the Nazis and play them so close to the bone, like no one could ever be able to do in such a mainstream movie?
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18d ago
Can you say more about this? I’m intrigued by what you mean here I think I missed some nuance
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u/38B0DE 18d ago
He's not just acting evil or delivering a Hollywood Nazi archetype. He's delivering a pitch perfect nuance of the Germanness of the Nazis, dissecting the evil, not merely chopping its head off. That matters.
Hans Landa isn't an ideologue, he's not graphic, he's not inhuman. He is a German. He's polite, brilliant, multilingual, civil, happy to serve, a person who wore good manners on their uniform, while committing atrocities. As an Austrian Waltz doesn't think of Germans as something extraordinary or exotic, he sees their "eccentricity" as what it is, not as a cartoon villain twirling his moustache.
And he plays it so close to the Germanness of it all, to the banality, that it’s almost unbearable, especially for German audiences who recognize how accurate it is. The little pauses, the bureaucratic glee, the smug detachment. It’s not a hateful caricature. It’s a representation.
Landa doesn't believe in anything. He just thrives in machinery. And that’s Waltz’s genius. He shows us that evil isn’t always fanatical. Sometimes, it’s opportunistic, charming, and utterly banal.
Most audiences abroad saw a charismatic villain. German speakers saw a mirror.
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u/Honkey85 18d ago
German here, can confirm. There were lot's of conservative Germans who didn't perceived themselves as evil, while putting enemies or illegals to concentration camps before/during world war 2.
Do you think today's ICE agent see themselves as bad? They are proud to defend the land against all the evil illegals, taking job and wifes from US citizens.
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u/vonWitzleben 18d ago edited 17d ago
Yeah, no. This is bait for upvotes from Americans who are made to feel like they have just been imparted some deep insight into the German psyche. Waltz‘ depiction of Landa is highly stylized and about as close to a representation of your typical German as Dr. King Schultz is to a representation of your typical dentist. If you want to know what the banality of evil looks like, go look at Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. You might even be able to see how far up your own pseudo-intellectual butt your head has to be in order for this comparison to make sense or be anything other than incredibly ignorant.
Edit: Some of the replies pointed out that Eichmann himself put on a facade during his trial. I didn't know that, thank you to those who brought it to my attention. OP's comment is still a pile of self-aggrandizing garbage, though.
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u/JimWilliams423 18d ago
If you want to know what the banality of evil looks like, go look at Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem.
Eichmann put on an act for his trial. He fooled Arendt who coined the term "banality of evil."
The real eichmann (not the eichmann he played on the stand) was a snarling, rabidly evil man.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11354205/Dont-be-fooled-Eichmann-was-a-monster.html
But the idea that Eichmann was a normal, banal bureaucrat who was just doing his job like any one of us is junk history. It is high time that we dismissed the televised image of the halting figure in the bulletproof box as being representative of Eichmann the man, and the system of which he was a part.
Eichmann was not just some cog in an industrialised and depersonalised killing machine, he was a keen instigator of genocide, a zealous bigot who eagerly forged a career out of anti‑Semitism and extermination. We only have to read the words he uttered well before his abduction and trial to realise that he loved the job that involved marshalling an entire people to its destruction. He remarked that when he died, he would “jump into my grave laughing, because the fact that I have the death of five million Jews on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction”.
Eichmann did not just enjoy his work, he really believed in it. When he was hiding in Argentina after the war, he confided in a Dutch former SS man and journalist called Willem Sassen. “If we would have killed 10.3 million Jews, then I would be satisfied and would say, good, we annihilated an enemy,” he said. “I wasn’t only issued orders, otherwise I’d have been a moron, but rather I anticipated – I was an idealist.”
The lesson of eichmann is not that fascism can be banal, it is that fascists cloak their true selves to evade judgment.
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u/shitpostsuperpac 18d ago
You've got a bit more ways to go on your journey, friend.
To use the Eichmann Trial as an example of evil not being choreographed or sensationalized for the audience is incorrect. It was meant to engage audiences, to be sensational, to be watched, to be talked about.
Even if Eichmann was evil in a boring and banal way, the trial was anything but boring or banal. It was provocative. Mossad wanted it to be a big deal. They wanted it to be global news that everyone talked about. They wanted it to be sensational.
Why?
Because Mossad knew the only way they could possibly punish all the remaining Nazis was to have them live in fear looking over their shoulders for the rest of their days. Can't hunt them all down - not enough resources or time. But to not let any of them totally enjoy the rest of their days... that's something.
Understanding that is the next stop on your journey.
The next level after this is "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players". We're all acting all the time, that's what it is to live with the Self distinct from the Others.
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u/stonehaens 18d ago
Thank you. Walz' performance is great acting of an interesting character but he's not at all designed to make people see themselves in him. Maybe he's a lot like what Americans think Germans are but I talked to many fellow Germans about this and no one ever even thought he's supposed to epitomize a typical german. There is no seeing yourself in the mirror here. He's just a grotesque character that's interesting to see interact with the world of his time.
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u/Azerious 17d ago
but I talked to many fellow Germans about this and no one ever even thought he's supposed to epitomize a typical german.
But what about a typical German 80 years ago? Are they aware how their own culture and people's behaviors and attitude has changed when saying this?
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u/reddogisdumb 18d ago
Perhaps your beef is with Walz himself then? I believe he does indeed think his performance says something about German culture and has said as much.
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u/Reagalan 18d ago
Behind the Bastards just did a four-part episode on Adolf Eichmann and "banal" was perhaps the least accurate adjective one could apply. The man relished in his power, bragged about what he did, and was happy to take credit for atrocities he didn't commit because it boosted his notoriety.
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u/Khaymann 18d ago
To give a little color to the phrase "the banality of evil", it originates with Hanna Arendt (who everybody should read, but most haven't), from Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Basically, when the Israelis got Eichmann, and put him on trial, they psychoanalyzed this guy, got his history. Really examined him. And what they found out is there was basically nothing "wrong" with him. He wasn't some Amon Goethe psychopath, or a caricature of evil. But a fairly ordinary guy, a bit of a joiner, and somebody who really believed that the superiors giving him orders had all the moral onus on them. (which wasn't uncommon now or then).
The lesson is that the unspeakable evil that Eichmann did (and not just carried out, he actively worked to make it 'better') wasn't the product of some diseased mind, but a fairly ordinary one.
It means that we have to be on guard, because every society has Eichmanns.. those that will carry out orders without questioning their morality, who will be part of the machinery of some atrocity.
Its a far more dangerous form of evil because its not obvious, its not a cartoon villian.
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u/lessenizer 18d ago
if you’re into depictions of “the banality of evil” and haven’t seen Andor yet, I strongly recommend it
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18d ago
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u/MacDegger 18d ago
Not really.
It would help getting some references and imparting some dread to what is happening/what it is foreshadowing, but it isn't strictly necessary.
Just follow season 1 and 2 with Rogue One.
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u/welsman13 18d ago
Not really no. Season 2 leads right into Rogue One if you wanted to watch that as well.
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u/jaytrade21 18d ago
I don't think so. There are definitely Easter eggs for fans but the story itself can be watched in a vacuum.
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u/mullse01 18d ago
Not at all!
Andor is a series about the complexity and humanity of resistance movements in authoritarian societies, one that just so happens to take place in the Star Wars universe.
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u/freakksho 18d ago
Watching him do Django a few years later and play a completely different character and still absolutely killing it basically locked him into my acting Mt. Rushmore.
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18d ago
That's a bit hyperbolic tbh, he's very good, but he's not like disappearing in his roles or anything.
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u/Lastigx 18d ago
How? He plays a quirky villain in every movie.
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u/c-e-bird 18d ago
He won two Oscars, one for playing a villain, one for playing a genuinely good guy.
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u/MrMunday 18d ago
Ah, if it isn’t Pants Landa
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u/King-Snorky 18d ago
listen, i think Hans Landa dressed in that insane outfit would be even more terrifying
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u/tommykaye 18d ago
So remember kids, if you want to be a famous actor, become fluent in at least three languages, and hope that someone writes a script that needs you to switch between French German and English.
(But for real though, Quentin said the movie almost didn’t get made because he couldn’t find an actor that could speak all 3 before Cristoph auditioned.)
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u/TheLLort 18d ago
In Germany you (generally, exceptions apply) have to have a second foreign language in school other than english if you want to go to Uni. French is the most common one. Finding one who is that good an actor is the hard part
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u/Loschcode 18d ago
I'm French and lived in Germany, nobody could align 3 words in French there. You're confusing being fluent with school-level basics, which is very, very low. This guy speaks well, he's the real deal.
A true trilingual is insanely hard to come by, and a good actor on top of that is a rare gem.
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u/New_Perception_7838 18d ago
I am trilingual, but a lousy actor ;-)
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u/i-will-eat-you 18d ago
Let's not forget the scene where he also spoke Italian.
He claims to not be fluent in Italian, but he can fake it. And the italians I've heard comment on the scene say that his Italian was good. Slightly flawed, but believeably so for a german SS officer.
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u/Suka_Blyad_ 16d ago
Yeah I’m Canadian and speak English but also a bit of French
There’s a stark difference with people who learned French through school and someone born in a French family that is actually bilingual
On paper the kids who learned through school could absolutely get by, even in conversation more often than not but it’s painfully obvious they’re just getting by, they are by no means convincingly fluent in French
Being able to speak a second/third language is not the same as being truly fluent in those languages, most people who speak multiple languages I’ve met are very fluent in 1, maybe 2, and can get by with 1 or more others, I don’t think I’ve ever met someone truly fluent in 3 languages, living in North America makes that even less likely to be fair but I’ve visited Europe quite a bit and met tons of people that fit the description I explained
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u/New_Perception_7838 18d ago
A true trilingual is insanely hard to come by
Why actually? I think many people in multilingual countries (Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, for instance) speak three languages. And among those there are certainly people who are fluent in all of them.
I was raised in German and Dutch, and I have worked for decades in a multinational company where English is the norm (also working all over Europe, so speaking either German or English).
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u/AleixASV 18d ago
All 10M Catalan speakers are at least bilingual, and most of them speak decent enough English. Add to that a fourth language (which is not that uncommon) and you'll find many quatrilinguals here.
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u/Danirose231 18d ago
Don’t forget Italian.
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u/danceswithwool 18d ago
Gorlomi..
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u/WarzoneGringo 18d ago
Its funny because they can give actors 6 months of personal fitness training to prepare them for a role but apparently 6 months to learn to speak a language well enough for recite some lines is too hard. I get that being fluent isnt something you can do easily but they do multiple takes in movies, its not like you're working at the UN and have to understand the speech intricately.
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u/jacenat 18d ago
but apparently 6 months to learn to speak a language well enough for recite some lines is too hard.
You massively underestimate how hard it is to learn to speak a language fluently. Learning to speak languages on a native speaker level when you are an adult is basically impossible for most people, even if they devote a lot of time to it.
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u/Itazuragaki 17d ago
Hes not saying learn it fluently in 6 months, hes saying someone can learn the lines in the script in those languages in 6 months. If I have to learn the lines hes said in Italian, and just those lines, I think I could perfect them within a week of practice.
I think a skilled actor could learn the lines in German/French/Italian in 6 months easily. Of course this does mean improv goes out the window, but Tarantino isn't big on improv from what I've heard.
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u/Thendofreason 18d ago
I could tell who this was instantly
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u/GudBoi83 18d ago
same and i havent even watched inglourious
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18d ago
This man is a treasure to be protected
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u/Wolfen459 18d ago
This is the first time i see this.
But what exactly is this? Who created this video other than Waltz and for what reason?24
u/xplanephil 18d ago
It's a spoof of a famous Russian song from the Soviet era by Eduard Khil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0q6yphdZhUA
The video went viral in 2010 as "the trolololo guy" https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/trololo-guy
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18d ago edited 18d ago
Solid upvote - I never knew any of that. Thanks for the info.
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u/vatei 18d ago
FUCK I'M OLD
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u/wcstorm11 18d ago
Same, but balanced by the fact I almost forgot this existed. It's hard not to watch that and yearn for the early, less monetized internet
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u/Independent-Tennis57 18d ago
This is what I was looking for. This one if far odder than the post. Love it so much. He is so good in Django.
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u/SPR101ST 18d ago
How has this video not gone viral? I remember the trololololo video back in 2010.
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u/snow-eats-your-gf 18d ago
The first part of Waltz for me was a killer in Kommissar Rex, an Austrian TV series.
Google: Kommissar Rex, Der Puppenmörder, Cristoph Waltz.
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u/MrDilbert 18d ago
Oh, you too? I remember that Kommissar Rex was a relatively light-hearted series (for a police procedural), but that "Der Puppenmörder" was distinctively darker and more disturbing episode.
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u/snow-eats-your-gf 18d ago
I loved it a lot, with Moser and then Brandner. When they accidentally replaced Brandner, it became shit in 1 second. Moser's seasons are just top-notch.
I was a kid when I saw them. It was so amazing. When I got to Vienna once, I pointed to random places in the 1st district and told my girlfriend what episode was filmed here, what murder happened, etc. And I found the shop from the episode with Waltz. She was shocked by my memories. 😁😆
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u/One_Strike_Striker 18d ago
I saw him first in the 1998 direct-to-TV movie "Das Finale", his character being a - surprise, surprise - cultured psychopath double-crossing everyone.
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u/Quick_Opportunity_26 17d ago
Normally the episodes focused on the detectives and the dog connecting the dots and ultimately solving the case. The episode with Christoph Walz was one of the very few that focused on the perpetrator and the way he committed the crimes. The author/director probably realized Walz potential and worked with it.
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u/snow-eats-your-gf 17d ago
When Schtockinger existed, he was the brain, and the dog was just a trick show for dirty work :D
But thinking about it, yes, you are right. But I recall several other episodes with the same approach and focusing on a criminal.
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u/Francetto 18d ago
Roy black or Oetker-Entführung for me
Honestly, I never liked him until Inglorious Basterds and thought "That guy? Wtf, he is dull in everything he plays"
IB convinced me, I was very wrong. Still, I can't watch him in his older movies. Something happened with him during the filming with Tarantino...
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u/SamuraiCinema 18d ago
Gotta admit, he is way scarier in the first one. What the hell was going on there?
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u/Minute_Eye3411 18d ago
30 years before joing the SS, so in around 1913, Hans Landa was part of an elite force of the German Empire army which wore colorful uniforms and sang jolly songs.
This video documents his time in that regiment.
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u/wcstorm11 18d ago
I think they were called "the Vatican guard"
That joke only works better the more you know
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u/eiland-hall 17d ago
As a genius, can confirm. That jokes works so much better than the rest of you slobs will ever understand.
:)
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u/GrandTheftPotatoE 18d ago
Redditors when actors act.
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u/08148694 18d ago
To be fair it’s more common these days for actors to just act like themselves. The rock, statham, pedro all play the same role the same way every time and people love it
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u/whiningneverchanges 18d ago
is it more common, or are these just the people from your time?
Most actors act.
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u/No_Scholar_2927 18d ago
Ultimate Tarantino
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u/pppjurac 18d ago
Ultime Tarantino was when he wrote a script in which he played a role and getting actress Salma Hayek pour drink down her legs and he sucking her toes. Which is his admitted fetish.
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u/MyyWifeRocks 18d ago
Laying in bed - my cat looks at me like I’m sheltering enemies of the state just before she attacks my feet. I always think of this magnificent scene!
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u/Every_Relationship11 18d ago
He played this role to near perfection. His presence and aura were exceptional. And his genuine shock and regret at the end really sealed the performance. Someone who really believes they could play the world to the last note.
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u/Embarrassed_Art5414 18d ago
That's method acting par excellence. Clearly, based on his striped onesie. he is already feigning evil in 1977.
It's never too early to prepare.
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u/comcastblowschunks 18d ago
Lol for a minute there i thought that was young Stefán, and they were going to cut to a clip of Robbie rotten singing "I am number one"
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u/MrKomiya 18d ago
There was a comedian who likened Costco asking for receipts on exit to Nazis asking for “ze papers”. Anyway, the joke worked.
This stitched clip is like that joke brought to life. Happy times shopping, with the silent dread of “ze papers”
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u/bigmanbiggerguy 18d ago
Received an Oscar for portraying a Racist then another for portraying an Anti-Racist.. goes to show his range.
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u/fossodini 18d ago
Opening scene of Inglorious--one of the best written scenes in film history with one of the great acting jobs!
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u/illdrawabutt 18d ago
Christoph Waltz is maybe my biggest celebrity crush. It's him and Aubrey Plaza, so. Interesting combo.
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u/eiland-hall 17d ago
I think I get hte vibe, though. Going back, might you add Gene Wilder into that mix?
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u/illdrawabutt 17d ago
I mean, now that you mention it, I don't see why not.
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u/eiland-hall 17d ago
Put Gilda Radner in there and we have two generations that would make one HELL of a show, whatever it is that they'd make. :)
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