QT and the Foot Fetish

Quentin Tarantino has a foot fetish. It is well known and talked about. Every chance he gets to focus on a woman's toes you can bet that he will do it. For instance, the scene in Kill Bill I where Uma Thurman has just woken up from her coma and is trying to move her toes. There are several such scenes in his movies and he does tend to add a bit of stylish suspense or sensuality to them. So, it is not surprise that he did the same in his latest (almost as great as Pulp Fiction) addition - Inglorious Basterds.

Inglorious Basterds has several 'foot' references. I did not catch these when I first saw the movie. I was too caught up in an explosion of pure excitement that only Tarantino can deliver. Nor did I catch it on the later two viewings. I have seen the movie five times and only on my fourth time when I was really following his camera angles did I start to notice the 'foot' related theme he uses.

A list of what I saw -

1. At the start when Colonel Lans Handa arrives at Perrier LaPadite's house they carry on a conversation as the camera follows them around the room, capturing them from various angles. Finally when they settle down with Handa going through his 'formalities' of registering the names and ages of the Dreyfuses does the camera slowly start moving in a circle till it reaches LaPadite. Then it slowly moves down his leg, passing his foot to reveal the Dreyfuses actually hiding under the floorboards. Once found, except Shoshana, they are all killed.

2. At the bar when the three English spies are meeting up with Bridget Von Hammersmark, Major Hellstrom joins the conversation, carrying a beer glass shaped like a boot. He then goes on to oust them to as spies which leads to almost everyone the bar dying in a matter of seconds.

3. In the bar scene, Hammersmark leaves her shoe behind which is then later used by Lans Handa to figure out that it really was her at the bar and that she is working for the English. In this scene Tarantino gets his trademark foot fetish visual in as we see a closeup of Hammersmark's feet. Thus, once revealed as a spy she is brutally murdered.

4. Finally, once Donny and Omar are settled in their seats 0023 and 0024 the camera pans down to their feet and then we see a X-ray vision shot of the dynamite tied around their legs. Of course, the explosion of this dynamite leads to the death of everyone in the theater.

I am not sure if I missed out on any other scenes, but I do know that Tarantino put these scenes in on purpose. There is a pretty clear theme of feet->reveal->death.

Why he chose to focus on feet is anyone's guess.
Maybe he is another victim of the frequently and excessively used feet focused camera shots.
It might be that he wanted to have plenty of subtle references to his much talked about foot fetish.
Maybe it doesnt mean anything and he just likes to fuck with people who pay to watch his movie five times.

Has he used this technique in any of his other movies? I don't know but from now on I will be looking.